Hisham Jafar Ali – Envy & Jealousy
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Hello
in Alhamdulillah, one minubihi, wanatara kalau,
alaihi wa narube armalina,
Allah,
All
gratitude belongs to Allah. We thank him. We seek His help. We
seek his forgiveness. Whoever Allah guides, none can lead
astray. And whoever is led astray as a result of their own
intentions, none can guide but Allah. I testify that there is
none worthy of worship but Allah, and that Muhammad May Allah's
pleas and blessings be upon him. Is his last and his final
messenger, Allah, repeatedly reminded, reminds us in the Quran,
a verse that we tend to repeat every Friday. Believers, be
conscious of Allah as he deserves. That is the easy part. Wala Tamu
to na Ila untu, Muslim moon, but stay consistent until your very
last breath. That is the difficult part.
Over the last few weeks, we have seen a series of events unfold
over the news,
a series of events happening in parts of Europe, which concerns us
as we look from afar
to countries, to nations warring with one another,
and as we see the biased media coverage of this conflict, as
opposed to other conflicts that happen in the Muslim world. We
feel saddened as Muslims. But in all of this, there is a lesson for
those who reflect in nafidha,
Leela alimin, as Allah repeatedly points out, in the Quran, a
believer does not read the news purely to get drama, to get
gossip, to understand what's happening
in the tabloid magazine a believer reads the news, to reflect, to
contemplate, and to ponder.
And as we contemplate the worrying of two nations, the fighting of
two nations, the bombs, the airplanes, the missiles, we ask
ourselves the question, what would it take what would make, what
would push, what would force a human being to make the decision
to hurt, to kill, to murder another human being?
What would it take to make a nation, a country, a people, a
tribe, to the extent push them to the extent that they are willing
to hurt, to murder, to kill, another nation, a people, a tribe.
And this takes us to the very first story in the Quran.
Chronologically speaking,
the very first story in the Quran, after the story of Adam alaihi
salam, is the story of murder. Is a story of conflict, the story of
the two sons of Adam.
Allah reminds
us in the Quran, what do Allah, him, Bela, mean? Ahadihima,
remember O Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu, alayhi was recite to
them the story of the two sons of Adam,
when both of them put forward a sacrifice to Allah, but it was
accepted from one and not accepted from the other, fatal Fatu Bilal,
Amin, ahadihima, wala mutaq, Abu minalah,
Call to lakh,
one of the two sons of Adam, Kabil, turns to his brother Habil,
and says,
I will definitely kill you. I am going to finish you.
And his brother replies, Allah only
accepts worship from those who are God conscious,
and he goes on. La imba ya yada, Kalita ko Tula ni ma an Abu
basitli, idea ELA, ikali ako tulak, if you do act on your
statement.
And you stretch your hand out to attack me. I am not going to
reciprocate. I am not going to retaliate in because I fear Allah,
Lord of the Worlds.
Let us backtrack a moment. These are two sons of a prophet, one of
the greatest of Allah's prophets,
they have a conflict. They have a disagreement between each other.
One puts forward something for Allah's sake, and Allah accepts
it. The other puts something forward, but Allah does not accept
it.
We accelerate the story to the point in which Kabil says to his
brother, I am going to murder you. I am going to kill you. But what
happened in between? What went on in his mind as he processed this
fact, this event, two children come home from school,
one of them got 90% on their latest test, and the other one got
80% on the same test.
Now, 80% is not a bad score by any means, but
when they come to their parents, parent, the parent compares. Why
did you get 80 and you get 90, and all of a sudden the 80 looks like
a really low score.
The sibling with the lower grade contemplates maybe pushing his
brother down the stairs to get him back.
It's because of him. I look bad. It's because of his 90 that my 80%
looks lower.
It always starts with comparison, and that comparison turns into
jealousy. And that jealousy starts as a seed. It becomes a spark.
That spark becomes a flame until it consumes you, and you're not
thinking anymore, and you do something that you regret, every
murder, every fight, every war, if you were to drill down into the
people that made those decisions, who decided to unleash the nuclear
arsenal at Hiroshima, who decided to unleash the army on so and so
country, if you were to follow the chain of command, It comes down to
one thing and one thing only. It comes down to the human heart. It
comes down to the human ego. It comes down to a NAF sul Amara to
bisu, this nafs, this human ego decides, through its jealousy, its
anger, its envy, it decides to attack, to murder, to hurt, to
pillage, to dump a nuclear arsenal on an entire country. It always
begins in the heart. And the other proof of this in the Quran is the
brothers of Yusuf alaihi salam.
We're talking about 11 young men who are the sons of a prophet, the
son of a prophet, the son of a prophet. It doesn't get any more
righteous and pious and sacred than that.
What would motivate 10 sons of a prophet
to murder their brother?
What would push them over the edge
to the moment where they say,
kill Yusuf or throw him in a land. Why? What motive would make them
do such a deed? The sons of a prophet would decide to kill their
own brother. Can you imagine murdering your own sibling? Can
you imagine plotting to stab your own sibling, to throw them in the
middle of nowhere? It's an impossible thought. What would
motivate the sons of a prophet to do this deed? Yahula, Kung, waju,
abi, Kum we want the attention of our father.
Jealousy, envy, anger.
These are the feelings, the timeless things that human beings
struggle with, which move us to a point of no return, to a point of
regret, to a point of frustration, until we are willing to do things
that we will later regret, as Kabil murders his brother, Habil,
and the very first murder takes place in human history. Brothers
do not look at the crying child. Do not worry, because if we turn
away children from the masjid, then the time will come when this
children will not pray in the masjid. So try and focus and
tolerate the sound and have mercy on the young. The Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says, Lay some in lair hum Sahir Rana
WA, you walk. Kabirana, you are not amongst us if you do not mercy
the young and have respect for the old. And we know the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would shorten his Salah for the sound of
a crying child. That means they were crying children in the
congregation, and we should have respect for that and tolerance for
that. Back to the story as Kabil, the son of Adam alaihi salam,
merges his brother and the dead corpse of his brother lies in
front of him, and he looks in regret and remorse and fury at
what he has just done,
Allah sends
a bird Allahu kefauta. Allah sends
a little bird
to bury the corpse of another dead bird.
To show him, this is what you do with a dead body.
And this is the moment of realization. It always happens
after the fact, after the wound, after the relationship is broken,
after destruction has happened. Then we realize,
an akuna Mithra.
He says, Oh, my goodness, have I been reduced to imitate this bird,
and now I have to cover the dead corpse of my brother for Asmaa ham
inan dimin And he became regretful for his deed.
Regret always comes after the fact, after the moment, but in
that very moment, what consumes a human being to hurt, to pillage,
to plunder, to destroy a relationship, to speak rudely to
somebody, to lose their temper, is the feeling of jealousy, of envy,
of anger, these emotions, if not controlled, if not tamed,
we do things that we then regret.
And this is why Allah makes a general principle after this first
murder, this first killing between the two sons of Adam Min ajali
Valley Islam ILA and of this
incidence, said, Jeremy,
because of this incident, because of the first murder that took
place on earth, Allah makes a general rule, whoever kills a
human being with no justification and no due process, it is as
Though you have killed all
of humanity.
Said, Jami ya whoever revives a human being, it is as though he
has revived all of humanity.
This first incident that takes place in history, this first
murder, this first killing, this first conflict between two Beni
Adam, two sons of Adam, is the first in a series of many, many
such incidents. And these incidents take place in your life
and in my life,
the incidents where we are consumed first by a feeling. It
always starts with a thought, the thought of jealousy, of envy, of
frustration, of anger, of pain. But that pain, that hurt begins as
a seed. It becomes a spark, it becomes a flame, and then we are
willing to burn down the entire household. We are willing to end
someone's life. We are willing to end our relationship. And it all
begins with a seed. It all begins with envy, with jealousy, with
frustration. The
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, in his life, had to deal
with many such incidents,
but how did the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam help his
companions to nip them in the bud? How did the Prophet salallahu
alayhi wa sallam deal with the conflict that took place between
his companions and prevent an all out war, prevent divorces, prevent
conflicts between his companions.
We know that the center of iman, the center of this faith, is the
idea of brotherhood. Allah
says
in the Quran innamalai, come the believers are nothing but brothers
and sisters. So rectify, fix the ties and relationships between
your brothers. What Allah? Allah come to Hammon and be conscious of
Allah when it comes to your relationships, so that you may
receive His mercy
when we look at wars taking place between nations,
and we said that these wars, when you drill down, it comes down to
human beings making bad decisions based on their desire, based on
their frustration, based on their envy, based on their anger,
reflect On your own life and my own life,
how many words were said which shouldn't have been said? How many
people are there in our lives that we no longer speak to we have
distanced ourself from as a result of an argument, a moment of anger
or a conflict?
How many people there are around us who are hurt, who are tested by
us, by the things we say and the things that we do.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, once a man came to him,
and
there was a woman in Medina who had passed away that day,
and they said, kanat, Salama, tanqa wama. This was a woman who
was fasting.
Day and praying every night. Walakin tudi, Jawahar, bilisa,
aniha, but she insults, she hurts. She slices through her neighbors
with her tongue. She has a foul mouth.
What will happen to this woman? Oh, Prophet of Allah, the question
was asked, and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam gives a
blank response, a clear response, a scary response. Kalahi afinar,
she will be in the fire.
No believer with an atom's worth of iman will be permanently in the
fire,
but temporarily even it's not a place that one wants to
be. But what is it that took this woman, a woman who was praying and
fasting, to be a woman who would be suffering in the depths of
jahannam? It was her dealing with other people, her Muhammad, the
way she treated other human beings.
We tend to discount this fact. We tend to discount and divide this
part of our iman. We think Iman is about Salah in the masjid. We
think Iman is about prayer. Iman is about fasting. But we
completely forget that we have two dealings, two interactions in this
world, one with Allah and the other with his creation.
And every rock and pebble and every human being we interacted
with will testify against us on the Day of Judgment,
to the extent that two deers, two rams with their with their
headgear, will come on the Day of Judgment when one was unjust to
the other and they will be given a chance to headbutt the other
because of an injustice they faced in this world. The Prophet
sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam informs us. He says, at a drum,
Emmanuel muflis, do you know who is the bankrupt person
on the day of judgment? And his companions reply the obvious
response that we would all give, manla Dirham Allahu, wala Adi
Nawa, the person with no gold or silver, no money, no Mullah, no
pennies. That's the bankrupt person. And the Prophet sallallahu
alayhi wasalam says no,
it is a person who did good in this world.
He fasted and he prayed, Wallach, shatama, fulan and but he hurt,
insulted that person, Waka the Haqqani, and he took the rights of
that person,
and he was enemies with that person, and each of those people
on the Day of Judgment will take back his good deeds, until his
mountain of good deeds will be nothing but dust.
And all because of what, not because he fell short in his
ibadah, in his worship,
but because he fell short when it came to the way he dealt with
other human beings.
And so many of us overlook this fact. So many of us are content
with how we worship Allah in a 10 by 10 by 10 meter square every
day. So many of us are content by our charity in our Quran and our
fasting,
but we discount the fact
that there are people that we didn't pay any attention to on
this in this world, but on the day of judgment, they will have the
lion's share of our deeds because the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam said in Alma Alaya Takala mubil Kali Mati Min sahabal, one
of You may say a word, a statement, a sentence paying no
attention to it, an insignificant sentence, yabuhi, sebarina,
kharifat and finari jahannam. But because of the impact of this
sentence, the damage that it caused you will be 70 depths into
the depths of hellfire
in all our relationships, in all these human to human contacts and
connections, we said it starts in the heart. Jealousy is what drove
the brothers of Yusuf to conspire to murder their brother.
Envy is what drove Kabil, the son of Adam alaihi salam, to murder
his brother. It always begins in the ego. It always begins in the
heart. But then watch your tongue.
This tongue is the very tongue that has destroyed nations.
It was a tongue that stated
that made the commandment and the instruction to drop a nuclear bomb
on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that wiped out hundreds of 1000s of
people. It was a tongue that ends a marriage, and it is a tongue
that creates a marriage.
One word Kabul creates a marriage, and one word palak ends a
marriage.
It is this tongue that ends the relationship between a father and
child when a father or a mother kicks their child out of the
house. It is this very tongue that can stand up a nation and can
destroy a nation.
Never, never underestimate this tongue, because the Prophet
sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam said, wahala yakubuna, swahim, illa,
hasa idu al sinati him what would make a person's face burn.
In The Pit, in the coal of * fire, except as a result of The
way they used their tongue a call.
I
am as we
approach Ramadan, the month of blessings, the month of the Quran,
the month of breaking our fast together as groups and reminding
ourselves of our purpose, the month of saying no to the things
that we enjoy so that we can say no to the things we really need to
say no to
as we approach this month, we currently are in the month of
sharban, the
month of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi. Wa sallam said
it is the month between Rajab and Ramadan. People ignore this month
yak falu anunnas. People don't realize that it's an important
month and
the Prophet salallahu, alayhi wa sallam, says turfaula, actions and
deeds are raised to Allah in this month. Some scholars said that on
a yearly basis, there are two times in the year in which actions
your deeds are raised to Allah. They collect every day, every
week, every month, and then on the night of power, Laylatul, Qadr,
they are raised to Allah. And in the month of sharban, they are
raised to Allah.
If you are preparing for a presentation at work,
a PhD viva,
a speech you have to deliver
for months and for days and for weeks, you would try to put your
best foot forward. Put the best package forward. How can I
beautify, decorate this message, this presentation, so that it's
received? Well, it is the same with our deeds.
Allah is the One who sees our deeds and accepts them and
forgives us for our shortcomings, or takes us to task for those
deeds,
and when our deeds are raised to Allah in the month of Shaban,
how would we want those deeds to be raised to Allah?
The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam would fast this month more
than he would fast any month in the year,
because he would say uribu and Yul Fah Amali WA and assalam. I would
love Allah to look at my package of good deeds and sins,
or good deeds, rather, when it comes to the Prophet salallahu,
alayhi wa sallam, I would like him to see my deeds while I am in a
state of fasting. I don't want him to see my deeds while I am
distracted. I don't want Allah to see my deeds while I am heedless,
while I am ignorant. I want him to see my deeds while I am fasting.
The second thing that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says
about this month
is that on the in the middle of this month, the angels descend
and they look for those who are supplicating to Allah,
and they raise the deeds of all believers, except for two people,
two Muslims who have decided not to speak to one another, who are
in conflict, to one another.
And when they find two such Muslims, they say, leave them. Let
them be in their disagreement. Let us go to another Muslim who is
making dua, who is engaged in worship with a clean heart, Ill
Ali mushriqin Al mushahan, As the Hadith says, the angels do not
come to somebody who is in conflict with another believer or
somebody who is worshiping other than Allah.
We don't realize how toxic it is to be in conflict with another
believer in Muslim that darini, it is narrated that the Prophet
sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam, says, manhajarah, kaseph ki
damihi, whoever does not speak to their brother for one year, it is
as though he has killed him.
It is as though he has murdered him.
Because Allah encourages us to heal the wounds. When there are
wounds between two people, Allah encourages us towards Isla, to
reform our relationships, to rectify them. It's very easy to
say in khutbah, it's very difficult to pick up the phone to
the mother you haven't spoken to in 20 years, and say whatever's
Past is past. Let's turn a new page. It's very difficult
all of us in this room. We have friends, we have relatives, we
have people that we have cut off from, that we don't speak to, that
we have distanced ourselves from.
What does Allah advise us in the Quran?
Jamil, open a new page with them,
turn a new corner,
forgive and forget.
When the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, and I'll end with this
story, when the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, wife, Ayesha
Radha Allahu, Anhu was slandered in Medina, and people spread a
rumor that she had slept with another man, Akram akumalah.
One of the people that spread this very rumor
was a man by the name of Mr. Ibn UTSA,
a man whose rent and bills were paid by the father of Ayesha, by
Abu Bakr. So imagine I am paying somebody's rent and bills, and
they are spreading a lie about my daughter. Would I continue to help
them? Would you continue to help them? Would you continue to pay
their rent? Would you continue to pay their council tax? You and me
would drop them in an instant? O Bucha, the Allahu anhu, gets so
infuriated that he says, I refuse to help this man anymore, while he
continues to lie and spread rumors about my daughter and Allah
reveals Quran,
while
I tell you to a to
Sabi nila,
Wali Afu wali as fahu Allah to HEB buna ay Yallah, hula, Kum,
it is not becoming of people like Abu Bakr
to stop doing good because somebody is doing harm
to them. O, Abu Bakr, forgive and forget. Do you not want Allah to
forgive your sins as well?
How many people are there in our lives who we have to forgive and
move on from? How much hurt has been caused in our lives, which we
have to deal with and mend those relationships? Do we not want the
forgiveness of Allah? Do we not want to enter Ramadan with a clean
slate. Do we not want this month to pass and the angels to descend
and for them to visit our homes, because we sleep at night with a
clean heart? Do we not want that for all of us, a man enters the
masjid, narrated Musnad Ahmad, and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa
sallam, says to his companions, a man is about to enter the masjid,
and he's a person who will be from the people of paradise. And he
says this three times, and a very average looking man enters the
masjid, and no one backs an eyelid. And the Prophet says, it's
him. He is going to be a person of paradise. And when he is followed
home, it is observed that he doesn't do anything special that
would make him a person of paradise. No tahajjud that night,
no special charity and no fasting. So what is it that made the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam named him a man of paradise.
This man says to the prophet's companions, there's nothing
special that I do, except that before I sleep at night, I make
sure there is no hatred in my heart for another believer.
And if we are to sleep at night with a clean heart,
then perhaps we too will become from the people of paradise. And
if we are to have a lock on our jealousy and envy and ego and
anger, then perhaps we too will stop the next Nagasaki and the
next Russia and Ukraine and the next war, because wars start with
individuals, and it always goes back to The heart
Allah, Muslim, me know,
and
Muslim, Akbar Allah.