Ibraheem Menk – How To Control Yourself
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AI: Transcript ©
If I were to ask you
which one of you wants Jannah?
I don't even need to wait for a
response.
I don't even need to wait for you
to put your hand up and say, I
want Jannah.
Because I know any believer
in Allahu Abu'l il says he was jiral
and the last day and the fact that
we are returning to him,
all put their hands up.
But if I were to ask you,
which one of us is prepared to do
that which
is required of us to enter into Jannah,
then all of a sudden we become weak
at the knees.
We become shaky.
We begin to think of how daunting a
task it is.
Yet
Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wa sallam told us about
how horrendous
the fire is
and what it entails
and what jahannam is and how
bad it is
and what an evil place it is. And
we know
that this fire is so severe
that it will burn rocks.
It will incinerate rocks. That's the same fire
that human beings are being placed into for
the crimes that they have committed.
But the very same hadith tells us,
Ittaqunna, beware
of the fire.
Place a barrier between you and that fire.
And before we listen to the end of
the hadith,
what do you think? What comes to your
mind
as to what will place a barrier between
you and the fire?
Automatically,
you think maybe it's Hajj.
Maybe it's a lifetime
of worship to Allah, harubu ilizati wal jalal.
Perhaps it is actually something
that is great
in the sight of Allah
Some great act of worship.
I need to go for Hajj,
you know, do all of this and that
will prevent me and place a barrier
between me and the fire. But the reality
of that hadith is it ends in such
a merciful way.
It takes
place a barrier between you and the fire.
Well, it will be shirkitam
rahm
even if it is with half a date.
Half a date, my dear brothers and sisters
in Islam.
And that leads us to what?
To understanding how merciful
Allah Abu al Isati wal Jala is. He
is simply looking for an excuse to forgive
you.
He is simply looking for an excuse to
forgive you.
I told you it will break my train
of thought,
and it is.
So any adults who are speaking even silently,
I implore you don't speak between yourselves quietly
because the cumulative of the voices is affecting
my train of thought. Please remain silent. Keep
your voices down.
Keep your voices down.
So what was I saying?
The fire. The fire.
Well, we should be Tamra.
I want you to go back home today,
open up that fridge that you have,
take a knife,
Take one of the dates out of the
box
and cut it in half.
Look at that date. Pick it up and
look at that date.
And really and truly think about it.
This giving this
integrity
will save me from the raging
roaring fire.
What kind of a Lord does that come
from?
That comes from a merciful Lord. A Lord
who wants to forgive you and this is
why he addressed
you.
Extreme with yourselves. You have wronged yourselves.
Don't lose hope
in the mercy of Allah.
You know why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
talking about mercy?
Because
a sinner
who has kept sinning day in, day out,
year in, year out. He wakes up, sin
is on his mind. He goes to sleep,
sin is on his mind. The last act
before he goes to sleep is sin. When
he wakes up, the first act is sin.
His mind goes to sin. You know what
happens?
The mind begins to tell you that you
are hopeless.
You will go nowhere.
You will not achieve.
You will not succeed.
Allah Abu al Zati wal Jarali is saying,
oh my servant.
He's calling you a servant of his. You
know why? Because you continue to believe. I
believe that Allah is the only one worthy
of worship. So you still belong to that
category which is the servants of Allah.
And then what does he say? Don't do
so.
How. Let us not do, Mirrahmatillah,
from the mercy of Allah, Rabbuul Izzati wal
jalal. That's Rahma.
He's a rahma that Allah
is giving and offering
to those who are sinners. He's offering his
mercy. So why you, my dear sister, my
dear brother, cannot be merciful enough to yourself
when you are sinning. One of the things
that happens when we sin consistently
is that we begin to think,
me?
How will Allah forgive me? I'm a sunnah,
I wake up with sin on my mind,
I go to sleep with sin on my
mind. How will Allah forgive me? Allah is
addressing you with uhma. If Allah can have
mercy on you, why can you not have
mercy on yourself?
Why can you not say that I will
change Insha'Allah?
And that is mercy on yourself.
That is the process of mercy on yourself
because you're telling yourself that you know what?
I can actually change. There is a future.
There is light at the end of the
tunnel. No matter how bad it gets, I
know Allah has promised me mercy. So I
will be merciful with myself by simply saying,
I seek the forgiveness of Allah.
Be great and I return to him. I
return to him.
And that's one moment in your life for
years on end. You've been waking up with
Zina in your mind.
You've been sleeping with Zina in your mind.
You've been
doing
everything that you've done
in terms
of destroying your inner being, your spiritual
being. You're destroying it by sinning.
And that one moment, that one tear and
Allah Abu Ali says,
forgiven my servant.
Forgiven.
Allahu Akbar.
Who's looking forward to meet this world?
Which one of us is looking forward to
meet this world? Put your hands up.
Me, 1st and foremost. Because we all know
that Allah is most merciful, most forgiving.
And do you know what it takes? One
What is the condition? It must be sincere.
It must be from your heart.
Oh Allah, I really acknowledge
that I have come to you with these
sins. I'm a simple human being. I acknowledge
you I did
that. I really beg for your forgiveness, oh
Allah.
And that is why in Sayyidul Istilfar.
In Sayyidul Istilfar, one of the
wordings is
I come back to you, oh Allah, with
my sin. I acknowledge my sin. I cry
to you for my sins, oh Allah. Forgive
me. I'm coming acknowledging
I don't justify.
I don't sit and say, no.
This haram action I'm engaged in, let me
find the way to halalize it.
And this is what we find ourselves doing
when we
are sitting,
thinking
okay, I need to add my next words
very carefully.
So
before going
out,
men and women both today,
what do you do? You want to beautify
yourself,
perfume yourself,
put makeup on yourself
and look amazing.
Right?
I need you to ask yourself a question
and I'm not going to doom you. Allahi,
I'm not dooming you. I am not here
to doom you because Allah didn't doom you.
I'm here to give you hope.
But I want you to think about something.
Why am I sitting in front of this
mirror brushing up my face?
Why am I sitting in front of this
mirror brushing up my face, placing you know,
painting my face with different chemicals? And there
are chemicals in these makeups. And find out
what you are putting onto your face as
well. That's important too.
So ask yourself that question and the answer,
you know it. I don't want you I
don't want you to to say that this
is why you're doing it and you're evil
and you're bad.
But if you are doing it
for the wrong reason
and you know that between you and Allah,
You know you wore that tight tight top
to go out there
for whatever reason it may be
so that people can see your bulging biceps,
you know,
and be tempted
and you've done it for that reason,
then ask yourself what is your position with
Allah
What does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala think about
this action of mine? Not Ibrahim Mink. Prime
Mink is nobody.
Not
brother Usha Evans.
Not Sheikh Suleyman,
who walked in and spoke to you and
gave amazing advice.
Not him.
But who
My Lord who created me, who brought me
into existence, who gave me the very nose
that I brushed with that makeup, and who
gave me the very arm that I placed
a tight t shirt on to show my
muscles to the rest of the world. Let
muscles to the rest of the world.
That Allah is the one that I should
consider today. What does he think of this
action of mine? Is it good or is
it bad with Allah, Abu al Isati wal
jalal?
How does he think it to be?
Is it good? Is it okay? And I'm
saying this because wallahi,
I walk out there and I see Muslim
brothers and sisters
make up on your face like you don't
know tomorrow.
Wallahi, you see a person
today, they look like someone.
And you see them tomorrow, the same person
looks like someone else.
You know, there was a bulbous nose
and the nose is calm. It's no longer
bulbous and you're wondering, what? What? What? What
happened here?
Forget about that. You see a human being
today and tomorrow you'll see a cat. You
know, they they make a cat
out of their makeup.
You see a brother going out there with
his, you know, his biceps showing you in
big strong t shirt. Why? I did it
to show others. I'm not saying that you
did but if you are doing it for
that reason, ask yourself is Allah
with me for this?
And I must make a disclaimer. You know,
one day
I went to a talk
and
the uncle came to me, Allah grants him
goodness.
And at the time Alhamdulillah had, you know,
put on a bit of muscle. I like
to train.
So I had put on a bit of
muscle
and the uncle comes to me and he
says,
Allahu Akbar, my notes all just disappeared.
For goodness Insha'Allah.
So the uncle comes to me and he
says,
you know brother, I want to tell you
something.
And at the time it was very hard
for me to listen to what he was
saying.
Says this top of yours that you are
wearing,
I need you to be aware that there
are young sisters out there
whose hormones are raging.
And young brothers today, you have to be
worried about all.
Whose hormones are raging and they're watching you
and they're seeing you. I don't think it's
appropriate.
And immediately I felt you know how any
human being feels. You feel like, hey, why
is the uncle firing at me, man? What
did I do to him?
And then I thought I should take into
consideration.
It's something important.
I didn't do it with that intention.
At the time that I had bought that
floor, I had lost a bit of weight.
So by the time I wore it, it
was a bit, you know, fitting.
And my stuff was covering.
SubhanAllah.
I even had As far as I remember,
no I didn't have a jacket on. But
it struck me to say this uncle noticed
something that I should have taken note of,
so let me take it into consideration.
And really and truly this is something that
we should be doing with ourselves.
Let alone waiting for others to come to
us and say, hey brother, this is what's
wrong with you. Hey sister, this is what's
wrong with you. You should be looking in
the mirror every day asking yourself,
am I living my life for Allah?
Because I know I am on a journey
towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I want to
ask you a question.
When is the last time you heard
about a brother or a sister's death? When
is the last time you heard about it?
Say, 3 days ago, 4 days ago?
How old was that brother?
How old was that sister?
So many times today, I get messages on
my phone saying,
One of the first things that comes to
my mind is how old was this person?
And I go on to see it and
you see the age, 40 years old,
36 years old,
42 years old, 40 45 years old. There
was an uncle in one of the countries
that was going
with one of my
relatives. He was going to the graveyard.
And he says, after they buried the man,
he says, wallahi, did you see that grave
next to the person?
And this relative of mine is sickly.
So he says, yes, I saw the grave.
He says, it looks like it's your grave.
Wallahi,
24 hours later,
the man speaking saying, it looks like your
grave
was the one who died
and he was buried in that very grave.
Allahu Akbar.
Does that not make your hair sand on
end?
Does that not make you think about this
littlesiness
of this dunya?
Now I'm not saying
that
we are perfect human beings. I'm not saying
that we won't fall and we won't, and
we won't make mistakes. We all do.
But we need to understand
why we are sinning,
when we are sinning,
how we are sinning,
And what the remedy is?
The remedy and the answer we all know
it. But the question is,
why am I sinning?
Sometimes there is something that happened in your
childhood that was traumatic.
And when you were young, you learned to
practice a certain bad deed that remained with
you into adulthood.
And to 2 days, you find comfort in
that
because you trained your brain to go to
it every time you are going through some
emotional trauma. You are going through something and
immediately your mind tells you go to that
sin.
Why? Because you find comfort in it.
You find you are at peace when you
commit that sin.
Be that marijuana
or be that alcohol or be that zina.
No matter what it is,
you find yourself going back to that sin.
Or perhaps you are burying yourself and binging
and are addicted to TV series
to the extent that you live in the
series more than you live in the practical
practical and real world.
But in reality,
you are not a character in that TV
series.
When Joey dies in Friends, you don't die.
You know, as they say, you know people
watch the show called Friends.
Friends,
you're not one of the friends, brother.
You're not one of the friends, sister.
You are not still living in that TV
series and show your life goes on. And
then also today when you have gaming and
VR, you have the youngsters constantly
gaming, constantly gaming in a different
world altogether.
Around them, there are 4 corners.
And there's there are walls and there's brick
and mortar and there's a ceiling and there's
all of this. But where are they? They
are in a different world altogether.
And they live in that world and prefer
to be in that world because it is
ideal. But in reality, what's happening? Your life
is going on 5 years past, 10 years
past. You are still gaming
and you game and game until the game
is over.
Not that game but your life is over.
So understand the psychology
of why you are going back to that
sin. Understand why you constantly
have this habit of going back to it.
And if you find yourself,
watch your thought like you watch another human
being. When the next time your mom or
your dad says something bad to you and
wrong and abusive to you And I say
this specifically with regards to parents because I
get messages so often. Hey, you know what?
My mom and my dad are so abusive
towards me. They call me monkey. They call
me pig. They call me dog. They call
me cat. They call me all sorts of
things. Maybe cat is not so bad. But
anyway,
I prefer to be a cat than a
dog. Right? Actually, I prefer to be a
human being.
But anyways besides the point
besides the point.
The next time that happens
and you hear someone, you know, say something
abusive to you, watch yourself. What are my
next thoughts? What are my next actions?
Am I going to the Musalla because of
what happened? Am I placing my head on
the ground? Okay. I don't have wudu. I'll
just place my head on the ground to
gain comfort from Allahabadul Izzati wal Jarrah
for 8 minutes. That's it.
And you will find that you will be
uplifted.
Or
am I going to the cigarettes?
Am I going to the vape pen that
is in my pocket or in my room
today? It's no longer even a pen. Some
of them are as big as a, you
know,
I don't know what to give you an
example of. But you see the man can't
even fit it in his pocket properly. When
he puts it in his pocket, he's walking
like
this because it's so heavy. A device. A
huge
device that he puts and then he puffs
on and you see you can't even see
his face when he puffs on it. Am
I going back to that?
And the substances that are in that, you
know the marijuana that you have that people
were smoking back in the day, they call
it weed.
That weed is now being placed in these
devices.
And children as young as 7, 8, 9
years old are smoking this.
And these are the habits that they are
developing. And oftentimes, we don't even know as
parents because you know what? The house has
just been smelling a lot more fruity.
His room smells like strawberries these days.
His root smells
like raspberries these days.
So watch out for these signs and what's
happening in your children's lives. But at the
same time watch yourself.
Watch what you are doing when you commit
a when you are treated badly, when you
go through trauma, when you go through
bad
experiences in in your life, ask yourself,
what do I do next? And if the
next thing that you do is a sin,
you have a trauma bond with that sin.
You have a trauma bond with that sin.
So you find yourself finding comfort. Every time
this happens you go back to that. I
know youngsters who as soon as something happens
he needs to go and watch *.
Why? Because it takes him out of his
reality. It gives him comfort. It gives him
peace
and that peace is not long lived.
After it, the addiction causes you to med.
And you find yourself
lamenting
saying, why did I do that? Why did
I behave in this manner? Why couldn't Why
can't I change?
But in reality,
change requires
one simple thing. Sincerity between you and Allah
Let me leave you with one tool. I
wanted to speak about
the sin. The actual sin. Getting into it.
Leaving the sin and what reward is attached
to it and all of that. Before the
sin, during the sin and after the sin.
But I'll leave you with one tool that
is powerful for you to change your life.
Every time you sin,
attach a good deed to it.
Attach a good deed to it. And this
formula is from Allahuqulizati
wal jalad. This formula is from Allahuqulizati
wal jalad.
Except for the one who turns back to
Allah
and he believes
and he does good deeds.
So those are the ones whom Allah will
change their bad deeds into good deeds. After
you commit the sin, shaitan is telling you,
you are unworthy
of the forgiveness of Allah.
You hypocrite.
You munasis.
How dare you go to Allah.
As dirty as you are and in reality
Allah is telling you, you are not dirty.
You are my servant.
Come back to me. And
Allah wants to forgive you. Often times we
talk about tawbah. We talk about turning to
Allah
And we know Allah forgives us when we
turn to Him. But what is the
replacement
of that bad deed? What are you doing
to replace it? Have you got some good
deeds, some good habits that you've attached to
every sin that you commit? You know what
happens? The devil gets tired of watching you
go back to good deeds
as soon as you sin. And he tells
you, okay don't sin. Why? Because he knows
what hurts him more is the fact that
you are obedient to Allah
The fact that you have turned that evil
deed into a good deed, it hurts you.
So what does he do? He says, just
don't do the sin.
Don't do the sin because he knows what
is your modus operandi.
What is your way of operation? What is
your thought regardless of how you feel after
the sin?
I'm giving a sadaqah.
To a cart of salah.
I'm visiting the graveyard and reminding myself of
death.
And I'm being good to my parents.
I'm doing something
of goodness.
I'm doing something of goodness as soon as
I do something bad. Attach
good deeds to your bad deeds and watch
your life change. May Allah grant
us the ability to change one last and
parting message insha'Allah.
And then we are done. Forgive me, Hayyan.
Don't call the body builders and take me
down.
Okay.
Allah
has given us one thing that we are
meant to be doing 5 times a day.
If you do it regularly
and if you practice doing it regularly,
allahi, allahi,
regardless of how you feel, what happens, come
rain, come sunshine. I'm praying. If I'm in
the mall, I will pray. If I'm at
my friend's house, I will pray. If I'm
at no matter where I'm in this hall,
it is time for salah. I will walk
out and pray because my Lord matters more
what your life change. Allah says,
Successful are the believers, those who are conscious
of Allah
in their salah. So become conscious of your
salah and become conscious of Allah in your
salah. And you are a success regardless
of what happens. Regardless of what happens.
You fail. You lose. You become bankrupt. You
don't achieve anything in life. With Allah, you
have won. What more do you want? What
more do you want? You may fail
and lose everything in the dunya and tomorrow
you are 6 feet down. You've won with
Allah.
You come to him beaming
happy with the noor that is showering you
from your salah. Brothers and sisters in Islam,
before you ask anything and I saw this
clip. Before you ask about a scholar or
a shayr or a Maulana or someone or
a peer and you want his help.
Go ask yourself. Sit on your bed and
say, am I praying properly?
Am I praying 5 times a day and
am I praying properly?
And if the answer is no, don't waste
your time asking anyone anything. Don't waste your
time going for seeking help anyway.
First fix
that and you will find success. May Allah
grant us success. Forgive me if I offended
anyone. You know, I like to just say
it in advance. I spoke about makeup. I
spoke about bulging biceps. If you got makeup
and you got bulging biceps, I love you
as my brother and I wish to see
you in Jannah. Forgive me if I offended
you. And I'm not obsessed with the makeup
and I'm not not obsessed with the bulging
biceps to my haters who keep commenting, hey,
why are you so obsessed with women? No.
I'm not obsessed with you. I'm not obsessed
with you. I'm obsessed with loving you and
wanting to see you in Jannah and hoping
that I will attain Jannah by passing on
a good message. May Allah
forgive us all and grant us all Jannah
to