Hosai Mojaddidi – Foundations Of The Spiritual Path Ust. – Monthly Sisterhood Halaqa – Part 5
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AI: Transcript ©
Livestream, right?
Okay, bismillah.
All right, alhamdulillah.
Just making sure everything's set and then we'll
begin.
All right, bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim, alhamdulillah,
wassalatu wassalamu ala ashraf al-anbiya wa al
-mursaleen, Sayyidina wa mawlana wa habibina Muhammad sallallahu
alaihi wasallam, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa
sallam, tasliman kathiran.
Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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 it's, 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 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, 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 Zarroq 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, I can share
that as well offline.
But that is a wonderful text and you
know, as I mentioned, the 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 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 dean 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 person 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 Quranic
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,
la adri, 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 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, 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 you, whatever it is,
you start using that particular fact or whatever
you read to 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 I, 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 just 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, al-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 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 knee-jerk answers when
we're giving advice or just operating.
There shouldn't be a reaction, right?
It should have some depth to it, and
depth requires let me kind of think about
it a little bit or let me consider
all the other 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 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 Dean 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 is, is,
does it align with the truth?
If it doesn't align with the truth, even
if it makes sense to me, right, if
there's a, if it's contradicting anything said by
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and His Messenger
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, then it's, even if
it makes sense to me that 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, that's really important.
And then significance, right?
When you're, and again, it's, 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 nasihah, 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, 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?
Allah's father 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 gonna participate and we're not, we're no
longer gonna 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 remember, remembering
we're, we have moral agency.
We, Allah will hold us accountable, you know,
and I was reading this 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 says in
Surah Al-Baqarah, verse 284, A'udhu Billahi
Minash Shaitanir Rajeem Lillahi Ma Fis Samawati Wa
Ma Fil Ard Wa In Tubdu Ma Fii
Anfusikum Aw Tukhfuhu Yuhasibukum Bihi Bihillah Fa Yaghfiru
Liman Yasha'u Wa Yu'adhibu Man Yasha
'u Wallahu Ala Kulli Shay'in Qadeer 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 in 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 also 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, when I
juxtapose a list like this, and then I
look at a text like this, which is
Imam al-Ghazali's Book of Councils, 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, 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?
The Quwwata Al-Aqliya.
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,
it 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 counsel and then we
can break it up for any Q&A.
But I'll just read the introduction because the
translation says here, The title of this treatise
by Imam Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali, rahimahullah,
is Al-Mawa'idh fil-Hadith al-Qudsiya,
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, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
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 also
said, and I will be an intercessor and
a witness for him.
So this hadith encourages, you know, people to
create 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, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, but
they're attributed on the authority of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
And there's a full explanations on how the
some of these hadith are categorized and how,
you know, that 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, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
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, sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam.
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, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim.
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 subhanahu wa ta'ala benefit us
by it.
The first council, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
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 subhanahu
wa ta'ala 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.
So that's the first counsel.
So again, these are hadith Qudsi.
So Allah 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?
How do we interpret something like that?
Does that mean 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?
You can experience 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 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 the other, of things that
they don't know and see.
So they want to hold on to what's
real and tangible, right?
So it's, if it's, if I can see
it and it's real, then I want it,
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,
you're just not accepting exactly that, 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.
If you look at the dress of some
adults, you're like, what?
We've lost complete sense of decency and decorum
and what's appropriate.
There'd be, you know, they're behaving like children.
I mean, there's just a lot of frivolity
in our cultures.
And so, yes, exactly.
Exactly.
Absolutely.
Now, 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 world view
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, I need
to purge, I need to purge.
We've, alhamdulillah, we moved 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.
Well, you 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
find 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'm 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 akhira.
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
you're not 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
Quran, or their duas, 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 afida.
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?
And 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's 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, peace be upon him,
when he was up in the middle of
the night and Aisha, may Allah have mercy
on her, 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, there's, 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 when I went to Jordan and we
went to Petra, you know, you just stand
there and you're like, this was a civilization.
This was 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 a really good thought is to
think about, yeah, okay, where we are now,
some of us are in midlife, right?
And, 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?
Well, your grandkids will remember you.
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.
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 through.
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?
Right.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Empty words or words that have not reached
the heart, you know, so you sound very
convincing, but in your heart of hearts, there's
nothing there.
You're not acting on it.
Exactly.
Exactly.
This is all.
That's why the performance, you know, that we
give, I mean, this is what the nafs
does.
It puts such an emphasis on the outward
appearance and how we appear to others and
our likability.
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 something to think about.
People who, you know, they don't have a
heart.
So again, we're stuck on the 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 go hand in hand.
You can't have one without the other because
if you're outwardly focused and you're not working,
that's what we just talked about.
You've become, 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 book of Allah and
the Sunnah of the Prophet.
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 with yourself, which is the next 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 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
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 narcissist, right?
He's such a narcissist.
She's such a narcissist.
And 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 because we
have shadows shadow self.
Absolutely.
Which is the same.
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.
So anyway, 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 the ending of this beautiful counsel
is by the one who knows that Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala 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.
That's powerful.
Right?
We're all going to die alone.
So if we're heeding other people, that means
we're putting other people always before Allah.
Right?
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 want to be included.
So we're willing to compromise our principles, our
faith for the, you know, but not realizing
that 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?
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, but, you
know, as I mentioned in the beginning, 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
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 nefs.
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, end times, we've, we're totally inverted.
Humanity's inverted.
We're rationalizing very little.
People don't, 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 din of ilm, we're the
din 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 is 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.
Right, exactly.
Sure, I mean, 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 Haqq,
with what, does it fall within the boundaries
of what is in the Qur'an and
the Sunnah.
That is logic.
Anything outside of that is opinion.
So, it doesn't fall, and 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, 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, sallallahu
alayhi wasallam.
They're the ones who define the logic for
us.
And if the Prophet, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, said
wipe the top of the foot, right?
Then that's the logical thing to do.
You get it?
So they're 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, sallallahu alayhi wasallam, 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 other.
It doesn't quite click for me.
Well, yeah, for you, your own brain is
deluding you.
But if it's Allah and His Messenger 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 or
a 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 post-modernists 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 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?
Right.
Sure.
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 enough.
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, 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.
He's looking at the heart, the state of
the heart.
But I think it's more important to teach
children how to think logically and critically first.
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.
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, 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 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 that we present, you
know, so we can try to get, 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 toba 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 they're trying to attack something, and
that's just not how it works with our
creator.
Oh, yeah.
On parenting, yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
That's a good answer.
Yeah.
No, those
are what we call, like, the traps of,
you know, the nefs, like in 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, alhamdulillah.
We will, inshallah, go ahead and wrap up,
because it's Isha, so we'll do a closing
du'a.
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.
Jazakumullahu khairan everybody.
Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.
Jazakumullahu khairan.
Everybody, inshallah, we'll continue next month with more
councils, and I look forward to having you
all.
Barakallahu feekum.
Fatiha.
.