Husain Sattar – Turning Toward Allah
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Allah
states in His glorious book,
Walikunlim wijhatunhuamuwalniha
that for each individual
there is a direction
that they turn. You can talk about this
in the context
He's working on my job. I think he's
here.
He's getting on. You can talk about this
in the context of individuals,
or you can talk about this in the
contact context of nations. You can talk about
this in the context of cultures.
You know, each person has a direction towards
which they turn. Each nation has a direction
towards which they turn. Each culture has a
direction towards which they turn.
In the case of the Muslim, it's very
clear that we
make our we turn ourselves towards the akhirah,
and that's the end goal of every single
Muslim.
The end goal of every single Muslim is
the akhirah.
Now you'll see that every human being, they
have some direction towards which they turn.
That's part of who we are.
Every person is driven by something,
and that thing guides them in in the
decisions that they make on a daily basis.
You see that some people,
you ask some people, they say, you know,
what do you want in life? They say,
you know, I don't want anything in life.
I just want to go to the Caribbean,
and I want to spend a week there.
If you take me there and take me
to the Caribbean, that's all I want.
So, that's their direction, you know. They choose
that. You ask a child what do you
want? They say, well, I just want to
go to Disney World. I don't care about
anything else. Or I just want this one
thing. I don't care about anything else. So
that's a direction. That's the that's the direction
in which they turn.
Some people, you see that their entire direction
is based on wealth.
All they care about is how much money
they have.
They don't even spend it. They just care
about having it.
They count it. They worry about it. They
can't sleep because they don't they're worried about
someone's gonna take it from them. They don't
even know how to enjoy it. They just
have this disease. They just need to have
dollar bills.
They just need to have numbers that they
can keep themselves busy with.
It's a direction in which they turn.
Some people are caught up in what other
people think about them. They spend the vast
majority of time worrying about what other people
think rather than what Allah
thinks.
They were so worried about what people are
going to say.
What are people going to think?
How will people react? That they never think
twice about what would Allah say to me
on the day of judgment?
What will Allah think of me on the
day of judgment? How will Allah react react
towards me on the day of judgment?
This becomes a theme that guides them in
their life. They dress worrying about what others
will think.
They make decisions worrying about what others think.
They never live their own life. They're caught
up in somebody else's world.
The Muslim
is very clear in the direction towards which
they turn.
The Muslim turn turns towards the akhirah.
And even more clear than that, you could
even say beyond that, the Muslim turns towards
Allah
because everything is a derivative of that. In
the end, if the Muslim is turned towards
Allah, then that's why they're torn toward that's
why they're so accepting of Rasulullah
because in the end, he's the Messenger of
Allah
If the Muslim turns towards Allah,
that's why he or she is so accepting
of Kitab'allah
because in the end it has a Nisba
with Allah
Person who turns towards Allah, that's why they're
so comfortable when they're at Baytullah
because it has a nisba with Allah
So basically, we can say that the Muslim,
their complete and absolute focus is Allah
Now you can only turn in certain so
many directions, you know, Allah
created human beings so simple.
If you're facing one way, you can only
face one way. You can't turn the other
way. Whichever way you face, your back will
be towards the other way. This is the
way human beings have been made, and this
is exactly the way that human beings are
made physically and spiritually.
Physically, there's only one direction in which you
can face. You can't face 2 directions at
one time. It's not humanly possible. You can't
cut yourself in half and turn in 2
ways.
The same way, spiritually, a human being can
only face one direction at one time,
and each person makes a decision about where
they want to apply themselves.
Now spiritually, we could say that, well, you
know, on Friday night, then I wanna turn
towards Allah, but all the other nights, I
wanna do what I wanna do. On the
weekends, I turn towards Allah, on the weekdays,
I wanna do what I wanna do. It
doesn't work that way. Human beings, they cannot
have 2 faces. They cannot turn in 2
different directions,
and it's interesting if you look within the
Sharia, the Sharia is so particular about direction
in so many things.
For example, when we pray salah, you have
to face the Qibla,
And if you turn away from the keblah,
your salah breaks.
When you're making tawaf, you have to face
a certain direction.
And if you turn one way or turn
the other way and take a footstep,
that round doesn't count unless you go back
and retrace your steps.
So even within our deen, we see so
much emphasis on direction,
but we have to have it very clear
in our minds that
unless you turn towards Allah
a 100%,
it's very hard to go very far.
You know, here's a person. They take 2
step towards towards a lawn the weekend. And
then on the weekday, they turn around and
they're taking 2 steps backward. And then the
next weekend, they take 2 steps forward. And
then the next, you know, weekdays, they take
2 steps backwards. Then Then you ask yourself,
where did the person end up?
The person ended up to 0 because he
took 2 forward and 2 backward and 2
forward and 2 backward and 2 forward and
2 backward. A lot of steps have occurred,
but in the end, there was no change.
The Muslim has to absolutely
100000
percent focus on Allah and Allah alone.
That has to be the goal of the
Muslim.
And that was what the what Rasulullah
taught to companions.
And the person who is loves Allah will
want to avoid the things that Allah dislikes.
And so whatever you told the companions to
do, they were ready to accept it because
actually they were turned towards Allah. They weren't
turned towards one law or one thing, They
were turned towards Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. So
if a verse came down that they can
no longer
consume alcohol,
the streets were flowing with alcohol,
and no one would consume it after that.
No one would even talk about it after
that. If a verse comes down that there
needs to be hijab,
the next day there was hijab. Not the
next day, the same day it was hijab.
There was no discussion. Verse comes down that
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has prohibited riba, they
canceled all their contracts despite the fact that
this person may have owed another person, you
know, 1,000,000 of dollars. That was all nullified
and they were accepting of it
because they accepted Allah
Their direction was turned towards Allah
And so whatever they were told to do,
they did.
So this is the same exact circumstance that
we find ourselves in. Now, unfortunately, we try
to turn towards so many different directions. We
say this is important, and this is important,
and this is important, and my deen is
important.
But it doesn't work that way.
Deen requires you to give a 100%. Now,
yes, of course, all of life will then
fit fit under deen. If Allah becomes a
goal, then earning a halal income becomes part
of that.
Meeting with family and friends becomes part of
that, but it all becomes part of that,
not distinct from that. So that when they're
meeting when people are meeting with family and
friends, it's not a whole different world. It's
the same world. It's just
that you are in a different context.
What we wanna practice our deen, and then
we want it to be different here and
different there.
You know? In the masjid, I wanna be
very righteous and very religious, but then when
I have my gatherings, I want to, you
know, do things the way I wanna do
them.
So that doesn't work. It doesn't take you
very far.
And it's addressed in the Quran as well.
Allah is complaining about the human being
and and explaining
a weakness of the human being. And what
are we told?
Verily your efforts, they're too dispersed.
You wanna go here, and you wanna go
here, and you wanna go here, and you
wanna go here, and you wanna go here,
but actually everyone should be you should be
focused on one path, and that's the path
towards Allah
So it has to be very clear in
our mind. There is no,
you know, there is no
partiality in this. There's no
doing something
part time and then doing it you know
doing another thing part time.
Whatever we put in that's what we get
out.
So people ask you know how can I
change myself, how can I improve myself, how
come I'm not going anywhere? Well the ball
lies in our court.
A person who focuses on Allah, they certainly
will approach their they'll achieve their goal.
That's our history.
A person who focuses on Allah
will certainly achieve their goal.
But we have to decide what our focus
is going to be. We can't be part
time, you know, we can't say, well, now
I'm going to do this and then later
on I'll do that. It has to be
a 100% for Allah
and every moment has to be for Allah.
And our masha'if they said that every breath
has to be for Allah,
not every breath, every time between every breath.
You know, we say that every breath should
be for Allah.
Every millisecond in which the breath is halted,
that even should be for Allah.
This was how our scholar, how particular our
Masha'aikh were. And SubhanAllah, I've seen people like
that. There's so few people in the world
that are like that. I've seen people, I've
watched them inside out.
I'm thinking about, you know, I'm watching Shaykh
Zulfikar, I'm watching him the way he lives
his whole life. He's constantly working, constantly working,
constantly working, constantly
driven
by the pleasure of Allah.
Just wants to do something
that will please Allah.
I remember very vividly,
one time I went, with a group of
brothers. I I happened to go on a
jamat with a group of brothers. This was
like, I remember it must have been high
school or just early college.
And this jamat had come from Pakistan,
and I happened to join them. A friend
took me there, and I happened to join
them. And I can't remember in my life
ever having sat with such a
concentrated group of people who were devoted to
Allah. Meaning, this was a very unique group
of people. There were about 8 of them,
but there was something very unique about them.
And I remember I spent 2 or 3
days with them, and the one thing that
more than anything affected me about sitting with
them
was that when
that they became happy and they became sad
only for Allah. That was a thing that
really shocked me. I remember that they went
knocking on a door
and, you know, they go door to door
and they try to tell people about Islam,
and they went to knocking on a door
and,
somebody offered them the opportunity to come and
just tell them a little bit about Islam.
He said, well, you know, I'm busy right
now, but I have 5 minutes.
So they sat down, and they started they
started talking to this individual, and I it
was a little bit foreign to me because
I was just in high school or some
young age like that, and I didn't fully
understand what they were doing. It was just
kind of new to all of this. But
I remember just sitting there listening and they're
talking.
And they're talking and they say to the
person that, you know, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
created us and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will
judge us and we should be thankful to
Allah and gracious to Allah,
you know, and be and be cognizant of
all of the favors and bounties that Allah
has bestowed on us. It was some talk
like that, very general.
And the at the end of 5 minutes,
they said, well, you know, you you gave
us 5 minutes. We took our 5 minutes
to zakkala, and then they left.
And I I'm I what I remember not
was a talk, but on the way back,
on the way home, the way to the
Masjid. They were going back to the Masjid.
As we were driving back from the Masjid,
it was as if those 6 people had
won the lottery.
They were so happy.
One of them was singing.
He was just humming and and go and
just moving around.
And I'm looking at them and I'm thinking,
what is making these people so happy? This
is so strange. And what had made them
so then I figured it out. The whole
thing that had made them so happy that
someone gave them 5 minutes to talk about
Allah.
They were so happy
that someone had given them the opportunity to
just talk that, you know, I'm in love
with Allah, let me have a conversation with
you about this, and they just start they
were just so
altered by that interaction. Now, you know, people,
they get happy when you give them a
$100 or they get happy when they buy
something on sale for 25% off, and he's
this guy's happy. He bring takes his kids
out for ice cream. You know? But these
people, their happiness and their sadness was solely
for the sake of Allah. It was such
a strange
group. And I can tell you that I
remember one other thing, and that is that
when I left them, I don't know what
happened. It's just stay there for 2 and
a half days, even 2 and a half
days, probably 2 days. I remember that when
I left, they were all sleeping.
But when I stood up to leave, I
just broke down in tears. I don't know
what took came over me. It was just
such a strange thing. I was just crying
and crying, and on the bus ride home,
I was just crying and crying and crying.
I'm thinking, what's wrong with me? Why am
I, you know, so emotional? But just to
sit with people that were just driven for
the sake of Allah and Allah alone, and
they had made so many sacrifices. These were
poor, poor people that had come from Pakistan,
and they happened to be, you know, coming
in Jamat in America.
It, it was just, you know, there's few
people out there like that. How many times
do you meet such people? I can just
count them on my hand, you know, how
many times in a whole lifetime, how many
opportunities you get to interact with such people
in the world.
So these are very special people, but they're
very special people because they have a very
special direction in which they've turned themselves. They
honestly,
truly,
not in their tongue,
honestly, truly, in their complete actions turn themselves
towards Allah.
And there are a few other people that
you you encounter in your lifetime like that,
and they're very special, but they've they've made
a very special decision.
And that's the and and they and that's
you you see the effect of it. You
can feel the effect of it,
but we but we unfortunately we have our
problem.
You know, we want to be here. We
want to be there. We want to do
things this way, but then when we're in
the company of righteous people, then we want
to give lectures.
So when we're home we want to watch
TV and relax, but when we're in the
Masjid we want to explain to everybody why
TV is bad.
It doesn't work that way. How can you
have both? It's, you know, it's it's turning
in one direction then turning in another direction.
So if we desire to become who we
desire to become,
then we have to be 100% focused towards
Allah. Now again, that doesn't preclude us from
doing the things that we have to do
as part of life. We have to interact
with people. We have to go to work.
We have to excel at our work. We
have to do our studies. We have to
excel at our studies, but the but the
purpose of that all becomes different.
Everybody does the same thing. Everybody gets up
and brushes their teeth. The question is why
you brush your teeth. One person gets up
and brushes their teeth because you just wake
up, like, you know, and I'm supposed to
brush my teeth. It's just a habit. Another
person gets up and brushes their teeth because
it's a sunnah. There's a very big difference
between those two people, but they're doing the
exact same thing. So we should be
we should be particular about
making sure
that our int our total attention is turned
towards Allah
And when a person does that, then their
life is totally altered.
You see you can see what they can
produce and the effects that they have. And
you just look at the lives of our
scholars, there are so many examples. Imam Nawi,
Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim, Imam Ahmed, and just
etcetera etcetera. It goes on. That's just a
field of hadith.
How devoted they were towards their Deen, how
devoted they were towards Allah and His Messenger.
I mean, Imam Bukhari is traveling
by horse, by camel, by foot,
year to get a hadith, 6 months to
get one hadith,
and imagine you know we're all living off
that sacrifice but what a lover of Allah
that person must have been.
So we should be very particular Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala makes it very clear
and we have to turn we have to
make our
direction
that of that which is towards Allah Subhanahu
wa ta'ala. So may Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala
give us a tawfiq to be among those
who turn towards Him 100%
and then may He make us among those
who attain the benefits of those who turn
towards Him 100%.