Husain Sattar – Fundamentals of Tasawwuf #4
AI: Summary ©
The importance of human beings being composed of the body and soul is emphasized, with pride and arrogance being a detrimental to health and knowledge being a detrimental to health and knowledge. The speakers emphasize the need to recognize pride and avoid becoming dangerous, as well as to be humble and aware to elevate oneself beyond humanity and achieve spiritual growth. The importance of following rules and avoiding distractions is emphasized, along with the importance of learning the stat of one's nails to determine its status and avoiding risk of losing their victory. The speakers also encourage attendees to accept their guilt and allow them to participate in their agenda, while emphasizing the importance of rewarding individuals for their accomplishments and offering rewards to those who participate.
AI: Summary ©
So we're continuing with our, discussion,
essentially of the human being and how the
human being can succeed both in this life
and the here
after. And in order to elucidate some of
these principles and points, we've,
been dissecting out what actually a human being
consists of. Meaning, I've highlighted to you both
from the Quran
and just from common sense that human beings
are basically made up of 2,
are composed of 2 parts
and that one of the parts is the
body and that the other part is the
soul.
Now if you recall we mentioned that the
body is created and the soul comes from
'alam al amr' and this ayah which I
just recited to you is very beautifully summarizing
the fact that there are two forms of
creation. Allah states himself
that to him belongs
the creation and the command.
So remember that the body is
created,
and that it is sustained by things created
and that we should never be deceived by
anything otherwise.
So that the body, for example, comes from
dirt and will always be sustained from dirt.
Houses that we live in all come from
the ground. The food that we eat comes
from the ground. The clothes that we wear
eventually comes from the ground.
All of these things that sustain us, they,
come all of the things that sustain our
bodies come from the similar material from which
the body was created.
And similarly we mentioned that a human being
has a soul and that that soul is
sustained by things Amri or spiritual
so that
Quran is an excellent
sustenance for the soul.
And reciting salawat and Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
is an excellent sustenance for the soul.
Salah
etcetera.
All good deeds basically are sustenance for the
soul.
And from this, we also recognize that not
only do we have to sustain our own
souls, but that when we're raising children, we
also have to recognize that just as we
are just as all human beings are composed
of 2 parts, so too are our children
composed of of 2 parts.
And that while we place place tremendous emphasis
on raising the body of a child by
making sure that they get milk, by making
sure that they wear nice clothes, by making
sure that they sleep in a nice crib,
at the same time, we should recognize that
we need to raise the show the soul
of our children as well.
And we had a lengthy discussion about that
in the last gathering. Those of you who
were present may have notes or will remember
it otherwise you can review the recordings at
another time.
Now one of the important
principles that I also highlighted was that the
soul should be given space in order to
grow and that basically the body and the
soul exist in a restricted environment, meaning that
they exist in a contained space and that
if the body becomes too large,
too much emphasis is given to the body,
the soul will eventually become constricted,
will not be able to grow and instead
will wither away.
And we discussed in detail some of the
examples of this maybe in one of the
very initial gatherings.
Last time we spoke about the nutrients of
the soul, and again I highlighted to you
that any good deed basically is an important
nutrient. And we also talked about the fact
that when you just as the body goes
through stages, so when you have a child,
it's a baby. It's an infant. Then it's
a baby, then an infant, then an adolescent,
then eventually a teenager, then it becomes an
adult, and it reaches its full stage of
maturity. In the same way, the soul goes
through phases until it eventually reaches maturity.
And those 4 phrase 4 phases I elucidated
for you. The first was called
towards Allah, meaning the soul basically wakes up
and recognizes that it needs to rise beyond
the body, and it needs to
begin to head towards what pleases Allah, which
would basically be the sharia and the sunnah.
Eventually, the soul achieves a state in which
it is called which it travels within Allah.
It's called and
basically that basically means that the the person
keep doing this patient thing the person gets
very caught up in
Allah
Meaning that really becomes their primary focus. They
really just they're thinking about Allah. They're excited
about Allah. They go every time they pray,
they have tears coming down their eyes. Every
time they
touch the Quran, it's as if the verses
are being revealed before them. It's one of
the initial stages in the progression of the
soul. Eventually, the soul wakes up to the
reality that,
it cannot exist like that, but instead that
it must exist among creation and that the
Sharia binds it to exist among creation so
that it needs to get married, it needs
to eat food, it needs to have friends,
it needs to work a job, etcetera.
But the soul eventually comes to a state
in which is the final
mature state of the soul, which it's connected
to Allah
but it acts like a normal human being.
And that's called
travelling,
sorry,
travelling connected to Allah but
within everyday human life. So that basically you
look like everyone else and you act like
everyone else and you work, you know, like
everyone else, but your heart is constantly connected
to Allah
And that's really the final mature stage of
the soul. Now in the rush that occurred
in the last gathering, there were some points
that I left out which on later reflection
I wanted to add.
And, one of them I actually left off
at the very end of the gathering. I
said, please remind me about arrogance and pride
existing in this journey because it is one
of the common destructive,
mechanisms by which Chapon can
knock down a person while they travel on
this journey. Now before I can discuss this,
I need to actually highlight one important principle,
and that is Chathon is a very, very
advanced enemy.
Shepan is a very advanced enemy.
He attacks
every human being at their own level.
He attacks every human being at their own
level so much so that when we were
studying in madrasah,
our teachers used to say that the Shepan
of the Talib is a Talib,
and that the Shepaan of an Alem is
an Alem,
okay? Meaning that if the Shepa, for example,
if somebody is an Alem of the Deen
and they understand hadith and Quran, Shepaan will
use hadith and Quran to deceive them, okay,
so that they won't be able to perform
what they should normally perform.
So Sha'aban is very advanced. He always attacks
you at your own level
using your own arguments against you,
and, and sometimes you don't even recognize it.
Now why is this important? Because as a
person makes these these as a person's soul
grows,
now Chaitan will begin to attack at that
level of growth.
So I'll tell you that one of the
most common
and most detrimental state, attacks of chetan
on the very, very early stages of of
spiritual progress
is pride
and arrogance.
Now how does this occur? What happens is
when an individual
begins to recognize that they need to turn
towards Allah and that Allah really is the
most their connection with Allah really is the
most important aspect of their existence.
What that does is that creates a distinction
between them and everyone else. Because the vast
majority of human beings are heedless,
and the vast majority of human beings are
not necessarily in these, you know, progressing through
these spiritual states. As I told you, you
know, 99.9%
of people are basically spiritually dead in this
day and
age. And the Muslims themselves often don't even
recognize the importance of developing themselves spiritually. Islam
has become much more about organizations and activities
and much less about Allah. I mean,
how many times have you heard anybody give
talks
about Allah?
It's so rare nowadays.
You know, we have talks, but they're really
about Allah.
So
we should recognize that as a person begins
to enter upon my in my experience and
from what I've learned from Shaykh Zulfikar, when
a person enters upon this journey,
pride can very quickly seep in because here's
what happens. A person begins to change,
and as they begin to change, they look
at other people around them and they start
thinking, I'm better than this person.
Like, for example, you know, they'll and I'm
just giving one example and not to pick
on a particular example. A brother will all
of a sudden think, okay, this for all
of a sudden figure out that it's sunnah,
for example, to wear a turban and that
wore
a turban. So then the brother will decide
that, okay. Now I'm going to wear a
turban too. So then they'll begin to wear
a turban, and then they'll begin to look
down at everybody who doesn't wear a turban
because Chiffon will come to them and give
them this deception that somehow they've achieved something.
So so they'll begin to look down at
everybody else and say, he doesn't wear a
turban. He doesn't wear a turban. I wear
a turban. He doesn't wear a turban. He
doesn't wear a turban. I wear a turban.
He doesn't wear a turban, etcetera.
Right? Or it might be even something as
simple as,
you know, praying in the masjid. So the
person who prays 2 prayers in the masjid
will look at the person who says only
prays 1 and say, I pray 2, he
prays 1. Alright? Or it might be something
like
it could be anything. I mean, in a
in a sister's case, it might be wearing
hijab. So a sister somehow wakes up. She
she comes to the reality that she needs
to now progress towards Allah. So she's gonna
make this big sacrifice, so she puts on
the hijab. Or it might be that she
puts on the niqab. Alright? And so she
feel she sees herself elevated.
Very quickly very quickly, Shaytan comes, and the
first attack he makes is to say,
You're doing great. You know? Because this is
how Shaytan works.
This is great, this this hijab and niqab
that you're wearing. And did you see that,
you know, that this sister and this sister
and this sister, they don't do that? And
then what happens is you begin to think
yourself better than another person.
Now recognize that the most detrimental
poison
to the soul is pride.
The most detrimental poison that can come in
the soul is pride. Why? Because Allah because
the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam states that the
person who has an Adam's worth of pride
in their heart will not enter Jannah.
So imagine that a person makes the entire
journey and then somewhere along the journey, if
Shepon can nail you with the arrow of
pride, boom, he got you.
Because if he gets you with pride, you
just knocked you out of Jannah because that
Adam's worth of pride can never enter into
Jannah.
Right?
So pride for the salik, for the striving
believer
for the striving believer always becomes the most
dangerous battle.
Now
so we have to be very, very careful
about pride. We have to be very careful
about pride. And there's the key there's 2
key things that help you to battle this
type of pride.
Number 1, to recognize that you have not
done anything,
but it is but if you have actually
done something, it's only because of Allah.
That okay. If you, for example let's say
that you, for example, pray 4 prayers in
the Masjid and another brother prays no prayers
in the Masjid. The fact that you even
show up for those 4 prayers has nothing
to do with any ability of your own.
It only has to do with the fact
that Allah
gave you the tawfiq to be there.
You understand the attitude? That is always the
attitude of the salikh.
That any progress I have made
is not because of me. It's because of
Allah
managed to find some,
you know, something good within me and accept
something little that I've done, and he gives
me the tawfiq to come to the masjid,
or he gives me the tawfiq to be
able to
put on a hijab or put on a
niqab or grow my beard or whatever it
might be.
So that's the first attitude that must exist
within the saliq, that all progress is from
Allah
Okay.
Someone remind me that I have to talk
about
being deceived by the states
in the journey because this was in my
mind for 3 days. I couldn't remember the
point. It just hit me. I don't wanna
lose it now because a very, very subtle
point. So remind me that. Don't be avoiding
being deceived by the states of the in
the journey.
Okay. So, basically, I was talking about, concept
number 1 that must exist within a human
being in order to avoid this type of
pride.
Now
the beautiful thing about this type of pride
is that
if you can avoid
see, Stephan knows that once your balloon begins
to rise
and your spirit begin begins to get elevated,
that if he can knock the air out
of the balloon, it'll all fall back down.
Right? You'll just basically collapse back to the
ground.
So his initial attack is always pride. This
at least in my experience, I'll say that
the most common
problem that I find within, you know, the
when they, you know, they come so far,
they wake up to the reality of this
world. They wake up to the reality of
the hereafter. They see that this world is
nothing, that the hereafter is everything. And then
they finally figure out that this is where
they should invest themselves and that they need
to make an effort to be able to
develop themselves. Then what happens? They start to
develop themselves, and then they get caught up
in this. It's a quagmire.
It's quicksand. They just quick they just it
just drowns them. It just drowns them. So
we have to be very careful about this.
Now the beauty of this is that the
journey itself
resolves the issue.
The journey itself resolve resolves the issue. How
so? Because once a person begins to progress
and he gets in the state of he
or she gets in the state of
so that now they actually get caught up
in Allah
then the problem dissipates completely.
Why?
Because the only reason they're able to make
this comparison between them and Zayd and them
and Bakr, okay, me, I'm different than Zayd
and I'm different than Bakr, is because they
actually exist in a realm in which they
still compare themselves against other human beings.
So for example, if I just raise myself
a little bit
amongst everybody else, then I can make a
comparison and I can say he's rich, he's
poor. Right? And so we tend to do
this all the time. This is how we
exist. We say he's educated, he's uneducated.
He's rich, he's poor.
He's intelligent,
he's not intelligent.
So these are the types of comparisons that
we make because we we exist on a
very, very superficial plane.
Alright? But if you can manage to elevate
yourself beyond that plane of humanity and instead
you can finish yourself in Allah and his
magnificence,
then you would no longer make make such
comparisons because they don't become relevant anymore. K.
Now I'm
talking all very theoretical. Let me just give
you a practical example. Let let's just say
that there's an ant farm.
Alright? And you look down at the ant
farm. Now when you look at the ant
farm, do you say,
well, this ant is dark black, and this
ant is light black, and this ant is
rich. He has 3 grains of sand in
his area, and this ant is poor, and
this ant is strong, and this ant is
weak. You don't make any distinction. Right? All
the ants are the same. Why are all
the ants the same? Because you're so above
the creation of an ant that it does
it doesn't even concern you. It's just like
a foolish discussion. If somebody were to come
to you and say, I was looking at
this ant farm. Did you notice that that
ant's a little darker than the rest? So
what are you wasting your time for, brother?
You don't have other better things to do
than sit and stare at this ant farm.
It becomes a foolish distinction. Right? Because you've
because you're beyond that level of,
of interaction.
So for us, we become when we're spiritually
immature, we make distinctions. Now we do this
physically as well. Okay? For example,
like, I've given this example, and I, you'll
I've I've said it before. I'll say it
again. You know, I've got my 6 year
old son, Zakaria. Right? So Zakaria,
he makes a big distinction. Right? He comes
to me and he's I say he said,
oh, there was a brother. He came and
said salam to me. I said, why don't
you play with him? Papa, he's 4.
He's 4. I'm 6.
I said, oh, he's 4 and you're 6?
Wow. So, yeah, papa, I'm 6. I play
with 6 year olds. Don't you know that?
So, look, he sees his body as immature.
Right? He makes distinctions between these things. But
me, I I'm above that. I'm beyond their
age. And so I look at both of
them and say, these are both kids. These
are both kids. It makes no difference who's
5 and who's 6. That's just a foolish
thing. Right? So when you're immature physically, then
you begin to make these types of comparisons.
Right? But as you become mature, you begin
to recognize that they didn't really ever mean
anything and that they're actually foolish and superficial.
Now the proof of this is so when
you spiritually begin to develop yourself, initially, you're
very spiritually immature. You've become 2 and everybody
else is 1. Okay? So now you say
I'm 2, I'm 2, I'm 2. Right? And
everybody else is 1. But actually what's happening
is, Shevon is deceiving you to do that
because that's actually a form of pride in
progress.
All right? Pride in progress. So we begin
to think we're something big.
You know, I have my beard. I don't
think about the fact that for the last
20 years, I didn't have it. I just
think about the fact that today I have
it and everybody else doesn't. Right? And it's
ajeev that people will just get into this,
and they'll begin to criticize everyone, not re
not remembering who they were just yesterday
or sometimes even just 2 days ago. Okay?
So that's the important one important distinction. Now
the beauty of this is there's an eye
of the Quran, which, you know, highlights this
very, very beautifully. Because once a person gets
elevated and becomes finished in Allah, then what
happens is they get so caught up in
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and his perfection, and
his magnificence,
and his greatness that everybody begins to look
the same.
All the everybody becomes to look like little
ants. There's no distinction. Even if they were
to call themselves rich and poor, you laugh
at it. Just like my son says he's
6 and the other boy and he's 6
and the other boy's 4, I look at
them and I kinda laugh. The way that
people make distinctions, one guy says I'm rich,
and one guy says I'm poor. 1 guy
says I'm smart, one guy says I'm not.
You would laugh at those distinctions cause that
you know that they mean nothing in the
context of the greatness of Allah
Okay? And what does Allah
say? Just to highlight this. What?
See Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is highlighting this
principle in this Ayah.
Allah is rich
and all of you are poor, be it
Bill Gates,
right? Be it
any of the people who you deem to
be the most wealthy in your community.
It doesn't matter. Because in the context of
Allahu Hani,
in that context, when you begin to see
the world in that view, then what happens?
Everyone becomes
knocked down to equality.
Because the distinctions between you are so minute
compared to the vast wealth of Allah that
it makes no difference. So once you begin
to say Allahu Akbar and you truly appreciate
that Allahu
Akbar,
then everyone else becomes the same. Doesn't matter
how much he how far he can swing
a bat and hit a ball. It doesn't
matter how much he can shoot a ball
through a hoop. It doesn't there it's all
foolish.
It's all foolish. There is no distinction between
people.
The only distinction then becomes the distinction
that is established
by Allahu Akbar,
which is Taqwa.
Okay? So that now that this distinction exists,
but Allah will make that distinction on the
day of judgment.
And the only thing we do is we
face Allah and we seek to be as
close to him as possible. We don't worry
about the people behind us, except that we
try to guide them along the path as
well. So is that very clear? So that
was a very important point that I wanted
to make that, you know, we have to
be very careful that as we begin to
make this progress,
that we never look down upon another person
and we never criticize another person and that
we always appreciate that this is Allah's home.
If he brings somebody in here, we have
no right to criticize his guests. And I
will tell you, I have witnessed with my
own eyes and my own personal experience, the
day people begin to pick on Allah's guests,
that's the day that they will be thrown
out from the house. I mean, come on.
If I invite you to my house for
dinner and you come to my house and
you say, oh, why did you invite him?
And why did you invite him? And don't
you couldn't you figure out someone better than
him? You think I'm gonna invite you next
time? You're the last guy on my list,
right? You're the last guy on my list.
Now you come into Allah's house and you
begin to pick and choose and start criticizing,
oh, why is this guy here? He doesn't
have his beard. Why is this guy here?
He doesn't, you know, didn't you see yesterday
he was out doing that one particular sin?
Once you begin to make those distinctions,
you are now picking on the guests of
Allah, and you have just shot yourself in
the foot. You have just shot yourself in
the foot. It's just soon to be that
you'll be thrown out of the house. So
you have to be very, very careful. And
this is why when we go to Hajj,
for example, you know, one of the major
mistakes in Hajj, what occurs, we begin to
criticize the people and we say, why are
all these people so pushy and they have
no manners? As if I have some great
manners. Right? This is what we begin to
do. We say, well, brother, Hodge was awesome.
But, man, these people, they just these you
ever see those Hodgeies that come from Africa?
They wrap themselves around each other and they
just bust everybody down. You know, don't didn't
they learn manners? I wish I could stand
up and give a lecture on manners over
there. You know, I've heard people say these
kind of things, but what you don't appreciate
is that these are all Allah's creation
and that every single person who came to
that gathering, that was Allah's gathering,
he invited.
And so who he brought actually is up
to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. We have no
right to judge, no right to criticize. Instead,
the key as the key concept to succeeding
at Hajj is what? I'm the least deserving
to be here. And I'm waiting for someone
to actually find out how sinful I am
and pick me up and throw me out
of the gathering. It's just Allah's mercy that
he overlooked my my multitude of mistakes
and allowed me to be here today. So
if you ever go on Hajj, remember that
that is the dominant theme. More important than
all anything else I could teach you about
Hajj is that the success of Hajj lies
in this one theme, which is that I
am the least deserving to be here. How
could it be that Allah it's amazing how
merciful Allah is that he allows me to
even be in this gathering. And that if
anybody, you know, if if anybody bumps me,
it doesn't matter because I actually deserve to
not even come. You know, if anybody steps
on me, it doesn't matter because I deserve
not to come. If somebody takes my space
in the hotel, it doesn't matter because I
never even deserved to come. So the fact
that I'm in the gathering is the greatest
blessing.
And the same thing with any gathering, I
mean, you know, you come here and then
you start looking around and and there's a
wide variety of people that come and everybody
has been invited by Allah and everybody has
a different character about them. You know? Some
people are louder. Some people are quieter. You
know? Some people need more space. Some people
need less space. Some people take longer in
the bathroom. Some people take shorter in the
bathroom. You know, you're in line and you
say, you the guy opens the door 10
minutes later. You say, what's wrong with this
guy, man? Can't you see that the line
is out the door? You know? But we're
all different. That's just the way Allah created
us. But the point remains is that we
have to respect the fact that we are
Allah's guest. In each of these gatherings, we
are Allah's guest, and so we are just
happy that Allah allowed us to be here,
and we're finished in that. And so, again,
the the 2 key ways to avoid pride
and arrogance
in the initial phases of the journey are
number 1, to be cognizant that we are
it's only through the tawfiq of Allah that
we've been allowed to make this journey. And
number 2, to get to the point where
we actually get beyond that initial stage so
that as we get beyond that initial stage,
we get more
our our our you can say our focus
turns more towards Allah
so that we come under the guise of
this of these types of thoughts that highlight
that are highlighted by Allahu Ghani Wa Anzumunfuqara.
Alright. So that's an important thing. And now
so a lot of times people come to
me and they say, you know, I I
don't know what to do. There's all this
pride in me. I feel like I think,
like, I'm better than everyone. I think, like,
I should lead the prayer. I think, like,
people should be listening to me and respecting
me. So what's the solution?
The solution is my chef used to say
the solution is 2 things. Number 1, remember
your.
What does that mean? Go back in history
and remember who you really were and actually
who you probably are. Because remember, this is
just makeup.
Okay? It didn't change who you were.
This was just makeup, and we talked about
this a couple days ago. And then number
2 is to put extra time into your
so that you get to the point where
you are so drowned out in the greatness
of Allah that you begin to see that
actually these distinctions are all worthless. They they
all don't have any foundation to them.
All of you are, whether you be Bill
Gates, whether you be the poorest person or
the richest person in the world, it doesn't
matter
because it's in the context of Allah's wealth
that we make comparisons. It's in the context
of Allah's greatness that we make comparisons.
It's in the context of Allah's power that
we make comparisons.
Alright. So that's the first point that I
wanted to touch on that I was not
able to cover or actually I'd forgotten to
cover last time.
Now the second point that I wanted to
touch on, and I'm sorry that these are
just sort of random, but these were the
things that just popped in my mind as
I was reflecting on what I said after
I said it. The second point that I
wanted to highlight, or come to is that
remember that I mentioned that, that the key
factor that allows for spiritual growth is actually
the good deeds that we perform. And that
when you perform a myriad of good deeds,
you provide a a wide,
you provide a wide array of nutrients to
the soul and the soul will quickly grow
and elevate.
So, for example, making salawat, recitation of the
Quran, any good deed that you do will
always attract barakah from Allah
will attract the tawadju of Allah
fade from Allah
And it's that nur that causes you to
your your soul to grow. So the soul
grows with nur.
Now I want to what I would that
I already highlighted clearly in a previous lecture,
but there was one thing that I did
not touch upon and that is that
remember that as a
father,
okay, or as a husband,
and this is where I'm the point that
I left out last time. As a father
or as a husband, you have the responsibility
to
bring home the groceries for the family.
That's the best way to put it. You
have the responsibility
to bring home the groceries for the family.
Now let's take that physically because the physical
and the spiritual, they always correlate.
So physically, as a husband, you're you're the
one that's gonna go out or maybe your,
you know, your wife might do it, but,
you know, let's just say the primary responsibility
comes on you.
So you go out. You're gonna bring the
groceries. Right? And so you go to the
store. You bring the groceries. And if you
don't bring the groceries, the family doesn't eat.
So somebody has to bring the groceries. It's
usually gonna be the husband, and that's their
responsibility. So they bring home the physical groceries.
If the if the physical groceries are not
present, then the family will not be able
to grow, will not be able to be
sustained.
In the same way,
a lot of the spiritual
groceries that are brought home,
a a large portion of that is actually
dependent on
the the husband or the father.
How so? Well, one of the most common
ways by which there this responsibility
is put upon them is by praying the
Jema prayer.
So that every time
an individual prays the Jema prayer, they come
to the Masjid,
they
fill their grocery bag, their their spirit, let's
just say, with barakat,
and they take it home to the family
and the family benefits from that.
Is that clear?
So that when we come to the masjid
obviously, we come to the masjid because we're
mandated to do so, but I'm just telling
you the metaphysics behind it. When you come
to the masjid, what you're doing is you're
loading up on barakah. There is barakah here
that you can't get any place else in
the world.
This is the most special place in the
entire city
is the Masjid. You know, the best land
in any particular
locality is always the Masjid because it's upon
the Masjid that the barakat of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala descend, that the unwarrat of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala descend. Now it's mandated, right,
by the sunnah for the male to come
to the masjid once they reach adulthood and
to pray the jama'ah prayer. And when they
pray the jama'ah prayer, what they do is
they take that, they they load up on
barakah
and then they go home. And when they
go home, that barakah emanates to the entire
family
so that you feed your children, you feed
your wife.
K? Similarly, if you remember that, I think
was discussing this in maybe the lecture. Sometimes
these things get messed up in my mind,
but certainly, he was discussing the fact that
we shouldn't keep make our homes graveyards.
Right? That we should be praying some of
the prayers at home. And that that doesn't
mean the follow-up prayer, by the way. What
that means is that some of the sun
and the wafers should be prayed at home.
For example,
maybe you don't know this, but it's actually
sunnah to pray the sunnahs at home.
It's sunnah
to pray the sunnahs at home.
Now in this day and age, the ulema
generally recommend that you simply pray them in
the masjid because we're so irresponsible
that that we end up going home and
getting caught up in 10 things, and we
usually don't pray them. But if there was
an individual who was very disciplined,
right, then ideally, the place where the sunnah
should be prayed is actually at home because
that grows a certain amount of Barakah. Remember
that whenever you pray, you're attracting Allah's Nuhl,
you're attracting Barakah,
and that then provides important nutrients for the
home and for the family as well.
So as
you can say leaders of the family, right,
and as let's make put it this way,
as the responsible
individual for the family,
we have the responsibility to bring home halal
physical wealth and nourishment
and the responsibility
to bring into the house
spiritual nourishment for the family as well.
So that was a point that I left
out that I wanted to touch upon. And
sometimes it it it it just shocks me.
You know, sometimes a wife
will actually say, I don't want my husband
to go for the Jema prayer.
That to me just makes no sense. It
just makes no sense because she basically is
restricting
her husband from bringing home the the what
would actually benefit the entire family.
So we should never restrict,
for for the females that might be listening,
we should never restrict
our spouses from going to the Masjid. And
remember that was
so disheartened by the home in which a
male would go to after not having prayed
the prayer that he said, what about those
homes? What did he want to do to
them?
Burn them down. Now notice he doesn't say,
I would like to burn the individual.
Who wants to burn the whole home down?
Why? Because the whole home is devoid of
Barakah. You understand the hadith? I mean, think
about it a little deeper than just the
the literal. You know, we literally we all
know he wanted to burn the home down
of that individual, but you could say that's
not fair. The wife lives in the home,
she might be praying. The children live in
the home, they might be doing good deeds,
but
but is saying he wants to burn down
the whole home.
Right? Why? Because that home is going to
be devoid of the most powerful source of
spiritual growth.
Most powerful source of spiritual growth. So, you
know, you can't not come you can't you
can't stay home from the masjid and then
play the adhan and think that now you
fulfilled the spiritual need of your children.
Or, you know, I'm not gonna go to
the masjid, but I'm gonna put on, you
know, Mohammed, the video, you know, and I
fulfill the spiritual need of my children. No.
No. Not nasheed,
not videos,
not recordings,
not even the not even sitting back and
watching the prayer and the haram, okay, on
your satellite dish. These things are not going
to provide you with the necessary nutrients that
come from attending the masjid.
So this is why for our own spiritual
benefit,
we make it mandatory to come to the
Masjid as if the Sharia hasn't done so
already. It has. You know, it's it's
that debated even whether that some claim that
your doesn't even occur if you're by the
Masjid, then you don't pray in the Masjid.
Alright? So I mean, you know, it's it's
to that extent. It's it's the Sahaba did
not miss prayers in the masjid. And when
they were sick, they dragged people on their
shoulders to the masjid.
That was how careful they were about the
Jannah prayer in the masjid. So there's, you
know, for example, 2 that we should never
miss, fajr and because no one has an
excuse. Fajr occurs early enough that most of
us are not at work, and prayer occurs
late enough that most of us are home
from work. So these two prayers, we really
have to be certain about attending in the
masjid.
And if I I can tell you if
anything, if you take anything home from this
entire gathering, it's that that's your sustenance.
This place is your sustenance.
You know, if we if we as a
community, like, you know, we sit here together
and we say,
these days are some of the most amazing
days that we experience.
This is probably
what it meant to be a Muslim in
a in a in some time back in
history where there were Muslims that exemplified this
deen. Now we haven't even reached the level
of even anything near what the companions probably
experienced. But if we wanna look back in
history and say, you know, where were there
times when the generations of Muslims succeeded? You
know, they brought the Masjid to life,
and that's how they succeeded. And what we
are doing right now,
this isn't many and we we see it
as special and unique and just like, wow,
we've achieved something. This is just Islam. We
haven't talked about Hassan. We're just at Islam.
You know, we're just in the Masjid. We
haven't we're not having we're not it's not
like we're praying and we're disappearing in our
prayer. We still have all these distractions and
things. We're just here. Now the next stage
is to develop it. Right? In these 10
days, we just managed to get here, and
we actually came with a bag of sins,
not with a bag of good deeds. We
didn't come with a bag of good deeds
to shine them and present them. We came
with a bag of sins to launder our
clothes.
This is a laundry mat. We all brought
our sins here. We're all hoping to wash
them away before we leave. So but this
basically is what, you know, it means to
live as a Muslim.
If we don't bring the Masjid to life,
and and maybe this will be discussed more
tomorrow. If we don't bring the Masjid to
life, we will never succeed as a community.
And if we don't succeed as a community,
we will watch our own children dissipate into
the melting pot.
So it's essential
that when you choose a place to live,
you choose next to the Masjid.
And when you choose a community to live,
you choose the best community you can find.
Even if it means means taking a job
that's less pay. Even if it means taking
a house that's a little bit smaller. Even
if it means not living in the quote,
unquote perfect neighborhood.
Even if it means not having the best
school.
Because what you make up in the masjid
far exceeds anything else,
far exceeds anything else. Everything else can be
made up. But if you lose Allah, there
is no replacement.
There's only one Allah.
You lose your job, no problem. You'll find
another one. You know, even you lose your
wife, you'll marry someone else.
Right? And the wife we consider someone so
dear to us,
if you will marry someone else. But if
you lose Allah in your connection with Allah,
you're like a kite whose string has been
cut. You're gone. It's It's gonna be very
hard.
So keep yourself close to the masjid. Make
yourself consistent in the masjid. No matter what,
drag yourself to the masjid. You know, this
is the this is where the battle lies.
He who does that succeeds
and he who fails there doesn't matter what
else they do. They're not going very far.
I don't care what conference they attend. I
don't care what classes they learn. I don't
care what books they've read. They have to
be in the masjid. The masjid is our
sustenance. It's our heart and soul. I mean,
I can tell you that Sheikh Zukfar used
to say to us that
we should be,
in the masjid
like fish in water.
We should be in the masjid like fish
in water. What does that mean? You know,
when you take a fish out of water,
it will not rest or stay calm until
you put it back in the water. Right?
If you take a fish out of water
and just put it on the ground, it
will be flapping
violently until you put it back in the
water. So in the same way, when we
are out of the masjid,
spiritually, we are flapping violently until you put
us back into our spiritual water.
That's how we that's how we should be
attached to the masjid.
It should be our place. It should be
our our refuge.
It should be our it it should be
the place where we come to renew ourselves.
And the beauty of the masjid is it
does everything.
It cleans sins,
it crushes enoughs, and it grows the soul.
And and maybe we'll have that discussion at
another time, but that would be more like
a summary of what we've been discussing. So
that was the second thing that I wanted
to to mention that we should be very
consistent in attending the masjid and that this
is very, very essential for our development along
this
spiritual path.
I'll call this Islam basically or Hassan.
Alright? And another thing that's very important is
sadaqa.
If you wanna ask yourself, what's the second
you know, what what's in the top five?
What's in the top five sources of attracting
Allah's
blessing? It's giving sadaqah.
The more sadaqah we give, the more we
spend of our wealth, the more we attract
Allah
blessings
and the more likely we are to grow
our children and ourselves.
So we should be very, very consistent in
giving Sadaqah. We should see our wealth as
a means to attain our goal. We should
see our wealth as a means to attain
our goal.
Alright. Now the third point, which also I
wanted to speak about, but we ran out
of time, and it looks like I'm gonna
run out of time to talk about what
I wanted to talk about today also. So,
anyway, the third point is that there is
one spiritual poison
which is pervasive in our community in this
day and age, which you can say will
kill
any degree of progress,
any degree of progress. And that spiritual poison
is called interest.
Riba.
That spiritual spiritual poison is called riba.
Now recognize that
once a person engages themselves in any interest
bearing transaction,
what happens?
They declare war on Allah and his messenger.
I actually put it the other way. Allah
and his messenger declare war on them.
It's in the Quran. It's an ayah of
the Quran
that Allah
and his messenger
declare war on the individual
who involves themselves in interest.
So you wanna talk about spiritual growth?
You're a dead man.
You're a dead man if you involve yourself
in this type of transaction.
And I don't feel bad for you because
you make the decision. I feel bad for
your wife and kids because they face the
repercussions.
You know, they end up having to it's
that's called the collateral damage in this battle.
That's the collateral damage. Like, they always say
every battle has collateral damage. Every weapon has
collateral damage. That's the collateral damage in this
battle is your is your kids.
You know, their growth gets stunted.
And so we're very lax. Unfortunately, we're very
lax. We'll buy homes on interest thinking that
we're serving our families.
We say,
now my wife has her laundry machine in
the house.
Now my kids have a basement in which
they can play.
Now they have that big backyard so they
can run. But what what ends up happening
is we're actually
destroying our children.
Yes. Physically, we provided for them, and their
now is going to be enjoying.
Then their body will be able to develop,
but spiritually, we will have destroyed them.
Spiritually, we will have destroyed them. So we
have to be very careful, very careful. And
I I can tell you just spiritually, just
myself having watched this, you know, over the
last 10, 20, let's say, 10 years that
I've been involved in this type of thing
that
I people who have the effects of interest
on them, it's very difficult to remove.
It's it's very difficult to remove. You know,
I I I mean, I know people who
want to change, but then they were fed
haram their whole life or they were closed
in haram their whole life or they were
raised
within haram their whole life. And then it
takes a lot of effort to remove, a
lot of effort to remove. And often the
children, they get way off the deep end
anyway. You know, if if the rare child
actually can be awoken,
even that one has a lot of difficulty
because they're spiritually metaphysically, you can say their
souls become *.
You can't expect much out of it anymore.
Yes. They can attain forgiveness. They can attain
Jannah, but they lack often the taste
of of in this life.
So we have to be very careful. We
have to keep things as pure as possible.
Whatever Allah has given us, whatever Allah has
given us, we're happy with it.
And we say
as long as it's halal, we'll take it.
We'll take it
Because we don't wanna destroy ourselves in this
life, and, unfortunately, you don't wanna destroy yourself
in the hereafter. It's totally not worth it.
And the funny thing is economically, if I
sat here with a spreadsheet and a computer
and actually went through this with you, buying
a home is never a good investment anyway.
You know, I mean, you look at it
on paper and you start adding up the
taxes you pay and then the interest payments
that are involved and you end up paying
close to 4 or 5 times what the
house you paid anyway. I mean, you buy
a house at $200,000,
30 years
after 30 years, you've probably paid about you
know, you probably paid for the house with
taxes and interest and everything. You probably paid
for the house close to a $1,000,000, and
the house is now worth 800,000.
You didn't gain your loss. If you sit
down and actually calculate it, all the economists
agree. A house is not a good investment.
A house is only becomes an investment because
you people live in it. But in the
end, if you wanted to talk about real
return,
you don't get real return in a house.
Anyway, you can sit down and calculate that
for yourself. I mean, I'm just telling you
that it makes to take a house on
an in in an interest bearing situation
never makes sense.
To do your purchases on an interest bearing
situation never makes sense. And I'll tell you,
it's amazing. People make so much money, and
they all complain of the same thing. My
ends are never
met. The guy who makes 50,000,
he says,
I have $51,000
worth of expenses.
If I just made 5 more, I'd be
good. Okay? Then he makes 60, 10 more.
Now he says I have $62,000
growth of expenses. If I made 10 more,
10 more,
I'd be good. Alright. Then his finally, his
salary goes up to 70.
Now he needs a 100. He makes a
100. He needs 200.
Why? Because there's no Barakah in his wealth.
There's no barakah in his wealth. Why? Because
all the transactions are on credit card. Let
me tell you, even if you pay off
everything at the end of the month,
there's no barakah in the credit card. The
first thing you should do is cut those
things up and throw them in the garbage.
And if you have to have 1, keep
1, you know, because you need it to
provide proof of identity and these types of
things. But make it a minimal limit. Make
it a $500 limit and just don't use
it.
Okay? There's no barakah in that. You're just
transacting everything through the bank and you've just,
it's like you had something pure and then
you mixed in filth.
Why would you ever take a pure cup
of water and mix urine into it?
Why? It doesn't provide you any benefit. You
can say, well, look, I've got this amazing
machine. I pour urine into it, and then
I can filter the urine out, and then
I can drink the water later.
You're not gonna do that. Right? It doesn't
matter if you can filter the urine out.
I don't care if you can filter the
urine out at the end of the month
by paying all the all the bill, paying
paying the balance.
You're still getting filth.
You're still mixing filth into your pure wealth.
So
you don't involve yourself in those types of
transactions. Do cash.
And you do things on cash, there'll be.
They will be. You will be able to
your your dollar will go so far, you'll
be amazed. Try it. Try it. That's my
challenge to you. This year, this is my
challenge to you. Try it. Just keep your
credit card. I'm not saying you have to
cut it up. Don't do anything with it,
but just do this. You figure out how
much you you spend. Okay? You say, okay.
I make I don't know. I bring home
$4,000
a month. Okay?
Then you say to yourself, okay.
My expenses just calculating the last few months,
my,
you know, my personal expenses, my groceries and
the clothes we buy and this and that,
they come up to $200 a week. Okay?
Take out $200
and buy everything you buy with cash.
Alright? And then
tell me
or you look at yourself and see at
the end of the month whether you actually
have more than you thought available to you,
and you'll see that there will be a
wide expanse in the barakah in your wealth.
Remember, it's the problem with wealth in this
day and age is not the amount. It's
the barakah.
It's the barakah.
Barakah is a whole another interesting discussion as
well. We we don't have time to go
there, but barakah is what everything is about.
If you can bring barakah into your wealth,
it will take you so far, and it
will make you so content and so happy,
and you'll be able to achieve the vast
majority of what you seek to achieve.
But if there's no barakah on your wealth,
you can make $1,000,000.
Your your expenses will never be met.
Your expenses will never be met.
So seek to bring barakah into your wealth
and
definitely avoid interest because that is the most
powerful spiritual one of the most powerful spiritual
poisons.
So we should avoid it to the best
of our ability.
Okay. So that brings oh oh, and then
the last thing, which the the 4th point
that just came to my mind right now,
which was that I wanted to talk about
an issue concerning
the goal.
Right? Now remember that when a person makes
this progress spiritually, what happens?
So, actually, let's just look at this globally
for a minute. Even though we haven't concluded
our discussion, we'll do that in a couple
days. But, really, when you talk about the
Sharia and you talk about it on a
meta metaphysical level, the sharia basically contains essential
components with 2 goals. Goal number 1, the
sharia crushes the nuffs. It restricts the nuffs.
So it tells nuffs you can't eat this.
You can't look at this. You can't do
this. You can't touch this. You can't have
this. You can't do your financial tractions,
find financial transactions like this. Alright? So it's
crushing the nuffs. And at the same time,
the sharia grows the soul. It encourages you
to do prayer, to read the Quran, to
give salakah, to fast, to go for Hajj,
etcetera. And often these sort these Ibadat, they're
actually a balance between both crushing the nafs
and raising the soul. Now
what happens is as a person begins to
proceed
or progress in their development and getting close
to Allah, then what happens is there are
certain spiritual effects that are natural.
So for example, when you get to the
point where you progress, your prayers are going
to get deep and you're going to have
emotion.
So for example, you'll pray and you'll feel
tingles go down your spine.
And you'll pray and you'll feel tears go
down your eyes. Alright? You'll pray and you'll
feel a special peace in your heart.
So this is all the effects of the
path of the.
These are all the effects of the path
of the of the. They're natural. They're part
of the experience of the deen.
Now the unfortunate
mistake that people make, and this is where
gets its bad name. And historically, this is
where has been damaged the most.
As people begin to make this progress,
they begin to actually worship the feelings instead
of worshiping Allah.
Do you understand the distinction? The goal was
to worship Allah,
but they have these feelings. And when they
have these feelings, the feelings are so,
you could say, so incredible
that they begin to seek the feeling instead
of seeking Allah. So what happens? They pray
hoping that they're going to have tingles go
down their spine
instead of hoping that they'll actually just please
Allah. Do you understand the subtle distinction that
I'm making?
So that what happens is the goal becomes
the feeling instead of Allah.
Now when the goal becomes a feeling instead
of Allah, Shaytan nails you, and that's the
second way by which he nails you on
the path. Remember, the first was pride.
The second one was to chase feelings.
Now what happens is feelings become the goal.
And when feelings become the goal, people will
leave the sharia
to seek the feelings
associated
with practicing the sharia.
Do you understand what I'm the distinction I'm
making? So what'll happen? Now Chaitan will convince
you that, well, hey. You know, if you
actually
do this, you can actually feel a lot
more spiritual.
So when you do your dhikr, why don't
you dance a little bit? Right? And then
people will begin to dance. Or why don't
you have a little bit of music in
the background? You feel a lot better. And
then what'll happen is people begin to introduce
these weird practices
because they're seeking the feeling instead of seeking
Allah.
So this is why when you see
a lot of the Tassaluf historically,
when you look at the Tassaluf and, you
know, some people say Tassaluf, some people will
use the term Sufism, and I never use
the term Sufism
because Sufism is so loaded. When you look
at what a lot of Sufis end up
doing, what do they end up doing? They're
sitting there smoking marijuana
and Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah. Right? And they're
feeling it. Why? Because the marijuana, it increases
the the state. And it's we laugh. We
laugh, but actually, this is what happens. People
really get caught up in this stuff. I
can take you on a tour of the
world and show you this all over the
place. People are dancing around in a circle.
Allah. Allah. Allah. Allah. And they're actually calling
this Islam.
This is garbage.
This has nothing to do with the deen
because it's outside of the realm of the
Sharia.
Right? This is how shaitan
detracts the person on the path of saluk.
And it's real. It happens. You know, people
will end up in the graveyard and they're
beating on their drums and singing these songs
about religion and they're so spiritual, but they
miss 5 prayers in a row.
Right? Now they've become so spiritual. They're banging
on their drums, banging on their drums, and
they're singing about Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. They're
singing about the dunya and how it means
nothing and they miss 5 prayers in a
row. That's
not that's not the sawwww.
That's Sha'aban's
deviation of the sawwww.
Make that very clear. Make that very clear.
That has nothing to do with the deen.
It has nothing to do with what we're
talking about. It is far removed from Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and his messenger.
The only path to Allah is on the
footsteps of Rasulullah salallahu alayhi wa sallam
via the Sharia and the sunnah.
Now, so what is the sign of progress?
What is the sign that the person has
actually traveled all through the circle and reached
their goal?
How do let's say that a person is
a student and they're training under a Shaykh.
How does the true Shaykh know
that the Saliq has achieved their goal and
is moving along the path? If a person
comes to me and says,
I've been waiting in line for 1 hour.
I have to tell you something.
I had 3 dreams last night.
And in those dreams,
it was me and then the 2nd place,
had a gold medal, and I had a
silver medal.
Okay? Or the person will say, I had
3 dreams last night. And in those dreams,
I was flying and I was shown my
house in Jannah.
Okay? Or a person comes to me and
says,
oh, I am I am crying in every
prayer.
And I go into prayer and I don't
know where I am.
Okay?
To me, all of that is 0.
All of that is 0.
But when I see on the person
that the Sharia and the sunnah come into
their life, that they begin to cut themselves
off from the Haram and that they begin
to do the things that are halal and
they begin to follow and emulate Rasulullah Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam and the Sharia becomes their cloak
and the sunnah becomes their way, then I
know that the person has progressed.
Then I know that the person has progressed.
That is the sign of progress.
So and, Sheikh Ahmed Sur Hindi,
He says it in a very beautiful way,
and I have this quote written somewhere. I
can't find it for the life of me.
Sheikh Zulfikar told me this one time and
told me that if I had gold, I
would tell you to write it in gold.
And I don't have the quote, so I'm
just going to very, very roughly say it.
He said, we do not trade
futohate
makia
for futohate makiya.
Very deep quote, very deep quote.
We do not trade
futohate
makiya
for futohate makiya. Now do you know what
futohate makiya is?
It's a book about the soul of that
talks about the spiritual states of the soul
of. And do you know what the Futuhate
Madaniya are? The Sharia,
because that was what came in Madina.
Right? So he's highlighting that that we would
never trade futuhate
makija.
We would never trade spiritual feelings for the
Sharia, for futuhate Madaniyah.
You understand it? Very, very deep quote. I'm
gonna find it inshallah. Make do I find
it. Then I'll read it to you because
I have it written there, and he specifically
told me specifically told actually, there was a
whole gathering of.
He said, write this, and if you have
gold, you write it in gold. And then
he told us this quote, and it, didn't
write it in my brain. That was a
big problem. But, anyway, the point remains, and
I want this to be very clear because
this is the greatest misunderstanding about the soul,
and this is how people attack the soul.
You go and tell your friends, oh, man.
We were in, and we had 8 lectures
or 5 lectures on the soul. They'll say,
oh, Let me show you. They'll put you
on the Internet, and they'll show you people
doing all these weird things that make no
sense. We are not talking about that. That
is not. That has nothing to do with.
The that we are talking about
is ehsan.
It is excellence in the deen as dictated
by the sharia and as emulated or exemplified
by the sunnah of Rasoolallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Now along that path, do feelings occur? Yes.
Along that path, will a person have dreams?
Perhaps.
Along that path, may a person have experiences
that are far beyond what they could ever
imagine? Possibly.
Do they dictate the goal? Never.
Never.
The goal is always the Sharia and the
sunnah. And in fact, I'll tell you the
most ajeev thing. The most ajeev thing.
In in the training that I got from
Sheikh Zulfakar, you know, you know, the has
many different paths that you can learn under.
And if you ever find now look. The
the funny thing is, look. In order to
learn,
you go to a.
And I'll tell you very clearly, and you
keep this with you in the back of
your mind, 95%
of
who called themselves
will take you down
the wrong path.
95%.
And not only will I tell you that
just from my observation, I'll tell you that
because in my own personal history, I started
that way.
The first sheikh I went to, it's a
whole another story. Maybe we'll get into it
one day. It was all about I'm not
even gonna go into the details, but it
had nothing to do with what the goal
was. Alright? And I went through that. And
for 6 months, I was there, and I
got to see it inside out.
And then I finally, you know, Allah gave
me the tawfiq to get out of that.
And then I happened to meet Sheikh Zulfiqar
just out of Allah's mercy
and to find
the rare shayah
that teaches the Sharia and the sunnah
as the method of progress and as the
sign of
completion of the journey
is very, very rare in this day and
age.
Very rare in this day and age.
And you can go on the Internet and
type in Tasawwuf, type in Sufis, and type
in share, and you'll see what comes up.
Okay? So I can tell you it's very
hard to find that. Very hard to find
that.
Anyway,
that's just something to keep in the back
of your mind that these feelings and experiences
are never the goal. And one more thing
I was about to say before I went
on that tangent is that the ajeeb thing
about this training that I read from received
from Sheikh Zulfikar is that, you know, it
contains a series of lessons.
And you perform the you practice the lessons,
and then you achieve some degree of development
over time, and the sharia and the sunnah
slowly come into your life. Now it's funny
because the first seven lessons are all.
They're all.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
The first eight lessons are all. Okay?
So you do these different adkar, and as
you do this,
you begin to have feelings. Now that sharia
comes into your life, the sunnah comes into
your life, and as part of these lessons,
pride gets removed, arrogance gets removed, greed gets
removed, etcetera.
But then what happens is you also begin
to have experiences.
Now the funny thing is that the 9th
lesson and the 10th lesson are designed
to
kill all feeling.
Kill all feeling. They all you know, the
9th and 10 lessons, the zikr is what?
Silently. La ilaha illallah. And the
is to teach you what? That there is
nothing worthy of worship except Allah, including the
feelings on the path to Allah,
Subhanallah.
There is nothing worthy of worship
except Allah, including the feelings on the path
to Allah.
Now they say there's a very famous quote
of Hazrat Abu Bakr radiAllahu an that the
sign of achieving something on the path of
on the path towards Allah is to recognize
that you can never achieve Allah.
Okay? The sign of achieving let me find
the quote. It's here somewhere. I have to
just find it because also
gave me this, and I wrote it down.
The sign to achieving
I don't know if I if I can
find it so quickly. There's a lot of
pages here.
See, this is why you need
here. I'm just okay. So here, this is
this is the quote of Hazrat Abu Bakr.
So as it Sheikh Zulfiqar said this to
me, and I mean, I wrote this verbatim.
The ulama have written a lot about Ma'arifah
of Allah
The ulama
have written a lot about the ma'rifa of
Allah
but all agree that the statement of Hazrat
Abu Bakr radiAllahu an is unique and then
he gave us a statement.
Okay. Then he says that,
Okay? So what is this?
Once you've recognized
that you can never achieve Allah, then you've
achieved.
Okay? Once you've recognized
that you can never achieve Allah,
then you've actually achieved something. Now the beautiful
example of this comes where? In the Quran.
And, you know, these ayat are not in
my mind here. Half of us are sitting
here. The ayat where how's it Ibrahim Ali,
sometimes looking at everything and saying how that'll
be, how the
can you can you just recite those? Are
they in your mind? Any? Come sit here.
Sit here. Just recite these ayat because they'll
highlight my principle as well.
So once he saw the
the the night once the night came upon
him and he saw the stars,
he said,
Okay. Now go ahead.
Okay. Stop there.
Once he saw that it disappeared, right, that
the night actually was disappearing and the stars
were disappearing, and he said he doesn't like
the thing that disappears.
Okay? And, anyway, this continues and continues and
Hazrat Ibrahim alaihis salam, he goes through a
series of these things. You're familiar with this
series of ayat. They're very famous. Now the
ulema, they go into a discussion here. They
say that, well, what was Hazrat Ibrahim alayhi
salam actually doing?
Was he actually for a moment thinking that
the, you know, that the sky was Allah
or that the sun was Allah or that
the moon was Allah? Was that what was
going on? No.
How could a prophet for even a moment
think that something was other other than Allah
was actually to be worshiped. Right? That would
be shirk. That would be that would be
outside of the realm of belief, and a
prophet could never achieve that state.
They're they're protected from such states. What was
being highlighted through these series of
is that
to recognize
that even the things that are reflections of
Allah are actually not Allah is the final
state of Itraq. It's the final state of
achievement.
Do you understand? It's very subtle.
So look. Remember I told you that when
a person begins to spiritually develop, he begins
to see in everything the sign of Allah.
He begins to say the sun actually is
a sign of Allah's power. He begins to
say that the moon is actually a sign
of Allah's power. He says that the sky
is a reminder of Allah,
but actually there's a stage beyond that. And
the stage beyond that is to say that
actually the sun is a sign of Allah,
but it is not Allah.
Right? And that the moon is a sign
of Allah, but it is not Allah. So
this is what Hazrat Ibrahim alaihi salam is
doing in these series of aya. He's saying
these are things spectacular, but they're not Allah,
not Allah, not Allah. And this is the
essence of La ilaha
illallah,
meaning you cannot you cannot attain Allah, but
what you can recognize is that everything else
is not Allah.
Right?
That one the the true state of idraq,
the true state of of understanding
is to recognize that actually nothing is Allah,
and Allah is unique. We cannot even fathom
what he is,
except the way he's described himself.
Do you understand that? Okay? So this is
basically the the point here was and what
I was really trying to highlight this 4th
point was that we should be cognizant of
the fact that
we are never after feelings.
That is not what you're after. If you
come into this business, then it's funny because,
you know, we have a website. I mean,
I have the sacred learning website and people
will write and say, you know, I want
I'm looking to learn the science of the
soul wolf, and then you call them up
and you say, okay. Or they call you
up, and then I I always ask them
the same question. I say, so what are
you interested in? What are you interested in?
Like, why why are you interested in doing
this? And then they'll say, oh, either they'll
tell me, well, I want to please my
lord and I want the shitty and the
sunnah to stick in my heart, or they're
going to tell me, you know, my friends
are having all these dreams and I'm not
having these dreams, and I I would like
to have some of those kind of dreams
too.
Or, you know, I want
I just wanna feel really spelled spiritually elevated.
Then I start thinking twice. You know, what
does this person mean really spiritually elevated? What
are they really looking for? Then you find
out, you know, what are they really looking
for? Are they is their goal the Sharia
and the sunnah?
Or is their goal something other than that?
And if their goal is something other than
that, they'll find it very easily.
Alright? So, again, this is another very important
point. And I I would say, actually, this
is one of the most important points because
if you go back and say the word
to many people, especially the enemies of the,
you know, the ones who basically don't wanna
have anything to do with the soul, they
often are ready to attack the soul wolf
based on what it what we are not
discussing.
Make that I I can't make that more
clear. It's like the most important this is
why you will never ever hear me use
the word Sufi. Even though some people will
use the term Sufism in exchange for the
SAWUF, especially in the west, I will never
use that term because that is such a
loaded term. It is such a loaded term.
You can find Hindu Sufis.
You find Hindu Sufis. Go on the Internet.
You'll find them. Okay? But the,
there's 3 terms that apply to
to attaining a pinnacle in this in the
deen. The way I'm describing it, according to
the Sharia and the sunnah, there's 3 terms.
Number 1,
You can use this term. Number 2,
You can use this term. Or number 3,
These three terms are interchangeable.
These three terms are interchangeable. These three terms
are interchangeable,
and you can pick and choose whichever term
you like. Now if you like Hassan,
because Hassan comes in hadith,
mal Hassan, the famous hadith of Jibril alaihi
salam, then you can use that term. I
have no problem. If you like the word
tazkiyah, because tazkiyah comes in the Quran as
one of the main,
one of the
main facets of the work of Rasulullah salallahu
alaihi wasalam, then you can use tazkiyah. And
if you like the because it is the
most popular term, it really was the term
that caught on among the and the scholars,
for various reasons, which I will discuss in
another lecture when we talk about what the
word means and why this term may actually
be applied to the science, then you can
use that term. But you should understand clearly
what is meant. What is meant
is
practicing the Sharia and the sunnah with the
goal of attaining the pleasure of Allah
nothing more, nothing less.
And the only thing that can be assigned
within the realm of the salawaf is the
sharia and the sunnah, which is why if
there is a shirk that ever assigns you
anything outside of the sharia and the sunnah,
run.
Run. Because you're not gonna get you're not
you could you could achieve your spiritual feelings,
but you're not going to achieve spiritual progress.
So our, our, our method is the Quran
and the Sunnah. The they
are like the
What did
the do?
They took the Quran and the Hadith, they
organized the Quran and the Hadith and made
it easy to practice.
The masha'ik of tasawwuf did what? They took
the spiritual dimension, the development of Rasool Allah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam of his companions.
They took it out, organized it, and made
it easy to practice.
What did the masha'ik of Quran do of
Tajweed?
They took out the rules of Tajweed that
existed at the time of Rasulullah
They put them down in a series of
Kala'iad principles, and they made it easy to
practice.
Alright. What did the,
what did the scholars of, of the Quran
do?
Right? They took the Quran,
they organized it into a book, they divided
it up into sections, and they made it
easy to read and memorize it. Now there
was no one book at the time of
Rasool Allah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. It was
all piecemeal. There was a piece here and
a piece here and a piece there. It
was all recited, but it wasn't physically in
one book until the, the and the subsequent
after them put it together in a way
that the community could easily read it and
recite it and memorize it. So in the
same way, the scholars of Tassowulf, the true
scholars of Tassowulf, they took the principles of
the Quran and the Hadith that develop a
human being, and they put them in an
organized way so that the people could practice
it. That's all Tasawwuf is. Alright. So that
then is the closure of the initial lecture.
Alright. Now today's lecture,
which
we're already in tomorrow, unfortunately.
Alright. I will do this one quick inshallah.
So today's lecture basically is about the nafs.
And I think actually we've already talked a
lot about the nafs
because it kind of always comes opposite to
the soul. So remember that I told you
human beings are made of a body, and
they're made of a soul. They have a
body and a soul. The the head of
the soul is called the main central connect,
comp CPU of the soul is what? The
heart. Right? The heart is the key area
of the of the soul. And what's the
key area of the body? The nuffs. The
nuffs is the driving force of the body.
Now
so the command center of the body is
called the nuffs.
Now remember that the nuffs
is a wild animal.
The nuffs
is a wild animal. It loves freedom,
and it hates to be restricted.
The nuffs wants to look at what it
wants to look at.
It wants to touch everything it can touch.
It wants to do anything it wants to
do. It wants to listen to whatever it
wants to listen to, and it never wants
to be told to do anything except what
it desires.
Is that clear? So the nuffs
inherently is a wild animal.
It's a wild animal.
Now the job of the believer
as they progress in the deen is to
do what? So what do they have to
do to the nafs?
Crush the nafs.
Crush it, and after they crush it, they
have to put a rein on it. They
have to put
a saddle on it. Because the goal look.
This nafs is powerful. Right? It can destroy
a human being, but it can also allow
a human being to achieve.
Now it's funny because Sheikh Zulfaguar used to
say to us that human beings, they have
3 blessings.
Sheikh Zulfaguar, my sheikh, he used to say
to us that I mean, he says to
us still not used to, that human beings
had 3 blood have 3 blessings. Number 1,
the mind. Number 2, the heart. And number
3, the nuffs. And then he would stop
and say,
how could the nuffs be a blessing?
Nuffs were always trying to crush, crush, crush.
Remember I told you yesterday that there's 3
states to the nuffs. There's the animal nafs,
which is called nafs al amara. But if
you can get that animal under control
and you can put a rein on it
and a saddle on it and you can
turn it to work for you, it becomes
a special types of type of nafs called
what? Nafsul?
Motmayinna.
Very good. So you're learning from the lessons.
Right? Now nafsul motmayinna
becomes a nafs that is pleasing
and is pleased. Meaning, it begins to go
just as crazy as it was about dunya,
It becomes just as crazy about.
And it becomes the strongest force that drives
a human being to succeed on this path.
So the goal is to beat the knobs
down, to keep it contained,
and then to put a saddle on it
so that you can use it to ride
your ride into Jenda.
Now one thing is to walk to Jenda.
Another thing is to jump on this horse
and ride. Right? So we take we tame
this horse, and we ride it into Jannah.
Now the prophet he gave this advice in
a hadith, and this hadith is also a
very famous hadith. So what did he say?
Alkayisu.
He's talk he says the intel Alkayis means
the intelligent one. Alkayisu,
what does he do?
He crushes his nuffs.
The intelligent human being is not the one
who has a 1600 SAT.
He's not the one who goes to Harvard
Medical School.
Alright? He's not the one who memorizes books
and books of knowledge.
The intelligent is one person is whom? The
one who crushes his nuffs.
And what does he do as a result?
Once he crushes nuffs, what's the next thing
that's going to happen? Well,
and he works for that which occurs after
death. Why? Because the nuffs, once you crush
it, the nuffs is all concerned about this
world. It wants everything in this world, food,
women,
fun, entertainment.
That's what the nuffs wants. So once gets
all that, it gets caught up in this
play and it kills a person. But if
you can crush the, then it becomes very
easy to work for the hereafter. So the
intelligent one is the one who recognized this
equation.
He crushes his nafs and he works for
that, which is beyond
which is beyond death.
And then the prophet continues,
and he says, who's the foolish one? Al
Aajiz. Who's the foolish one?
The foolish one is the one who lets
his nafs follow its desires,
who lets it
look at whatever it wants to look at,
who lets it eat whatever it wants to
eat, who lets it go wherever it wants
to go.
And instead he says, Insha Allah, Allah will
just put me into Jannah.
He makes hopes against
Allah,
you know, that that don't necessarily
equate.
Oh, I'm going to do whatever I want.
Insha Allah, Allah will put me into Jannah.
You understand? So that's the foolish one. So
now this hadith is clearly highlighting that the
goal of a human being is to crush
the nuffs,
saddle it, and make it your friend to
take you along the path to Jannah.
Now the Sharia
is the name of this method. Is the
is the Sharia is the method that allows
you to achieve this with the nafs.
The Sharia
is the method that allows you to achieve
this with the nafs. So the sharia is
recognizes that the nafs has certain needs
and addresses those needs,
but cuts it off at its needs and
does not let it take its desires. Now
look. The body, the human body has needs,
and it has desires.
The needs are recognized and appreciated by the
Sharia, and they're fulfilled,
and the desires are cut off.
Now remember, the needs are limited.
The desires are infinite.
The needs are limited.
The desires are infinite. So the Sharia addresses
the needs of the body, cuts it off
at the point of desire so that the
nafs does not go out of control. For
example,
the Sharia says the human body has a
need for companionship,
both physical and spiritual, physical and emotional
and spiritual. So marriage becomes part of the
Sharia. In fact, it's a sunnah. It's a
sunnah. It becomes actually an exemplified part of
the Sharia. But beyond marriage, a person cannot
look at any person who he's not related
to.
He cannot talk to those whom he's not
related to. He cannot be in alone,
room alone with those he's not related to.
Because otherwise, the nafs will become a wild
animal and will destroy that person.
Do you understand? Do you understand the paradigm?
So when you look at the Sharia, the
Sharia is very, very it's constructed metaphysically in
this way to restrict enoughs,
to to respect the needs of the body,
but to restrict it so that it doesn't
pour out into desires because it's desires that
grows this wild animal.
So sometimes we think it's not a big
deal
if I have this girlfriend. You know, she's
just a friend.
Put it that way. But that's what the
nefs wants. She's just a friend.
Right? Or, you know, it's not a big
deal if I
watch movies.
Well, what happens is, you know, the so
the nefs, you know, it's it's the the
nuffs is like a,
a wild dog. You know, you give it
1 one bite, and then it's gonna want
2. So what happens is, you know, the
person goes and he watches a movie. Okay.
So in the movie, there's this woman. She's
totally
not dressed appropriately. She's the star of the
movie. Right? They paid her to make the
movie famous. So she comes in there. They
put her sometimes in these clothes, sometimes in
that clothes. Sometimes they make her hair this
way. Sometimes they make her hair that way.
They make up her face with this color
one time and this color another time. Sometimes
they reveal parts of her. Sometimes they don't
reveal parts of her. They make her look
perfect in the way she interacts with her
friends and her work and this and that
and makes, you know, the perfect picture in
in in the person's mind. Now what's happening?
The nuffs is totally getting
it's it's being fed. It's being turned into
a wild animal. You know? And then this
person will never be able to control his
desires. He's gonna look at things he shouldn't
look at and compare. You know? He's gonna
think about things he should never think about.
He's going to end up in places he
should never be.
So this is what happens. We don't realize
it. We sometimes don't realize
that
every fire begins with a spark.
Every fire
begins with a spark. What you deem to
be innocent
actually psychologically
is raising within you a raging animal.
And that raging animal is gonna bust open
the barn and drag you to some place
where you would never wanna be.
And I've seen it. I've seen it time
after time after time. A brother never thought
he would end up
in bed with that sister now.
It was just we were working on MSA
projects together. It starts that way. Very innocently,
I was vice president, she was president.
And now we need to get married as
soon as possible because this is what happened.
I'll tell you even it goes to the
point where one time a brother called me
up saying that he was serving a Muslim
sister
by carrying her luggage.
They exchanged phone numbers, and he called me
after they came back from the abortion clinic
6 months later.
I'm not exaggerating.
This is the nafs.
And he couldn't believe where he had ended
up. And, you know, and Chaitan is such
a bad enemy.
You know, first, he takes you down this
path he uses we'll talk about Chathon in
a minute. He uses your knuffs to drag
you along this path. And when he's done,
he shows you the light of day that
the mistake you made so that you feel
horrible.
He he he rubs you in the dirt,
you know, or what a horrible one thing
is your enemy captures you. Another thing is
they rub your face in the dirt. He
rubs your face in the dirt.
And I'll tell you that it happens in
many, many things, in many, many aspects of
our life, whether it be the food that
we eat. You know, today, you would never
think about eating Haram.
Tomorrow,
the challenge will be there. I mean, you're
sitting in this message, you would not dream
of eating something Haram.
Not pork. I mean, that doesn't often challenge
us, although it does some people. But, you
know, I mean, you would never think about,
you know, eating some meat that was not
slaughtered properly perhaps, and then it all of
a sudden, the challenge will come. One day,
you're very hungry, and you saw 2 Big
Macs for a dollar.
It's funny, but it comes up. Right? And
and I'll just tell you, I mean, the
nuffs, this is you have to realize the
nuffs is no joke.
The nuffs, we cannot we cannot
the nuffs is not in our ability to
deal with unless we
we strictly follow the rules of the sharia.
So be very careful about the nuffs. You
know? You think that it's just a little
bit, oh, I'm just beating my nuffs a
little bit by listening to music. It's killing
you.
It's killing you. Because when you listen to
music, then you also wanna know about the
person who's singing.
Then you hear about their messed up life
and their partying, and you think about, I
wonder how it is to party like that.
Alright? Then you go and you party like
that, and then eventually you go down the
path that they're down. And it it you
know, you're thinking that would never happen. That
would never you would think it would never
happen, and it does.
It does. Otherwise, no one would be there.
Obviously, people are there, and we think it
would never happen to us, would never happen
to our kids.
It does.
So the nuffs, we never play games with
the nuffs.
We lock it within the guise of the
sharia, and we turn we saddle it, and
we start turning it towards Jannah. We have
to addict it towards
Allah. And once it gets addicted to Allah,
then all this other garbage that it looks
at has nothing to do with you know,
I mean, every
I mean, you know, the Maldives are the
most common sins in this day and age.
Glances and Internet.
Glances and Internet. You you take one okay.
You're fine. Look. You're in this masjid. You
don't think about even the potential
to, for example, you know, to to be
with another to be with a non mahram
or to look at a non mahram or
to, you know, somehow watch some video of
a non mahram or something like doesn't even
come in your mind when you when you're
here. Because enough is totally gone here. You
know, it's if you have those kinda distractions,
I mean, some people know the, but let's
see this in their prayer. Some people come
to prayer, and in prayer, they're thinking about
these kind of videos and these kind of
things. That's how that's how messed up their
has become. But if you're in this gathering,
let's say you sit here for more than
a day, the vast majority of garbage is
dissipated from your mind. You don't you're not
having these bad thoughts. Maybe you're struggling with
concentrating in prayer, but you're not having negative
weird things come up in your mind that
you could never imagine your mind would ever
even think of
because this place is pure. Now what's gonna
happen is that after Ramadan, people will go
back outside.
And after they go back outside, maybe enough
subdued, but Shafan is gonna come into the
picture. And somehow, you'll take a peek and
or a glance at something you shouldn't have
seen. Now that's the first spark.
Then to that spark, another spark gets added.
Another spark gets added. Another spark gets added,
and desire's starting to build up. The nuffs
the nuffs is starting to build up. Wants
to release the desires,
wants to release the desires, wants to release
the desires. And here's this person saying, I
can't do this. I can't do this. I
can't lock that door and do this. I
can't lock that door and do this. Okay?
And then what happens? Then he's try controlling,
controlling, controlling, but glance after glance after glance,
website after website after website.
Boom.
Now he lost. He gets flattened, and then
he feels so bad.
No. Because there was no benefit.
Even after the desire is relieved, there's no
benefit. They got nothing out of it. Didn't
solve anything. The desire just doubled.
You know, now the next time you look
at a picture or an image, it just
brings them to that state much more quickly.
And people can be married and they'll get
caught up in this. People can be 70
and they're caught up in this.
This isn't something that you say, oh, when
I get married, it'll disappear.
Or when I when I'm older, it'll disappear.
Doesn't disappear. Nuffs is nuffs. Nuffs, whether now
it happens with this. It happens with, well,
it happens with other aspects of life as
well. So the nuffs will drag you down.
You know, you would think you say to
yourself today, I'll never especially the youth. Let's
say you're a college student. You'll say, I'll
never ever buy a house on interest. I
don't know what people are thinking about. What
do they need such big houses for? I'll
never ever buy a car a house on
interest.
And I guarantee you, this is what everybody
says. Everybody thinks like that. No. The best
transaction is a halal transaction. I'm never going
to buy a house at interest. No one
happens enough starts looking at my friend has
this,
and, you know, my neighbors have this, and
all the people in the must have this,
so they must have all bought it on
interest as well, then we start doing PAS.
Right? So they must have all bought it
on interest as well, so I should just
buy an interest as well. And then the
person goes and performs a transaction that they
would never think they would ever perform.
And then it gets impossible to get out
of because then the person starts justifying. Well,
now if I sell it, I'm gonna take
a loss.
Now if I sell it, I'm gonna take
a loss. Well, actually, it's much it's much
more of a loss to keep it, but
that's a separate discussion.
So, anyway, this is the point is that
we have to be very careful with the
nuffs. So the sharia and the rules of
the sharia are very important. You know, this
whole issue of not listening to music, they
say, brother, bring me proof that it's haram.
I'll bring you proof that it's haram, but
that's not the issue. This is not an
academic discussion. The point is when that music
pours into the heart, it feeds enoughs and
kills the soul and will destroy you
because it's associated with a certain lifestyle. And
it is
it is it is death for the soul.
Now you I do recognize that human beings
have a need for music. They have a
need for tone. They have a need for
melody, but that's already built into the Quran.
That's already built into the Quran. And I'll
tell you, the person who listens to music
will never taste the halawah of the Quran,
will never taste the sweetness of the Quran.
But someone who doesn't listen to music and
devotes just a little bit of time to
the Quran, it becomes like running through a
garden.
It becomes like running through a garden. They
begin to play with it. They begin to
have fun with it. They see that it
goes up and it goes down and the
the rhymes and the tones and the length
and it becomes incredible. It is incredible. The
ecstasy
that occurs with just reciting the Quran with
the judeep.
And that that fulfills the desire of music.
Okay? So we have to be very careful
about
the nafs
and we have to be very careful about
following the because otherwise, it the will expand.
So we're never casual
about
the. Now
now remember that the can exist in 3
states. Number 1,
And nafsul amara is the animal nafs that
we're trying to control. Then the Quran actually
mentions nafsul amara and also mentions a second
type of nafs called nafsul lawwama.
Now as you develop the nafs, just like
when you develop the soul, it goes through
stages. When a body grows, it grows through
stages. The nuffs also goes through stages when
it comes under control. So nuffs al amara
is the animal nuffs. Nuffs al lawwama is
also mentioned in the Quran. This is the
rebuking nuffs. Now what is this nuffs? This
is the nuffs. So there's one nuffs that
just parties,
and then after they're done partying,
they don't feel bad, and they party again.
And they don't feel bad, and they party
again. They don't feel bad, they party again.
Right? And there's people like that. They're totally
out of it. Then there's.
This guy makes a mistake. He feels horrible
when he makes a mistake. He's crying, begging
that he never makes it again, and then
he makes a mistake, and then his nafs
he gets rebuked. He's rebuking his nafs. He's
saying, oh, this wasn't right. We shouldn't have
done this. Let's get that under better control.
So he's fighting his nafs. So that's called
nafsul
lawwama.
Then the the final stage is nafsul mutma'ina.
And if Allah were to bless you with
nafsul mutma'ina, then know that the nafsul mutma'ina
is the most powerful force to progress on
the path.
Because once the comes under control, that same
energy that caused you to sin becomes the
energy that causes you to approach Allah. The
same madness that made you listen to a
song a 1000 times and would just every
time you felt like you had never heard
something so cool, right, is the same madness
that will make you recite the Quran thousands
of times and enjoy it each time in
a different way.
The same madness that kept you awake all
night to watch 3 episodes of Star Wars
because just nothing was so cool, right, until
or nothing was so fun to watch is
the same energy, which was then caused you
to pray all night because nothing was so
fun. No experience was was more
was just more pleasurable than that.
Right? The same energy, you know, that would
cause you to
stay up to do anything will become the
energy that will cause you to pursue Allah.
The same energy that you would pursue a
non mahram with will be the same energy
that you will pursue your wife.
That's what brings happiness in a marriage, by
the way.
Not wasting the energy and dissipating it on
haram.
But instead, forcing all of that energy towards
one's wife. That's when that what I'll tell
you what when does marriage reach its pinnacle?
When the husband and the wife completely turn
towards one another.
The wife's attention is totally on the husband,
and the husband's attention is totally on the
wife. And then what happens? Allah's attention comes
upon them.
Allah's attention comes upon them. We know from
hadith that when a wife and a husband
smile at each other, then Allah smiles upon
them.
So, and that's the meaning of that. But
it doesn't come when the husband's looking at
30 other people
and comparing Nancy to his wife. Right? Because
Nancy at work, she's always nice to me.
No matter how much work I tell her
to do, she's nice to me. But my
wife, I asked her to do something, and
she's asking me why why why don't you
do it yourself? Nancy never said that to
me. Right? This is.
Everything always look the grass always looks greener
on the other side. So you start with
people there are people at work, and you
start working with them, and they all seem
better than your wife when actually they're all
they're not they're not even Muslim the the
vast majority of the time.
And then a person ends up in a
state that they never thought they would be
in. They're married, but they're having a relationship
with this other person.
And it doesn't start,
on day 1. It doesn't start it doesn't
become extreme on day 1. What it starts
with,
oh, we've gotta do we didn't finish a
project. I'll catch you on g chat later
tonight.
Okay? So then you write, or just how
are you? How is the project going? And
she writes, it's going fine, but how are
you feeling?
Then you write, I'm feeling fine. Thanks for
asking.
Okay? Then she writes back something. Then the
conversation builds. Right? And then your wife's calling
you from downstairs. What's going on? It's I'm
just doing a project, just working on a
project, and you're just typing all this nonsense,
and she's typing all this nonsense. And then
what happens if Cheffon convinces you? Enough's convinces
you. This is fun. This is this there's
a lot of fun over here. And, oh,
she cares about me. Your your wife doesn't
care about you. She cares about you. Right?
And this is what happens. And the same
thing happens with the sisters as well. It's
funny to talk about the brothers, but the
sisters as well. Oh, you know, when I
wear, your your she dresses up in, I
don't know, some red purse, red, you know,
red purse, red shoes. And then, you know,
the person at work says, oh, that's a
nice combination. Really goes well with your hair.
Right? Or really goes let's just say even
even happens to hijabis. Oh, it really goes
well with your complexion.
Then what happens? She's, oh, my husband never
said that about my knee.
How come he how come he's noticing all
these things? Then the next day, she dresses
up a little bit more because she's trying
to attract his attention.
Even that sometimes she may not even sub
realize, but subconsciously, she's doing so. Right? And
and these kind of things happen. They happen
in, even happen in
even happen in.
I can tell you people come to me
with the stories that they were chatting. The
boys' section was chatting with the girls' section,
and the girls are all lonely because they're
in the girls' section by themselves, and the
boys are all over there in the boys'
section. Then they start chatting, and then they
come up with an idea about how to
meet.
And the chatting is always very simple. You
you would laugh when you hear this, but
the the chat will be something like,
oh, I heard you recite yesterday
in prayer.
You didn't you leave the last 8? And
then he writes back and saying, yeah. I
did. Very simply, and then she writes back
saying, oh, it was very it was really
unique recitation I heard. Right? And then he
says, I could recite in front of you.
Right?
The the sign that we're the sign that
everyone is a little bit pure is that
it make we can laugh about it here,
and it makes sense. But I'm I'm not
joking with you, actually. These things happen, and
and I and I see them because they'll
send me the whole chat.
They'll send me the whole chat that it
end up in. It doesn't even it doesn't
even happen with students. It happens with.
I've had that come to me as well,
where somebody says I had a dream that
I was with you, and then he says,
well, this means you should come to me.
Now these things have happened as well.
And it happens it it see, this is
the sharia. You have to remember that no
matter who you are, you're always bound by
the sharia.
I don't care if you're the imam of
the community. That doesn't give you the excuse
to listen to the sisters' problems in khalwa.
And and see, this is the deception. I
told you, shaitan never stops.
Shaitan, the alim, the the shaitan that's with
the alim is an alim. So what does
that shaitan say? That shaitan says, no, you
need to meet with this person because you're
the imam of the community.
So you have to meet with this person
because who else is going to solve her
problems?
So then she comes and she cries and
she says, no one no one cares for
me. No one's listening to me. And then
this person in his heart feels a little
bit of, you know, a little bit of
attraction towards her. And maybe it's not attraction.
Maybe it's a little bit of sympathy. And
then he says, no. No. I care about
you, and the community cares about you, and
we care about you. And then she feels
like this is the only person in the
world who loves me. So she begins to
approach him, and he begins to approach her.
And now the once the animals are released,
it's over.
It's over. It's gonna be an accident. It's
over. There's no hope. So remember that the
we none of us are ever above the
sharia.
None of
us. None of us are ever above the
sharia.
So don't ever think that, you know, somehow
you can become exempted because you hold a
certain position within the community, whether you be
running the masjid or you're the chair the
committee the chair of this committee, or you're
the responsible person in the madrasah for all
of the younger boys, you're the elder person
watching over. So, you know, they're chatting with
someone. You say, I'll handle this. You give
me give me let me go take care
of it. So you go take care of
it and you can easily
you can easily fall prey as well.
So we have to be very, very careful
with the knuffs. And Sheikh Zofekar gave me
one piece of advice, which I'll give you
concerning the knuffs, which I would say this
is the one you write in goal. He
say he said the knuffs is a slippery
snake.
The knuffs
is a slippery snake.
The day you think you have it by
its neck, it will slip out and bite
you.
The day you think you have it by
its neck, it will slip out and bite
you. So you never assume the nuffs is
down. You always keep it down.
Even when it's
you don't let it because if it turns
the wrong way, it'll run back.
It'll run back and knock you down. So
it's a wild animal that must always be
kept under control, restricted by the sharia and
the sunnah and driven towards its goal, and
it will take you there rapidly.
But it will it can never ever be
trusted. No matter who you are, no matter
what situation you think you're in, no matter
how innocent you think the
gathering,
we are always bound by the sharia, and
it's under the protection of the of the
guides of the sharia that we live. So
we don't we don't, you know, gather together
and meet a non maham to teach them
Islam. This is the funny thing. You know,
A a brother will become an alim, and
then he'll think that he should teach them
the some sister that's a non mahram because
he's the only one that can teach her.
That's the deception.
That's the deception, and I've seen people be
take go down the wrong path because of
it.
So we never ever trust our NUPs. Now
there's one last thing that I wanna say,
which is that
some people might raise the question that what
do we how do we so now we
have to continuously watch our NUPs. Correct? I
told you the nuffs can be in 3
stages. It can be in Lawama, Amara, and
Mutmana.
So that also highlights to you that you
must monitor your nuffs. You have to look
over your nuffs to see what stage it's
in and to make sure it's under control.
So how what is the litmus test of
the nuffs? So what did I say a
couple days back? What's the litmus test of
the nafs? Salah. Salah. Excellent.
Salah. Why? Because when you pray salah, you're
testing
how strong your nafs is. How so?
Because salah is in a way is is
a restriction on the nafs. Remember that the
salah begins with what takbir?
Takbir at tahlima. So when you start the
salah, you say Allahu Akbar. It's called Takbir
at tahlima because you make everything haram.
Now what becomes haram? Once you go into
salah, you can no longer eat. That's haram.
You can no longer talk. That's haram. You
can no longer turn your chest away from
the qiblah. That's haram. Right? So it's called
you can't walk. That's haram. So it's called
tafirat tahima because it makes so many things
haram. Now the nafs loves freedom. So when
you make this many things haram, the nafs
does not like it.
So if the nafs is alive and vibrant
and is in the lawama stage or the
amara stage, it will fight you and will
want to get out of salah as fast
as possible.
Alright? But if the nafs is under control,
it will let you remain at peace in
salah and let the soul blossom.
Do you understand the issue? So, for example,
in the month of Ramadan, the first twenty
rakah is the hardest of 20.
The first day of taraweeh is hardest. You're
looking at the clock, wondering when it's gonna
be over. I mean, some people, they're trained,
so they enter into Ramadan in a in
a state, but I'm talking about the vast
majority. It's very hard to pray those first
20. But then on the, towards the end,
you know, in the last few nights, you're
enjoying it. You know, it's just going, going,
going, and you don't even recognize how long
you've been there. Or put it this way,
it's much less difficult.
And that's because what happens in Ramadan? In
Ramadan, you crushed the nuffs. You crushed the
nuffs, crushed the nuffs, crushed the nuffs by
fasting, breaking relate no relations minimal relations, right,
in restricted period of time, and standing in
prayer and sitting on the floor in the
mustard and locking yourself in antikah so that
nuffs is crushed, crushed, crushed, crushed, crushed.
So now you begin to see that salah
becomes a lot easier to pray, and the
sunnah has become easier to pray. And the
length of time in salah becomes much easier
to extend.
So these are signs. This is a litmus
test of of your nafs. Five times a
day, you get the opportunity to check your
nuffs. Now if you find that your nuffs
is out of control
or is you're losing that grip on your
nuffs, then what do you have to do?
You have to knock it down with some
more fasting. Okay? You have to give some
more because the nuffs doesn't like to give
away money. You have to spend a little
bit of extra time in the masjid. You
have to make sure that you pray some
sunnahs as well because the sunnahs also are
very, very restrictive on the nafs. So the
design by design, again, the metaphysical design of
the sharia very much recognizes the power of
the nafs. Now that's the first point concerning
the nuffs, and that is that the litmus
test of the nuffs is salah. So this
is interest important monitor of the nuffs. The
second
is that the pure state of the nuffs
is revealed by Shep by Ramadan.
If you wanna know what state of your
nafs what state your nafs is in, Ramadan
is very helpful for that. Why? Because remember,
there are 2 major,
forces that drag you to evil. What are
they? Nafs and
Shivan. Shivan.
So the 2 major forces that drag you
to evil are nafs and Shethan. Now let's
say that you are performing something evil. Now
you could say, oh, Shethan made me do
it, or you can say my nafs made
me do it, but you never know which
one really fully made you do it. Correct?
So you would it's always gonna be confusing.
But what happens in Ramadan that allows you
to truly assess the state of your nafs?
Shayateen get locked up. Right? So in Ramadan,
the shayateen are gone.
Now when the shayateen are gone, that just
leaves one force towards evil, the nafs.
So if you find yourself in Ramadan
sinning the same way you do outside of
Ramadan or doing 90% of the sins that
you do outside of Ramadan or let's say
80% of the sins that you do outside
of Ramadan, then know that actually it's your
that's driving you towards those sins and maybe
not so much, Shefan.
Now, of course, Shefan is the teacher of
the. It trains the. It entices the. It
drags enough, but it can never force the
to do anything.
It can make enough sniffs. See, the enough
is this animal. So Chiffon brings a little
bit of food by it. So, hey, smell
this. Okay? And then the enough wants to
go towards it, but you still control enough.
You can reign it back. Chiffon cannot make
the enough do anything. It can only entice
the nuffs and whisper to the nuffs. Do
you understand the power of Shaytan? Okay. So
in the month of Ramadan, you learn a
very important less you learn a very important
stat you get a status update. Where is
my nuffs, and how much of it is
actually Shaytan? So how how basically, the question
is, how much has Shaytan trained my nafs?
Now there's a very important discussion that arises
here, and someone asked me this earlier today,
and I think someone also intended to ask
this just now, which is that, okay,
how come if all the shayateen are locked
up
in the month of Ramadan, how come there's
still murder, there's still *, there's still killing,
there's still stealing? How come some there's still
bad things going on in the earth that
the shayateen are locked up? The answer is
is that some people's nuffs
is so deeply embedded and trained by Shefon
that once Shefon disappears, that person is pure
Shefon, basically.
Okay? So that now this person actually is
like Shefon.
And that's why those people continue to do
that type of sin. Right? In this even
in even in the month of Ramadan, whether
they be Muslim or non Muslim. So if
you ever find yourself
that the month of Ramadan comes and you
don't care at all,
you just continue to drink, you continue to
hang out in the clubs, you just continue
to live your lifestyle, then know that you
are very close to becoming like Sha'aban.
Like Sha'ban.
So, you know, Allah protect us from that.
That Sha'an could ever have trained us so
much that he doesn't even need us. You
know, it's he did you you don't even
need him anymore. You've just become the perfect
student.
So we we seek Allah's protection from such
a state because that is a despicable state.
A despicable state you become as if you're
a Shepon.
So may Allah protect us from that.
Now
the last thing, and I guess the most
important thing that I wanna remind you is
that look. The the nafs, although it is
a very, very dangerous thing, it is really
our friend.
And like I told you, Sheikh Zulfkar used
to say that this is a,
that this is a a blessing.
And I just wanna leave you with one
ayah, one ayah of the Quran that will
just highlight you the power of this. So
what does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala say?
Verily
he reaches falaha.
He who purifies his nafs.
So by purifying the nafs, by
by reining it in within the sharia and
the sunnah, you will actually reach. What's is
is
because that's the only means success after which
there's no failure, and the only place where
there is success after which there could never
be failure is. So whenever you hear the
term,
it refers to Jannah or the success of
Jannah. So called Aflaha Man zakkaha. Now, Allah
wants this principle to be so embedded in
your mind that prior to making this statement,
Allah swears on 7 things
in this Surah.
Before making this statement, Allah swears on 7
things. He swears on the sun, the moon,
the skies, the human being himself, etcetera.
Seven oaths are taken by your Lord. Now
imagine if somebody very respectable, right? Let's say,
I don't know, some very respectable leader says,
you know, by the heavens and the earth,
we're gonna do this. That would be a
big oath because now this is a person
of power swearing on something so big like
the heavens and the earth. Allah
the, the greatest of powers, you know, I
mean, to whom no power can compare. Right?
He's swearing on 7 things,
the sky, the earth, etcetera, etcetera.
That
that he
will succeed
who purifies
the nafs.
So herein lies the battle.
Herein
lies the battle.
So the innocent conversation is not so innocent
anymore.
The quick glance is not so quick anymore.
Right?
The I'll do this today, but then I'll
change tomorrow
is not going to result in success anymore.
We have to keep the pure, pristine,
guard it, don't allow it to ever go
beyond its realm, which is dictated by the
Sharia. So the nafs wants to eat and
it wants to eat like crazy. So we
give it 1 third, 1 third, 1 third.
1 third food, 1 third water, 1 third
air. That's the solution for the nafs.
The nafs wants to eat, we give it
the month of Ramadan to show what eating
is all about. So the month of Ramadan
is not about shifting the meal so that
the nafs now gets food 3 times a
day, but at different times during the day.
The month of Ramadan is about cutting the
food on the nafs.
Alright. So remember that. Yes.
Sometimes in Ramadan, we eat more. It's funny.
People eat more in Ramadan than they do
outside of Ramadan, but that wasn't the idea
behind Ramadan.
The idea behind Ramadan was to knock down
the nafs. So we restrict our food. You
know, we lose a little bit of weight.
It's okay. We want it's it's not going
to kill us. In fact, it's going to
make us much more efficient. It's going to
make us much more productive.
So we really, really want to curtail this
nuffs. And the month of Ramadan is look,
nuffs, once it's out of the barn,
it's like holding on to a horse and
the horse is 10 times more powerful than
you. It just drags you through the mud.
And it's such a sorry state of existence
because you're thinking, I don't want to be
here. I don't want to do this. I
don't wanna look at this thing. I wanna
change my life. And it's just does not
listen. It is just dragging you through the
mud, giving you the most miserable existence. Because
in your mind, you know what you should
be doing in your heart. You know what's
good, but you have no control over yourself.
You just feel horrible.
But the one chance you have is Ramelhan.
The one chance where, you know, now the
playing field is level. Chaitan is out,
and you have to fast, and the is
under control, and you finally get to where
you need to be. That's Ramadan. It's not
gonna come again. So these days are really
valuable once you understand what they're all about.
Now you know why we say that,
that these are a limited number of days.
You know, it's you count them down.
You know, you count them down. You only
have 29, and then you have 28. Now
you have, what, 4?
And we're left with 4, and now we're
figuring out what we should have done with
those days.
Left with 4 days to to take care
of this nuffs before sheikhon comes back and
starts putting that sniff, you know, that allows
nuffs to sniff again, and it starts going
crazy trying to go the other way.
Right? And this is why we defend what
we get in Ramadan
as with vigilance,
with vigilance.
You know, once we get out of here,
we have to be really careful.
We don't go on the Internet if we
think there's a chance we'll see something we
shouldn't see,
because it'll result in being the same person
that we were before Ramadan.
We don't go and put on those earphones
and listen to that music that we used
to listen to because it'll turn us back
into who we were before Ramadan.
We don't go out and start hanging out
with the same friends because they're they're enoughs
will be will also teach our nafs to
become exactly who we were before Ramadan.
So this is the chance of a lifetime.
This is the chance of a lifetime. This
is Allah's incredible mercy.
We should be so thankful, so thankful that
Allah created this opportunity for us. And again,
I told you this opportunity is not random.
Allah took the skies and the heavens and
the earth and aligned them all perfectly so
that this just time came upon you.
That's no small feat.
No small feat.
But to only the power of Allah could
have rotated the universe into the month of
Ramadan. And it's only the power of Allah
that will rotate us out of Ramadan.
Just as quickly as it came, it's about
to end. So we have to take advantage
of these days. Do not waste them. Do
not waste them. Do not waste them. I
cannot if there's if there's I mean, there's
just, like, a few points that we have
to make, and this is one of them,
that these are our days.
These are our days, so we have to
use them wisely. This is why I keep
saying, look, there's no need to talk in
this ethic of.
We just be focused on the knobs. The
knobs loves to talk.
The knobs loves to talk to show everybody
what it knows
and to show everybody how it can explain
and to show everybody
what it does when it's not here.
We don't talk.
We we don't talk. We are too scared.
We're too scared of letting enough, you know,
take control.
So be very careful about your speech in
the next few days.
Be very careful about what you consume. It's
not random. You know? Just eat what you
need to eat and then move on and
expend that energy
in in acts of.
Not saying to starve yourself, but I am
saying is that be careful about stuffing yourself.
And every little thing counts. You know? If
you have a real strong craving for a
type of food, break
it. Break it because it's not worth it.
It's just it's it's it's again, it's these
are the small things that feed the knobs.
Small, small, small, and then eventually every spark
can become a fire.
So take advantage of this time.
Alright. May Allah give us a to be
among those who crushed their nafs, who trained
their nafs to become
eventually so that it could become
We went really late again.
So,
let's just,
take a couple of minutes to perform muraqabah
and then, inshallah, we'll we'll close off the
session and people can get to bed.
Islam.
Islam. Islam.
Islam.
Asking that you forgive our sins,
that you rectify our deeds,
and that you make us among those who
truly believe.
You Allah,
we spent so many days,
so many weeks,
so many months
disobeying you,
reaching new heights in sin,
going beyond the bounds of this Deen,
breaking the laws of the Sharia,
performing those acts that displease you,
and yet you overlooked all of that and
allowed us to enter into this great month
of Ramadan.
You all, we beg and beseech
that just as you have allowed us to
enter into this great month
and that you've shown your incredible mercy upon
us by making us among those who are
partaking of this month, that you make that
you also allow us to be among those
who receive your mercy during this month,
who receive your forgiveness during this month, and
who receive freedom from the hellfire during this
month.
You all love verily. There are no group
of servants that have disobeyed you disobeyed you
in a greater way and in a more
severe way in the history of time.
But, you Allah,
we stand and beg and beseech you that
just as you as you have used Ramadan
as a means of purifying generations
and generations and generations of Muslims.
You Allah, that you allow this generation
standing here begging before you to be purified
of their sins through the blessing of this
month of Ramadan.
You, Allah, we claim to have performed no
act of worship worthy to be presented to
you.
We claim to have performed no fasting that
would be worthy to be presented to you.
We've we've claimed we do not claim to
perform to to have performed any act of
salah that would be worthy of being presented
to you.
Instead,
we ask that you take these acts of
worship,
that you fit them and make them suitable
to your greatness, to your grandeur, to your
pleasure, and that you accept them in that
way on our behalf.
You, Allah,
verily you cause us to enter into Ramadan.
You, Allah, we ask that you allow us
to exit from Ramadan in the most pure
state.
You Allah, we ask that you allow us
to be among those whose nafs is under
control.
We ask that you do not put us
back under the control of our wild nafs,
you Allah.
You Allah, we ask protection from our nafs,
We ask protection from Shaytan.
And we ask from protection from those people
whose nafs have become just like Shaytan.
You Allah. Don't make our nafs just like
Shaytan.
You Allah. Don't make our nafs just like
Shaytan.
You Allah, if we have done done anything
to displease you during this blessed month, then,
you Allah, we ask your forgiveness for that.
How could it be that even during this
month when you provide us with such an
opportunity for redemption that we continue to perform
the mistakes
that we had been performing outside of this
month, you Allah. You Allah, we're begging and
pleading from you that you allow us to
become among those servants that are pleasurable to
you. You
Allah,
shape us, mold us, fashion us in a
way that is pleasing to you.
You Allah, shape us, mold us and fashion
our children in a way that is pleasing
to you. You Allah, shape and mold and
fashion our families in a way that is
pleasing to you. You Allah, shape and mold
and fashion our communities in a way that
is pleasing to you.
You
Allah, what we are asking for is so
minute compared to the magnificent power that you
possess.
You Allah, the one that has the ability
to turn the moon and the sun and
the earth to produce this blessed month of
Ramadan,
Who has the ability to rotate this so
that so many Ramadans over 1400 have passed
through this through this community?
You Allah, the one who had who has
the ability to create the earth from nothing?
You Allah, who has the ability to say
kun faya kun?
Who has the ability to fashion the sky
and lay it in layers, who has the
ability to spread the earth and nail it
down with mountains,
You Allah you have such incredible power, such
incredible abilities, such incredible treasure
And there is no deity worthy of worship
except you. So, you Allah,
we ask you for something very small
that you allow us to change
just as you move the earth and the
moon and the sun that you move us
in the direction of your deen. You, Allah,
that you move our families in the direction
of your deen. You, Allah, that you move
our children in the direction of your deen.
You, Allah, it's such a small request.
But for us, it is the it is
the only request.
You Allah, what difference does it make to
you if you were to place us into
your agenda and allow us to partake of
your treasures? We know that it makes no
difference to you. You remain as great. And,
you Allah, you could throw us into jahannam
and forget about us for eternity, and it
would make no difference to you because you
are so great.
So, you Allah, we're not asking on your
behalf. We're asking on ours
because, you Allah, we won't be able to
last in your
We won't be able to see our children
in your
We won't be able to see our parents
in your
We won't be able to see our friends
in
your May Allah protect us from even the
scent of
your Protect us from even the vision of
your Protect us from the heat of your
Protect us from even hearing about your jannah.
And, you Allah, instead we ask that you
throw us directly into jannah.
You Allah, we recognize that this has nothing
to do with your greatness or grandeur. You
remain supreme.
But, you Allah, we beg and plead from
you, the one whose treasure is so vast
and so infinite that were he to reward
all of creation with all that they could
fathom, it would not decrease decrease your treasure
even in the slightest way.
You Allah, you would not decrease your treasure
even in the slightest way. So you Allah,
we ask today that you bestow you bestow
upon us from your infinite and magnificent
and insurmountable
treasure.
And, you Allah, that you protect us from
the deep and extensive punishment that you have
created, injunah.
You Allah, we look at the magnificence of
your sun and we are in awe. We
look at the magnificence of the moon and
we are mesmerized.
We look at the magnificence of the earth
and the universe and we are forced but
to bow to your greatness,
you Allah. We also realize that there is
a corollary that just as magnificent of your
as as is your creation,
just as difficult must be your jahannam.
You Allah, your ability to reward is so
extensive that you're also your ability to punish
must be far beyond what we can imagine.
So You Allah, do not test us and
try us in that way.
You Allah, do not test us and try
us in that way. You Allah, do not
test us and try us in that way.
You Allah, we recognize that we are a
group of companions. We are a group of
people that are limping far beyond what your
companions have produced. You Allah, they came to
you running. We come to you limping and
turning away. You Allah, we come to you
limping and turning away. You Allah, we come
to you limping and turning away.
You Allah, we ask that you treat us
just as the people just as the handicapped
people would be treated in this day and
age.
When there is a handicapped individual,
special spots are made for their parking,
specials
special arrangements are made for their sitting, special
arrangements are made for their mobility.
To you all, in the same way, we
beg and beseech you as a handicapped group
of your servants My lord. Who have been
innate who have been unable to be able
to perform the acts of worship the way
they should be performed, who have been unable
to follow your rules and fulfill your mandates
the way they should be fulfilled.
You Allah, we beg and beseech you that
you make us among those who truly believe
and that you Allah, you take into account
you take into account our handicap on this
day.
You Allah, your messenger stated, the one who
has a truthful tongue, the one whom you
blessed to bring your message, that there will
be a day where people will only practice
90, will practice only 10% of your deen,
but they will be rewarded with jannah. You
Allah, this day has come when people don't
even practice 1% of your deen, but sit
before you and ask you for your jannah.
You Allah, we ask that you beg that
based on your infinite mercy, that we beg
and beseech that you that you allow us
to taste and partake of your agenda.
We know we are not deserving, but we
are beseeching you and
your mercy alone.
You Allah, based on your mercy, we ask
that you accept what little we have produced
and that you allow us to be rewarded
with such a great reward.
You Allah,
don't send us home empty handed.
You Allah, don't send us home empty handed.
You Allah, don't send us home empty handed.
You Allah, a group of your young servants
have come into this gathering
who who have tied themselves to the masjid
for the 10 for the period of 10
days, seeking you and seeking you alone. So,
you Allah, send them home renewed,
and, you Allah, send them home refreshed,
and, you Allah, send them home addicted to
your love, addicted to your deen, addicted to
the sunnah of your messenger, addicted to your
Quran, and addicted to your masjid. And, you
Allah, free them from the addictions of the
Internet. And, you Allah, free them from the
addictions of locking their door. And, you Allah,
free them from the addictions of the glances
that they take. And, you, Allah, free them
from the addictions of those things that they
may have touched. And, you, Allah, free them
from the addictions of having lied about with
their tongue. And, you, Allah, free them from
the addictions of their life of this world.
You Allah, based on their struggle and their
sacrifice, we ask that you ask to bless
the rest of us who are not able
to spend 10 days. You Allah, it was
a paltry 10 days, and we couldn't even
take those 10 days out. We put so
many things before you, you Allah. We couldn't
even, inside the month of Ramadan, put our
work aside and come spend the 10 days
here. We couldn't put our families aside and
spend a paltry 10 days for you. We
couldn't put our interests aside and spend these
paltry 10 days for you.
You all know we ask that based on
their sacrifice that you accept what little we
have offered. And you all know we ask
that you free us from our addictions,
that you free us from the sins to
which we have tied down our souls, and
that we you free us from the hellfire
that which we have tied down our necks.
You Allah, love, early your blessed messenger stated
that there comes a time in the last
10 days of Ramadan when it's when now
recurs,
when you take the servants who have bound
their necks to hellfire and you free them
from the hellfire.
You, Allah, I can't imagine a group of
servants that's more deserving of that in this
moment, in this day, in this age.
You, Allah, verily, we have tied our necks
to hellfire,
and we beg and beseech you that you
free us on this day. You Allah, we
beg and beseech you that you free us
on this day. We beg and beseech you
that you free us on this day.
You Allah,
we again we beg and beseech you that
you free us on this day.
You Allah, we ask that you protect protect
us from the difficulty of the grave. We
ask that you take protect us from the
difficulty of being raised, and we ask that
you protect us from the difficulty of the
time before the day before the judgment actually
occurs.
You Allah, we ask that when we arrive
before for the judgment that you put that
you present us directly into Jannah without taking
our account. You Allah, we would not be
able to take our account. You Allah, don't
ask us about the mistakes that we made
because we will not be able to take,
we will not be able to account.
You, Allah, we ask that instead you accept
our our admittance of guilt on this day.
That if we have misused our eyes and
we claim to be guilty.
That if we have misused our tongue, that
we stand here guilty. That if we have
misused our our hands or our feet or
our heart or any blessing that you have
bestowed upon us, that we stand here guilty.
So, You Allah, if it is an issue
of standing before you and claiming our mistakes,
then we stand here before you guilty. So
accept our guilt and you Allah, wash us
in your purity and you Allah, enter us
into your agenda directly without taking our account.
You Allah, enter us into your agenda without
taking our account. You Allah, enter us into
your agenda without taking our account.
You Allah, anywhere there anywhere that there is
a group of people striving and struggling in
your name, You Allah, we ask that you
strengthen their efforts,
that you increase their resolve, and that you
grant them the success necessary for them to
continue along your way.
You Allah, wherever there are any group of
people serving you, striving to serve you, we
ask that you bless them in their effort.
We ask that you allow us to assist
them in their effort, and we ask that
you allow that you make things easy on
them. You Allah, Mufti Minaj came here today
to raise funds for his project that his
family has been planning for many generations, you
Allah, and has made countless sacrifices in order
to achieve. So, you Allah, we ask that
you
firm the infirm their resolve on this effort,
that you bless them in being able to
raise funds for this effort, that you produce
amongst us abundance wealth so that we may
donate to this effort, and that you allow
from this effort to arise fruits that will
be tasted for many centuries to come.
You, Allah, we ask that anywhere, any effort
is being made for this deen, that you
allow us to you allow us to share
in that struggle and that you allow that
that the results of that effort to be
able to be tasted for many generations to
come.
You Allah,
Verily there are members of our family that
were not able to be here but supported
us in being here. So we ask that
you bless them in the same way. And
we ask that you protect them from the
difficulties of this day. And we ask that
you enter in them into Jannah without account.
And you we ask that you allow us
to be with our families in Jannah all
without account.
You Allah, our families who have sent us
here, we ask that whatever we ask in
this dua, we we you also bestow bestow
that upon them. You Allah, our friends who
are not able to be here, we ask
that you bestow it upon them. You Allah
our parents who are were not who are
not here who may have sent us here
who or who may even have asked us
why we are coming here. You Allah we
ask that you
take the rewards that have been gathered in
this gathering that you multiply them and that
you send them to our parents' account.
You Allah, we ask that you make us
among those people who are able to dig
Jannah from under the feet of their parents.
You Allah, we ask that you make us
among those people who are able to dig
the Jannah and the treasure from under the
feet of their parents.
You Allah, we ask that you make us
among those people who are able to dig
the jannah that is bed that has been
buried underneath the feet of their parents.
You Allah, make us the coolness of our
parents' eyes and make us the coolness of
our children's eyes. And you all make the
make our children the coolness of our eyes.
You all love. We ask that you establish
a community amongst us, that you make us
regular in the Masjid, that you make us
among those who are able to smile at
one another as we come regularly to the
prayer. And we ask that you make us
among those who are able
to inhabit the Masjid,
remain in the Masjid, learn in the Masjid,
teach in the Masjid, bring their children to
the Masjid, develop in the Masjid, and eventually
be able to be among those who are
rewarded as if they were attached to the
Masjid.
You Allah, we ask that you bless the
brothers who have established this gathering and who
allow it to occur. You Allah, we ask
that you expand this masjid and make it
wide enough so that we may be able
to double our gathering next year. Yeah. Allah,
we ask that you create space in the
masjid so that the brothers will be able
to have the necessary space to be comfortable
so that they can continue to worship you
year after year. You Allah, we ask that
you expand the efforts of this Masjid, that
you allow the Masjid to expand in space,
that you allow the Masjid to expand in
effort, that you allow the Masjid to expand
in resources, that you allow the Masjid to
expand with qualified individuals who can continue to
guide the community in the right way.
You Allah,
we ask that you bless the brothers who
allow this gathering to occur by providing them
with your ultimate service in Jannah
when they arrive there. You Allah,
anybody who served this gathering, who helped to
organize this gathering, who helped to sustain this
gathering, we ask that you take the benefits
that we're obtaining in this gathering, all the
duas that were made in this gathering, that
you multiply those benefits, that you accept those
duas, and that you place them the in
the account of those people who served us
while we were here in this gathering today.
You Allah, really it is only through your
mercy that we're able to be here and
it will be only through your mercy that
we'll be able to sustain what we gain
here. So you Allah, don't return us back
to our original state. You Allah, allow us
to be among those who sustain that which
we have gained here. Do not make this
gathering a memory. And, you Allah, instead allow
us to remember this gathering as one in
which we took a steps stepping stone towards
you and that this gathering was just one
step on a ascension towards you. So it's
that we can say we used to be
there, but now we have attained a much
higher degree of iman.
You Allah allow this gathering to be a
stepping stone and an ascension towards you. Allow
this gathering to be a stepping stone and
an ascension towards you. Allow this gathering to
be a stepping stone on an ascension towards
you.
You Allah, verily we beseech you and you
alone. We have no place else to turn.
There is no one else who could answer
our call. There is nothing else that we
ask for except you. So, you Allah, we
beg and beseech and plead and plead that
you reward us with you,
that you make us among those who are
attached to you, that you make us among
those who love you,
who appreciate
your signs,
who
would love to be rewarded
by you,
who would be so excited if they could
taste the rewards provided by you,
and who would be so elated to be
able to see you on that day.
You Allah, attach us to you. Make us
among those of you. Make us among those
who read your book, who visit your home,
who follow your messenger,
who live according to your sharia, and who
guide others to your way.