Hosai Mojaddidi – Foundations Of The Spiritual Path – Monthly Sisterhood Halaqa – Part 5
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Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, alhamdulillah wa salatu
wa salamu ala ashraf al-anbiya'i wa
al-mursaleen Sayyidina wa Mawlana wa Habibina Muhammad
ﷺ wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam
tasliman kathiran Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu
Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, it is such a pleasure and
honestly an honor to see so many familiar
and new faces.
Thank you for being here.
I know we took a really long hiatus
from these sessions but inshallah moving forward they
will continue with the monthly program.
I was, before Maghrib, I was just mentioning
that, you know, it's been since right before
Ramadan of this year that we had our
last session and if I recall, because it's
been so long, that we were working on
a text called the Foundations of the Spiritual
Path and just kind of reading that text
together and if you've read the text or
if you remember those sessions, the text is
really just advice on how to establish a
spiritual path and what the prerequisites are and
what sort of the building blocks of having
a strong spiritual foundation are and it's a
really fantastic text and I encourage everyone to
independently read it as well.
Assalamu alaikum.
The Foundations of the Spiritual Path by Sidi
Ahmed Zarouk and you can do a simple
google for it, there's pdf of it available.
I've shared the link, it's on the YouTube,
I think link also for these halaqas, we've
put that there so there's, but if you
need the link to the pdf I can
share that as well offline but that is
a wonderful text and, you know, as I
mentioned the text is really just advice and
so I was thinking about how so much
of our life is either taking advice, giving
advice, depending on the role that we as
women play, we do end up really, this
is a big part of the role of
a woman, you know, and I think as
whether we're daughters or sisters or mothers or
aunts, aunties or best friends or just, you
know, members of our community, people may turn
to us, you know, for guidance or advice
or just, you know, to share things and
seek out opinions and so that puts you
in a position of immense responsibility, right, and
I know it's easy to sometimes from the
heart want to give advice but there, as
I said, it's an amanah and we have
to be really careful, especially in this day
and age where there's just so much information,
so many opinions out there and also people
are interpreting things, you know, from very subjective
places whereas truth is objective, right, in our
deen truth is not subjective, truth is not
something that changes from person to person, right,
there is truth and then there's falsehood and
the one who is in the position of
guiding someone should operate from the position of
truth, right, and if you are injecting your
own opinion into what you think is something,
you may actually end up causing more harm
and in my, you know, work in the
community, I can definitely speak on my own
personal journey learning this lesson, you know, about
the importance of really making sure that I
have discernment, you know, that I'm not just
giving advice based on what I think is
right or wrong but actually that I'm sourcing
that advice from the tradition itself.
So, you know, for those who don't know,
one of the subjects that I teach currently
is on logic, critical thinking, and debate, like
public speaking debate.
I teach middle schoolers but there's a really
great text that we use and it's called
A Guide to Critical Thinking, so I wanted
to just share some advice because I think,
you know, this book is a really good,
or the list that they provide is general
advice on standards, on intellectual standards that we
should have for everything, you know, it's kind
of like a checklist that we should implement
when we're looking at information, when we're processing,
when we're consuming news, we're reading anything, whether
it's articles on any subject or obviously from,
you know, from individuals who may, experts who
may have opinions, whatever it is, and then
also on the opposite side of it, when
we are in a position where we're giving
advice that we also maintain a standard, right,
and that standard, if we ascribe to it,
inshallah, we will maintain the integrity and the
objective of upholding the truth.
So, what are the standards that they list
out?
And again, these are just general intellectual standards.
So, they say here that, remember that good
thinkers, a person who can discern, who knows
how to weigh, you know, truth from falsehood,
who can basically see these things or understand
these things and decide what to believe using
intellectual standards, they should have, there's some certain
criteria.
So, what are those?
The first is that they have clarity, right,
so that something is understandable and nothing is
confusing.
So, that's, if you're reading something and you
don't know what it's saying, to try to,
you know, decode that on your own, right,
could lead to a false interpretation.
So, if something is not clear for you,
is there a language barrier?
You know, is there a meaning in there
that you're just not quite picking up?
This is when, what does our teach us?
That if we don't know something, what are
we supposed to do, right?
Ask those who don't know, Allah says, when
you don't know, ask those who know.
So, that should be the first thing, is
that if something is the ambiguous, vague, the
text itself, or the words were not clear,
right, about their meaning, that we don't feel
forced to offer an interpretation.
Because when we do that, if you think
about that, you're putting your own ego before,
right, upholding a standard.
Because, you know, if someone asks you a
question, if they want, if they're asking you,
do you know about this particular topic, and
you feel like you should know, right, and
then you're kind of caught in that moment
of like, uh-oh, what does this mean?
And then you're reading it, and you're like,
you're not really clear yourself about it, but
you feel the need to offer an explanation,
and then that goes, you know, and takes
it, and thinks that that's, you know, they
just take your word for it.
Again, you're now liable for any potential, you
know, fallout from that, right?
I mean, if you think of a hadith,
for example, if you think of a Qur
'anic ayah, how dangerous it is to do
that.
So, if you're not clear, you have to
have the default of saying, I don't know,
right?
Imam Malik was known, rahimahullah, that that was
a very common quote from him, even though
he was a giant of a scholar, he
was often known to say, I don't know,
I don't know.
So, we should, you know, really be totally
comfortable admitting we don't know, and then if
you seek to know, of course, you know,
make sure that you're pursuing clarity.
You ask those who don't, who know.
Also, accuracy, like, it's important, and so this
works both ways, whether you're taking information or
you're the one that is dispensing.
So, if you're in the position of giving
advice or instructing or teaching, make sure that
you're also speaking very clearly, right, and using
very clear language.
So, this is just one, the first standard.
Then, accuracy, make sure that everything you're saying
is true.
So, citation is really important.
There's a lot of information that we could
be taking in.
You see emails, if you're on different threads
on WhatsApp or Telegram or whatever people are
using, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, there's a lot of
memes, there's a lot of images created.
People are always sharing data or what we
think is data, and then sometimes there's no
sourcing, right, and if you're, you know, in
a position where you're vulnerable and you're in
a weak state and then you read something
that seems to bolster you, you know, gives
you a sense of confidence, you know, maybe
there's no accuracy to it.
Maybe it's just one person's opinion, but if
you take that and you go home and
now you have a discussion with a family
member or an argument or something that leads
to something else or whatever it is, you
start using that particular fact or whatever you
read to defend a position, then, you know,
without doing your vetting, right, without making sure
is this accurate, is there a source, that's
the one, number one standard.
What is the source of this information?
So, always asking for sourcing, right, and again,
when you're speaking as well, if you're giving
advice, don't just give opinion, always provide citation.
I read this in this book or this
scholar said this.
Try to always do that, and if you
don't remember, then, you know, be cautious of
what you share just from memory because, again,
it could lead to a false understanding or
just misguidance on whatever the issue is.
So, accuracy, precision, right, be really specific to
the problem.
Sometimes in our advice, and this is, I
think, when we overdo it, you know, we
can actually cause a lot of harm if
we're offering unsolicited advice, right, so someone's asking
about one thing and now we're like we're
now on a soapbox, and sometimes the nafs
likes the attention, right, the nafs likes to
be called into these, you know, roles that
I am the advisee, you know, someone's coming
to me for advice, so it kind of
makes, you know, it fluffs up a little
bit, so if you start to, if they
ask you on one topic and all of
a sudden you're, you know, talking about every
aspect of their life or just general advice
and just, you know, overdoing it, unsolicited advice,
now is it really for their benefit or
is it that you like the power of
the position you're in, right?
So, you have to always question the limits
of what you're doing, right?
Am I being precise?
Am I on topic or am I just
using this as a means of, you know,
feeling good about my own self or feeling,
you know, whatever, so there's all of this,
again, just certain standards we have to maintain,
so clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, and this is
similar, right?
If we're being specific to the topic, are
we also being relevant?
Because sometimes, for example, modern issues, right, necessitate
a modern perspective.
If you're going to bring outdated advice, you
know, let's say you're having issues in your
relationship and then you're bringing, and sometimes generationally
we see this, right, there's generational gaps, so
people who are older sometimes give advice that's
not, no longer relevant.
Parenting, how many awful takes do people have
when it comes to parenting because they're totally
speaking about a different era, a different time,
a different generation, a different context, so today's
parenting is not going to look like 10
years ago even, let alone 30 years ago,
let alone 40 years ago, right?
So, the further back we go, the less
relevant we are, so relevance is really important,
you know, in terms of what am I
saying, is it actually, you know, does it
apply?
Depth.
Depth would be the fifth one.
If it's superficial and shallow, then it is
performative because if someone's coming to you, right,
the Prophet ﷺ said, ad-dinu nasiha, right,
qalaman, like to who, and then he says
to Allah ﷻ, right, first, that you, and
what is nasiha?
Nasiha is often translated as sincerity or sincere
goodwill or advice, but the first component of
being a person who's in this position of
wishing goodwill and, you know, doing good is
to have that sincerity and really come from
the heart, so when you're giving advice, if
it's, again, you're not really thinking about it,
it's like mindless just, you know, stuff coming
out of your mouth, you read this or
you read that, but you're not absorbed or
really absorbing the person's dilemma, really thinking about
it, contemplating it, trying to look at the
situation from all angles, right?
This is what, you've all heard me say
this before, but like an emotionally intelligent way
of approaching any topic is to look at
it holistically, right, like all angles of that
problem, but if you're, like for example, your
friend comes to you, and I'm speaking to
women mostly, but it could be reversed, and
they have a complaint about their husband, right?
If you're only, if your bias is, well,
he has to be wrong because you're my
best friend, I love you, you're so sweet,
you're so kind, you could do no harm,
you're not giving a holistic view of the
potential issue, you could actually add fuel to
the fire, right?
What, he said that to you?
What a jerk, I can't believe he said
it, you haven't even heard his side, but
you think you're being a good friend, right?
You think you're being supportive to your friend,
this is actually very dangerous, because what if
there's a whole other side that she, not
by manipulation or at all, but she's vulnerable,
she wants support, she needs support, she's just
omitting the other angle of the story completely,
right?
And she's making herself, you know, the victim
in the situation, but maybe if you heard
his side, you would be like, oh, I
didn't know that, you know?
So we want to be very careful when
we're, to not give like knee-jerk answers
when we're giving advice or just like operating,
there shouldn't be a reaction, right?
It should be, to have some depth to
it, and depth requires, let me kind of
think about it a little bit, or let
me, you know, consider all the other, you
know, potential angles of the situation, and then
try to see it, and then you offer
that.
And that also leads to the next one,
which is breadth, you know, B-R-E
-A-D-T-H, not breath, but the
breadth of something, right?
Which is, again, looking at all sides of
it, so deep, depth is really like your
heart, where you are, you want to truly
help them, breadth is being able to see
all sides, so they kind of are interconnected.
So that's one, two, three, four, five, six,
we're on the sixth one, there's three more,
so the seventh one is logic.
Now this is where we get a little
in the gray, because, you know, people have
different definitions of what is logical and what's
illogical, and a lot of that comes down
to the way that we think, and if
you think a certain way, then that makes
sense for you, and you think it's logical,
but maybe it's not, so we have to
go back to, you know, the basics of
what is logic, and how do you become
a thinker that is objective, right?
And that's where our Deen is actually, it
really can help you, because what that does,
when you become a person that is fully
committed to upholding the truth, right, you're not
concerned with opinion, because it's already established, right?
The truth is established by Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, so you don't need to worry
about opinion in that case, and so logic
does it align with the truth.
If it doesn't align with the truth, even
if it makes sense to me, right, if
it's contradicting anything said by Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala and his Messenger ﷺ, then it's,
even if it makes sense to me, then
it's not in line with what we would
uphold as a standard of truth and logic.
So, reasonability, all of those things, right, so
that's really important.
And then significance, right, when you're, and again,
this is a two-way process, right, because
intellectual standards is how we're reading things, but
also how we're communicating, so when you're, you
know, reading things, you should take in things
that are significant, and this just, I mean,
this is a general nasiha, but I think
we really need to be cautious about the
consumption of information, because it's just, we're like
in the buffet of buffets of information, in
the information age, there's just too much out
there, and if you find yourself going deep
down in rabbit holes that are just not
worth your time at all, right, then you're
wasting precious minutes and seconds, but also brain
cells, like just, you know, really have a
higher standard of what you're going to consume,
just like we're wary of what we drink
and eat, right, Alas Pada calls us to
have the highest, the most purest food and
drink, also the information that we consume, so
just look at, you know, who are you
reading, whose social media pages are you following,
what books do you, you know, download onto
your Kindle or whatever, you know, service that
you have, what shows are you watching, like
I feel like especially, you know, in the
past few years, but certainly in the past
year, with everything that's happened with Gaza and
all of the scandals that have come out
of, you know, the media and Hollywood, I
hope to God and I pray to Allah
that we as Muslims have really just kind
of stepped back and say we're no longer
going to participate and we're not, we're no
longer going to be mindless consumers of junk
media, because we've been totally complicit in supporting
really degenerate, you know, industries, if you look
at Hollywood and entertainment industry, they promote degeneracy
and by consuming the music and the film
and the Netflix and the garbage that they
put out there, it's supply and demand, right?
We're actually complicit in that, so we have
to hold ourselves accountable and that's where, you
know, just really remembering we're, we have moral
agency, Allah will hold us accountable, you know,
and I was reading from Surah Al-Baqarah,
I'll read it here, because it's just something,
sometimes verses just grab a hold of you,
you know, you may read them time and
time again, but then sometimes they just kind
of startle you, but there's something we have
to think about, you know, Allah Subh'anaHu
Wa Ta-A'la says in Surah Al
-Baqarah, verse 284, A'udhu Billahi Minash Shaitanir
Rajeem To
Allah alone belongs whatever is in the heavens
and whatever is on earth, whether you reveal
what is in your hearts or conceal it,
Allah will call you to account for it.
He forgives whoever he wills and punishes whoever
he wills and Allah is most capable of
everything.
So, I mean, that's just really important because
sometimes, you know, we do things thinking it's
just my little vice, no one else knows
about it, you know, I have this little
weakness, I can't help it, I love to
watch, you know, whatever, Housewives of New York,
binge-watching, you know, these shows, whatever it
is, and then you forget that, that's, you
know, again, those are hours and it's a
non-renewable resource time, you know, we get
a certain allotment of time, we can't increase
that, you know, or decrease it, it's fixed,
every one of us has, our days are
numbered, our hours are numbered, so the fact
that we waste it and we're all guilty
of these things, but we should do better,
so significance is just in general, is it
worth your time, whatever it is you're consuming,
and then also, likewise, you know, sometimes people
ask you things that are a waste of
your time and you shouldn't participate in those
things, you know, don't get caught up in
conversations that are just pointless idle talk, so
just have a standard, you know, like I'm
not gonna go and talk and debate whether
or not, you know, this celebrity is better
than that celebrity, what, who cares, it's not
worth my time, so, you know, raising the
bar and what we accept as worth, you
know, the time that we give to people
or conversations, so it works in, again, both
scenarios, and then fairness, that's also really important,
because bias is so subtle, a lot of
people were just not aware of how much
bias we actually have, and sometimes because of
the way we were raised, you know, our
cultures, right, we have certain cultural biases, we
have, you know, maybe gender bias, we have
a lot of different things that could affect
the way that we look at a situation,
or look at information, but we always want
to remember back to Allah has already established
what is fair, am I in alignment with
that, right, or am I just, do I
have my own definition, and then, you know,
really working on trying to, again, align yourself,
so these are just the general standards that,
intellectual standards that I think we all need
to consider, and I appreciated the list, and
so, you know, when I juxtapose a list
like this, and then I look at a
text like this, which is Imam al-Ghazali's
book of counsels, right, this is the text
that I hope to continue to read during
these sessions, then it's like, subhanAllah, it just
all kind of makes sense, because you can
see that the scholars, and obviously the awliya,
the righteous, those who are on the path,
they understand all of this, and even more,
this is just for us to kind of
at least get to some standard, you know,
but these people, this is, they live this
reality, they didn't waste their time, they looked
at everything with this critical analysis, and they
questioned things with reason, they were always doing
what we're talking about, intellectualizing, and I think
we've lost that, you know, we're, this is
the crisis of our era, is that our
standards have gone so low, and there's a
reason for that, it's by design, you know,
we need to really understand that there are
people in certain positions who know, who understand
human nature, and they know if they preoccupy
us with food, and drink, and entertainment, and
you know, certain luxuries that we are afforded,
that what can happen is, we start to
neglect this incredible thing that we can do
as human beings, that no other creation can
do, which is think, and reflect, and contemplate,
I mean, what an incredible gift, right, it's
an incredible gift that Allah has given us,
animals are instinctual, you know, the jinn are
shared in that they can also discern, but
from all the other creations, all the other
living things, we are the only ones who
can actually rationalize and use the gifts and
faculties we've been given to arrive at conclusions
that will then help us to know our
creator, but the demonic realm, and humans who
belong to that realm, would love nothing more
than to prevent us from doing that, so
because we're a danger to their aims, right,
they have an aim, they love dunya, they
want to live here forever, and enjoy this
like as if it's their jannah, and we
stand in their way, you know, our standards,
for example, just with everything, you know, we
have, whether it's with banking, and money, and
the financial responsibility, or food and drink, there's
a lot of standards that we, not just
Muslims, but people of faith, require, so to
get us out of the way makes it
easier for them to just do whatever they
want, right, so they don't want us to
be critical thinkers, they don't want us to
question things, they don't want us to actually
use our minds, and that's why they busy
us with everything else, but the people of
true taqwa, of our path, who were free
of these, I mean, they didn't have to
deal with the things that we're dealing with
today, they understood, and so alhamdulillah, I wanted
to, you know, just share the first council,
and then we can break it up for
any Q&A, but I'll just read the
introduction, because the translation it says here, the
title of this treatise by Imam Abu Hamid
Muhammad al-Ghazali is or councils from divine
narrations, it is a collection of 38 hadith,
likely intended to fulfill the purpose of a
statement attributed to the Prophet ﷺ about the
merits of collecting 40 hadith, whosoever from my
community preserves 40 hadith regarding religious matters, Allah
will raise him on the day of resurrection
among those with understanding and the scholars, and
then Abu Darda, he had a variation to
that that said, that the Prophet ﷺ also
said, and I will be an intercessor and
a witness for him, so this hadith encourages,
you know, people to create or a compilation,
right, and that's what Imam al-Ghazali did
here, and so some of these hadith are
attributed to hadith Qudsi, right, which were, which
are direct, you know, reports from the Prophet
ﷺ, but they're attributed on the authority of
Allah ﷻ, and there's a full explanations on
how some of these hadith are categorized and
how, you know, in this particular book, there's
different categories, so the first is that they
are based on direct hadith Qudsi, others are
just interpretations of certain advice or words of
the Prophet ﷺ that he may have said,
and then others are not considered as part
of hadith Qudsi or otherwise through their meaning
and message, though their meaning and message are
certainly derived from authentic hadith, so it's almost
like paraphrasing, but they're all linked back to
the Prophet ﷺ, so it's just a really
wonderful text, but the first one, inshallah, I
thought for us, just to again, you know,
activate this wonderful intellect that we've been given
and to kind of contemplate and think deeply
on meanings, inshallah, I think will be a
really wonderful start to these sessions, so I'll
read, bismillahirrahmanirrahim, in the name of Allah, the
most gracious, the most merciful, praise belongs to
Allah for a reminder for the worshippers, a
bolstering for the righteous from the Muslims and
their worship, benedictions upon the bearer of the
pure creed and favor upon his family, his
companions, and their families, and upon whom follows
them in beautification, as well as the scholars
of the community in every era, in the
book of councils is a beautiful benefit, may
Allah ﷻ benefit us by it, the first
council, Allah ﷻ says, son of Adam, I
am astonished by the one who is certain
of death, yet he is joyous, I am
astonished by the one who is certain of
the accounting, yet he gathers wealth, I am
astonished by the one who is certain of
the grave, yet he laughs, I am astonished
by the one who is certain of the
hereafter, yet he rests, I am astonished by
the one who is certain of the world
and its termination, yet he is at ease
with it, I am astonished by the one
who is knowledgeable on the tongue, yet he
is ignorant in the heart, I am astonished
by the one who purifies himself with water,
yet he is not pure of heart, I
am astonished by the one who is preoccupied
with the flaws of others, yet he is
heedless of his own flaws, by the one
who knows that Allah ﷻ beholds him, yet
sins, by the one who knows that he
dies alone, enters the grave alone, and is
held to account alone, yet heeds other people,
there is no God except me truly and
Muhammad is my slave and emissary.
Okay, so that's the first council.
So again, these are hadith Qudsi, so Allah
ﷻ is communicating to us that he is
astonished by those of us who know death
is imminent, but we are joyous.
And what does that mean?
Like how do we interpret something like that,
right?
Does that mean like we can never be
joyful?
What does it mean to be joyful versus
joyous?
Like if we're critically thinking of that.
Okay, yeah, consuming, sure, good,
those are great, great.
If we look at the words themselves, like
the structure of the word, right?
Joyful and joyous, right?
Which one seems to suggest more permanence?
Joyous, right?
Joyful, you can be, you can have a
joyful moment, right?
We've all experienced joy, right?
You see someone after a really long time,
your heart fills with like, you know, joy.
But joyous suggests like you're in a state,
like you're always, you know, joyful, joyous.
That means that when are you actually, you
know, thinking about the inevitable, right?
Because that should actually put you in a
different state, right?
So yes, if you're, as Mario was saying,
living a jet set life, you're constantly escaping,
right?
Escapism as they call it.
This life of entertainment, fast life, right?
The life of fast cars, vacations, eating out
all the time, just constantly running from the
akhira toward dunya, right?
And seeking fun in everything you do.
It's like, it's not worth your time unless
it's fun.
And we may know, like, for example, children,
that's kind of standard, right?
Children are always looking for fun.
And even our, you know, teens and as,
you know, kind of coming out of childhood,
you still want to hold on to, you
know, that becomes your criteria for doing something,
right?
Is it fun?
But then you get to a certain point
where life hits you, you become more mature,
you realize like life isn't always fun and
games, and I have to actually accept that
there's going to be some low points.
So that kind of, you know, tempers the
excitement, excitability of the childlike spirit within us,
right?
That sanguine temperament we have.
And so we start to get a little
bit more serious and sobering truth of dunya
or life comes in.
So a person who's joyous is just not
capable of sustaining, or they're running from themselves,
right?
They're running from reality and truth because they
are terrified.
You know, they're terrified of loss.
They're terrified of their own, you know, demise.
They're terrified of things that they don't know
and see.
So they want to hold on to what's
real and tangible, right?
So if I can see it and it's
real, then I want it more.
But ideas like, you know, the akhirah, they
just, they don't really seem to hold much.
So that's the difference there, right?
I'm astonished by the one who is certain
of death.
Like all of us know we live and
we die.
It's like something you learn very young.
But if you're joyous, that means that you're
just not accepting exactly that death is going
to seize you at any minute.
And that awareness is what should, that's why
the prophet said, you know, he told us
if you knew what I knew, you would
laugh little and weep much because the awareness
that death is imminent and it could seize
us at any moment should put you in
a more, you know, kind of upright state.
That doesn't mean you can't experience joy in
moments.
It means that you take yourself very seriously.
You take your time very seriously.
You take your objectives and mission in life
very seriously.
You're not frivolous.
It's the frivolity that has, you know, spread
so much now that people, adults are behaving
like children, you know, and they are.
Look at the dress of some adults.
You're like, what?
We've lost complete sense of decency and decorum
and what's appropriate.
They're behaving like children.
I mean, there's just a lot of frivolity
in our cultures.
And so, yes, exactly.
Exactly.
Absolutely.
No, that's a beautiful reflection that death in
and of itself is not something that we
should fear, but it's rather that it's a
cessation.
It's the end of the opportunity, right?
To do good.
And if you have that paradigm shift, then
you have a different relationship with life, right?
Because you realize that every moment is actually
important because every moment Allah is holding me
accountable for, and I'm going to start taking
myself a little bit more seriously.
Again, that doesn't mean you can't have moments
of joy and smile and laugh and find
things funny.
Do that, but be a person who takes
life seriously.
So that's the first one.
And then, you know, I'm astonished by the
one who is certain of the accounting, yet
he gathers wealth.
This one is also so important because we
are, like, every penny, every dollar that we
accrue, you know, if we're not feeling the
weight of it, right, especially when we are
in, for the first time, maybe in history,
we have so much of a worldview that
others before us just didn't have about the
way that other people live.
Like, we see, you know, poverty that I
think most of us couldn't even fathom ever
experiencing, but we can witness it, right?
So when you watch what's happening, obviously, in
Gaza and other parts of the world, I
mean, genocide unfolding, and these people are literally,
they have nothing, literally nothing.
Everything's been obliterated.
And then you think about your own pursuit
of wealth, forgetting that every single atom, right,
of material things that we have, the wealth,
money, clothing, should kind of feel like a
crushing weight on us.
Like, it should.
It should feel that way.
I go into my closet all the time,
and I'm like, oh, my God.
Like, I need to purge.
I need to purge.
We've, alhamdulillah, we moved, you know, not too
long ago, and we've been lightening the garage,
and it is so awesome to see the
space.
Like, I can see the floor.
I'm like, thank Allah.
I just want to see more of the
floor of the garage.
Like, get rid of these boxes.
Let's just go.
Give them away.
We don't need this.
Give them away.
It's such a great feeling, because the weight
of having so many things that we don't
use, it's just, like I said, it crushes
you if you really understand that all of
this is going to come back on you.
So instead of keep pursuing the dunya and
adding more, don't forget the accountant knows, you
know, what is, like, you know, and we're
going to be held accountable.
So again, the words, I think, if we,
you know, really pay attention, they hold so
much meaning.
I'm astonished by the one who is certain
of the grave, yet he laughs.
So this is similar to what we talked
about, right?
Like, again, it doesn't mean we can't laugh,
but it just means you don't take life
in jest.
You take life seriously, because the death is
imminent.
I am astonished by the one who is
certain of the hereafter, yet he rests.
So, you know, this dunya is the place
of work.
That's what, you know, Mubarak was saying.
Like, your deeds.
Like, we need to be hustling in this
life for our akhirah.
So if, that doesn't mean we don't take
repose.
Of course, we're human beings.
We have needs.
We need to sleep.
We need to rest.
But we're talking about good deeds.
Like, if you're not hustling for good deeds,
some way or another, trying to figure out
where can I maximize the good deeds, you
know?
My prayers, alhamdulillah.
Okay, I'm doing my prayers on time.
Good checklist, right?
And the objective is that there's growth.
Because if it's like the same status quo
for, you know, one year, two years, three
years, four years, five years, six years, and
you haven't really evolved, that's a problem.
So the objective is I need to be
doing more.
So where am I in my good deeds?
Where do I see growth?
For some people, maybe they're more charitable.
Maybe their prayers are the same, but their
charity has increased.
For others, maybe it's their prayers, or their
Qur'an, or their du'as, or their,
you know, community service, or their khidmah to
their family.
But you should see growth, right?
So the rest is talking about like, you
know, just not really even factoring in, you
know, that we should be always evolving, but
rather getting stagnant, which is very normal, when
you're so tired from pursuing dunya, that you
don't have time to care about your akhira.
And that's where a lot of us are,
right?
We're so tired from work, and taking care
of the kids, and cooking, and cleaning, that
it's like, well, I'm just too tired.
I can't do more than that.
But that's where it's an inversion.
You've got your priorities totally upside down.
The fatigue that you should feel, not in
a good way, right?
It's kind of like when you have a
really good workout, right?
Your muscles are sore, but you will never
regret that.
Nobody regrets having a really good workout, right?
Yeah, it feels uncomfortable, but you're like, I
feel so accomplished.
And you know that your body is enjoying
that, because, you know, it's like you put
it to the test.
The cells are so happy.
It's detoxing.
There's all this great stuff happening.
Inflammation is going down.
So yeah, you might feel, you know, the
fatigue, but it's still an enjoyable thing.
Same when you're restless for the sake of
Allah.
That's why the Prophet ﷺ, when he was
up in the middle of the night, and
Aisha, r.a, his wife, was like, your
legs are swollen.
You know, what was his answer?
Should I not be a grateful servant?
He took delight in feeling the effects of
his worship, even though physically it was, you
know, there was a reaction to that.
But he obviously was in a state of
gratitude to Allah.
So resting is speaking about, you know, not
really doing enough deeds here.
I'm astonished by the one who is certain
of the world and its termination, yet he
is at ease with it.
You know, like all of this is going
to come to an end.
All of it.
It's all going to disappear before our eyes.
I mean, we won't be here to witness
the disappearance of it, but it will be
gone.
And, you know, that's why it's, I think,
important to study history or visit like sites,
you know, if you've ever been to like
historical sites, and you just stand there and
you're like, like I remember many years ago,
I went to Jordan, and we went to
Petra, you know, you just stand there and
you're like, this is a civilization, this is
a city built into the mountains.
These, they're gone, you know, or the pyramids,
wherever you go, you just see like, the
remnants of the people there, they're gone.
And then the really good thought is to
think about, yeah, okay, where we are now,
some of us are in midlife, right?
You know, in 50 years or less, we
will be gone and we will be forgotten.
Yeah, three generations, there you go.
So in three, after you die, right?
Or no.
That's true.
That's true.
That's actually a very good.
Absolutely.
No, it's a very good reminder, sobering and
sad, but it's true, because you think of
yourself, like my duas, yeah, I mean, I'll
generally say all of my previous, you know,
what I remember, but that's not an everyday
dua.
My grandparents, my parents, you're right.
So three generations, there you go.
We'll be forgotten.
So no matter how important you think you
are, it's all going to come to an
end.
But we shouldn't be, you know, at ease
with that.
We should think about that, especially for our
children moving forward and thinking about what their
children are going to experience, you know.
So just reflecting on these things.
I'm astonished by the one who is knowledgeable
on the tongue, yet he is ignorant in
the heart.
That's actually very deep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What do we make of that one?
All right.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Empty words or words that have not reached
the heart, you know, they're on the tongue.
So you might have, you know, read things,
heard things.
So you sound very convincing, but in your
heart of hearts, there's nothing there.
You're not acting on it, right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
This is all, that's why the performance, you
know, that we give, I mean, then this
is what the nafs does.
It puts such an emphasis on the outward
appearance and how we appear to others and
our likability.
Women were very susceptible to this too, right?
Being people pleasers.
So we're always thinking about the outward reality
or perception instead of the inward.
And that's again, the lifelong struggle.
So yeah, to have knowledge on the tongue,
but ignorant in the heart.
I'm astonished by the one who purifies himself
with water yet he is not pure of
heart.
This is honestly also some to think about
people who, you know, they make wudu, they
make ghusl, but their hearts are filled with
disease.
So again, we're stuck on that ritualistic.
We're stuck on the outward, but then we
don't think about purifying the heart.
The heart has to be purified.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Fiqh and tasawwuf absolutely go hand in hand.
You can't have one or without the other,
because if you're outwardly focused and you're not
working, that's what we just talked about.
You've become, it's the gateway to nifaq because
you're just performing and vice versa.
You know, if you're inwardly, you know, thinking
that you're, you know, this illuminated person, but
you're abandoning sharia, you're abandoning the rules, then
you're writing your own deen.
That's not Islam.
Islam has to go through the proper source,
right?
Which is the and the Sunnah of the
Prophet ﷺ.
So if you're in those, you know, within
those boundaries, and then simultaneously aware of your
own fallibility, then you will spend more time
again preoccupied with yourself, which is the next,
you know, reflection.
I'm astonished by the one who is preoccupied
with the flaws of others, yet he is
heedless of his own flaws.
And this is, I think, again, just a
good exercise to catch yourself, you know, whenever
to see the reality of the nafs is
whenever negative vices or, you know, poor qualities
or traits or characteristics are being described, whether
it's, you know, general kind of, if you're
watching something, you're reading something, but it's talking
about bad habits, bad qualities.
If your mind veers off, and you start
to think of other people who have those
qualities, right?
That's what we're talking about.
Because it's the nafs doesn't want you to
come into reality of your own flaws.
So it will immediately direct you to other
people.
So you start thinking, oh, yeah, you know,
for example, you know, what's the buzzword now?
The buzzword that everybody knows and everybody diagnoses
is narcissists, right?
He's such a narcissist.
She's such a narcissist.
We're throwing out all these labels on other
people.
Every one of us is a narcissist, believe
it or not.
That is literally the quality of the nafs
is we are narcissistic.
The nafs will center itself.
The nafs sees the world through its lens.
We're all narcissists at the end of the
day, to different degrees.
Some are more than others.
That's the nafs, right?
But to think that they have that, I
don't have that is prime time, like, you
know, delusion of the nafs.
So I would add Carl Jung.
Dr. Carl Jung.
Yeah, Carl Jung.
I would add him for this.
Yeah.
We have shadows.
Shadow self.
Absolutely.
Which is the same.
Yeah.
Yes.
Absolutely.
No, it's, it's, and they, you know, they
use psychology, psychological terms or like their own
sort of, you know, terminology to try to
distance themselves from spiritual language.
But the shadow self is really the ego
or the nafs.
These are all ancient concepts, universal to many
traditions that we have, you know, the social
and the personal like side.
And so anyway, but, but to be completely
preoccupied with other people and forget that you
yourself are susceptible to all these diseases is
another one of his many, many tricks, you
know, because now you're not even working on
yourself.
And then, um, the, the ending of this
beautiful council is by the one who knows
that all of us, uh, holds him yet
sins by the one who knows that he
dies alone, enters the grave alone and is
held to account alone yet heeds other people.
That's powerful, right?
We're all going to die alone.
So if we're heating other people, that means
we're putting other people always before a law,
right?
We'd, we'd rather, you know, people please rather
like, Oh, I can't say this.
I can't do that because you know, I
don't want to be ousted.
I don't want to be ostracized from the
group.
I don't want people not to like me.
I don't, I want to be included.
So we're willing to compromise our principles, our
faith for the, you know, but not realizing
that none, they're not going to benefit us.
None of them are going to go with
us.
We will face God alone.
So all of that was for naught, right?
It's right.
Um, but again, wake up.
There is no God except me truly.
And Muhammad is my slave and adversary.
So this was the first council.
Again, a lot to think about.
Um, but you know, as I mentioned in
the beginning, we, if we just start to
elevate our standard, you know, of what we're
going to, how we're going to really be
in this world, start to, you know, engage
with the world and people in this way,
where it's like, we're, we are rational.
We're rationalizing because that's what we're meant to
do.
That's why we were brought onto this world
is not to just be passive consumers, not
to just eat and drink and sleep and,
you know, have relations and, you know, just
indulge in every nuts.
We were designed to do that on a
need basis.
But what we're really created to do is
to rationalize so that we can come to
an understanding of our creator.
And we have, because we're in the, you
know, ended times we've, we're totally inverted.
Humanity's inverted.
We're rationalizing very little people like how many
times do you hear?
I don't have time to think about that.
What?
I don't want to think about that.
It's too much.
Oh my God.
I can't.
I'm just too tired.
I don't want to think about it.
Well, if you don't want to think about
it, what do you want to do instead?
Right?
Give me that pint of ice cream.
Turn on the TV.
Numb yourself.
Exactly.
So we're very indulging in all of the
other aspects of our creation, but those were
created to give us temporary relief and sustain
us, but not to define us, right?
What defines us is our intellectual capacity.
So we have to restore that.
And that's, you know, we're the dean of
knowledge.
We're the people of knowledge, right?
Muslims are supposed to be the people of
knowledge.
And so we have to restore that first
within ourselves.
And the way to do that, just start
to raise the bar, you know, and then
to pause when we're reading and think about
things and analyze it and try to, you
know, see things from a deeper perspective, inshallah.
Yes?
Okay.
Sure.
So.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Right.
Exactly.
Sure.
No, that's, I mean, you, I think you
just explained it, that logic, if it's, if
it comes through like the lens of the
individual and it's their own definition, that's not
logic, right?
Logic, first of all, the definition of logic
is the art and science of reasoning and
reasoning well.
So when you put it in those terms,
right?
How do you reason?
Well, then you have to figure out, well,
by which standard or metric are you reasoning
well, right?
Because if you're a scientist, you know, you
have a certain criteria.
For believers, our reasoning is aligned with haq,
with what does it fall within the boundaries
of what is in the Quran and the
Sunnah.
That is logic.
Anything outside of that is opinion.
So it doesn't fall in, it doesn't fit
the criteria, right?
So once you establish that that's the type
of logic we're talking about, I'm not talking
about like, you know, like I said, a
scientist's definition of logic or a mathematician's necessarily
definition of logic.
In fact, I think it was Saidna Ali
who said, radiallahu anhu, he said that if
our deen was based on logic, we would
mess, wipe the bottom of our feet, right?
Not the top of our feet.
Because to say that, you know, the mind
will tell you, well, doesn't it make more
sense that we wipe the bottom of our
feet for when we, you know, do wudu
or tayammum?
Wouldn't that make more sense?
But we are following a criteria that was
set forth by Allah and His Messenger ﷺ.
They're the ones who define the logic for
us.
And if the Prophet ﷺ said wipe the
top of the foot, right?
Then that's the logical thing to do.
You get it?
So they are the ones who define it
for us.
And outside of that, it's personal opinion.
And it's very important that we can humble
ourselves and know that if we convince ourselves
of something that goes against what Allah has
decreed or what Allah has made clear or
what the Prophet ﷺ has put forth, then
we are actually outside of reasoning.
We're now in the realm of nafs and,
you know, and a demonic inclination and whispering
because it's opposing Allah and His Messenger, right?
So we convince ourselves that that makes sense
or it's true or it doesn't quite click
for me.
Well, yeah, that's for you.
That's your own brain is deluding you.
But if it's Allah and His Messenger ﷺ
said it, it's haqq.
It's uncontestable.
You can't question it because they establish what
truth is.
And if you don't have a standard definition
of truth or, you know, like a criterion
for what is truth, then it becomes subjective,
right?
And this is the age we're in now
where everybody, we're postmodernists anyway, want to say
that truth is subjective.
You know, you have your truth, I have
my truth, and then we get in the
realm of insanity, which is what we're seeing
now.
It's like people have gone mad because they
can't agree on a single truth.
For us, the truth is what Allah says
and what His Messenger ﷺ says.
So that's it.
And that's the test, you know, the litmus
test.
If something is logical, is it in accordance
with Allah and His Messenger?
If you're outside of that, you're illogical.
Yes.
I hope that's clear.
Yes.
No.
Right.
Sure.
No, it's a great question about how to,
you know, instruct and gently remind, especially when
youth or teens, you know, they get a
little crafty and they try to, you know,
finagle their way out of things or find
loopholes and, you know, and they do that.
And that's totally nuts.
But I think, you know, just reminding them
that you, you know, that Allah also has
other, you know, there's plenty of verses that
you can point out that actually not contradict
anything, but there's a balance, right?
That, you know, everything's by intention.
So if you think you're going to, you
know, purposefully miss something and then try to,
you know, what is the word, try to
not hack the system, but like, you know,
cheat the system, you know, and try to
like, think like, oh, I can just, you
know, retroactively apply this to that.
You can't do that.
That's not how it works.
You know, he's looking at the heart, the
state of the heart.
So, but I think it's more important to
teach children how to think logically and critically
first, you know, instead of using these tools
to try to correct them when they're wrong.
I think it's a much more effective strategy
to just teach them as a way of
instructing, like, let's look at what is logical
and critical thinking in Islam.
Let's talk about that as a topic, right?
First.
And then when they, you know, have a
logical fallacy or try to, you know, use
some sort of crafty way, you can then
redirect them to, you know, well, that's not
really falling in line with what we talked
about, but to, you know, I feel like
we need to teach children how to think
better and how to also be sincere, you
know, and how to know that to Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, it's really
about the heart.
And that's the most important.
That's what he says, that nothing will benefit
us more than the qalbun saleem that we
present, you know, so we can try to
get, you know, you know, try to be
all smart and whatever, witty and conniving, but
none of that is gonna, like Allah obviously
knows what's in our hearts and you can't
outsmart Allah.
So why would you even attempt to do
that?
How about we just try to be sincere?
So if you are tired, you're missing your
prayers because of, you know, some legitimate reason
or you missed your prayer, then maybe you
should, you know, appeal to his tawbah and
forgiveness instead of trying to, you know, absolve
yourself of any accountability by using this very
flawed logic, you know, don't do that.
Just go return to Allah and say, you
know, Allah, I'm weak.
I made a mistake.
Please help me, you know, guide me, make
me better, but try to, you know, help
them understand that their whole approach is just,
is very nefsy because they're trying to, you
know, get something, like hack something and that's
just not how it works with our creator.
Oh yeah, non-parenting, yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
That's a good answer.
Totally.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, no, those are what we call, like,
the traps of, you know, the nefs, like
Iblis and the nefs are both always setting
us up to fall into these, you know,
traps where we think, like, we can, like
I said, find a loophole or finagle our
way out of rules and try to, you
know, find a way out of these things.
But Allah, obviously, knows one's intention.
So I like that phrasing of, yeah, premeditated
sitting is not acceptable and it's not going
to fly.
At the end of the day, like I
said, it all comes down to intention, right?
So we will, inshallah, go ahead and wrap
up because it's Isha, so we'll do a
closing du'a.
Subhanak Allahumma wa bihamdika ash-shadu an la
ilaha ila anta astaghfiru wa la tubu ilayk.
Allahumma salim wa salam wa barak ala Sayyidina
wa Mawlana wa Habibina Muhammad salallahu alaihi wa
salam wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam
wa salim wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
Ameen.
JazakAllah khairan.
Everybody, inshallah, we'll continue next month with more
councils.
I look forward to having you all.