Hamzah Wald Maqbul – Riyd alSlihn Virtues of Dhikr I Ribt 05072023
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All praises to Allah, and may his peace
and blessings be upon his servant and messenger,
our master, Sayedna Muhammad
This is the Kitab al Avkar in the
Real de Salihin. It's a relatively long
section, and the chapter on the virtue
of making Vicar of Allah Ta'ala and,
encouraging people, toward it. There's an entire continuum
of
there's, like, an entire continuum of words,
that
have to do with
encouragement.
The word half is somewhere, like, I would
say, like
somewhere like 8 out of 10, 9 out
of 10 on the on the scale.
Tahrieb is probably, like, the maximum, like, to
to incite somebody to do something. Right? And
so, Allah commands the prophet to make the
believers for what?
That's another we can talk about later. Inshallah.
But has here is is it means like
to vigorously
encourage people
to make the dhikr of Allah.
And what does the word dhikr translate as?
Oftentimes people translate it as remembrance, but it
means a couple of things. 1, it means
to remember after having forgotten.
Another thing it means is to mention. Another
thing it means is to honor.
The of something is to
honor
that
thing.
Here, the dhikr doesn't mean,
it doesn't mean
necessarily
just a reminder.
But the for your is what? This is
an honor. It's an honor for you, and
it's an honor for your that Allah is
saying that this,
this revelation is an honor for you, and
it's an honor for your
the of the prophet is who it's not
the Muslims.
There are some people who wanna make some
kind of, like, weird, like, ethnic
fight about whatever and no. But the the
Arabs are the shut off of the
Ummah amongst other Aqwa.
Of course, the
greatest form of shut off a person can
have is what is through taqwa, through the
fear of Allah
So nothing will override that. But if taqwa
is equal amongst things, there's shut off that
bit to be from the of the prophet
by
the of the Quran itself.
But coming back to the issue of the
or the the question of what does this
the word mean? One of the meanings of
the a dhikr here is to honor Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Allah ta'ala,
he says, you
know,
Take the name of your lord, honor the
name of your lord, and cut off from
everything else
completely.
So this is the first issue.
Ibn Alan writes in his shah,
quoting from,
al Muradu B'Vikri.
So that the meaning of zikr for the
tongue is to say those words
that indicate the meaning
of glorifying Allah's,
transcendence above blemish
and praise
and his magnification.
Tamjid means what? To to to say about
Allah,
that he is great,
and to proclaim his
magnification
not for
something he did,
but because
he, in his essence, is worthy of that.
And the meaning of dhikr in the heart
is to ponder deeply
over the signs,
that indicate,
the the the
that indicate the the the the
who Allah is and what his attributes are.
And
over those signs that indicate,
one's
in terms of commandments and prohibitions,
in order that a person might
be able to see
not only what
rulings
those constitute are are constituted
thereof, but also what the the secrets mysteries
and the benefits that are,
that are therein and and the creation of
Allah.
And hear the word secret and mystery, it's
not like, oh, shut the lights off and,
like,
puff smoke and mirrors or whatever and, like,
look where Sufis oh. You know? Like, it
means what? Those things that, like, a dumb
person won't won't
figure out at first glance or a person
who's not thinking about it won't will not
figure out at first glance. A lot of
things sound like a good idea until you
think about it for 2 minutes. The problem
is there's not a lot of
in the world who think about things for
2 minutes or even one.
And so that's what we mean by mysteries.
Those things that, like, upon pondering, certain things
kind of become clear to you that weren't
clear, at first brush. He said that the
vicar of the
limbs is that the limbs should themselves be
drowned.
They should be completely drowned in the,
in in acts of obedience toward Allah
So the word word zikr is not just
like so we're gonna have and the zikr.
Right? So you guys say for a while
and then you go home. Zikr is more
than that. Saying
is part of that.
But it's not it's not the entire thing.
Rather,
it's an exercise in a particular form of
but the
like I remember one time I was in
the Arabian Peninsula,
and there was a sheikh who doesn't have
a lot of good things to say about,
Sufis
and so he said, you know, all these
Sufis, they say that, you know, the zikr
is to, like, some like, do some and,
like, sit in a room and, you know,
just say
a 1000 times, which I it doesn't seem
like a bit to me at all.
But then again, I haven't read hadith unlike
some of them. But,
you know, he goes he goes, no, but
the zikr of Allah is
to remember Allah when you wanna disobey him.
That's what's meant by the zikr of Allah.
And the answer is is the first part
of what he said, I disagree with the
second part. I don't disagree with it. It's
a bigger concept than just
one thing. And so people, sometimes, they become
also proud of themselves as well. Like, I
go to, you know, I go to zikr,
and these people, they don't make zikr. And
because of that, you know, like, I make
zikr, and they don't. And the idea is
that if you're going to the zikr, and
you're doing all the stuff, and you're saying
all the things that you're supposed to say,
and you did a 1000 times and 5000
times and 10000,
And at the end of it, it's not
affecting you at all.
That's obviously, something wrong has happened here.
It doesn't mean necessarily that doing that is
bad, but it means that it's not may
not be working the way it's supposed to
work.
And, you know, it's it's interesting because, like,
life is complicated. So maybe a person
makes zikr and they still commit sins. And
so it's look. The zikr has been a
waste of my time for the last, like,
whatever, so many years. Who knows? Maybe if
you weren't sitting in that majlis, you would
have been doing something else. You would have
been, you know, you're just, like, smoking weed.
You would have been, like, addicted to heroin
by now. I don't know. There's all sorts
of, like, you know, qualitative to quantitative,
things. Nothing you do has no effect. Everything
has some effect.
You may not be getting the job done
in that sense,
but it's not that it's it's empty of
of good effect.
As we'll mention, shortly in one of the
ayat that,
that that formed the preface of this chapter.
But,
the idea is that it's all of these
things together. A person should have a holistic
understanding, not play them off one part against
the other, which is actually one of the,
one of the one of the main loving
objections I have against many of the more,
many of the more muscular
proselytizers
from our brothers, from the, you know, government
sponsored
scholarship of the Arabian Peninsula of the last,
you know, couple of decades
is that,
look. Things are
not simple. The well goes very deep. Something
may have a meaning on a particular level,
in a particular context, and it has another
meaning in a different level, in a different
context, and this is actually part of the
understanding of the Quran being, and the prophet
being
the pinnacle of eloquence,
each in their own particular way that's befitting
to them,
which is why you can say the same
thing and it means something useful in a
number of different context. It's not just pinned
down. This is one of the of the
tafsir of the Quran. Is that even though
an ayah may be revealed in a particular
time, in a particular place, in a particular
context, and it's important to know what those
things are in order to understand the ayah.
But the meaning of the ayah is universal.
It's not just pinned to that time, place,
and context. You can't say, oh, this was
revealed for this, it's not it has nothing
to do no, it does have a meaning
somewhere else, it does have a meaning in
this world, it has a meaning in this
century, it has a meaning in this land,
it has a meaning in
the the grave, it has a meaning in
Jannah, it has a meaning in Jannah. All
of them maybe actually indicate some different reality
or some seemingly different reality, but they're all
tied through, you know, there's a thread that
ties through them,
that has to do with, like, a deeper
meaning is connected
with the with the sifat of or Allah
to Allah with the sifat of his Kalam
in particular.
And so it's important not to just be
like, oh, this one thing and therefore not
the other.
It could be both of them at the
same time. It could very well not be.
But there's a possibility that there you know,
there's a kind of a continuum between generality
and specificity,
and universality and particularity
that, it could be all of that at
the same time. And it is what he
said is in that sense, what he said
about what the dhikr of is not wrong.
It's also a very important part of the
I mean, in some sense, that's one of
the intended fruits of sitting and saying in
a dark room or whatever is that that
will reverberate in your head when it's time
to sin, and it will, mitigate if not
obviate, the,
the power that a person has or the
weakness that a person has,
in order to perform such a sin.
So
in Surat An Kabut,
and that the indeed
the dhikr of Allah is greater.
Indeed, the salat,
prevents a person from indecency and from
sin.
And the remembrance of Allah is greater.
So
the question comes up
which is that I know plenty of people
pray 5 times a day, and they commit
all kinds of indecency and sin. So what
does this verse mean for you know? What
does it mean? And the most basic
base meaning of it is what at least
while you're praying, you cannot be committing. It's
not valid. Like, it'll break the prayer. Right?
While you're committing while you're praying, you cannot
steal things.
It's like, you it'll break the prayer. Right?
So at least for those, like, whatever.
15 minutes in the day that the 17
for the prayer in aggregate take for someone
who, like, who rushes through their prayers.
At least for that amount of time, you're
not actually doing something
that's classified as Fasha and Munkar, like, outwardly.
So that's you know, but the idea is
that the prayer should be more than that.
That's great. That's a good start. No one
can say that they came away from the
empty handed. Right?
But, it should be more it should be
more than that. And
so the meaning of
is,
first of all, it is that the fact
that you remember Allah in the prayer is
actually more important than the
the the the mechanics of the fit or
the the mechanics of the standing and and
sitting and such that and all of these
other things.
But, it also has it also has deeper
it also has a deeper meaning.
It means that
the fact that you that Allah remembers you
is greater than the fact that you remember
Allah Ta'ala, which is connected with the next
that he mentions that Allah said.
So remember me. I will remember
you. That when you pray,
Allah, it's his his remembrance of you that
allows you to remember him. It's his selecting
you that allows you to pray.
It's his selecting you that allows you to
come to the salat. And so in that
sense, a person should have some belonging to
the salat, because this is the more that
a person has
with the that they should want to come
to it. That the adhan is something that
the
is calling me to his house.
And it shouldn't be shut out or it
shouldn't be something that people treat as an
annoyance or as a nuisance.
As for the rest of it, Allah knows
that you're tired
or that you haven't eaten yet or that
you're getting late for work or that you're,
you know or you're lazy. You know?
Like, you're tired not in a way that,
like, there's this justifiable,
That should put some feeling in a person's
heart even if they're not, like, the most,
like, altogether, like reward
for
recipient. You know, like, you still should at
least feel something, you know, when you remember
that that fact that despite all of that,
you're still, you know, that you still have
this this, that with Allah that the idea
that you're getting called to the prayer is
because he's remembering you. And a sign that
that may not be the case is when
the thought crosses a person's mind that why
do I have to pray so much?
Some people have these thoughts as, well, why
do I have to keep doing? Why do
I have to keep praying? Why do I
have to fast? It's so difficult. I'm you
know, like, being Muslim is hard. Why is
it so hard? Blah blah blah. You know,
if you don't really if you really don't
want it,
oftentimes these thoughts cross our head. And also
there's a continuum of thoughts that are, like,
from something that is just, like, static,
that has really nothing to do with something
you're generating from yourself out of your own
volition
to something that's,
something that's, like, 100% you believe and you
have firm conviction on. And so, you know,
once you get to this thought of, like,
why do I have to pray so much?
It gets to firm conviction. It's,
not in a but in a spiritual sense.
It's,
which is a problem because the spiritual sense
is what you you're
gonna have to, you know, have in order
to get into Jannah.
Because,
you know, doesn't care what, like, so and
so says about your iman on that day.
He sees.
Right? Is the.
Right? That on that day, the the hearts
will be tested. It'll be shown what what
what's inside of them. So that's a problem.
That's a problem. If a person's on that
continuum somewhere, and the thought crosses their mind,
it may the thought may not even be
from you yourself.
It could be from your circumstances. It could
be from what other people said to you.
It could be from the hollow of the
people who are around you. It could be
from just Shaytan just saying it in your
head, and you heard it. You know, like,
not ear heard it, but, like, mentally, you
you,
you processed what he said to you or
what his suggestion was. And so,
what a person should say to themselves is
remind themselves that what what skin is it
off of your back that the rubbed tobacco
with Allah loves you and you called you
to the prayer and so many other people
aren't coming. That's what you should tell tell
yourself. Because if you entertain that thought, like,
why do I have to pray? If you
don't want to, then don't. You know, you
don't have to. There are a lot of
people who don't pray. Even there are a
lot of people that'll go to Jannah one
day, they don't they don't pray.
The the the the the preponderant position of
the is that leaving the prayer even on
purpose is not.
Even for those who say it is, a
person can always
accept Islam again, so to speak. So it's
semantic most people. You know, nobody's gonna die,
like, in their last breath. It's like, and,
yes, I'm not not gonna pray. Like, you
know, people will regret it on their in
their dying breath.
So in that sense,
it's closer to something like a semantic difference
in in some ways.
The idea is is what is that a
person should
say this thing to themselves that will, you
know, that, based on
that the fact that Allah is remembering me
and calling to me to the is like
a really good thing. It's a really nice
thing rather than, thinking about, like, well, I'm
gonna make this much zikr. I'm gonna remember
Allah this much. I'm gonna do this. I'm
gonna do that. Like yeah. But but
like I said, like we mentioned that the
things have, like, like, meanings that go deeper
and deeper,
that the fact that Allah
remembers you,
is a bigger a much bigger thing than
you remembering him.
One of the cornerstones of,
of the understanding of,
of of the vicar of
amongst the amongst
the. He says then remember your lord
and your very and your very self and
your very being.
The word nafs can mean a number of
things. It can mean breath.
It can mean,
blood.
Right?
Is like the postnatal bleeding.
It means breath.
Is the postnatal bleeding that a woman has
after delivering a child.
And it can mean that,
that it can mean something, its own identity
and its very self. Here, that's what's being
meant.
Remember Allah in your very being.
So and so, why do you say that?
You're just trying to be, like, Sufi and,
like, whatever, like, exaggerate. Right?
He says,
he says, He says,
in humility
and in awe and fear,
Something that's even more subtle than
than speech,
than speaking, saying something out loud.
This is the that it's not the breath.
What is it? It's something that's inside a
person's that. It's inside of their their that.
In the by by the
the different times of the day,
by the
morning time and by the evening time. And
don't be from amongst,
don't be from amongst the, from the morning
time and the the beginning of the day
and the end of the day, and don't
be from amongst the heedless.
This means that you're obliged to remember
all the time.
And it indicates the idea that the dhikr
of Allah to Allah takes many different forms.
It's not it's not just a salat.
It's not just, you know, like, because a
person's like, oh, you know, zikr of Allah,
what what's meant by it is what? Is,
stopping yourself when it's time to, you know,
sin.
By how many times are you presented with
the opportunity of sin that you're doing
You know, like it's
like it's
that's part of it. The idea is that
the zikr of Allah Ta'ala has a form
that's appropriate for a person in every
in every, moment that they exist in.
And this is part of the genius this
is part of the genius of Islam,
of of not only the commandments of Allah
Ta'ala, but in particular, how the was
commanded to explain them and how he explained
them and how he gave an example for
them.
That there's really no time that a person
is, like, away from Islam
for anything ever.
And there are some people who are allergic
to this zikr.
They say,
the one who fears Allah, that
person will will will
take the right?
It's a emphatic form of of of vikr.
The person who fear fears Allah
will emphatically remember him.
And the wretched will will try to stay
the * away from it.
That's that's not a nice way of translating
it. Look what's the next ayah.
Literally, the person will like,
they'll stay the * away from it
until that Jahannam becomes the place where they
neither
die nor are they quite alive.
And so,
the idea is that,
the idea is that, yeah, there are gonna
be people who push it away from, you
know, with a 10 foot pole.
Many of them are our own friends and
relatives, or even people in the Masjid, which
doesn't make any sense to me, but here
we are. Right?
I remember, when me and your Abdullah, when
me and your mother were getting married. Right?
In one of the parties, one of the
many parties before,
the wedding happened for, like, the Brazilian relatives.
Right?
She had called a one of her
sheikhas from the Madrasa, one of her teachers.
And so out of respect, they said, okay.
You could talk about some
some some whatever, some pertinent topic of deen,
you know, for the gathering.
And I remember
my mother
and one of your mother's relatives were talking
smack afterwards. Look. It's
molts and that.
Some people
it's just they can't so don't be that
person. Allah guide all of them
Allah guide them all.
They're all good people. Right? People, whatever, slip
up. Sometimes the insinuation that Shaitan puts in
a person's head is so strong that it
causes a person to say something that they
may
upon examination and, like, you know, explanation and
questioning, be like, yeah. Maybe that wasn't what
I wanted to say at the time. Right?
But, you know, now that we're here,
take the lesson take the lesson from it.
Don't be those people.
If you hear someone squawking, you know, like,
that's the really, it's their problem. There's ways
of dealing with it. If those ways are
beyond your,
bandwidth to deal with, then don't worry about
it. That's a separate lesson how to deal
with it. Whether you deal with it or
don't deal with it at all, at least
for yourself, you're supposed to deal with yourself,
don't be that person. Don't allow yourself to
be that person. Rather, embrace the the deen
how it gives a person an opportunity to
remember Allah and never be,
removed from the remembrance of Allah
because there are people, you know and there
are people that's gonna aggravate them. It's just
kind of the way it is. Don't worry
about that. You make your own decision. Is
this what I wanna do? If you wanna
do it, then, you know, it's a free,
you know, it's a free for them from
their, you know, Aqid, it's a free country.
Go do what you want, you know, like,
get off my back.
Says, and remember,
and remember,
tentatively
so that you may be so that you
may be those who attain success or happiness.
The success and happiness here is not necessarily
with your 401 k,
but it's with,
with what that you
have the that
you entered Jannah forever.
Mentions in a number of
different,
attributes, praiseworthy attributes
amongst people.
So indeed those who men who submit and
those women who submit to him. And he
mentioned a number of praiseworthy attributes until he
gets to
the the the ultimate one, which is those
who remember Allah plentifully.
Those men whom remember Allah plentifully and those
such
women. The idea is is that it's not
just zikr, it's zikr.
It's a lot. So how come you have
to do it all? No. It's a lot.
It's a lot. Everything
is the of Allah.
I find it very interesting.
I find it very interesting that the of
Allah has permeated
every single thing.
And this is one of the reasons that
kind of, like, the weird, like, beda OCD
people have.
But this is not this is not you
know? Like, there should be zikr for something.
There should be zikr for everything.
There should be zikr like, there should be
zikr for when you drink coffee.
Someone says, the coffee didn't exist in the
time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Yes. So we'll say that whatever. If you're
you know, whenever you say coffee, you say
because you like it so much. You say
because it's something to drink or whatever.
If you do it in a particularly different
way than another, then you cannot say that
you're not
making the of a lot out properly. But
the idea is that it's something that you
do. It's something that you get benefit from.
It's a good thing. You have a good
intention with it. You should remember Allah to
Allah. That's a
sunnah. Whatever the thing may be, if the
thing exists or it doesn't exist. There was
also some of the point is the Quran
was not, like, supposed to be, like, Wikipedia
that's filled with particulars. Well, Wikipedia is a
bad example because a lot of information is
bogus. But, like, imagine if it was all
good information, it's just a lot
of it. Right? Could have done that. It's
not difficult.
But the genius of the Quran is what
is it teaches you a lot of things
that that overload of information
will not allow,
people to benefit from. The idea is whatever
it is, if the set form,
you know, has a set of parameters in
which is acceptable
and it makes sense. The point is you
should remember Allah for everything.
And you should remember Allah in everything.
And,
don't consider that to be a just because
something you're remembering Allah on a particular occasion
that didn't exist in the time of the
prophet
The point is that he he's the one
who taught us. The Allah himself is the
one who taught us. That,
remember Allah
plentifully. This
those
men who remember Allah plentifully
and such women, Allah has prepared for them
forgiveness
and a great reward.
And so that's what it is. It means
that, you know, because we cannot get into
a time machine
and go live in Medina like 1400 years
ago. So whatever we have around us, this
what we have to work with. We remember
Allah with those things. And, of course, if
there's not a specific set form transmitted by
the prophet, we don't beat other people up
or say this is right and that's wrong
or whatever. And then maybe we can screw
it up. Sometimes we do it in a
weird way or a wrong way that somebody
some somebody says, you know,
where the occasion is more like,
or you can talk amongst yourself about those
things. Right? The idea is that if you're
remembering a lot, that's a good thing.
And that's that's the track that you want
to be on. That's the lesson for today,
and the rest of the details can be
litigated in in in a more,
proper
context.
And Allah
says, all you who believe,
remember Allah
and
glorify his praises, exalt his praises above,
sorry, exalt him above
defect.
By,
morning and by,
evening.
It's a hadith narrated both in Bukhari and
Muslim, and a variant of it is the
last hadith of,
which is that there are 2
there are 2 words or 2 utterances
that are
light on the tongue and heavy in the
scale pants,
and they are beloved to the most merciful,
exalted
above blemish.
And
by his praise, exalted Allah,
the magnificent above blemish.
A person who go at it, you can
say that they're light on the tongue and
they're heavy in the scale pants. One of
the reasons that Muhammad mentioned that the prophet
made
well,
let me rephrase that. One of the reasons
the mentioned that Bukhari picked this hadith of
the prophet as
the last hadith in his
his Sahih,
is as a
kind of, like,
a kind of active defiance
and and indignant toward the
who considered the mizan on the day of
judgment to be a metaphor for god's justice.
So why why does Allah need to weigh
things? You know? So the mizan is just
a metaphor for justice. He says, no.
First of all,
what's your
what's your for that?
If there was actually a scale on the
day of judgment, does it violate any of
Allah's,
Sifa that he
made for himself in his Quran that he
explained for himself in his Quran?
No. And if you look at the hadith
of the prophet
there are a number of a hadith that
seem to indicate there actually will be scale
pan there, that that deeds are weighted.
But the idea is that this will be
heavy in the scale pan, and
the fun fact is that,
because people consider it to be light,
we should hope that
it's something that's even heavier for the person
who says it with iman and with conviction.
And we'll see a number of hadith in
the same
vein.
So Rasulullah
said
that for
me
to
say
means what? Exalted is
blemish, above any sort of defect. He's
exceedingly far unreachably far away from,
from any from any defect,
for any weakness.
That that for me to say and
and praise be to Allah. And there's no
god except
for Allah. And that Allah
is greater than than than all things. It's
more beloved to me than the entire,
the entire entirety of what the sunrise is
over.
And so this is again something that is
very 100%
against
forget about what oftentimes we grow up hearing
in our own homes.
It's actually even against what most of our
massages are preaching right now.
Obviously,
You know, keep, keep keep keep keep it
strong and in this protection and and make
its face,
go throughout the
time and space.
But that's why it's a special place
because there are many massages. They'll say that.
They'll literally, you'll get you'll get up into
the July and, you know, some people think
Islam is just sitting in, like, you know,
like, saying, Subhanallah, thousand times.
You know, like, this is why the is
backward. No. It's not.
No. It's not.
Are there other things to do? Absolutely. 100%.
If someone is sitting in the masjid then
saying
the house is on fire,
probably not the best thing to do.
But you know what? That guy is doing
something still useful. It may not be the
exact thing to do at the time.
And you guys are watching TikTok and doomscrolling,
you know, through god knows all sorts of
weird
and the house is still on fire. So
this is a very it's a very silly
way of looking at
things. It's a very silly way of looking
at things. The messenger of Allah
said that for me to say this, you
know, this and what is this? This is
this
is the of the malayika.
This is one of the of
the angels.
And this is why it's for example for
person who comes into the masjid after the
after Fajr has been prayed or after Asr
has been prayed
for them according to
the Jamur,
that instead of the Masjid,
a person should say the four
times.
Why? It's an act of worship. All of
the ritual that are there in Islam, all
of them, are things that the angels do,
or they're trying to approximate things that the
angels are doing. This includes the fast, this
includes Hajj, this includes
the salat itself, all of the positions of
the salat, ruku, sajdah, tiam,
all of these things,
all of these different adkar. These are all
things that the angels do.
And
this is one of the beauties of
the believer is that
despite
being trapped in,
you know, in this in this world with
certain physical,
with certain physical
entailments that resemble that of the animals.
But you don't see animals trying to behave,
like the angels.
Some of them have the capacity for intelligence.
Some of them have the capacity for goodness.
Some of them exercise goodness. You see goodness
in them.
But
none of them go too far out of
their way in order to to do that.
The prophet
is saying what? But that's what we're reaching
for. That for me to do that one
time is greater than everything else in the
world. Why is it that we even care
that the house is on fire in the
first place? It's what that we have the
house, we have our money. We have our
families. We have our wives and children. We
have our buildings. We have our food that
we eat. We have business
infrastructure, trade.
All of these things that we have. They're
all there in order to be
like the
lamp in which the the the candle of
the zikr of
Allah is kept and protected and housed and
honored.
And if it wasn't for the zikr of
Allah,
if your entire life is just doom scrolling,
it's better that the house burned down on
you.
So I say, ah, stuff. Look at this
guy. He's a streamist stuff.
Look. But I you can say that.
At some point or another, the people who
turned their back on the zikr of Allah,
there's Jannah made for them.
If you have a problem with that, you
can go and call Allah extremist and write
a, like, a
article against him on Huffington Post or, like,
Muslim Girl or something like that. Like, that's
up to you. You can do that if
you want.
That wasn't picking on our sisters, there are
many many male allies that are happy to
write the article as well.
It's just a sickness and a type of
thinking.
It's a sickness in the type of thing.
This is what our this is what our
civilization is. This is actually sadly. This is
one of the breach failures and treacheries
of Islam, the way it's taught in the
time and the place that we live, is
that we belittle the to the point where
people it's not readily apparent to most people
anymore that this is the way it's supposed
to be. That the
of all of your
risk, the the the the objective, the reason,
the the the reason for all of the
provision Allah gave you, for all the goodness
that Allah gave you is to what? Is
to give you more than to give you
help and aid and support in your life
of remembering Allah,
and not the other way around. Not the
other way around. Otherwise, there are people who
will have you believe that the only point
of the salat is teach you discipline and
how to line up and how to be
on time and how to be who cares
about any of those things?
If it wasn't for the dhikr of Allah,
there's no difference between being on time and
being late or being disciplined or being undisciplined.
You know, it's really interesting,
the kind of backward and convoluted fruit salad
of thinking. I remember in Pakistan,
someone one of my wife's relatives brought to
me a young man from the neighborhood who's
like, Hadith, I don't believe in it.
And, I'm like, okay. Cool. I'll talk to
him. Why not?
And so he's like he's like, stop. The
Sahib Bukhari is just filled with lies. Why
do you say that? He goes,
because look at the things that are narrated
in it, and and look at the things
that are narrated in the books of hadith.
I go,
like, you, like, examine the narrators and found
them to be liars? No. No. You don't
even have to do that. That's a waste
of time. Like, look at the like, stuff
where there's a Hadith that said the prophet
one time urinated while standing.
I go behind
the only reason you there's, like, all the
nations of the earth don't have a problem
with urinating while standing. The only reason you
think that it's a bad thing is because
there's another hadith that teaches you that the
this is not the prophet
did
in order to show that his jayas.
The the reasoning, it gets becomes all of
this weird convoluted like, this is one of
the meanings of
through the Quran itself will misguide many people,
and he'll guide many people. And he won't
misguide people except for those who are. They're
they're like, mine is focused on on on
on on FIST,
on profligacy.
Otherwise,
now you see these kind of, like, packaged
arguments,
against
the of Allah,
repackaging all of the deen in order to,
like, divest it of anything,
having to do with the remembrance of Allah,
and all of it is, like, really
fundamentally missing a deeper point,
which is
very
eloquently summarized,
by the
that for me to say this
even one time, it's more virtuous, you know,
to me than the entire what the
what the, sun is raised over. Someone says,
well, that's a lot.
Imagine the whole solar system. You have the
entire solar system.
That's a lot.
So
why would why would be
better than
any
of that?
Because
it's the point it's the point Allah made
you for. Means
what?
Means just we hear and we obey.
It has
a secondary meaning of doing those things that
we understand in order to make Allah pleased
with us, but the primary meaning is what?
Just you hear and you obey.
Whether you understand or you don't understand, it
doesn't matter. People say, oh,
I've been praying,
you know, for so many years,
but I got nothing from it. What do
you mean? And I don't feel any particular
way. I don't feel like it's changed me.
I don't feel like it's this. I don't
feel good when I pray. I don't, you
know, I just I don't feel the sweetness
when I pray.
What what more do you want than Allah
gave you a commandment and you've been fulfilling
it for 20 years?
Well, like, what else do you want other
than that?
Like, what is what is a better thing
than not to say on the day of
judgment?
That I fulfilled the commandment of the lord.
If a person is looking for something other
than that and they're barking they're barking up
the wrong tree,
Otherwise, if you wanna feel spiritual, I suggest
trying out weed. Like, you know, it's
LSD. What is it? Like, Joe Rogan, the
guy literally look at how his eyes light
up. Like, somebody mentioned, like, somebody, like, went
into a gathering
in you know?
Someone went into a masjid in in in
Pakistan that has more neon green than a
casino has and said, Medina, and look how
people's eyes will, like, light up.
These guys LSD
and DMT and god knows what other mushrooms
and all of this other stuff. That's what
you want to have that you can have.
You'll the you'll have, like, a little salamander
come up to you and tell you, by
the way, you should make more thicker, which
is actually apparently, it happens to people,
and I still don't recommend doing it. But,
like, I don't know. You're the you can
tell me you know more about, you know,
your doctor doctor stuff. Right? But, like, you
know, the people people will, like, make Tova
and look like after having these, like, weird,
like, psychedelic experiences, and they'll start
look. I understand all of a sudden, and
then it just goes, you know and I'm,
like, still still Haram.
Kind of weirdo are you? You need to
have a
magic mushroom in order to, You know, like,
LSD is, like, only in common usage because
of MK Ultra. It's like this weird satanic,
like, mind control program that the CIA ran
off the books. And it's only after they
got busted for, like, doing super, like, unethical
type of stuff. God knows how many people
to kill and messed up in in order
to, you know and then, like and then
some of the guys were
in the lab testing other people, like, against
their will and without consent or information or
whatever. They're like, let's try it ourselves. Right?
Allah give you a brain, man.
You don't have to
you don't have to you don't have to
go there. The point is Allah says, this
is why I didn't create the in order
except for in order to worship me. So
if you have a screwdriver that cannot
get screws out and a hammer that can't
put nails in and, you know, if you
have a
vacuum cleaner that doesn't pick up dust and
if you have, you know, a
a she you know, a sheep dog that
doesn't herd sheep and it's all a waste.
But when something does what it's
therefore, then it's it's it's only then it
has value.
It's only then it has value.
Otherwise, if you want to, you can put,
like you know, you can put your, like,
orange juice on the whatever the the CD
ROM
drive. You can stick your, like, glass on
it in in the old computers, you know,
that people used to have. Now I guess
they don't even have those little computers anymore,
but, like, there's a joke in the old
days of people, like, oh, the cup holder
in my computer is not working properly.
You know, it's not okay. You can put
your cup over. This is not what it's
for. It doesn't have use until you actually
get a CD, then you're like, oh, now
I know what the point of this thing
is. And so this is,
one of the weird many tragedies of
cutting the out of the deen is that
it's like using the CD ROM holder for,
like, you know, for be to to be
your cup holder. Once a person actually sticks
a CD in there and, like, sees, like,
oh, this can do a lot more than
just
then
then you'll realize what what it's for. And
then the the saying of
the will make sense. Otherwise, there are many
people, are very devout,
very excited Muslims in the same way that
many people are very excited about the the
Chicago Bulls, you know.
And so but this doesn't make sense because
if everything that the sun rises over, if
it was mine, then I'll become
make a caliphate and will cut off the
hands of thieves and will,
you know, will,
stone adulterers, and will distribute zakat to the
poor. And this you know, it'll be like
what the USSR was supposed to be, but
with, like, more namaz. And, like, you know,
like
okay.
Okay. Great.
But if you don't like praying right now,
like,
in the first place, maybe you are putting
the
the the the
the the the the card in front of
the donkey.
And so this is this is what what
it's meant by that. Otherwise, if a person
actually has the love of these things, then
all of those other things will will have
not the USSR part. I don't think there's
any benefit in that. But the the rest
of it, there'll be some benefit in it.
Rasulullah
said that whoever says there's no god except
for Allah alone and without any partner, to
him belongs dominion and, to him belongs praise.
And he
has power over all things.
His omnipotence
stretches
to all things.
Whoever says
that in a day a 100 times,
That person,
will receive
the reward equivalent to freeing 10 slaves,
and that person will receive
a 100,
a 100 good deeds.
And the person will have a 100 sins
wiped out,
from their, record from their account.
And that person, it will be for them
a protection from shaitan in in that day
until the night.
And nobody will have done anything better than
him except for the person who does more
of the same,
even more.
And,
the person who says,
a 100 times in his day.
That person, all of his sins are offloaded
from him, even if they're like the froth
on
the
sea.
And even if some people don't like hearing
it, it's still true.
Obviously, you owe people stuff. That's between you
and them. You gotta straighten that out. This
is between you and the Ruptabar, qata'ala.
And this is another wonderful thing about the
dhikr of Allah Ta'ala, which is what?
Allah Ta'ala forgives people.
And to make Allah Ta'ala happy is not
difficult.
It's difficult for us, you know, like to
get over ourselves.
But once you do that, it's not hard.
It's not hard to make the rafter barakataha'ala
happy.
And,
some people don't like it. They don't like
it. That's their problem, I guess. But this
is another thing to remember with Allah. This
is why, I mean, good people, they also
commit sins as well. But be careful about
them, people of ill, people of knowledge, people
of dhikr, because they may mess up, but
they also know how to make up make
up with Allah, ta'ala, as well.
They also know how to make up with
Allah. May we also be people who know
how to make up with Allah after screwing
things up as well.
Allah give us all tofief, but it's something
to remember about Allah that it doesn't take
a lot to make him happy.
It doesn't take a lot for you to
make up with him. And you screw up
again you make up with him again.
Again, it doesn't mean that we're not obliged
to clean up our mess with with other
people.
That's definitely,
that's definitely
something that we have to do, but, and
that that we won't be let go of
until we do it. But it's it's such
a such a great thing since that that
even if their sins are as plentiful as
the froth on the the bubbles on the
top of the surface of the ocean
that all of them will be forgiven
and it's not really a whole lot. It's
not really a whole lot, is it?
A 100 times.
It's not it's not, it's not it's not
a lot.
He mentions that whoever the sanjakdar
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, the
flag bearer
that is
whose maqam is in,
in Istanbul.
Although the place that his maqam is is
known by Kash, so who knows if he's
actually buried there or not.
But if it's not a point of in
here,
it may not be exactly there, but it's
somewhere around there. It's known that he's buried
in the city somewhere,
and
a source of barakah
for the people of that city and the
source of honor for them as well. That
he narrates from the messenger of Allah
that whoever says
10 times.
That person is like they they will get
the reward as if they
freed 4 slaves,
from
for, like, living beings.
Breaths,
meaning,
living being, meaning slaves from the progeny of
Sinai, alayhis salaam.
Which is another interesting side note,
which is that people always say, oh, Islam
slavery, you know, Islam slavery.
How can you believe in that and whatever
blah blah blah.
Yeah. Islam has something called slavery, and America
had something called slavery. They're 2 very different
things.
Here, the purpose of mentioning the is that
those are the of of the Arab. Right?
They're the honor the nobles of the Arabs,
the descendants
of. It's still possible for them to be
enslaved.
Whereas
in America or Europe or whatever, they had
this kind of, like, weird race or color
based slavery or whatever,
that it was possible. It is possible for
a person to be a nobleman, but be
put into
to put into bondage,
which means that it's not a
it's radically different.
That a person can be a shari' a
noble person and still find himself in that
circumstance,
which was undoubtedly the circumstance of many of
our the forefathers of many of our brothers
and sisters.
And,
many of their forefathers were also our brothers
and sisters. May Allah give Hidayah to their
progeny and to all people.
But,
but he says that the 4 4 slaves
were saying it 10 times. So the math
is
it seems to it seems not to follow
a linear trajectory.
So a person who cannot do a lot,
let them do less.
In the old days, people used to make
a lot of zikr. They used to make
a lot of zikr all the time.
That's why, you know, amongst them, there were
people who seemed incorruptible.
Obviously, only Allah is incorruptible.
Only the prophet
are incorruptible.
But there are some people whose corruption is
so small
that the fraction of corruption inside of them
is less than
the number of quarks in the
universe.
Or similar to it, to the point where
people like you and me will never see
will never see where that corruption is.
And the reason and the way that people
got to that point is what? It's by
their
you know, it's part I mean, it's by
the fadhu of Allah ta'ala, and it's also
partially by their,
by their own desiring it and their own
wanting it and their own
extending themselves, making in order to reach that
point.
And so if people nowadays did it, then
why not? That being the case, that being
said,
if you can't,
you know, say this
all
these are that are gonna be mentioned in
this chapter,
you know, if you can't say them
a hundred times, say them 10 times. If
you can't say them,
10 times, say them one time. If you
can't say them once, then you have to
admit you just don't wanna say
it. All the orad, you can take a
discount on them,
because saying it is saying some of it
is better than saying none of it.
The point is to start
somewhere
and to go as much as, you know,
to do as much as you can. At
that point, if you don't want to,
you know, you know, if you if you
can't say even the minimum, then you don't
want to. It's fine. Don't beat yourself up.
If a person is gonna be like saying,
lie lie lie lie 10,000
times every night when they say they're not
gonna sleep at night. They're gonna be frazzled
the next day. How many days are you
gonna continue it to one day you're just
gonna over over you know, oversleep, you'll miss
fudge or you'll miss everything? It's not that's
not what you're
you're supposed to do. The whole point is
that the deen there's nobody who can do
everything.
No one can even do everything that the
Rasulullah
did,
or get anywhere close to that. So the
point is to do as much as you
can.
And if you can't even do that because
even that, no one can do.
Everyone will fall short of even the even
if, you know, like,
even people will fall short of that as
well. Do something better than nothing and keep
pushing the needle. You know? What will happen
is your in this world will always push
you back, so you also have to push
back against it. Just keep pushing the needle,
but don't you know, you don't have to
go overboard. And you're not supposed to go
overboard, and there's no benefit in going overboard.
But, but, the, you know, the first
mention of this was what? The we're just
saying it a 100 times, and now the
mention is I'm saying 10 times.
So a person should not be should not
allow their inability to do more. Because sometimes
doing less is what opens the door to
being able to do more. One of the
rewards of saying it 10 times is you
might be able to say it a 100
times afterward. If you can say it a
100 times from the beginning, good for you.
And if you can't even say it 10,
then start with 1. This is also remembering
Allah Ta'ala. This is also the dhikr of
Allah
who
said that the messenger of Allah sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam said, shall I not inform you
about
one of the things that are the most
beloved of speech to,
to to Allah?
He says, indeed the beloved most beloved of
speech to Allah Ta'ala is to say
Subhanallah, or behamdi, exalted as Allah
above blemish,
and to him be praised.
And so the
the the notes in the hashiya are what
is
That the from the kalam of normal people,
not from the kalam of the prophet, sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, and not from the kalam
of the things
that are in the Quran.
So a person should not be too literalistic
with it. They should understand things in context,
but it's beloved to Allah. Allah loves it
that a person should say it. When Abi
Malik so he didn't say he didn't say
that the most beloved columnist to get up
on Facebook and tell everybody about how
bad Democrats and Republicans are. God knows whatever
other
isms that you don't like. Some justifiably so.
He said that the messenger of Allah sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam said
that that purification is half
of imam.
Here often oftentimes people translate it as cleanliness.
It's cleanliness, but in in particular, it's
it's ritual cleanliness,
not just having things,
you know, not just having things,
look fancy,
or
or what a person would you know, because
there are many people that say, oh, look.
You know, the Muslim world is so dirty
and the mall is so clean.
Not
really. The mall is pretty filthy when you
see, you know, like, the dude's, like, a
big cuff of his
pants, like, sweep past the urinal,
picking up whatever,
you know, spotting and liquid is there on
the floor.
You know? But it looks it looks fancy
for
sure. It looks fancy for sure. And there
are many, many, many,
bathrooms in the Muslim world. I'm not gonna
lie. They look and smell like a disaster.
But if you put your tuples on, you
don't have to touch anything, and you can,
you know, make out without,
you know, make out or untouched,
from from any of that stuff. But the
point is is that
the
mentioned here is primarily first
ritual purity and then other things afterward
to a lesser extent.
But, the is half of your
half of half of faith.
You know, it's important. It's important.
You take your socks off and wash your
feet.
Don't cheat yourself with regards to whether there's
something that just in your food. Don't cheat
yourself with regards to whether there's not just
in your drink. Don't cheat yourself with regards
to whether there's not just on your clothing
or in your environment,
or whether something is or not. Be careful
about all of these things.
Be careful about all of these things because
a person's
laxity in them is what allows shaitan access
to them.
And then further, the continues that they say,
Be genuinely grateful to Allah
fills the
fills the scale pan of good deeds and
saying
both of them together, they fill,
or,
the one utterance fills,
what is between the heavens and the earth
with
goodness.
That a Bedouin once came to the messenger
of Allah
and he said,
he said, said
that when months came to the messenger of
Allah
and he said, teach me
some speech that I can say,
some words that I can say.
Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam replied, say,
There's no God except for Allah alone and
without any partner.
And Allah is greater than other things and
emphatic greatness.
And all praises to Allah,
a plentiful
praise.
And exalted above blemishes Allah, the Lord of
the world.
And that there is no,
force
that can
protect against disobedience or power to establish the
obedience of Allah, except for with Allah,
the mighty
and the wise.
So the Bedouin in very characteristic Bedouin style
said, this is all for Allah Ta'ala. What
what can I say for me?
So the Messenger of Allah said,
say, O Allah,
forgive me, and have mercy on me, and
guide me, and provide for me.
This this ex this utterance is also mentioned
earlier in the.
I don't think I read it here in
the Rabat. I think I read it, like,
in Seattle, and the Darce was there, like,
a long time ago.
But,
but but so one of the companions who
mentioned that I saw that when somebody would
accept Islam, a new person who would newly
accept Islam,
that the messenger of Allah, salallahu alayhi, would
instruct him to make this dua in this
dosa between the 2 the 2 sides of
the salat.
So we're also
kind of new to Islam, so we should
say it too.
Help us, you know, stick with this Islam
thing.