Husain Sattar – Solitude
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
We've been speaking over the last few weeks
about
returning to Allah
and making a
journey towards him
in our lives.
And,
we spoke about many different angles of that
over the past few weeks. And,
today, I just wanted to share one
different angle concerning this particular journey.
So in life, we take many journeys.
And for the most part, when we take
those journeys,
the details of that journey are contingent on
the purpose of the journey.
For example,
you take a trip
to relax. Somebody
goes on a vacation with their family.
So that's a type of journey.
And when a person goes on vacation with
their family
or goes out with their friends
after final exams or,
you know, a bunch of people get together
and they decide to make a road trip
somewhere,
One feature of that journey that makes it
fun
and makes it worthy of being pursued is
the fact that you go with other people.
In fact, for the most part,
people prefer
that their journeys be in groups, with company.
So for example,
when family travels together, they like everyone to
travel together. When people travel together, when people
travel they like to travel with their friends.
When people,
I don't know, go on a road trip,
you don't just get in a car and
go on a road trip by yourself and
come back a week later.
People will pack up their car with a
bunch of friends and then everybody goes on
a road trip together.
So one key feature of these types of
journeys and vast majority of journeys that we
undertake in this life
is that those journeys are in groups.
And
because they're in groups,
we tend to enjoy them more.
Now
when the purpose of the journey changes,
then
you tend to travel
in a different setup.
So for example,
if you're going to the doctor appoint your
doctor's appointment,
I don't know, you don't say to a
bunch of friends, hey, I'm going to the
doctor's appointment. Let's all hang out, you know,
in my car. You get in the car
and you go and you have a purpose
and it's a very serious purpose and so
you tend to go by yourself. You might
take one important person with you.
When you travel for an interview,
you don't get 6 of your friends together
and travel for an interview. You prepare for
the interview. You get on a plane usually
by yourself. You're fairly focused and you travel
and you reach your destination.
So
depending on the type of journey,
you may travel alone, or you may travel
with company, or you may travel with very
specific people.
In the case of a journey to Allah
so when a person is turning their life
around and leaving the past life that they
lived within and trying to approach their lord
and connect with their lord,
one important feature of that journey
is that
eventually you have to travel the path alone.
Eventually
you have to travel the path alone.
And, you know, in the initial part of
this discussion, we talked about different types of
journeys, and then I just associated the type
of company based on the type of journey.
So if it's a journey for pleasure, you
tend to travel in a group. If it's
a journey
for work or for something more serious, you
tend to travel with a very restricted group
of people,
perhaps even yourself when it's very, very serious.
You really want to get something done and
you really have a focus and you don't
want anyone with you usually because that will
distract you.
So those are different journeys in different circumstances.
Now we're talking about one
one journey, that journey to Allah.
And what's important to recognize is that although
that often
begins in a group,
eventually
you have to travel by yourself.
And this is something that, unfortunately,
we don't appreciate in this day and age.
Although that journey begins in a group
or can begin a group in a group,
you cannot progress very far until you realize
that you have to travel by yourself.
So So what do I mean by that?
Well, the very initial phases of this journey
when a person is beginning to approach their
lord, it can occur in a group. You
could travel with a bunch of your friends
and go and sit in the talk. You
can travel with your bunch of friends and
go on Umrah. You can travel with a
bunch of friends and,
go to the Masjid.
But that will only take you
along the very, very initial portions of this
journey.
Eventually,
you have to leave everything behind
and you have to take the next step
by yourself.
There there comes a point. There comes a
threshold in that journey where you have to
leave everything behind and you have to travel
on your own.
And what do I mean by that? I
mean that
there comes a point where you have to
learn to
see yourself
and hear yourself
and identify yourself
and eventually develop yourself.
Now
that that threshold
that's required, that crossing of that border that's
required, that cannot happen with other people, meaning
you cannot do that in a group. You
cannot do that with your friend. You cannot
do that with anyone
because
invariably when we're with others,
it's harder to see ourselves.
When we're talking to someone, we can't hear
what what our soul is saying to us.
When we're,
when we're with others and looking at other
things, it's hard to be
looking at oneself.
What's required is that a person
have
solitary
reflection upon themselves
and progress to their towards towards their lord.
Now how does that occur? Now you'll see
interestingly,
we're on this journey every day.
Everybody in this room is on this journey
every day.
And the fact that sometimes you need a
group and sometimes you need to be alone
is completely embedded in the deen.
For example,
there's many congregational
acts of worship.
We have congregational prayer.
We have,
you know, the whole Umma is fasting in
the month of Ramadan. We have Hajj, and
when we go for Hajj, it's a big
congregation.
So those individual journeys, those those various,
you know, sub journeys within the those various
stops within the journey, let's call them that,
those
are with groups and there's benefits to that
and it encourages a person and it causes
a person to become excited and it causes
a person to develop confidence.
When you see a whole bunch of people
are fasting, it's much easier to fast. When
you see that a whole bunch of people
are praying, you feel like you belong to
a group and it's much easier to develop.
However,
at the same time,
along with those congregational
acts,
there's also
many, many acts within the dean. And in
fact, the
additional and superrogatory
acts within the dean, those ones that take
you to that next level, they tend to
be,
they tend to be where you are alone
and isolated by yourself.
For example,
the Hajjid prayer is not prayed in a
group.
The Hajjid prayer is a very, very private
prayer that occurs,
with an individual
alone in the middle of the night, and
that individual is sitting and reflecting and focusing
on their lord and trying to approach their
lord, and that does not occur in a
group.
That's not where a bunch of people get
together and and pray that. It's a it's
a very personal private
journey,
but it's one of the most powerful journeys
that a person can undertake.
Waking up 2 in the morning, 3 in
the morning
at the very, very last part of the
night when everyone else is asleep. I mean,
what is so unique about that time? That's
the time when everybody's asleep, when all the
noise dissipates, when all of the companions on
the journey are gone.
The children are sleeping, the family is sleeping,
most people are sleeping,
the block, everybody on the block is sleeping,
And then somebody wakes up, and they wake
up, and then they begin to reflect.
Now it's that period of time
that provides a person with a very
strong indication of who they are.
That's when a person sits and thinks and
says
how weak I am, how unable I am,
how much I need to do, how many
mistakes I've made, and that time can't be
replaced with any other time in the day
because it's a very unique and very special
time, but it's required.
Similarly,
there's a requirement
I mean, I shouldn't say it's a requirement.
Similarly, there's a need for a person to
have a period of time in which they
can individually
sit and recite the Quran and reflect on
what it's saying.
Now you can do that as a study.
You know, I mean, some people get together
in a halakah and then a person's explicating
the Quran and everybody's sitting and listening, and
I'm not saying that that isn't beneficial. That's
beneficial. It's extremely beneficial.
But it also has its
corollary, which is that an individual
should also have a period of time in
the day when they independently interact with the
Quran and recite the Quran and are reflecting
on the Quran and are developing an attachment
with the Quran.
Alright. Now we can sit together and we
can talk about the mistakes that we've made.
You know, I could sit down and I
could say let's all together think about the
mistakes that we made today. Did anybody
misuse their tongue? Think about it. Did anybody
misuse their eyes? Think about it. So that's
possible. We could have that discussion.
But it will never be as powerful
as an individual sitting alone in a corner
by themselves,
thinking about how they spent their time and
the mistakes that they've made and seeking forgiveness
for those mistakes.
You can't you can't compare the 2. Both
are important, but you just can't compare the
2. Each has its own place. Each
allows an individual to travel a different portion
of an essential journey.
Now you'll see that, you know, in this
balance, there's 2 there's there's 2 extremes. A
person can completely become congregational and not wanna
do anything by themselves, but always wanting to
do something with another.
Always wanting to go to the next gathering,
always wanting to sit in the next meeting,
always wanting to be around 12 other people.
So there's some there's a deficiency there.
Similarly, a person cannot get completely isolated and
say, I'm just gonna sit in a corner
and just do my liquor all day and
I'm not going to interact with the community.
There's also a deficiency there.
This journey
has different phases, and each phase
has its characteristics. And at that particular moment,
those characteristics
need to be achieved.
So in the middle of the night, it's
not the goal in the middle of the
night that we call everybody together regularly, and
we get together, and we all pray together.
That's not what's done in our deen. The
prophet, alayhis salam, established a sunnah for the
middle of the night, and that sunnah in
the middle of the night has its particular,
benefits. It has its particular,
details that allow a person to benefit from
that time, and we're not gonna be able
to change that.
In fact, if we try to change that,
then we we we make a mistake.
So
we have to appreciate
that this journey is very different than other
journeys. Now people why do I why do
I mention this? Because people like to take
journeys and they like to have their friends
and they like to be comfortable and they
like to keep other people around them and
they like to keep noise around them.
People like that there's always chatter in the
background because that's what we're used to. People
like that there's always people around them because
that's what we're used to.
But that depth of reflection that's required for
a person to be able to travel upon
certain phases of this journey cannot occur that
way.
They cannot occur that way.
We have to sit alone
in order to face ourselves.
And if we don't face ourselves, we can
never get past those barriers.
It's easy to get a bunch of people
around us and laugh and joke and forget
about what reality is and forget about who
we are and forget about our existence and
forget about our deficiencies and forget about what
we need to do to get to the
next step, but it doesn't work that way.
There's always a period of time that's required
when we face ourselves, and that's a very
hard thing to do.
It's a very hard thing to do. Now
you see this in any field. You know,
you wanna talk about what makes a good
student. I mean, a good student is not
the one that's always studying in a group.
Sometimes a student, even if they like to
study in a group, has to sit alone
with a book and read it 20 times
and figure out what's going on.
Being a good student isn't just about going
to class.
Being a good student isn't just about being
in a good study group. Being a good
student also requires that at times you study
alone. At times you reflect on the material.
At times you spend the additional energy to
make the effort and that that somebody just
doesn't carry you along.
You know, we have these students that we
work with constantly, and I don't go to
the students and tell them the answer to
every question. We give them the question, and
then they'll ask it. They'll ask for the
answer, and we'll say, think about it a
little more
or let me give you a clue, and
then we step away. And it's when we
step away that they actually grow the most.
It's when we step away that they actually
grow the most.
So these types of gatherings, like, for example,
we're all sitting here. I mean, the purpose
of this gathering is to not to make
up for the whole week of a of
a lack of effort.
The purpose of this gathering is to just
entice us to go one step further.
But we can't go further without that effort.
That's been the theme over the past several
weeks. We can't go further without that individual
effort. So when we sit down, when we
say
that when a person wants to turn towards
Allah and they make that effort to approach
their lord, one of the one of the
beneficial things is that they spend time in
the dhikr every day.
That's a very important component of that journey
and it's done alone. I'll tell you one
of the common emails that I get
Would it be okay if I sat together
with my friends and we did our routine
together?
I always say
no because that's not the routine. You will
sit together, go pray a shout. You'll sit
together. Once a week, there's the map hole.
You'll sit in the map hole. But it
also requires that there be a set effort
on each of our parts to make an
individual
effort, an an individual,
push towards our goal.
And no one can change that because that's
the way the dean is.
No one can change it, and that's part
of the journey.
And and sometimes it's hard because everybody's used
to doing everything with someone else,
but it's something that we have to appreciate,
and we have to put time in. And
it's difficult because when a person gets into
that phase, what ends up happening is that
as they're in that phase, they then have
to face themselves.
When there's no noise around us, that's when
we begin to hear our heart.
When there's no noise around us, that's when
we begin to hear the crying of our
soul.
When there's no people around us, that's when
we begin to hear and smell
and feel the effects of our sins.
It's there, but we just cloud it.
We cloud it with noise. We cloud it
with text messages. We cloud it with constant
communication on the Internet. We cloud it with
constantly being on the phone. We cloud it
with constantly sitting around people and going out
here and going out there and distracting us
here and, you know, applying our energy there.
We can't hear what's going on. We can't
see what's going on anymore.
It
that that isolation,
that solitude, let's put it this way, that
solitude,
that solitude
is essential, and it means that the phone
has to be away, the people have to
be away,
all of the
surroundings
have to be
completely
boxed off, and we sit and we close
our eyes and we imagine that our heart's
saying Allah, or we sit in a state
of dhikr, and it's in that state that
things are opened up to us.
That's when our realities are revealed. That's when
our weaknesses become more most apparent. That's when
we begin to make istighfar
and begin to be thankful for,
the benefits and bounties that our lord has
bestowed upon us. But we need that peace.
And what end what's what today's modern world,
it's encroached upon every corner of peace that
ever existed in any person's life. It's actually
maddening.
We're
actually maddening. Wherever we go, it's constant noise.
You know, there was like a moment when
you could have alone and it just doesn't
exist anymore.
It used to be you could come into
the mustard and there was really nothing to
do.
Now we can bring the whole world with
us into the mustard and it's on a
screen.
So what's happening? Slowly, that little bit of
space that we actually had, it completely disappears.
It completely disappears. We're in the car, there's
noise.
We're outside of the car with our friends.
There's noise
Any free moment is filled on the phone
or on the Internet or or or
texting there's noise
There's no more time to to spend for
an individual to be able
to to travel these
components of our journey that are so essential
to allowing us to develop.
And we have to appreciate it. We have
to make an effort towards it. We have
to understand
the paradigm because it's by understanding the paradigm
that we can succeed in our goal.
So the the gist of this is that
the dean
has components that are congregational
and other components that require solitude.
And those components that are congregational they have
their benefits and they have their,
they have there's there's there's the hikma that's
embedded within them But those issues that are
related to solitude cannot be replaced with anything
else. You can't replace it with text or
phone or or groups
Every actually, it it it more than anything
requires that everything be disconnected.
So this is essential for us, and we
have to appreciate it because in this world,
everything is encroaching upon our space. And if
we don't open up and create that space,
then we're going to lose the ability to
be able to benefit from these very, very
important parts of this journey.
So the summary is that all of us
are on a journey.
And like we've been speaking about over the
past few weeks, that journey has its details.
That journey has a paradigm which is pre
established upon which we travel.
And one component of that, among the many,
one component of that is that there are
pieces of this parts of this journey that
are going to be congregational, and parts of
it which are going to require solitude.
And they're fairly balanced. In fact, I would
make the opposite argument. I would say that
fewer aspects of the din are congregational,
and much much more is is facing solitude.
The prophet
used to pray the farad prayer in the
masjid, and everything else was prayed at home.
The farad prayer was prayed in the masjid,
it's sunnah to pray the sunnah at home.
Now in this day and age, I mean,
the recommend that people go ahead and pray
the congregation the the sunnah prayers in congregation
because we leave the masjid, and once we
leave the masjid,
our zone of our buffer of isolation is
so limited that it cracks in a second,
and as soon as we get home there's
no it becomes difficult to pray.
So seeing the context in which we exist,
the Ullama now recommend that just pray everything
in the masjid because the moment you get
out of the masjid that's gonna crack, That
shield is gonna crack and it's gonna be
difficult.
So that's the reason that we tend to
pray the sunnahs and the masjid nowadays. But
otherwise,
if you wanna look at the technicality of
it, it's sunnah to pray the sunnah prayers
at home.
Sunnah to pray the sunnah of Fajr before
you come to the masjid. It's sunnah to
pray the sunnah of Zuhar after leaving the
masjid for after the fadl prayer.
So
we can't we can't replace those components.
But most of the components of deen are
actually those that require solitude.
And and that is a very important skill
to develop, and it is actually an important
skill in order for a person to be
able to succeed on this path.
So we ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, that
he create for us the opportunities that we
are able to isolate ourselves in solitude,
and we ask that Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala,
make us among those who are able to,
quench and quell the noise around us so
that we're able to focus on
and
hear the calling of our heart.