Khalid Latif – Imam Nawawis 40 Hadith for Modern Times #12
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AI: Transcript ©
Sorry again that we're starting late.
We we're looking at the 5th hadith of
Imam Nawawi's 40 hadith collection.
Today, I think we're gonna
wrap up between 7:15 and 7:30.
As you can see, my kids are here,
and
already established that I'm a terrible father.
So probably need to feel a little bit
smarter
about getting them to where they need to
be.
So people can pull up the hadith. We
started looking at it last time. This is
a hadith on innovation,
what's called bidah in
Arabic.
And
we're gonna delve into it a little bit
more.
So if you just pull up on your
phones, if you have a laptop, if you
have the actual text as well, it'd be
amazing.
You just Google,
Imam Nawawi's 40 hadith
number 5 or Nawawi hadith number 5, and
it'll come up.
It's a fairly short hadith.
And last week, just while people are pulling
it up, I'm gonna ask someone in a
bit just to read it, if you can
read it in English or in Arabic,
but just so we can get kind of
the barakah of reading the hadith.
Last week we talked about Aisha
who she is, a little bit about just
her scholarship,
kinda her contributions
to the religion on a whole,
what her biography was at a very cursory
level.
And so far, we've looked at
4 different companions in these 5 hadith. Right?
Umri bin Al Khattab,
Abdullah ibn Omer,
Abdullah ibn Masood,
and now Aisha bint Abi Bakr. Alright. May
Allah be pleased with all of them.
And this is part of us kinda engaging
in this text. Wanna know about the individuals
also who are the narrators of these hadith,
being able to give us insight contextually
into
kinda the more societal,
sociological
aspects
of the context in which
they are living, in which the prophet is
teaching. So we're not just understanding these things
in a vacuum. Right? Because this is a
challenge with text. You can pretty much turn
it into whatever you want to at the
end of the day. You know, our religion
is based off of trying to extrapolate meaning
from a text. That's what tafsir is. It's
a exegetical analysis.
You're taking
meaning from the text.
What a lot of people do more so
these days is more eisegetical.
They formulate an argument, and then they pick
a verse or narration
to say, and this shows
that this argument is valid. Right? But then
you could turn anything into anything. Do you
know? So when you look at these texts
on a whole, you see how they speak
to each other, how the verses
are of an entire
text and not just kinda singled out.
And there are
different kinda
prisms through which we can engage some of
these things.
So we looked at Aisha radiAllahu ta'ala Anha's
biography a bit, You know, she, in her
own right, is,
you know,
a scholar in every sense of of the
word. Right?
She was able to give fatwa. She's someone
who is well versed in the hadith.
Yes. What can I do for you?
You're wearing 2 different socks?
Yeah. But
Yes.
I put, like, the metal the those 2
metal things that you have.
Okay. If she put them in her mouth.
It's okay. Is that is it out of
her mouth now? Yeah. Okay. She just wanted
take Thanks. I appreciate it. You came all
the way down the hall to tell me
this. Isn't he super cute?
Yeah. He's
yeah. He's great.
So Aisha
you know, she
is in every kind of discipline someone that
we can benefit from. Right? And then we
talked
about just what does this mean, like, why
would someone
kinda innovate in a religion? What's the compulsion,
the motivation? So it's not just kind of
a blanket
understanding,
but we wanna be able to understand if
this is something that's problematic
to the prism of this hadith
where essentially someone is just if you're adding
something that isn't a part of it or
taking something away that is an essential integral
of it, Just making your own religion at
that point. Do you know? But to think
about
what might create those scenarios
so that we don't fall into it. Right?
Like, you literally
just saw
these 3 kids that my wife and I
are responsible for. We have to be in
a place where we recognize
the reality of accountability
that isn't piecemeal
kinda, you know,
understanding and education,
but a sense of that what they take
from us is going to be something that
they will act upon, and then we're gonna
have to answer to God, like, why did
we give that to them? Do you know?
And if the claim comes from a previous
generation or an elderly generation,
Like, at some level, there's still accountability
as well as a magnification
of practice
that is problematic
that is accruing
now
just residual detriment
to those who were the starting points
of that
problematic practice.
Do you see what I mean? Right? So
if, God forbid, I teach my kid, like,
hey, man.
You don't really have to pray, Fudger. You
know, just wake up whenever you feel like
it and pray it.
You can struggle with praying, Fudger. You know?
Allah make it easy for us. Right?
It's not it's not the easiest thing
for for for some of us. But in
being able to recognize,
there's a difference between saying this is going
to be hard. Let me equip you with
an understanding of its value
so that, you know, your sleep and what
you're doing at night is oriented towards an
understanding of recognizing
what's the value add of this fundamental
pillar of this religion,
versus just flat out saying that, you know,
say it was something that I didn't do.
Right? I pray fajr, by the way, you
know, just so we're all on the same
page, and no one tomorrow is gonna be
like, the guy runs the Islamic Centre, and
he doesn't pray fajr.
But if I now change religion to compensate
for my behavior
and my actions,
It's not just that I'm not doing what
is an obligation in the religion,
but me teaching that something is not an
obligation that is
also creates residual detriment back to me because
when someone acts on something we've taught them,
like, if there's good in it, we derive
benefit. And if there's not good, there's bad
in it, then we derive detriment.
Do do you see what I'm saying? Right?
And so we went into some of this
last week, and we're gonna kinda pick it
up and go into it,
some more. In case people leave early, I
won't be here next Monday.
We haven't announced this yet, but I'm gonna
be going to Egypt on Monday.
There's some organizations that reached out
who have given been given permission
to have,
goods go across the border in.
May Allah grant them ease. So we're gonna
run another campaign that will either launch today
or tomorrow, but I'm gonna go with that
organization.
We're gonna be filling up these trucks,
and getting them
across the border into the southern part of
Gaza.
So I won't be here on Monday, but
I should be back on Wednesday,
and so,
this will be the last
Monday session that we have. We'll
next Monday.
And I don't know if there'll be a
different program we do on Monday night instead
of this one.
But then we'll pick up again after mid
January,
because the following week, the building will be
closed for the winter holiday other than for
Jummah.
And then after New Year's,
we're gonna be going on the IC's Umrah
trip,
the January 1. So I won't be back
until 12th.
There'll still be a lot of other stuff
going on,
but just so we're all on the same
page. And if you know people that are
typically here on Mondays and they're not here
right now, just let them know as well.
And then please do give what you can
to this campaign. We wanna try to pack
these trucks with as much as we can.
There's gonna be, what we're calling, like, dignity
and hygiene products,
that are being given,
you know, things for emergency shelter, tents, bedding,
etcetera,
medicines,
foods,
you know, all of these things.
You know, Allah put barakah into it and
make it a means of ease for these
people.
But I'll be going there on Monday night
or Monday morning. I'll come back on Wednesday,
hopefully,
by the afternoon.
My flight lands in the morning.
Okay. Somebody have the hadith in front of
them? Yeah. You wanna read it,
Can you read the second part that's written
there too? And when the Muslim
agrees, he who doesn't
an act which we have not
commanded would have it rejected by law.
Great.
So
in looking at this now, we wanna understand
the structure of what these terms mean. Right?
And this is really important to understand.
In religion,
like,
it's a personal
endeavor,
but there's still
parts to it that are technical terms that
have technical meanings. Do you know? Somebody asked
me the other day,
you know, about how in Islam
someone would say,
that someone had said to them that if
somebody doesn't pray their prayers,
then they're in a state of kufr. Right?
And she said I don't understand, and I
said well, there's, like, different opinions on some
of this if one is categorically kafir
or not, but there's hadith
where the prophet says
that between an individual and kufr is the
abandonment of prayer. And so what people would
opine from this hadith
is that if one just leaves prayer altogether,
then they are not Muslim. And there's others
who would say that it's not that it
puts them out of the fold of Islam,
but in that moment when they are not
praying,
like,
they are in a state of kufr. Right?
And Allah knows best. And there's complexity to
this as to why some people
develop different relationships with their prayers, especially as
they get elder,
in age. Right? And there's not account ability
or ownership over religion or these kinds of
things.
But
when we were delving into it,
she said, you know,
I don't understand where this comes from. And
I started with this hadith and, like, where
there was different, like,
opinions on what this means.
And then said
but understand, like, if someone is saying that
the prayer is not a part of the
religion,
why that's called disbelief
is because that's not believing in what Islam
says then.
So it's not meant to be, like, an
emotionally charged term,
but if you don't follow what is clearly
established in the religion,
not as a struggle but kind of embedded
in what we're talking about in
this,
then you're, like, disbelieving
in the religion. Right? You're not believing in
the religion if you don't say that what's
a part of the religion is a part
of the religion. That's just making your own
religion again. Do you do you see what
I'm saying? Right? It's hard when you apply
back to oneself
because
there's a knee jerk reaction sometimes to be
able to say, like, well, you don't know
why I do what I do or this
kind of stuff. Nobody's saying that. Do you
know what I mean? So even here, this
term bidah,
right, is not meant to be weaponized
in a way that we start tearing down
into people to say, like, you're doing this
wrong and you're doing that wrong and you're
doing this and what's wrong with you. You're
an innovator.
Right? But to just understand it conceptually as
a technical term
and then see where its application is, And
then the frame of self reflection and contemplation
being open to the idea
that there might be certain things that I
do
that are not a part of the religion.
It doesn't mean that everything has to be
categorically, explicitly defined
as being Islamic
in that sense because there's a lot more
that is Islamic
than is not Islamic. Do you know what
I mean? And that's just how it functions.
Do you know? What is haram in comparison
to what's halal
is like a drop in a bucket, like
what is impermissible
in terms of what is permissible.
So this term bidah
is a very technical term, and it's in
reference to this idea
of innovating,
adding,
you know, changing,
kinda things that are not meant to be
malleable. Do you know? And giving it religious
connotation,
saying that this is rooted
in what is religious. Do you know what
I mean?
So if one was to say, like, there
was no live streams during the time of
the prophet of God, well, that's not, like,
an innovation.
It has got nothing to do with
what we're kinda defining this term to fit
into. Does that make sense?
So in being able to understand this now,
there's 2 broader groupings
of individuals that would understand this terminology
in certain ways. You have just the overall
idea
that in one grouping,
that anything that fits under this quality or
category
of being a is
just bad.
There's no, like, room for goodness in it.
And then you have in this other grouping
of terminologies,
what is qualified
as a biddah hasana,
like a biddah that has goodness to it.
And so examples of this would be, like,
creating
the congregational
praying of taraweeh, for example. So if you're
a Sunni Muslim
and you've ever prayed
in
the nights of Ramadan,
that wasn't established as a practice during the
time of the messenger, alayhis salaam.
Is the one that tells people, let's get
together and pray now Because during the time
of the prophet, he came out to pray
at night and the people gathered and then
more people gathered, and then they expected him
to come again and he didn't come out.
And, you know, when he did eventually come
out some nights later, they said, where were
you? And the prophet said, I didn't want
you to think that this was an obligation
upon you.
You know. Because the whole idea is to
not make religion hard for people. Right? The
same way he says about the for example,
you know, I didn't want it to be
hard for people. It's a very common
theme and trend in what the prophet conveys
in terms of his teachings and advice and
counsel.
Because the minute it becomes an obligation, you
gotta do it.
So under Umar Radiallahu an, he says, we
understand now that it's not an obligation.
And that's why we should resume praying it
in congregation
because that would be a better thing to
do.
This group of people, we're not gonna attach
labels to them. Do you know what I
mean? Right? But the group of people who
would say that the is a thing,
right, they are saying
that this was a practice not established
during the time of the messenger of God,
alayhis salaam, and so within that,
that it's like a newly
appointed thing,
but there's goodness to it. Do you know?
What the group that would say there's no
good Bida
would say is that this is not a
bidah because
what constitutes the sunnah
and last week, we said that the opera
the upper
opposite of the word bida is sunnah.
Right? So what constitutes the sunnah
also extends into the companions and the 4
rightly guided
caliphs. Right? The Khalifa Rashidun.
You know?
It's essentially still more or less like the
same notion.
Do you know what I mean? What you
want to be aware of is that when
there's 2,000,000,000 of us in the world right
now, and we've had 14 centuries of a
lived tradition,
and we are intertwining with different cultures and
different societies,
and Islam is being influenced in different parameters
by these different peoples,
there's going to be certain things that get
attributed to Islam
that have nothing to do with Islam.
And then there's going to be certain things
that
function within the broader frame of Islam
that exist
because they're just rooted in what is culturally
normative
and can still be what Muslims do, but
it doesn't make it something outside
of the fold of Islam.
Does that make sense? And then it's not
innovative. Right? So what do you and I
do at a base level?
You just gotta constantly be in a place
where not through a prism of paranoia,
but you are reviewing and revising and learning
about religion.
Because the minute you learn it, then you've
learned it. Do you know? If I said
to you tomorrow,
like, go make will do with a bottle
of Coca Cola.
Right? It's problematic
for a lot of different reasons. Do you
know what I mean?
What determines
though,
like, the kind of waters that you can
use to make will do? And at this
juncture,
we should know this. What are the kinds
of things you can make will do with?
Do you know what I mean? An elderly
man in my kids Sunday school the other
day, we all prayed the heart together. And
then afterwards, he came up to me and
he said, I made tayam mum because I
don't know where there's any water in this
building. Like, is that okay?
And he was my elder, and I have
deference and respect towards him. But there was
a bathroom with a faucet,
like, 20 feet away from us. So I
said, Sheikh, like,
probably better you make and just do.
Do you know?
And
it wouldn't
be okay for me to tell him that
that would suffice in that situation
when it doesn't suffice. Do do you see
what I'm saying? Right?
And that's where it's not necessarily about emotions
and feelings.
You gotta think about this because it's straight
Quran.
You know that Allah tells us that there's
perhaps something
that
we like that there's not good in it
for us or things that we dislike that
there is benefit in it for us. And
in the moment, we might not understand
why it is that its application is this
way or how it is that we convey
to somebody
who's in a circumstance
that there's not room to maneuver around this
because this is just what Sharia is. And
we're not able to add on to it
or deduct from it what is clearly established
parts of it.
But it doesn't need for us to be
the determining factor
of what is good and what is not
good. Do you see what I mean?
So here,
we have
kind of this frame,
and what it adds to us this hadith
and why these hadith kind of follow this
sequential order is that the first hadith in
this text is the hadith of intentions.
And then this hadith talks about actions.
So
there are scholars who would say that these
2 hadith make up everything that you need
to know about Islam.
One is giving you insight onto the inner
part, the hadith of intentions,
and this part is setting parameters for you
now in terms of actions.
In understanding
where
this idea
is that
someone who adds this act
to this affair of ours, something that is
not of it, then it's rejected.
You want to also see within this
what are then accepted actions.
Do you get what I mean?
Like, if I know that categorically
this is something that beyond anything else,
it just has futility to it
because there's no mechanism for its acceptance.
Do you know?
If we pray to Isha
and I led you in 8 rakas or
12 rakas,
and I said by my deduction,
like, if 4 rakas for Isha has this
much barakah,
then 8 or 12 must have twice or
thrice. No. It doesn't work that way. Do
you know what I mean?
So the additional rakas there, because the intention
is to make malleable something that's not, and
say the obligation
is now something that it isn't,
it's not accepted.
Right? Because I'm not the one that gets
to decide that. Do you see what I
mean?
It only gets enhanced the understanding
of what is then not accepted
when we can understand
what is accepted.
So what I'd like you to do just
so we can get started talking to each
other,
what makes
an action more likely accepted?
And think about it from the parameters
of what acceptance means.
Right? Because the prophet Ibrahim alaihis salaam,
who is Khalil Allah, who
builds this Kaaba,
who when we make our duas
and our prayers and we send salawat on
the prophet, peace be upon him, we're mostly
doing
the Durud Ibrahim
where we're also sending prayers on the prophet
Ibrahim and his family. Right?
He has a dua
that is just this,
That, oh, Allah, accept from us.
Right? It's a constant thing. Just accept from
us. May Allah accept it from us. Accept
it from us. Right?
What goes into the
acceptance of an act
is not necessarily
very rigid.
But if there's not a conscious awareness of
it, then you're not gonna be able to
apply it when you're inventorying
potentially
or projecting what the day ahead will look
like. Inventory meaning, what did I do from
the day that just passed me. Do you
know? Like, what's going into the acceptance of
an action? Does the question make sense? So
if you can turn to the people next
to you and just talk this out for
a few minutes. Right?
What makes it likely that an act would
be accepted?
What are the things that need to be
present for that to be a potential, a
possibility?
And then we'll come back and discuss, but
go ahead.
If you don't know the names of the
people sitting around you, just feel free to
share. Again, it's not an exercise where you
wanna only talk if you know the right
thing or avoid if you're worried about saying
the wrong thing, but just say, you know,
what kinda
is coming to mind.
Okay.
So what are some of the things that
go into this notion of acceptance?
Right?
If this is something that is rejected,
that means
that there is room for certain things to
not be rejected, they're accepted.
Why is this an important thing, and what
goes into it?
What did you discuss?
Intention?
Yeah. Okay. Intention. Great. Right? This is the
first hadith in the book.
Right? Indeed,
actions are by their intentions.
So,
like, what does this mean though, intention?
What does it mean? You said it.
Like, what
what's your intention behind that act?
Okay. Yeah. I think something also to add
about intentions also that it's only for the
sake of Allah, not to basically
Great. And what's the basis
common between these two things that you both
just said? Yeah. I think the purpose behind
your actions.
Yeah. But a link here
is presence.
Right? Consciousness, awareness.
There's a difference between a amel and a
fa'il.
So if I'm sitting here
and I'm just you guys are talking and
I'm biting my nails. Right? I'm going like
this instinctively.
Do you know?
Like, you blink your eyes. Right? These are
not conscious eyes,
conscious acts. These are unconscious acts. Do you
know what I mean? So an intention,
like, is first built upon presence and awareness.
You can have unconscious acts that are just
habitual
that also become things that potentially could render
benefit.
But
when you get lost in your prayer, for
example,
do one of the accepted parts of the
prayer.
Do you know when the mind starts to
wander, you don't know what you're in.
Right? We're not looking at this as a
good or bad, but that presence is a
pillar that intention is built upon.
You know? Now you formulate
intention
that can be rooted in conviction,
in sincerity.
Right? But what does this mean?
And distilling that for oneself
that if that's not there,
is it accepted or not? Well,
like, if I did the act for Kevin,
then why is God going to accept the
act when it wasn't for God? Do you
know what I mean?
Right? Like, if you sent a gift to
my kid,
then you didn't send it to me.
Does that make sense?
Do you know? So the intentionality
is rooted in
this notion.
We can have a pumpkin cake that everybody
eats.
Right?
Or it can be a pumpkin cake that
is only for,
like, the people that the maker of the
cake likes. Right? If you didn't get a
piece of cake, now you know somebody doesn't
like you in the room. No. But do
you get what I'm saying? So there can
be intentionality
that can also
have
multiplicity to it. Right? It can be multi
multifaceted.
But if you don't even know why you're
doing what you're doing to begin with, how
is that gonna be an action that's accepted?
Why do you do most of the stuff
that you do? Do you know what I
mean?
And then what does sincerity mean?
You know, if we were to
flesh that out a little bit,
how do you know you're sincere in an
act?
Yeah. We were we were just discussing this,
but sometimes a person will do a good
thing, but then they'll be questioning just, like,
to
get creative from people that are going doing
good things?
Or just, like, to get creative from people
that are going doing good things? Understanding.
So how would you answer that?
That question and the question in itself is
a sign of, like, a goodness of the
heart because
it's it's like you're if you are actually
doing it to show off, you'll be just,
like, very narcissistic about then,
like but questioning it and overthinking
if why I'm doing this may be a
sign that Yeah. Or you can problem solve
to say, like, maybe I need to not
do it in front of people. You know?
So if we start to have facets,
it's not either or. You pray in front
of people
in congregation, and you go and pray also
non congregation.
Right? You know? I would say, like, some
of the elements of conviction and sincerity
within the act and the one you're doing
the act for
is that it's done whether it's convenient or
not.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I'm praying Dohir
whether I feel like praying Dohir or not
because I'm not doing it because of what
I feel. I'm doing it because it's something
that's supposed to get done.
Do you see?
The consistency in it doesn't mean you can't
get exhausted or tired,
but categorically, you start to think out
in these ways. Having this reflection and contemplation
as you kinda look within yourself to say,
hey. What does real sincerity look like? What
does it mean to be from the mukhlesin?
May Allah make us from amongst them. Do
you know? And can I have intention
that is still for the sake of Allah
that's still for others, right? Like if we
make a cake and other people get happy
about it, does that mean that that's still
not something that I'm doing for the right
intention?
No. Like, clearly not. Right? Intentionality
is also not just about
the overt expression of it. Now I'm going
to sit. Now I'm going to stand. Now
I will put my left foot forward. Now
I will put my right foot forward. Now
I'm going to scratch my face. Now I'm
going to scratch my armpit.
Right? Nobody does this. Do you know what
I mean? Why is that important to understand?
Because when the woman slips in the middle
of the street
and no one is helping her get up
or pick up her bags, you're not going
to say, for the sake of Allah, I'm
coming to lift you up off the ground.
Right?
Do you know what I'm saying? There's still
consciousness and awareness,
but the intentionality
is rooted
also in what is innate and instinctive.
What are you doing now?
No. You can't.
But just go make it figure out what
it might. Just talk to her about it.
Okay?
Okay. We're gonna leave in 20 minutes. It's
fine. Okay?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Do you get his concern so far?
He's great.
He still looks like you like thinking.
It's tough. It's tough being 8 years old.
Yeah. Make dua for my kids. They're the
best blessings in my life.
And even there too, right, there's room for
intention. Do you know? Sayed ibn Musayid,
he is a great scholar in our, you
know, religious
history.
He would tell his kids that I do
good deeds so that you can benefit for
them. Do you know? Like, you have the
story of Musa and Khidr,
and they have the instance where there's treasure
buried under this well, wall
in a town of people that are not
hospitable to them, and they're essentially rebuilding the
wall so that the kids who should inherit
the treasure are gonna be recipient of it.
But Allah is protecting
what is for the inheritors, the children,
because the parents were righteous. Do you know
what I mean?
So if I get up to go and
do the things that I do,
I know
why I'm doing it and who I'm doing
it for.
And it's not a problem that I can
police myself from the avoidance of what's problematic
and in the implementation
of what our dean deems to be beneficial
because
I have a why to it, you know,
That I might not be able to do
it if it wasn't for the ones that
I was doing it for. Do you know
what I mean? Inclusive of the community I
serve, each one of you. And then building
a relationship mindfully
with who god is.
So that the same way I know my
son as best as I know him, and
I know where he's at and what he's
wrestling with and what he likes and what
he dislikes,
Do I know god with that level of
intimacy?
So how can you intend to do
for an unfamiliar
entity
That the presence of what is ambiguous is
not going to come through just dhikr and,
like, doing, like, litanies
of
a unfamiliar
being. Do you know?
And so think about the person you love
the most in the world. Even if it's
you, it's okay to love you. Right?
But what do you know about this person?
What do you know about this individual? And
where I can say, I will do something
for them. Do you know? When we're done
here, I'm going to do something for them.
Do you know what I mean? What do
they enjoy? Take them to the balloon museum.
You all should go to this balloon museum.
It is so much fun. Right? But understanding
that I am not, as a 41 year
old man, gonna show up alone to a
balloon museum by myself and swim through this
pool of balloons
and play with, like, the large giant balloons,
the kids will all get freaked out if
I'm doing that.
I know what my kids like,
and then I have the ability with conviction
to do things that will be pleasing to
them because I know them. Do you get
what I mean?
If you don't know Allah, how will you
do things that are pleasing to Allah? Not
a textbook
answer. Right? You could tell me something about
8 year old boys
based off of anecdotal experience and conjecture.
If you don't know my kid, you don't
know my kid.
If you don't know your god,
whose fault is that?
That's also where innovation becomes important to understand.
What are people passing on to you in
terms of religious instruction and education and understanding?
In my kids' Sunday school, I was asked
to do a workshop on prayer on salah,
and they said you could do it over
a few different sessions.
I'm talking to 5 year olds to, like,
12, 13 year olds.
Right? I'm not particularly
great at talking to 5 year old children
because I talk to everybody like this. Do
you know what I mean? My kids seem
to be doing okay. They're not, like, too
maladjusted.
But to be able to understand that now
I have to talk talk to these babies
about salah.
What like, what would you even say?
And so instead of just talking
and bowing and prostrating,
I just talked to them about Allah
and who Allah is.
And I
said, who
do you love the most and you know
loves you the most and cares about you?
And how do you know they care about
you? And all these cute little 5, 6
year olds, right, who I was asking questions,
you know, because we talked about what is
an abd and what is rub. And I
said, are there any of you named Abdullah?
Raise your hands if you're named Abdullah. The
kids raised their hand, and they said, what's
your name? And he said, my name is
Zane. And I said, it's not Abdullah. He's
like, no. I'm Zain. Right? This other kid.
So, like, my name is Omar. And I'm
like, does the question not make any sense?
Do you know? So I said to Kareem.
I was like, Kareem, your name is now
Abdullah.
And just for the purposes of this exercise
but when I asked them, like, how do
you know this person loves you and cares
about you?
Every single kid talked about their mom.
Maybe, like, 7 kids in, 1 kid said
something about mom and
dad. Right? But not dad by himself.
And then one kid finally said my brother
because making him happy makes me happy.
Right? But the kids say, when I come
home from school, my mom always hugs me.
That before I leave, she makes me food.
You know? She does this. She does that.
Do you understand?
And then I said, the prophet says that
Allah loves us more than a mother loves
his child.
And you can't pray
as a first step
if you don't know who you're praying to.
Do you hear what I mean?
So
if I know
Karim,
then I can do for
with conviction attached to what pleases Karim.
How do you know what pleases Allah
if you don't know Allah?
And then sincerity is not this ambiguous
thing. If am I doing it for the
right or wrong reason, you shift the paradigm
and think about it a little bit differently.
In order for me to do for anyone
that I claim love for or I claim
to understand the love they have for me,
for me to do for them, I need
to know, like, what is for them. Do
you get what I'm saying? Does that make
sense? Right? Has anybody ever given you something
that you are still nice and kind about
it? Maybe not. Maybe you're a jerk. But
they give you something, and you're like, do
you have any idea who I am as
a person?
Like, what is it that you're really thinking
I would want this thing or this thing
you're asking of me? Do you get what
I mean? Right?
You can't give deeds to god without understanding.
And Allah makes it super easy
because he gave you a whole book to
be able to understand him better.
So you want that accepted deed. You gotta
read the book that tells you, like, what
goes into some of this stuff.
Do do you see what I'm saying? Does
that make sense?
The second part to this outside of intention
is the actions in and of itself.
And there's 3 broader categories that we can
align
our acts into. There's khair, what is good.
There's shar, what is evil.
And then there is, in the middle, what
is laghu. It's neither beneficial
or detrimental.
There's just no point to it.
Most of you are not doing evil things.
Right? Nobody,
like,
carjacked a cab on the way over here.
Right?
You didn't kick a homeless person, God forbid.
Do you know what I mean? You didn't
push down a old woman. You didn't steal
something from a little child. Do you get
what I'm saying?
And there are people who do horrendous things.
You see the world right now and what
the potential of evil is. May Allah protect
us from it. It's important to understand
you do not take characteristics
always consciously.
If you are in spaces that are permeated
with an absence of ethics,
that a person is on the deen of
their friends, so be careful the one who
you befriend.
You can take without permission, and people can
give without permission their behaviors, their attitudes, their
mindsets, their characteristics.
That's why you wanna be around good people
like you're seated with right now
who can help you remember who it is
that you actually are.
A lot of us probably also do more
than we're willing to admit.
Because once you can admit and acknowledge your
propensity for doing good, you don't really have
an excuse to not do it.
And when you can acknowledge it also with
confidence,
confidence is different from arrogance.
Arrogance does not go into an accepted action.
Confidence can because confidence can have gratitude
that is attached to the divine. With appreciation,
I recognize my strengths,
the god given talents I've been endowed with.
And then verbally as well as
with my actions,
I show appreciation
by using them in the ways that Allah
wants me to use them.
It also allows for me to see my
non strengths where I have areas to improve.
Arrogance just has me see what's wrong with
everybody else around me. Right? May Allah protect
us from it. Do you know?
So the acts that you have the ability
to do of,
like, they are actually probably manyfold.
But what most of what we probably do
just fits into the prism
of. Futility.
There's no positive or negative.
Why is there even a gain
in potentially, God forbid, doing something detrimental?
Because this is a deen that teaches us
the dua of the sinner quite often is
more sincere than the dua of the saint.
Then when you've treaded down steps where you
have made slips and you get back on
your feet, there's a different strength in that
than being in a place where everything is
perfect. And if you don't have struggle in
your life, you're probably not actually practicing Islam
so well. Do you know?
But in being able to understand
that middle box, like, what is futility?
And what goes into this
hadith
is also
a recognition
of a metric of assessment.
You don't live mindlessly
because mindlessness
is not a
characteristic
of the accepted action.
Right?
The is different from the file because the
is an act with consciousness to it. The
file is just done unconsciously.
So you're in this fear now where you
use a hadith like this that teaches you
about bidah and what's an accepted act to
have the humility
to either prior to the day
or at the conclusion of the day or
at both ends of the day, engage in
reflective
practice that says, what will I put into
this day, and what was it that I
ended up putting into the day?
And I can look back with a sense
of
development and growth. That perfection is not the
is not the pursuit,
but what did I achieve?
Where did I slip?
Where is there room for improvement?
Where are there things that I should never
touch or go near again? Where are there
things that I have to shelf for later
on? What fits into what
fits into
And what fits into lahu?
Who's gonna start their day planning to do
something that is futile?
Do you know?
But, realistically,
how much of your day today or a
week ago or a month ago did you
spend doing things that you don't even remember
today that you did them?
Versus the things that you know do bear
impact. Does it mean every minute of your
day has to be reading a book or
doing this or doing that? No. Like, it
doesn't.
And in the class, we talked about this
last week. Right? That after Asir is one
of the times when the prophet alaihis salam
would be spending time with his family.
And there's actual, like, narrations
where,
Ata'abin Abi Rabah,
Ramallah, who's Ataabi,
you know, he sees 2 companions,
and they're talking about this thing of Laghu,
and they say that the prophet
has said
that all things that are not from the
remembrance of Allah, then those are futile.
Right?
Because just think about it. Could you, in
the name of Allah, abuse your kid?
No. Right?
Could you, in the name of Allah, be
racist?
Could you, in God's name, like, not perform
your prayer?
For the sake of Allah, I'm not praying
Fajr today. Does it even make sense?
No.
Right? It doesn't. Right?
But then they distill it and they say,
here are 4 things that are not.
They say running between two lines. Right? Physical
exercise,
spending time with one's family,
taking care of your mount, your horse, and
swimming. These were four things that they mentioned.
So if I go to visit my mother
and she's watching,
like, some random
Indian, Pakistani drama that I'm just not into,
my intention is not to sit there to
kind of pontificate.
I'm just grateful I get to spend time
with my mom.
And the paradigm shift is such that what?
Spending time with family.
That's just what it is.
The prophet made after Asar the time he
spends with his family when the sunlight is
out, not at the end of the day
when everything is dark and everyone's asleep and
you're tired, but a primary mode. Do you
see what I mean?
And so you want to start to see
hadith like this also
as a mechanism to say that you have
to begin to assess
what it is that you're putting into the
world. I have to assess
my decisions, my choices, my actions. It doesn't
mean that I go overnight
into
this rapid, like, remodeling of who I am
unless you're a terrible human being. Right? Then
stop that nonsense now. Don't hurt people. Don't
abuse people. Don't mistreat people. Don't talk to
people poorly.
Don't take people for granted. Right? Apologize for
the wrong that you've done. Express gratitude. These
are not things that you want to wait
on,
but there has to be a system that
sees yourself
like anybody, as a work in progress.
We don't have this notion that is that
much more prevalent
in my anecdotal experience in terms of people
walking into my office who are running on
empty because the world is super heavy,
and it makes sense that you're exhausted.
But what adds to it when you're feeling
bad because the world is bad, then you
start to tell yourself,
why should I even feel bad? What am
I going through? Look at what everybody else
is going through. Not helpful ways of thinking.
You cannot compare struggles in this way. It
is subjective,
and Allah's divine decree and wisdom
that plays a role in determining what it
is that comes in front of us in
the ways that it comes in front of
us. But when you start to now feel
sad or bad, you add layers of negativity
to it that just crush you even more.
Do you see?
And in the prism of doing then, it
creates paralysis.
So where do I have healthy modes of
assessment
and metrics?
The prophet is telling us,
Aisha is telling us
through the words of the messenger,
hey, take a look at what you're doing.
Be conscious and be aware of some of
these things
and understand that you are the only one
that can essentially
really police yourself.
You want to have a starting point of
some of this.
Understand
that the kinda state that you're in primarily
is something that you can see
at its truest forms
of who am I when no one else's
eyes are on me.
Like, this question of do I just pray
for people because they're around me. Well, like,
what do you do when you're sitting by
yourself?
Right? And that can't be a self deprecating
act. But when you're at home alone, you're,
like, in your bathroom alone.
Right? You are anywhere alone or even you're
surrounded by people, but there's still aloneness
because nobody knows who you are.
Is giving you an indication
of where that frame of god consciousness
is.
You know, what am I doing in those
hours when it's just me with me?
What are those things that are taking place
that's not about against self deprecation,
but it's about just reflection. For me to
get to a place, I have to know
where I actually stand in relation to it.
And a lot of us don't reach goals
not because we don't define objectives,
but we're not being vulnerable with where we
actually are as a starting point. If I
am sitting here and I'm trying to get
right to where the clock is on the
wall in front of me,
but in my head I've told myself that
I'm actually there
because I don't want to confront certain parts
of me.
Then I take the steps that I would
if I was starting from there to get
to the clock and I go at a
diagonal.
I'm not getting there not because I don't
know where I want to end, but I
don't know where I'm beginning. And those steps
from here are gonna put me over there.
Do you get what I'm saying?
So
when you have the ability to be reflective,
it's gonna only be productive also if you
know how to be kind to yourself.
And this is where you go back to
the notion of doing for the sake of
Allah because Allah tells you on page 1
before anything that he is Rahman and Rahim.
So don't forget it.
And that if you were a population
that did not
make mistakes or sin, we would be replaced
by those who did because Allah would replace
us with those that he would forgive.
Do you get what I'm saying? These can't
be treated as just like sound bites. You
have to treat them as actual factual statements.
And a factual statement rooted in the context
of this hadith
is that if you don't take yourself into
account here, you're gonna still be taken into
account when you leave from here. Right? So
where Umar says
to take yourself into account before you're taken
into account.
And in the midst of that, you start
to think out, hey, man.
I just spent, like, 8 hours of my
day
watching
20 second clips on TikTok and YouTube.
And if you do the math of what
that adds up to. Right? 8 hours probably
a lot. 3 hours. Do you know what
I mean? Which is probably what some of
us do. It doesn't mean it's bad. There
could be, like, some things that we're gaining
from it. But a part of it is
probably just really mindless.
You have strategy that says, I'm gonna cut
it down to 2 and a half hours,
and I figure out with that 30 minutes,
what else am I gonna do?
Cut it down to 2 hours and 15
minutes. Cut it down to 2 hours and
45 minutes. So you start to reclaim
some of that time that you've been allocated
in this world. Right? Because what did the
hadith before this say? Where ibn
Mas'ud
he is talking about the things that have
been decreed already.
One of them was what? Your lifespan.
Do you see?
And so now this next hadith is talking
to you about deeds and actions,
and it's telling you, here's something that's not
gonna get accepted. So what is gonna get
accepted?
What did I do for the majority of
my day today? Do you know? What is
it that I'm spending my time doing? Do
you see what I mean?
Why couldn't I go to a soup kitchen
this weekend because nobody else is going?
Why couldn't I go visit the sick? Because
nobody else is doing it.
Why do I have to let somebody else
be the first one to, like, serve food
or to clean up something? Do you see
what I mean?
What am I waiting for to call someone
that I haven't seen in a long time?
This guy came here. His name is Faisal
Ghori. I've known him for 20 years. I
haven't seen him in years. He walked in.
I gave him a hug. He gave me
a hug. And then I said, like, let
me know next time you're in the city
because he's not from New York.
But if we make time for each other,
that's not a bad thing.
Would I do that
over,
like, just mindless scrolling?
Would I do that over backbiting and gossiping?
If you've ever met somebody who has a
smoking addiction, right? May Allah make it easy
for them.
One of the ways, not always, absolutely, that
helps people break that habit
is when you are able to compile
just data of numbers
on the amount of dollars they're spending on
cigarettes
in a day, in a week, in a
month.
And when they look at it and they
are saying that this pack a day habit,
this 3 pack a day habit that I
have, this multi pack a day habit that
I have is costing me, like, this many
1,000 of dollars.
I could be flying to Hawaii.
I could be doing, like, all kinds of
stuff. Cigarettes are not cheap, man. I don't
smoke, by the way.
Somebody left a box of cigarettes here the
other day,
and we have a bad habit of just
trying to hold everything for everybody.
From a Sharia standpoint,
if you pick up somebody's belongings,
like, the fic of it is you have
to hold that for a year in case
somebody comes back to claim it. You can't
just use it for yourself
or, like, give it away
or throw it away, whatever.
So sometimes it's better to just leave the
thing where you find it. So now we
got this box of cigarettes.
It's Jhoma time. Was it after Jhoma? Yeah.
After Jhoma, you know, stressful. Jhoma is a
stressful experience. So, you know, And now walk
in, there's a box of cigarettes sitting in
the IC. Right?
This thing
is like a number
of pain for many people. People sometimes turn
towards these outlets because they don't have community
support.
But where we want to help people is
not by berating them.
And so one of the ways that people
understand this is when you can visually represent
to them, like, hey, man. The amount of
money you spent on killing your lungs,
you could, like, be paying for a car
lease.
And then they just have to confront
the idiocy of the decision making.
Do you get what I mean?
So not just in your head,
but you take a notebook
that you stay true to. Right? This is
why the word in Arabic is reflection,
and
is a notebook in Arabic. Right? There's a
connection there, and you just write out what
you did throughout the course of the day
today.
And most of what everybody does is gonna
be great. Don't go in with the objective
of,
go go in with an assumption
that's not objective
because shaitan will get you to be able
to think like, here's everything that I did
today that sucked. Here's everything that I did
that makes me a terrible human being. No,
man.
You're gonna have done a lot of things
that were, and you'll be surprised. Like, oh,
man. Like, I did actually do these things.
And that'll just perpetuate more good. Do you
see what I mean?
Right?
And it'll allow for you to then feel
compelled
to say, like, tomorrow
could be even better.
And then you'll have a mechanism also when
a week from now, it doesn't seem like
there was so much, but you learn about
yourself to say, well, you know what? Like,
I just got in a fight with my
mom.
Or I'm in a place where I had
a tough argument with a friend,
or I just failed an exam, work was
hard, people are racist,
nobody understands me. It impacts, like, what then
comes up consequently.
Right? This is why we live an entire
life and we are judged in accordance with
an entire life, but you have the beauty
of a god
who shows that he looks for moments to
accept a zogel.
So the woman who's a known prostitute
has given Jannah by just giving water to
a thirsty animal. Right? Do you see what
I mean?
Does that make sense?
You don't wanna leave it to chance though.
So
right? Oh, Allah accept from us
is also then if you're serious about the
dua,
you apply it to be like, what were
the things that I was actually
giving
for the sake of Allah today, doing for
the sake of Allah that are attached to,
like, what pleases God? And how do I
build an intentionality
that I wanna make God as happy because
I wanna make my son when he comes
in? Do you see this kid, man, walking
in, cheeks blushed, smiling with, like, his semi
toothless smile? Do you know? He's cute. Wouldn't
you wanna make him happy? Do you know
what I mean? You all are in places
where if you have the chance, just can
I have this candy? Here, have the candy.
Right? Can I have this? Can I do
that? Yeah. Because there's an inherent
attachment
not to just his cuteness,
but his innocence.
There's a purity
to that beauty.
Allah is infinitely more beautiful
than my son.
The purity of the divine is something that
you can't even fathom or imagine.
And when you allow for your heart to
be in pursuit of
and have an intimate knowing of the divine,
you're not gonna wanna stop doing for the
sake of god
just because you want to. You're not gonna
expect
my son
to come back to you if you give
him cake or candy
and say, I gave you cake yesterday. Where's
mine today?
Do you see what I mean? And that's
where the love component comes in in the
action. Rabi al Basri,
may Allah be pleased with her, she says,
I will not serve god like a laborer
in expectation of my wages.
You just do because you want to do,
and it's not something that's intangible.
But the starting point is
if I don't have the room to do
what I want to do for the ones
that I want to do for, that I
love and I care for, including me, you
have to be important enough to yourself that
you are
doing right by yourself.
Then some of what'll make it easier is
to, like, cut out the clutter
that is overwhelming
the minutes of the hours that you've been
allocated
to say, is this really the stuff that
I'd rather be doing?
Can you imagine me saying to you,
I would rather be just watching
some random thing on my phone
then laughing
with my son and my daughter?
No. Right? But it's tangible. You see them.
Do you know what I mean? They're not
like snotty kids. They're nice kids. Do you
know what I'm saying?
But, like, why are you then filling your
time up with the stuff you fill your
time up with? You know? And this hadith
is telling us, here's a metric of assessment.
There's no point to doing these things that
are.
They're rejected.
And then you use your principles of logic
to say, if something can be rejected as
an act, then there must be something that
makes an act also be accepted.
What are the acts that I'm doing?
What are the likelihood
that those things would be accepted acts?
Am I engaged in the pursuit of decisions
that are just about the pleasure of my
boss,
the people that write my checks?
Is the intentionality
rooted in the validation
of just what is of the world? Or
is there something that is bigger than some
of this?
There's entire genres of hadith
that are prefaced with
the construct of
the best of deeds are.
You should go look them up.
The best deeds in the eyes of Allah.
The best of actions, this. The best deeds,
this. Just like there's the best of so
much stuff. Right?
You know?
The,
you know,
best of people, the best of women.
Right?
The best days of the year. Like, there's
so much that's there. So you start to
think out some of these things. Hey. And
where can I apply them in this in
this,
like, in this sphere of my day, of
my week, of my month?
The idea is not to be like a
super Muslim on steroids also. You just go
at a pace that makes sense for you.
Right?
And what you'll find is there'll be more
meaning
in, like, the limited
things that get done when you cut out
the things that have no purpose
because they also take away consciousness and presence,
and it allow for there to be then
opportunity
to feel like the sweetness of an act
that is done in pursuit of god's pleasure.
Does that make sense?
Okay.
So
if you can turn towards the peoples next
to you, what is some of the stuff
you're taking away from tonight's conversation?
What is it bringing up for you? And
then we'll come back and discuss,
make some announcements, and then we'll take a
pause for today.
Okay. So what are some of the things
we're taking away today?
Yeah. Anything coming up for people?
Yeah.
Yeah. What did they do?
Shh.
Yeah. Right? I go to places a lot,
and
people
ask me about my wife and my kids.
And they say you talk about them so
much, we just know certain things about them.
Do you know what I mean?
Here's, like, this gift for your wife. I'm
like, do you know my wife? No. But
we read what you write about her or
hear what you talk about her.
It it's fundamentally, like, something that you can
apply to relationship with the divine. Do you
know? And you can't do it if you
have this mental block
that doesn't acknowledge it. If you don't read
the Quran,
how will you know what the Quran says?
And if you're in a place where the
fundamental
block of acceptance is sincerity
to do for the sake of Allah or
for Allah's pleasure,
then, like, read the book that is there
to help you learn about who Allah is.
Do you see what I mean? Right? And
with this intentionality,
not as just an exercise, it has to
be read this much or this many times,
but with reflection and contemplation
that then enhances the experience. Do you know?
What else what else are we taking away
from today?
Yeah.
So upon reflecting on some of the things
that you mentioned, I think,
I was able to,
reflect on so you mentioned how we,
how something is, like, unlawful in Islam or,
like, how it's immoral or, like, haram. Right?
And 2 things that I understood on
how you were discussing things,
was
how we end up normalizing,
how we're surrounded by people who end up
normalizing
the abandonment of our obligatory
things such as,
finding our way around what makes a prayer
accepted
versus how it's actually meant to be accepted.
Right? And then when one thing is, let's
say, mentioned as Haram, right,
we know is Haram, we can either seek
to,
with without being conscious
or mindful,
we end up either,
normalizing the abandonment of, like, obligatory things, or
we can end up choosing the route of
really unraveling our intentions and purifying them and
being in a conscious state of mind where
we,
really seek the pleasure
in with the divine in, like, an unconditional
manner. Right? Not like doing our actions,
not praying or not doing good deeds because
of,
one external
validation,
the way society or people perceive us,
how
they think we are,
like, represented in the society.
And then secondly,
not doing it with
with getting anything in return
or, doing it out of convenience.
So just doing it purely for an in
an unconditional state of manner where I I
reflect on this. So as a parent or
when we have a child,
we unconditionally love our, like, children. Right?
And then looking at god in the same
way, looking at the divine in the same
way, we're we're constantly in this cycle of,
being better, understanding what our intentions are, and
why we do the things that we do
instead of sometimes, I have been a part
of actually groups where,
like, there's no room to be
to understand my intentions and better myself because
people already normalize
what isn't appropriate. Right? Such as, oh, okay.
I'm always tired for Fudger. Let me pray
whenever I want. Right? And then someone else
like, you'll have, like, 3 other people making
excuse for how that's okay
versus being like, okay. How can we actually
learn to wake up on time? Right? And
then you are left
out
in a way that, like, you can no
longer,
have people accountable for their actions of being
in a conscious state. Right? So we can
I think when we,
are no longer conscious conscious or mindful, we
are in a state of, like, ignorance,
and then we kind of normalize that ignorance
is bliss and all of that? So we
can either fall into that state or either
just understanding
who we are as individuals taking that, like,
that alone time that we have with ourself
as a gift of
purely understanding why we do things. Right?
And not really looking at it with external
validation.
When we make a cake for someone,
thinking that we're doing it out of love
and not because we ever need anything, you
know, in return. And that's how I constantly
do anything in my life and hoping that
I never really want anything in return.
And then also with with,
the divine connection
in hopes that, you know, I'm in circles
that also seek the same thing. But, that's
the 2 things that I kind of,
connect to. And I think as a parent,
I always see the love that they give
with their children
and how unconditional it is. Like, they can
do anything to you and then,
like,
you'll still love them as a parent. Right?
And then versus you can do anything
like, you can make mistakes and god will
always accept it given that you were constantly
improving your intentions
and purifying them and
really holding yourself accountable to being better. Right?
And then another thing you connected was, like,
the so called prostitute, the women, right, that
fed water to the animals. Was it animals?
Can you correct me if I'm wrong? It
was about it. Right?
So she did like, she went to because
her intentions
definitely like, it purified in a way that
god understood her, right, that she went to
Jannah. But today, in in today's world, the
whole world would be against her. Be like,
okay. We did Umrah. We prayed 5 times.
We did so many things. How did she
go to Jannah when maybe we did it?
We did all these good deeds, but we
probably did it for external validation. We probably
did for all the immoral like, we did
it for an outlook that wasn't purely, you
know, as a reflection of who we are,
but she did it as a reflection of
being good to those animals. Right?
So that's very interesting. And then I also
noticed that a lot of people choose to
sin,
and they intentionally
sin by saying that they're living their life.
So they're they're gonna choose to live their
life in a certain phase when they know
something is haram. And then and then out
of nowhere, they're gonna say,
yeah. And then we'll do, then we'll pray
5 times, then we'll start hijab. They sing
with an intention of sinning,
ignorance. Right? Being ignorant and then to seek
the pleasure of the divine.
Versus her. She was unconsciously
in the state of sinning
as a so called prostitute.
No. They'll forgive her. And then
her intentions purified. So I I kinda connected
that within the umbrella. I'm sorry for taking
up so much No. It's that time button.
So we can choose 2 routes of,
normalizing
ignorance. And I think also this is a
reflection of me
holding myself accountable that if me or any
one of us,
are in groups where
people normalize the abandonment of obligatory things
in their own excuses
that we kind of not only tell them
to reflect on how they can purify their
intentions, but how we can do it. So
we kind of
pursue the cycle of making the world better.
Right? Kind of. Yeah. And I would just
say with a caveat that, like, if you're
gonna give someone advice, make sure that you're
speaking to them and not at them because
there's a thin line between becoming like the
Haram police
and turning people away from religion. Many people
turn away from religion because of religious people,
and that's just something that's a reality.
Do you know? The next hadith that is
in this text,
says what you said. Right?
The halal is clear and the haram is
clear. Right? This is the next hadith, the
6th hadith. Do you know but embedded in
what we're talking about now,
you use it as just a metric of
assessment, and there's complexity to it. So we
don't wanna overtly
kinda reduce it to something simplistic.
But
if it's time to pray
and I don't pray because my boss does
not want me to pray,
then I'm doing what I'm doing
because of my boss's pleasure or mispleasure.
And then I'm not doing it because of
Allah's pleasure or mispleasure.
This is different from, like, a safety concern.
This is different from somebody's going to actually
hurt me. This is different from like a
plethora of reasons as to why one may
or may not do. I'm not telling you
that it's easy. I'm saying just think about
it at this fundamental level.
Where does god factor into the decision?
And understanding that Allah knows us better than
we know ourselves,
but the only thing we present to Allah
are our actions and our deeds.
And so the hadith is saying, hey. Just
keep yourself in check once in a while.
So if there's something that's causing you to
veer off, make istighfarad and turn back to
Allah. Is what is. You're returning back to
God.
Right?
If something's going well, don't abandon it. Right?
Enhance it. Implement it with regularity. But doesn't
have to be like a everyday thing, but
there's consistency to it. So reading one verse
of Quran
is something that's good if you're doing it
every day. Right? You could do more than
that, but you go at a pace that
makes sense for you. It's very different than
if you read the whole thing
in a day, a week, a month, and
then you don't touch it the rest of
the year. And that's not just conjecture.
It's like reality.
Right?
This dean says,
engage it daily
is categorically different than you went on a
marathon
for a day, and then you don't touch
it again.
But you bring it down to this place
of acceptance.
If you are changing Allah's religion,
how can you do that for the sake
of Allah?
Are you thinking that God got it wrong?
So the innovative practice,
like, what's the basis of it in this
prism of acceptance?
And then at this foundational level,
how can I do something for your sake
if I don't know you?
How can I just claim, like, what is
pleasing,
you
know, in a way that doesn't make any
sense? When I take my kids to different
countries, and people are really nice. It's a
different culture. My kids, you know, they're semi
polite human beings. Somebody gives them something, and
they don't even know what it is. But
in that place, that's what they give to
kids. They're giving based off of their understanding
of the children around them, not my children,
which is not a problem. Right? How will
they know the things that they don't know?
But you know what your loved one likes
to eat.
Just like you know what you like to
do and what you like to eat.
Do you know what is pleasing to Allah
and displeasing to Allah?
And that fits into this sincerity and acceptance
kind of variable. Do you see what I
mean?
So in a few weeks, we'll pick up
I thought this was gonna go a lot
quicker than it has been, and that we
would get through, like, most of these hadith
by the end of December. We've gone through
5 of them,
and, you know, like,
there's a lot more you can extrapolate. What
you wanna do between this Monday and the
next Monday that we're blessed
to come together in this way
is, like, start to revisit these hadith,
try to memorize them so that they actually
come into mind when you're doing certain things,
So that they inform and become a basis
of a moral philosophy
to which you're making decisions and choices. Do
you know? And exert an understanding of compassion
to oneself
as well as to others. They recognize that
I make excuses for them, but for me,
like the excuses, what are they really yielding
for me? Do you know? And then I
start to move forward in a way that's
just step by step, and then we'll pick
up with the 6 hadith,
in January.
We're running this clothing drive for immigrants,
for migrants and asylum seekers here in New
York. The boxes were, like, about twice as
many, and one person came and picked up
a lot of them today. He's gonna be
delivering on Wednesday.
And as he came to take those boxes,
we had about,
3 Amazon drivers
come with 3 full loads of boxes each
all at the same time, and that happened
3 times today. That's gonna happen every day
for the rest of this week. So we
need help to unpack and categorize. If you
can be here between now and Friday to
do some of that, that would be really
amazing.
If you have clothes that you can contribute,
you can get stuff. We're not gonna do
it past Friday.
So that's gonna be a cut off for
us.
If you bring things from home, just make
sure they're washed and clean, and they're not
worn down. You know, there are things that
we're gonna literally give to people to wear
in the cold because they're just sleeping outside
in the cold. So it's not gonna work
if we give them jackets with holes in
them or socks with holes in them. Do
you know what I mean? But just clothing
also. So no books, no toys, no this
or that. Right? And people ask questions very
generally. Someone reached out saying, like, can I
bring some saris for people? Like, no. It's
not gonna work. A sari is not gonna
help someone on the street. You know? So
it's not like a closet cleaning for us.
You wanna think mindfully, like, what are the
people going to need and, you know, bring
it, by this Friday.
And if you can help us to unload,
that'd be great. And, you know, what I
mentioned in the morning or in the beginning
of this session, I'll be going to Egypt
on Monday,
working with some organizations that are getting goods
across the border in Teraza.
And we'll put out a campaign probably
at some point, like, tomorrow or the day
after. You can contribute it, share the links
so we can get as much as we
can to fill these trucks and get them
across the border as long as it got
eligible and tax deductible.
And so it can, you know, be anybody
really contributing to it. If you know people
in Canada, like, there's gonna be tax deduction
for Canadians as well as Americans.
So please help us in spreading the word
on that as well. Okay. Let's take a
pause here.
My wife asks you, we ended at 7:30.
Okay?
And that's what ended up happening. Alright.
We'll see everyone.
Take care. You just saw the lights.
No. My wife does not watch or listen
to that.