Ismail Kamdar – Code of Conduct #10 Tazkiyyah al-Nafs
AI: Summary ©
The importance of purification of the soul is crucial for success in the world and people should focus on it before preaching to others. Pranking five times a day at bare minimum is a good practice, but it is necessary to be a good believer. It is important to establish deeds and hold oneself accountable before the day they pray. Prayerers should be trying to become better Muslims to improve their spiritual well-being and personal relationships. It is important to be mindful of one's behavior and avoid giving up on one's secret deeds. The negative impact of pwery on one's spiritual health and desire for better Islam is discussed, and individuals should be trying to become better Muslims to improve their spiritual well-being and personal relationships.
AI: Summary ©
Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah. So today we're going to look at the ninth principle of Dawa, which is the importance of does get enough of purification of the soul. This is the last of the nine qualities focused on the self. The remaining three qualities that we will cover over the rest of the series, focus on your interactions with others with your relationship with others. So until now, we're looking at self improvement, that you become the best to art, there are certain things we need to change about ourselves, we need to have the right intentions, we need to have good knowledge, we need to be people of excellence, we need to
have good character, we need to have good manners, courage, honesty, compassion, wisdom, and we need to ensure that we do not neglect the purification of our own souls.
The remaining three characteristics that we will discuss over the next few videos, focus on
your relationship with others in the Dharma. So that is, so far, which is an important part of purification of the soul, that you spend time in the company of the righteous. So it's very linked to today's topic, as well as Naseeha, that you are open to advice from others, who know what, who care about what is best for your people who genuinely care for you. And number three is the hour that you work with others instead of being individualistic or sectarian, retire your best to work with as many people as possible. Now, today's topic is especially important, because purification of the soul is not just important for the success of your Dawa. In reality, it is important for your
success in the akhira. Because at the end of the day, when we all pass away, we will have to account to Allah for how we lived our lives.
And the path to success on that day. It's mentioned multiple times in the Quran, called Alpha Herman, aka, God, the Herman Zakka. Right? Successful is the one who purifies successful is the one who purifies the soul.
And so purification of the soul is necessary for success in this world. And the next. Now, you may ask that this is obvious of that if you are a Muslim, you should be focused on purification of the soul.
What's that got to do with Dawa.
And I will say it has everything to do with our, because really,
the best way to call people towards Islam is to be a role model of Islam.
In the past, people would be attracted to Islam, simply by the piety, and character, and spiritual presence of a Muslim,
that they would sense that this person's soul has been radically transformed by the message of truth. So it has to be the true message of God.
And to some extent, in many parts of the world today, it feels like this spiritual aspect is missing from the data, that the data has become all about debates and intellectual arguments. And
it has lost that sense of connection with Allah and spirituality.
And so in our times, we have these two extremes, right? Or one extreme, we have some people who don't engage in Dawa at all.
They are only concerned with themselves.
And they excuses that my soul is not pure. So I need to fix myself first, then I'll preach to others.
That's one extreme. The opposite extreme are those who are focused only on preaching to others, but they forget their own selves.
Right, there are people out there who have spent a lot of time in the Dawa. But they make no effort to purify their own souls.
And
we look at the first group. I remember
when I was younger, one of my teachers was of this mindset. And he would say that
you need to focus on purifying your soul first, before preaching to anyone else.
And what this did with those students who took what he said
Literally, is that they never started preaching to others. Why?
Because technically, technically, purification of the soul is a lifelong journey. There will always be areas of the need improvement, there will always be weaknesses, there will always be something that's not 100%, right with your soul, some secret sins, some bad desires, some struggle with intentions, there's always going to be this, you are never going to attain perfection in the purification of the soul. So if you make perfection of the purification of the soul, You're conditioned to start preaching to others, you are never going to stop preaching to others.
And so we need to be careful with this phrasing and his wording. We shouldn't be telling people that you have to purify your soul before you start preaching to others. Rather, we should tell people, you need to purify your soul and preach to others that these are two things that need to be happening. At the same time. You learn the message you convey to others at every opportunity you get, but you do not neglect your own soul. And that's the other extreme. And once I was attending a meeting with
people from different Dawa organizations,
and
I was very young at the time, so hadn't really been exposed to much to the Dawa scene yet.
I expected to see a group of pious people who are concerned about the Ummah and who,
you know, put Allah subhanaw taala first.
Unfortunately, at these meetings, you'd find the people there who didn't pray five times a day, some didn't pray at all. Many had haram sources of income, many were dressed in ways that are completely haram and Islamic.
They were actively and openly flirting with members of the opposite gender, in front of other do art, despite being married, and supposedly do art themselves.
And I was very confused by what I saw.
And over the years, I noticed this to be a trend in many parts of the world, that they are people who have made Dawa their job they made Dawa the source of income or something they do to make themselves feel good.
Yet they neglect the aspects of Islam that are even more important.
Be very clear about this praying five times a day is more important than doing Dawa. I'd rather that you pray five times a day and not to Dawa. Then do thou shalt not pray five times a day. The pillars of Islam come first. That should be the priority. If someone is neglecting their Salah who did not take Salah seriously at all, and they are calling people to Islam.
What level of Baraka is there going to be in this call? This is a very defective call because you don't even take the fundamental pillars of what you are calling to seriously that your call hasn't even had an impact on your own show.
It's even worse when you see do art who have haram sources of income and they use it haram sources of income to fund the Dawa.
I know the entire Islamic organizations in schools that are funded or haram money.
And this will affect the quality of the data this will affect the quality of what you do.
Because we know if your income is haram it was not answered and your efforts may not be rewarded.
So we need to be careful
of falling into these two extremes.
Or one extreme
that we neglect the purification of the soul and focus only on preaching to others.
As mentioned in Surah Baqarah, maroon and NASA bilberry wooden stone and full circle.
Are you calling others to righteousness while forgetting yourself?
Think about is actually mentioned in the Quran? Are you calling others to righteousness while forgetting yourselves?
How can you do Dawa and not work on purifying your own soul and the opposite extreme where you only focus on yourself and you never actively get involved in calling other nodes. You have to make time for boat.
And if you make time for boat then you're focused on purifying yourself. This will
have an impact of Baraka in your data.
And sadly, that wine our times has become Entertainment has become intellectual.
arguments that are like, just intellectual with no spiritual aspect to them, they become debates, they become clickbait videos, they become
just words, without any spiritual energy behind them.
And this is sad, because
a Dow without spiritual energy funding it, I'm not saying everyone's like us, I'm saying these are some of the problems that exist in the field today.
$1 Without spiritual energy behind it is not going to be completely effective. Because the real effects of the Dawa are not in your words, but in your relationship with Allah. People should be able to sense your connection with Allah. And that should attract them to worship Allah and to be righteous, that they feel the spiritual presence of a righteous person. Now, I'm not righteous, I'm still trying, I still have my own mistakes and flaws that I'm working on. But we all are supposed to be trying.
And too often these days, I see people not try.
I see people not
caring at all about their own souls, openly committing haram. Why on a Dawa journey.
And one of my friends who at that time we both were very young, and just getting started with our in our early 20s. And he told me a story that that shocked me.
He had just come back from a trip to another country with a world renowned are someone who is still quite popular today.
And he told me what he experienced on that trip, shook his feet in the doorway.
And you don't want to tell me too much. I asked him for one example.
And he told me that when he was traveling with that world renowned ie,
the DA he told him let's go for a massage by non Muharram. Woman.
Right and those of you who know in certain lands that a massage firstly, having no man or woman touching is haram. But in certain lands, it's it's something else. It's something was not only mentioned what it is, right.
But it shocked him to the court. And this is a world renowned, famous person with hundreds of 1000s of followers, right or to the hundreds of 1000 followers. Yet while on a dour journey, he's looking for a woman to massage him.
Because absolutely bizarre. Allah forgive them and us and conceal the sins of the believers.
On the other side, I have in my life witness truly pious people in the field of Dawa and only the people I aspire to be like, and we all should aspire to be like 100 I have been blessed in my life with some truly pious teachers, people who this spiritual presence was enough to convince me that this is indeed the true religion.
One of my teachers when I was a teenager,
with a very pious man,
who
many people simply by meeting him, and spending five or 10 minutes in his company, would repent from the sins and become righteous themselves. And he had this impact on 1000s of people in the community.
A fairly simple man.
Now then you righteous man.
And when he was passing away,
either a few months before he passed away, he had a dream in which the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told him to come to Medina, because he will pass away soon. And so he moved to Medina and he's very detailed Bucky.
This is the level of righteousness we should be aspiring towards,
which seems to be missing in the younger generation.
Another teacher of mine in my teenage years,
was a world renowned ar e, the man who basically revived our to non Muslims in the 21st century, and had the privilege of spending time in his company in the last year of his life.
And when he passed away, I attended his janazah
a few weeks later, I had a dream in which his body was lying in my house and the soul came back into the body.
And so I realized I was talking to a man who has passed away and seen the unseen and asked him, What did you experience after you passed away? And he began to describe his gender to me, he began to describe gender to me and I remember waking up with a big smile on my face and happiness in my heart that I've never felt before or after. That, to me was my moment of yaki Muhammad of conviction. I'm not saying this about myself. I'm saying this about them the teachers.
These are people genuinely loved life.
As of righteousness,
like these were people who are close to Allah subhana wa Taala men of piety, men whose lives were focused on pleasing Allah
and their good endings, a proof of that.
Are we working towards a good ending?
Are we focused on purifying our souls?
I worry that our generation, it's not even possible to reach the level of piety that David
and one of my teachers were saying that the reason why we don't see so many pious people in the world today is because Haram is so easily accessible today. That the average teenager by the time they start studying Islam, they already would have seen more haram images, then the predecessors would have seen in their entire lifetime.
Because of how easily accessible The Haram is in our times, and anytime you do anything haram, whether it's eating haram or earning haram or looking at around or saying haram words, whatever it is, it has a negative spiritual effect on you and your data. It has a negative spiritual effect on you and your data. And if you are not trying to give up your sense if you're not trying to be better if you're not constantly being involved in seeking Allah's forgiveness and trying to be a better Muslim,
then your Dawa is going to have no Baraka in it at all. It's going to come across as hypocritical people are going to eventually learn Allah conceal our sins. But it's possible that people may learn about your secret sins,
especially if you stop trying to even give them up and you just embrace them and stop even seeing them essence.
And this could lead to scandals, and this could completely derail your Dawa.
So no, you can't be perfect, I can't be perfect, nobody can be perfect. That's just the nature of this world and the nature of the human beings. Humans are created weak. But we all need to be trying. We all need to have a constant daily
effort to try and become better Muslims, you should at least be a better Muslim today than you were one year ago. And every year you should be leveling up, there should be some sins that are dropping off, some good deeds are being added.
I'm not even just talking about the bare minimum.
I know. It's hard to get some do art today to even do the bare minimum, like praying five times a day and not flirting with the opposite gender. See the bare minimum right and covering appropriately. This is bare minimum.
But again, something a lot of my teachers used to emphasize is that if you are involved in any type of Islamic work, you're a badass that cannot be bare minimum, it needs to be excellent. You need to be worshiping Allah on a higher level. You cannot just be doing the bare minimum of just praying five times a day and avoiding the major sins. No, you need to be doing more acts of worship you need to be doing
extra good deeds, the mazahub actions, the optional actions you need to have secret good deeds. You need to be someone who is pushing yourself
to be closer to Allah subhanho wa taala. Because whether you like it or not, once you get involved in the Dawa other people start looking at you as a model of Islamic behavior. And if your behavior is messed up, if your behavior is an Islamic, if your behavior is problematic, it pushes them away from the Dawa.
And so it's not enough for the da e to just be doing bare minimum.
Now if you are involved in the hour, you need to excel at worship.
So what can we do to ensure that we are constantly working on the purification of the soul? Let's just share a few tips. Number one of God's please ensure you are praying five times a day at bare minimum five times a day your Salah, this is something that no di e should be neglecting. Yes, sometimes as humans you may slip up. You may have fallen asleep and missed a salah or not heard your your alarm. And you should make Kadar straightaway. That's different. That's not that is a mistake of forgetfulness. Allah has forgiven for this ummah, its mistakes and forgetfulness long as you making color straightaway. I'm talking about being negligent, where it's just not a priority to you,
when you don't have this habit of praying five times a day
This should be something you establish even before you get involved in the Dawa. praying five times a day is bare minimum of being a believer is one of the pillars of Islam.
And we should not be just doing the bare minimum. No, we should be doing more. You should be praying the Sunnah, if possible, you should be paying the 200 All right, I myself am not at this level, may Allah forgive us and help us to increase our Ibadat. But that should be an aspiration that should be something we should be working towards, that will become regular with the Kiama lane that we engage in more solid than everybody else.
Another thing we should be doing often is holding ourselves accountable for our own deeds. Maha Sabha self accountability, self reflection, Omar Abdullah Jota Rajala, who's used to say, hold yourself accountable before the day when you are held accountable, and evaluate your deeds before the day when your deeds will be evaluated. Because your reckoning will be easier tomorrow, if you hold yourself accountable today.
How many of us take the time to sit back and think? How can I be a better Muslim? Are there any good deeds I should be improving? Are there any sins I should be trying to get rid of in my life?
Do we actually take the time to think about this and try and formulate a strategy of self improvement? This is something we should be doing. If not every day, at least once a week, take the time to ask yourself? Am I really living a life that's pleasing to Allah? How can I improve?
Just go through your day and ask yourself how many sins they commit today? Can I do less tomorrow? How many good deeds I do today? Can I do more tomorrow? What opportunities for good deeds that I let slip by me? Can I make sure that in the future, I act on those opportunities instead of letting them slip back?
What triggered me to fall into a sin? Can I get rid of those triggers so that those sins are not accessible anymore.
You need to be your own mentor when it comes to spirituality. Unless of course, you do have a spiritual mentor, which we'll come to in the next section when we talk about software and righteous company. But at the very least you need to be holding yourself accountable. Even if you don't have people in your lives, to hold you accountable. It shouldn't be that you think that you are it that you are pious that you are the man. And there's no need and room for self improvement. So you never look in the mirror and ask yourself how I can improve. If you do that, you've already failed. Because the man who thinks is pious is not pious, and a man who thinks that he's the biggest sinner
in the world and keeps asking Allah for forgiveness. That is the pious man.
So you need to focus on your soul. If you notice a spiritual disease, figure out a way to overcome it. Alhamdulillah there is so much of research done over the past 1400 years by Muslims, on how to overcome any type of spiritual disease you can think of. You will find books on the topic, whether it's jealousy, whether it's wrong intentions, whether it's malice, whether it's laziness, whatever it is, whatever spiritual disease your heart is suffering from, there are books out there that you can read, that will give you a part to predefine your soul and self improvement. That is one of the beautiful things about our religion, how comprehensive it is, in covering all of these things, with
practical steps for helping you to improve.
One book that I would recommend that covers all of these spiritual issues, and has recently been translated into English is even painful Josias modality Salkin. Right the ranks of the Divine seekers, Madera style again has always been for me, the go to book for my own purification of the soul. And I was so happy recently to learn the Dr. Ayman Angele has actually translated a lot of it into English to large volumes. I highly recommend reading this book, you will find in it sections with almost any aspect of spirituality on how to improve and the best part is that this book is based on Quran and Sunnah. So
if you feel that certain acts of worship might be better, you're not going to find those acts of worship in this book. It is spirituality based on Quran and Sunnah.
What else can we do to purify our souls? Make sure you are that you are involved in dailies require that you're seeking Allah's forgiveness every day.
Because sometimes we commit sins unknowingly. And none of us have that level where we go through an entire day without sending maybe you
but I'm not. So we should be seeking Allah's forgiveness every day. Make sure you have daily as God and to us, that our habits of yours, that they are times of the day where you sit and remember Allah and make dua to Allah, at the very least memorize the morning and evening to us and mentioned them after fajr and after maghrib so that you started in your day with the remembrance of Allah and this helps to purify your soul.
It's also important
that you have secret good deeds,
to counter the effect of any public good deeds that may have been tainted with riba
not with regard to Rhea sorry, right, any public good deeds that may have been tainted with REO with showing off.
You can counter that, by having secret good deeds, that nobody knows about besides Allah and you. Every Muslim should have secret good deeds.
Whether it's your tahajjud whether it's reciting Quran every day, whether it's some charity that you give quietly, when it's someone who you are assisting the nobody knows you assisting that person, whatever it is, you should have secret good deeds. And you
should invest time daily on building the secret good deeds, because they become a counter to your secret sins and to the sins of the heart like real. And they really help to purify the soul, especially in times where you might be going downhill.
Another important part of purification of the soul is righteous company. You're very careful who your teachers are, who your friends are, who you spending time with. Because the people you spend time around, have an actual impact on your iman, on your piety, on your connection with Allah.
To be very careful about the people you allow to influence. We will discuss this in more details in the next video, because that focuses specifically on software on righteous companionship.
It's also important to note that
in your life, you are going to experience highs and lows of EMR. So many people are not prepared for this. Many people assume that it's just a one way journey. If I'm doing good deeds, I'll be continuously going higher, but not through the test of life, through the temptations, through the tricks of shaytan through moments of weakness, you will experience lows, you will experience moments where you're not at your best self. And where you are more likely to fall into sin than to do good deeds. This is part of being human that you experience such moments in your life.
Now, if you're doing self reflection, you'll be able to catch yourself in such moments and to turn things around.
And we all need to do this. And I will say this much if you are someone involved in Dawa, who
recently had a moment of weakness and committed a major sin of some kind.
Do not allow that to derail you from the Dawa, completely
engage in doba repent to Allah,
block all the means that lead to whatever sin you fell into,
and pick yourself back up
and keep walking forward for the sake of Allah. Our religion is not a religion of a canceled culture. Just because you fell into a major sin even if somehow it became public knowledge. That doesn't mean that it's the end. No, there's always a way back to Allah, there's always a way back to the straight path as long as you are breathing.
It shaytaan that wants you to give up in shaytan and wants you to stop doing your Dawa, and your Islamic work.
And you will use these weaknesses and traps to make you give up.
Don't give up.
Yes, maybe you may need to take a break for six months to a year to purify your soul to do active doba to turn yourself around to get rid of these weaknesses. But don't give up. Take a spiritual break, bring yourself back up to a good level. But no matter how badly you have slipped up in your life
is always the way back to Allah. Remember is this shaytaan that wants you to give up. It's Allah Who wants you to make Toba and to keep coming back to him. No sadly, when I was younger, I had a friend who was an absolute genius intellectually. And someone whose whole life was about the Dawa
young men when we both were young men who are alive with all about the Dawa. He was an intellectual genius. And every day he was putting out amazing content about the day
Until one day, when he just went quiet. And he just disappeared and just stopped doing that work.
I never heard from him again. It's been more than 12 years never heard from him again.
Although I did hear a month or two later, that someone reached out to him, ask him Why did you stop doing Dawa
and he turned out that his brother had fallen into a major sin
and had given up to a weakness and committed a sin once a major sin once. But he felt so guilty and so hypocritical for combating this major sin once that he just stopped doing Dawa altogether.
And that's that's a tragedy. Because in reality,
one secret major sin should not derail you from trying to live a life that is pleasing to Allah.
You can make doba you can pick up the pieces, you can get back on the straight part. You can continue using the gifts that Allah has blessed you with. To live a life that is pleasing to Allah.
Our religion is full of second chances. Second Chance upon second chance you can commit a sin and make Toba and fall back in listen and make doba Allah will keep forgiving as long as you are sincere and you are trying your best. But for people to give up. Especially someone who had the potential to be amazing to accomplish great things for the sake of Allah to give up at the first major sin.
That's letting the devil we're just letting shade down with
so be very careful about this. shade down, we'll use your weaknesses, whatever that weakness is, whether it's money, whether it's the opposite gender, whether it's pain, whatever it is, shaytan will use your weaknesses to drive you into major sin so that you become despondent and you give up on your Dawa. You have to be smarter than shaytaan firstly, you have to avoid these traps and if in a moment of weakness you gave into one of his traps, you have to make doba put yourself back onto the straight path and keep striving to live a life that is pleasing to Allah subhanho wa taala.
So do not give up
and realize that no one is perfect. And everyone involved in the Dawa has a secret service. Everyone involved in the Dawa has struggled with the temptations and the weaknesses. Everyone has the days when the Eman is high and the demon Imani is low.
Everyone has something that they repented from everybody has something that is making a stick far from daily.
Don't allow Shakedown to derail you into giving up your Dawa altogether because of some weakness.
Rather, you continue to work on purifying your soul. You continue to work on Toba and stick Vard repenting and seeking Allah's forgiveness. And you continue to call people towards Allah, not for yourself but for the sake of Allah.
So purifying the soul is important. If we neglect this, it's far easier to fall into major sins, it's far easier to become the opposite of what we are preaching. It's far easier to lose track of what is most important and that is the pleasure of Allah.
When we are not referring our souls, we become easy targets for the devil.
And sin becomes easy.
But if we are making a constant effort to please Allah subhanho wa Taala and to live a life that is pleasing to Allah subhanho wa Taala and we are trying our best.
Then even if we slip up along the way, in sha Allah, we can find our way back to Allah.
And we can find our way back to the straight part. But it's about effort, constant effort, do not neglect the purification of your own soul. Understand that the human soul is such that if you're not working on purifying it, if you're not actively working and purifying it, then the temptations and the weaknesses and the sins around you will be having a negative effect on it without you even realizing it. Eman is something it's either going up or down. It doesn't stay static. So if you're not working on increasing it, then slowly it is decreasing.
So do your best to try and live a life that is pleasing to Allah. If you slip up do a steak bar and Toba. Never give up on the Dawa never give up on purifying your soul. Never lose hope in the Mercy of Allah subhanho wa Taala our religion is not one of Kancil culture or religions not one of all you slipped up
Once you're done for life, no one's ever gonna listen to you again. No, our religion is one where everyone is trying their best to please Allah. And if they mess up, they can do doba and try again. And that is something that we need to keep in our mind all the time. And really, if you are focused constantly on purifying the soul, that inshallah you'll never find yourself in a situation where you fall into a major sin. As for the minuses, it's humanly impossible to live a life free of minus.
It's humanly impossible to live a life that is free of minuses. Everyone has the minus since Allah Subhana. Allah says in the Quran, that if you strive to avoid the major sins, Allah will forgive the minuses. So we have to actively be striving to be our best versions of ourselves. And if along the way, we fall into a few minor sins we should be doing is stiffer daily to make up for that. But be very, very careful of the parts that lead to major sins because that is what shaytan is using to try and make you give up on your Dawa.
So with that, we come to the end of today's lesson. In our next video, we will discuss the importance of SAPA of spending time in the company of the righteous and how that will have a positive impact on your Dawa and on the purification of your soul JazakAllah Phaedra aka Juana and hamdulillahi rabbil aalameen