Khalid Latif – Imam Nawawis 40 Hadith for Modern Times #15
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of the Prophet's teachings and the use of the "has been there" meaning in the message. They also discuss the history of the Prophet's teachings and its use in various settings, including religion. The importance of sincerity and being sincere with values and core beliefs is emphasized, and the importance of understanding the meaning of the hadith and finding out who is in relation to certain people is emphasized. The speakers also discuss the importance of valuing oneself and finding out who is in relation to various people, and the importance of finding out who is in relation to certain people.
AI: Summary ©
If you wanna come take a seat.
So just as we're gonna get started, if
you wanna take a quick minute, if you
can turn to the persons next to you,
just introduce yourselves.
I know everyone doesn't know each other's names,
how your day went,
and we'll get started in just a minute.
It's your birthday?
Happy birthday. Yeah. They surprised me. That's sweet.
Slice. This is not a slice. This is
like a chunk of a cake. I don't
know. That's like the everyone's saying it's so
big, but, like, in my family, that's like
a small cake portion. How big is your
piece? No. This is for brother Tyler. Do
you wanna give him a bigger one? I
can do that.
Thank you. You're welcome. That's so sweet. You're
welcome.
Okay. Should we get started?
Assalamu alaikumratullah.
Assalamu
alaikumratullah.
So we're gonna move on
to hadith number 7.
If people wanna move in a little bit
just so as people trickle in,
they know they can still come in to
pray,
that would be helpful.
But if people wanna pull up the hadith,
hadith number 7
in the 40 hadith collection,
this one's narrated by a companion by the
name of Tamima
Dari.
It says,
the religion is
sincerity.
So can people,
open it up? We'll read it in Arabic
and in English.
Does anybody have it? It's a short hadith.
It's much shorter than some of the ones
we've been reading as of recent.
You got it? Yeah. Can you read it
for us? Sure.
The prophet
said the deen religion is.
Advice, sincerity, we said to him. He said,
he
said, to Allah, his book, his messenger, to
the leaders of the Muslims and their common
folk.
Does anybody wanna read the Arabic?
Yeah. Go
for
So stored hadith,
you wanna try to memorize it just as
we've been saying the other ones.
Timid Badari
who narrates this hadith
is a little bit unique now in comparison
to the other companions
who
we've heard,
and read hadith that have been narrated from
them in the first six hadith. Right? So
Omar Ibn Khattab,
Abdullah Ibn Omar,
Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud,
Aisha Abibak,
Noman ibn Bashir.
They all have unique stories,
and
who they are adds perspective to what it
is that we can
extrapolate and take away from the hadith.
Zaneh Mahdari,
in his name, we can draw a lot
just about who he is, and they call
him Abu Rukaya.
This is a nickname he has. He's a
daughter by the name of Ruqayah.
But one of the more interesting things about
him is that he actually becomes Muslim
in the 9th year after a hijra.
Right? So this is well into the Medanese
period
of Islam. So last
hadith,
we talked about Nurman ibn Bashir,
and we said he was one of the
first children born in Medina. Do people remember
this I'm talking about? Yeah.
So there was a long period of time
where there was no children born in Medina
after the prophet alaihis salam had come into
the city.
This was something that was used to kinda
mock and ridicule
the Muslims.
Abu Bakr when
his grandson is born,
they are very joyous to the extent that
he's carrying his grandchild, you know, on his
shoulders walking through the streets.
Ahmad ibn Bashir,
he is born 6 months after this,
and we're able to then think out that
this young boy is a child. This hadith
is being narrated in Medina,
and he's in a place where
hadith number 6 is talking to us about
the heart and the way that the heart
governs over the body,
and what does it mean that a child
is being exposed to teachings like this as
opposed to many of us when we're given
Islam,
we're given
just the black and white, the do's and
don'ts, the mechanics,
but Allah's messengers exposing children
to elements of both the outward and the
inward. Do you get what I'm saying? So
to me, Madari
he doesn't become Muslim till the 9th year
after Hijra.
So the Hijra for us to just kind
of familiarize ourselves
is
referring to
when the Muslims leave from Mecca after 13
years of revelation,
and they establish now for themselves
the city that becomes Medina tul Munawwara, Medina
tul Nabi, the city of the prophet alaihis
salaam, and they're in Medina now for 10
years.
Revelation is 23 years
of Revelation.
And so in the 9th year after that,
Hijra. Right? It's not the
same as the Hijra we've talked about where
in Mecca, a group of Muslims goes to
Abyssinia,
and they find sanctuary in the kingdom of
a Christian
king.
The Hijra calendar
and the after Hijra
kinda designation is in reference to the migration
from Mecca to Medina.
Timi Adari is also unique in that before
he converts to Islam in the 9th year
after Hijra,
he is coming from a Christian background.
So you have all of these people that
we've talked about who converted to Islam
that were coming from various backgrounds. If you
come to the Wednesday sera class, we talked
about Warakah bin Naufal
who's Khadija cousin. We've talked about, you know,
many of the companions who are Quraysh, and
they were coming out of kind of
a Quraysh understanding of theology and practice.
Thami Badari
is a Christian man. Some people would say
he's even a monk or a priest,
and
his
embrace of the religion
comes well after the city of Medina has
been established.
So it's not just at the onset of
it.
And he has some unique
kinda prevailing characteristics
and depictions that are given of him. And
the total collection of hadith,
they say that Tamir Madari narrates 18 hadith.
Right? So when we've talked about other hadith
transmitters so far,
you have some who have transmitted thousands of
hadith,
some who have transmitted
substantially lesser than that. So to me,
we have 18 hadith
that we are hearing from him,
but this also makes sense. Right? Because
he
is Muslim in the 9th year after hijra,
and there's only, like, another year and some
change now. The prophet
is still alive.
So the amount of time that he's gonna
spend with him is gonna be pretty short.
It's not 23 years of revelation,
nor is it the entirety
of the prophet's life before he becomes Muslim,
but it is,
a short window that he's actually converted to
Islam and that the prophet is still alive.
Does that make sense?
He has a lot of different
kinda characteristics that he's known for. People say
he loves to read Quran,
and he was very deeply committed to the
Tahajjud prayer.
So much so that there was
narrations that say that when he missed a
hundred
once, he felt such a state of remorse
that he didn't sleep in the night for
a year after that. He was just awake,
constantly engaging the night as a way to
kinda seek his own recompense for missing Tahajjud
that time.
You know? And he was known to just
recite the Quran
for long periods of time again and again
and again.
But he also added
a lot of different unique elements
under the caliphate of Umar Radiallahu an,
Tamima Dari
started to give, like, public
kinda sessions
on advice to people.
You know, Umar was a little bit wary
of this. He didn't want people to
to do this. The idea that he was
trying to have people avoid
was that as
people came to now start teaching and preaching
and telling, kinda,
you know, insights, they live in an actual
society. So there's a lot of poets, there's
a lot of storytellers,
there's others who are there. And
Omer
he's worried
that
the nature of things
rooted in the precedent set by storytellers
is that when somebody starts to tell a
story, they just start to add more to
it and more to it and more
to it. And it starts to
move away
from what the original actual narrations and traditions
were. But to me, Madari
had a unique relationship
with Umar because he had a unique relationship
with the prophet alaihi sallam. Right? If you've
ever been to Medina
how many people have been to Medina before?
And you've seen, like, the original foundation of
the prophet's mosque,
what we now call the Roda, right, from
the gardens of the gardens of paradise. It
shares a wall with the prophet's home, and
the original foundation,
you know, is not that long. It's essentially
right. It's a small space.
They're praying in Medina.
Medina is not modern day New York City.
It's Medina 14 centuries ago. And so one
of the things that came to be
was that the same way our prayers it's
the same prayers. Right? We pray Fajr at
the same time they prayed Fajr.
Right? We pray
Duhr and Asr and Maghrib and Isha. It's
all the same, cyclical pattern of the Sun.
What's happening in modern day,
in the modern day that didn't exist 14
centuries ago when you're going into these buildings
and spaces.
Guys, can you move this way? Yeah.
Can you guys tell people as they come
in not to block the door? Yeah.
No. No. You can come in. Just these
guys sitting here.
Like, what what doesn't exist
in Mecca and Medina that we have today
when you go to the masjids?
Like, just think about what it looks like
today. We're here right now. Right?
Think about if we were in the prophet's
mosque at this time
of the day, what would be different?
Lights. There's no lights. Right?
And they didn't have any lights in the
masjid for a long time.
Because you're praying fajr, some of us were
blessed to sit in Medina together just some
weeks ago, Allah accepted from us. And it's
remarkable. We get people to come
and we'd sit outside the masjid until Isharak
time when the sun rises,
and you could literally see the sky illuminating
from the sunlight. Do you know what I
mean? But you go fajr, dhor, asr, magrib,
It's like still some light. Do you know?
And then Isha,
it starts to get dark outside.
So as they're maneuvering in the masjid,
they're just maneuvering in the dark.
To me, Madari,
he's the first person to bring a lantern
into the masjid.
You know?
And there's now,
like, a light inside of the mosque.
And
the prophet makes, like, special kind of du'a
for him
in terms of the light that he's literally
illuminating
the masjid with,
but also understanding that the prophet takes his
advice.
You know?
He brings the lantern in and they utilize
the lantern. It's It's like a oil lamp
in the mosque,
and you can imagine just what that does
for people in terms of changing experientially
what their relationship is
to prayer. Right? Can you imagine if we
were doing this right now
and it was just dark?
Like, what would the experience be like? There
could be some positives and, you know, negatives,
but it's just different. Do you see what
I mean? And so he has this kind
of engagement with the prophet,
and Ahmed knows this. Others know it. Because
how is she not like, think about it.
Do you know? Like, somebody brought pizza to
iftar today,
and we've been having no pizza since last
year.
And the first thing to go was the
entirety of the pizza.
There's 2, like, tables right there. This table
was in the back. To get to this
table, you had to squeeze through the other
two tables.
And whoever was the first one to get
in line, they got you got a slice
of pizza? Right? Am I I'm this is
what happened. Right? You had to go to
the back table and then maneuver yourself back
through it.
Everybody everybody is making special draw for the
guy that brought the pizza. Do you know
what I mean?
So
wouldn't everybody
likely know
at that time after they've been in because
he took his Shahadah
after the 9th year of the hijra. Right?
9th year after hijra. So that means that
for a while, these guys were praying in
the masjid, and and there was no lantern
in the masjid. Right?
So everybody's gonna remember the man who brought
the light to the masjid. Do you get
what I mean?
Does that make sense? He's gonna stand out
in people's heads. It's not like that guy,
like, came and didn't smell right or, you
know, why is this person like this? This
man brought the lamp, the oil lantern to
the masjid. You can now see in the
dark. Do you get what I mean? So
when he is now speaking to Amr and
saying we should do a little bit more
of kind of teaching people and giving them
their insight.
He's not thinking about it from the standpoint
of, like, this is some just random person,
but this is Tamim Adari.
You wanna also be able to understand
that the content of this hadith
is something that's being iterated
towards the end
of revelation.
Just like Noman ibn Bashir is exposed to
the words that we talked about in the
previous
hadith, right, to the end of the hadith,
right till the end in, you know, the
halal is clear, the haram is clear. The
end of the hadith in your jesus, there's
a morsel of flesh. It's good. The entire
being will be good. If it's not good,
the entire being won't be good. It's your
heart. Right? They're talking about these things
still towards the end of this. This hadith
is gonna talk about
the
kind of foundational understanding
of
this religion.
There's scholars of hadith
who they attribute this hadith to be 1
of 4 hadith
that make the foundation of the entire deen.
Imam Nawawi,
whose hadith collection we're reading,
he says
this isn't just 1 fourth of the foundation.
He says,
this is the religion.
This is what this religion is about, this
hadith.
You know this. You understand it. You implement
it.
This is what, like, this faith is about.
So it's a very important hadith.
And you wanna think the religion doesn't have
a high bar of entry
that you gotta be up here and know
like thousands of things, but you take these
foundational narrations
and you act upon them, you engage them,
you extrapolate meaning from them,
and then there's benefit
in this. So to me, Amadeh,
like, some of the things we wanna know
about him amongst many things,
he passes away in Palestine. Right? And they'll
bring ease to the people of Palestine
and end the occupation that's taking place there.
He's in a place where he has, like,
a certain reputation
amongst the companions clearly,
and he converts towards the end
of revelation
from Christianity.
Nobody's in a place
where they're like, who is this man? He
just became Muslim a week ago. Like, who
is he to tell us to put lamps
in our masjid and this kind of stuff?
Do you know?
But they have a certain sense of mutual
respect and understanding and care. You also think
about his commitment
to the religion,
he gets into it and he loves Quran.
He loves prayer.
He's coming out of a Christian theology,
so the bridge is a little bit different
than a polytheistic
theology.
Like, he's still a real person at the
end of the day. He exists historically,
and so you wanna, like, think about
how somebody who becomes Muslim
and comes from this now, not sociologically,
but has embraced the religion
in its essence and then has already reflected
on who is God to me, like, who
am I worshiping?
These kinds of things. And how where they
come from is not something that's just a
departure that they run away, but they're building
upon something because they have
understandings,
and then gaps are filled through the religion
of Islam. That certain things just, like, click
and make sense that might not have made
sense before.
He gets to a point too, then after
the caliphate of Umar under the Khalifa,
Uthman ibn Affan,
he now starts teaching publicly, like, twice a
week. You know? And people start coming and
convening and gathering
and kind of engaging in these ways.
There's other, like, hadith that are more kind
of prominently attributed
to,
but this one is pretty unique
in that it's in this Hadith collection,
and it's quite often engaged,
you
know, in a variety of settings.
And Muhedathine,
of the past
have said, like, this is it. Like, you
know this one.
This is what your dean is based upon.
So I want you to take a minute
before we delve into it and kinda break
it down,
because I've been talking a lot. If you
can turn the person next to you, pull
it up on your phone if you haven't
already. Right? Hadith number 7.
Adina Nasih is the hadith.
Why
why
just reading it as what it says
and
just what's in front of you. Why do
they say, like, some of them, this is,
like, one of the 4 that make the
foundations of this religion? And Imam Noemi himself,
he says, this is it. This is what
the religion is built upon. You can take
a minute. Just turn to the person next
to you. Like, what comes up for you?
What is it that you think you can
kinda extrapolate? Why would they say this is,
like, what this is built upon?
If you don't know the names of the
person sitting next to you, share some names,
exchange your names,
and then let's delve into this. Like,
why such an emphasis on this particular hadith?
Because we've already looked at 6. Even if
you haven't been here, like, for all 6
of them. Right? You just flip through the
ones that came before. Why not any of
those? You know, why is this one so
kind of what's in this
that makes it so important?
So let's turn to each other and discuss,
and then we'll come back, and then we'll
get into it. But go ahead.
I'm looking at, like, the order
Okay.
So why do we think this hadith is
so important? Like, why are they saying that
this is the foundation of all of it?
What did we
discuss?
Any thoughts?
I think it's, odd topic. So I think
it's based on the word sincerity is the
main focus here. And, when I think about
the word sincerity that I was sharing with
others is,
the the concept behind intention
and and how you
really, I guess, accept,
being sincere with the love, being sincere with
your values and your core beliefs.
And if you're sincere that you are effectively,
like,
Okay. Great.
Other thoughts? Yeah.
Yeah. One of the things we said is,
like,
also given, like, the context
of the hadith, like, when it was,
like, sad. Like, there's already a foundation in
the religion.
And if for that to be movement to
one city to another and, like, still be
secure or
in the fact that Mecca will remain Muslim.
And it's kinda like
you already have the foundations. You have the
book. You have a good, like, you know,
following, and it's like, where are you gonna
go from that? And I think,
like the brother said, like,
using really base line of, like, being sincere
in everything you do and where you're gonna
how you're gonna use the book and how
you're gonna use the teachings,
like, in your life. And also we're talking
about, like, with
within our community and, like, with other people.
Like, we were saying, like, one thing of,
like,
peers can ask, like,
you know, how like, do you know how
religious this person is if they're, like, talking
about someone and, like, how to,
like, refrain from engaging in those conversations? Because
that's not something that's,
like,
for you to say. It's between that person
and God and, like, just being sincere in
all of your actions.
And, like, how yeah. Well, that's how that's
an example of how we, like, framed it
into, like, our, like, everyday
life.
Great.
Other thoughts?
Yeah. I think the keyword in the how
do you this actually
the and I don't want the the translation
to religion. I think
a more accurate translation is way of life.
And so this way of life is a
sincere
advice
and an act of sincerity in the sense
that
you are going to prioritize this way of
life above all other ways of life.
And
through that
and through advising others to also follow the
same,
you are showing sincerity to your creator, to
the book, to the messenger,
to the leaders. In other words, you
the the goal is it's the
perfect mission
summarized is you're trying to pull people to
a specific way of life. The creator
has basically instructed
us to follow. And so calling people to
that,
whatever the circumstances may be,
whatever resistance you may find
is proof of sincerity.
Great.
Any other thoughts?
You wanna keep all of this in your
in your head as we go through it.
Right? And the framing of these things because
the way that we kind of engage
can't just be from the standpoint
of
kind of
absorption. You wanna contemplate. You wanna reflect.
Like, if this is something important,
how does it then define and actualize in
terms of the way that I implement it?
What is it really calling me towards?
And so hold all of those conversations as
we proceed.
One of the things we take from this
right off the bat is just how remarkable
the prophet's speeches.
Right?
Here you see evidence
of
the way that he describes alaihis salam,
His speech is being very concise and deep
at the same time.
So you have just two words,
ad Din
and al Nasih,
But it's
in this construct
that we find in a lot of different
hadith.
So there is a hadith, for example, that
says,
Hajj
is Arafa.
Do you know what I mean? Right?
We, like years ago,
used to have attack line in Ramadan
that said Ramadan in New York City is
Ramadan
at the IC.
You know? That's just what it said. Right?
I don't know why we stopped using it,
but it said Ramadan in NYC is Ramadan
at the IC.
Does that mean that
the only place in New York that Ramadan
happens is at the Islamic Center?
No. Right? Yes. It does. Yes. The only
place that happens. No. Clearly not. Right?
Hajj Arafa doesn't mean that Hajj is only
Arafa.
There's other things that go into Hajj,
the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Right? So the din
is naseha,
doesn't mean that there's an equal sign
that has reciprocity
in that way that it's only this thing,
but it's saying that this is like a
big part of
this deen.
The same way Arafah is a big part.
Arafah,
the day of Arafah, 9th of Dhul Hijjah,
that
is a day that Muslims are recommended to
fast around the world. The ones that are
on the Hajj pilgrimage,
they stand at a plane called the plane
of Arafa.
It's one of the integral parts
of the Hajj itself,
the standing in Arafa.
Right? And
so
if you don't have it,
you don't have Hajj.
Do you know? But at Hajj, there's also,
like,
sleeping in with the lifa. There's still the
waf. You walk around the Kaaba.
You know? There's
nehar. You are doing, like, the ritual slaughter
of the animal in the Hebrew like, there's
so much more that goes into Hajj.
The idea is to just show the importance
of this thing.
Right? And stylistically,
it's really, really remarkable
that you don't need a lot of words.
It's not unnecessarily
verbose.
It's not wordy.
The prophet takes 2 words and gives you
something that anybody can carry forth with them.
Right? Because it's meant to be a religion
that people of any background
can find meaning through. Right? It's a final
testament,
so it can't be unnecessarily
complex
the way that we make it complicated.
Does that make sense? Right?
The word,
we've probably heard in different
settings,
if you're Muslim for a while, usually in
this concept of, like, giving advice to someone.
Do you know?
But here, the translations
give us an understanding of sincerity.
When we talk about sincerity
in many circles,
we use the word Ikhlas.
Right? Like the chapter in the Quran,
is called
the chapter of sincerity.
So nalsiha
is not the same word as So
how does this get translated
to sincerity?
One of the things you wanna start getting
comfortable with is that
not knowing how to speak Arabic
doesn't mean you can't understand Arabic,
and that's just something you have to be
able to embrace.
There's
tons of Arabic English dictionaries.
It might be, like, hard to do,
but every
Arabic word
is usually built off of 3 root letters.
This one
is. Right?
So you open up an Arabic English dictionary,
and you just look up the root letters,
and you see all the different words
that are built off of this root.
There's some roots that are two letters, some
that are 4, but most are 3.
If you Google on your phone right now,
Surat Tahrim,
t h r I m, and look at
the 8th verse
of Surat Taherim. It's gonna have this word
in it, its derivation.
Does anybody have it in front of them?
Surah Taherim is the 66th
chapter of the Quran. So chapter 66
verse 8. And you wanna start making mental
notes of these things. Do you know? Because
you can also turn to text to understand
text.
You see? Like, you can't you don't wanna
look at things in isolation,
but how they apply across
kinda various disciplines.
So the 66th
chapter,
the 8th verse, does anybody have it? Just
the first part of the first verse. Yeah.
Go ahead. You want me to read it
in Arabic? Yeah.
Great. So
what are the letters in this word? The
same letters.
The same letters as.
Here,
if you read the English translation,
it says what?
What does it say on your phone?
It says, oh, believe me just turn to
Allah and see your repentance.
Great.
Tauba means like turning back to Allah. So
Nasuhan
is qualifying
tauba.
When you think about it in this way,
like, the
utilization
of this root,
is
like what they say when you're trying to
kinda purify honey,
you know, remove from it, like, anything that
shouldn't be in there.
So this is where it's sincere in its
repentance,
the way, like, honey becomes kinda clean and
pure. You want
your turning back to God to be clean
and pure.
You know? Like, I'm not still pulled by
what it was that took me away from
God. Remember
last week, we were talking in the Ramadan
class about taqwa.
Taqwa is like consciousness,
awareness.
So toba is a spiritual act.
It's what if you fall into the hole,
you then are in a place where
you
have this to get out of the hole.
Is what brings you out of the hole
when you fall into it,
and
is the thing that tells you, hey, the
hole is coming. Don't fall in the hole.
You know?
So to have
is I'm, like, real
in my turning back to god.
Do you see?
It doesn't mean I'm not gonna slip and
fall again,
but the whole idea is in that moment,
I'm just being as genuine as possible.
This is what Nasih means
here.
Does it make sense?
There's
another verse
in
Surat Atoba,
verse number 91,
if you pull that up.
Sorry. I don't know the numbers of all
the Suras,
but I should probably
is
chapter 9 verse 91.
Can somebody read that verse?
Yeah. Go for
Great. And how does it translate it and
what you're reading from?
There is no blame on the weak, the
sick, or those lacking the means if they
stay behind as long as they are true
to Allah and his messenger.
There is no blame on the good doers,
and Allah is all forgiving, most merciful. Right.
So
here
is to Allah.
You're not giving advice to Allah.
You know?
So here,
it's giving an indication that you have, like,
a genuineness
with Allah. You're true to Allah.
Do you understand?
And you start to nuance the meaning of
the word to be able to then understand
its application
back.
Also gives an idea that when sing things
are, like, ripped apart,
they're in pieces,
the process through which you bring them back
together, like, if you're knitting something. Do you
know what I mean?
You're using a derivation of this.
And you can look in Surat al Yusuf,
it's utilized again. This is an interest of
time. But
go to the Quran
and, like, see where does it talk about
words in this way also
so that I'm not stuck in a place
where
my limitation is something that's actually not
beyond my capacity.
You and I
have in front of us a remarkable piece
of communication
that is the speech of the prophet of
God, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
We haven't even gotten past the first two
words, and we've been talking about it for
the last 50 minutes.
Do you know? And that's not an exaggeration.
And being able to just go into it
deeper and deeper,
you have to embrace as you're reading hadith,
you're reading Quran,
which are
kinda
or rated experiences,
that one of the things that makes us
distinct
outwardly and inwardly from the rest of creation,
outwardly, you're not the same as other parts
of creation
because you have the ability to express differently.
Right?
A dog just barks.
You don't just make one noise. Do you
know what I mean? Right? Like and it's
not varied
variance of intonations
of that noise.
You have the capacity
to put sound together to be able to
communicate
effectively.
And the way you and I understand things,
the meanings of things is through the names
of things.
That in the second chapter of the Quran,
in the Adamic narrative of creation,
one of the things that is said that
Adam was taught the names of everything.
That's how you understand things.
So when you get to a word,
don't just take it at, like, its face
value.
And Tamim Adari is interesting here as a
character because he's Christian converting to Islam in
the 9th year after hijra.
If you ever had a conversation with somebody
who's not Muslim or who's new to Islam,
they still exist where language is based off
of their socialization.
So if I'm talking to somebody of a
different religion and I say god,
we don't have the same essential understanding of
who god is.
The word is the same, but the meaning
is different. Right?
A prophet in Islam is very different from
a prophet in the Judeo Christian
narrations.
And you're not mocking anybody's belief. This is
Quran. In Surah Al Anam, Allah tells you,
don't mock people for their beliefs.
Do you know? But you're in a place
where the understanding here is that if you
get stuck, and the only ways that you've
heard,
if you wanna just tell them what's going
on.
The only ways that you get stuck are
I hear this word
again and again and again in the prism
of advice, advice, advice
of counsel, counsel, counsel. I'm not gonna get
to the depths of what this narration is
talking about. Do you get what I mean?
And we can expand on it by just
looking at it purely from a language standpoint.
And then it also helps us to connect
to Quran a little bit differently.
Do you know? And, like, these concepts and
these kinds of things. We talked about 2
different verses right now. Like, go and reflect
on them and think about them in the
context of this hadith.
What is the relationship now between
nasiha
advice
and,
like, everything that we're talking about here.
Sincerity,
kind of healing,
bringing something back to its kind
of holistic form. Do you get what I
mean? Like, how does this relate to the
concept of advice? And if people aren't familiar
with it,
quite often when you talk about giving counsel
or advice to someone, one of the words
in Arabic that's used in in languages that
have cognates,
Hindi, Urdu, etcetera,
is this word Right?
Like,
advice.
What are we then understanding
of advice,
like, through its relationship
from a language standpoint to the way that
we're saying this? Does that make sense? Right?
So how does the word advice
stem from, like, this root That the Quran,
when it talks about tawba,
it says to have a tawba that's nasuhan,
that has this root.
Right? When it's talking about your relationship to
the divine,
it's speaking about it in this way that
this is a mechanism
of being true to God. Do you see
what I mean? How does advice fit into
this? If you could turn to the person
next to you and just kinda break that
down a bit, what is it? What do
you think? And then we'll come back and
discuss, and we'll go into more of the
hadith. But go ahead.
How does advice,
relate to, like, what we're talking about here
in terms of
this kind of root?
Right? Purity,
kinda
sincerity,
you know, these types of things.
Okay. So what do we think? How does
advice attach to this concept?
What are we discussing?
Who wants to start?
How does advice play into this concept? Sincerity.
Why why is it the same word, like
the same root letters?
Yeah. I feel like if,
someone were to give you advice, they must
be sincere. So, like, when you. Advice, if
there's,
advice one.
Okay. Great. Other thoughts? Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, well, brother's not your eyes. It was
very similar to what we discussed, but I
kinda
now thinking something different. So it's kinda on,
on the fly,
but,
you could see
advice as a form of sincerity in the
sense that
when you're
it's much easier to be a yes man
or it's much easier to, like,
not point out a mistake or something that
someone has to do better.
So giving advice is a form of sincerity
in the sense that
you are giving your actual feelings on a
certain subject with the intention of aiding that
other
person. Because you might think, oh, this person
is gonna get upset at me, so it's
better for me not to tell them what's
better for them. But in reality, you're hurting
both yourself and, because you're weighing down on
yourself and that your ex and your, I
guess, vision of them in the sense of,
like, oh, this
So
Yeah. So if I started to think out,
like, how do I know,
like, I'm good
with why I'm giving advice to somebody? So
why you gotta look at all these hadith
altogether.
Hadith number 1,
actions are because of their intentions.
Do you know? So if I have some
metrics of assessment
that I can start to apply
to this concept of giving
advice, receiving advice, they go in both directions.
Those are 2 things that have to be
present. Like, if somebody is gonna be good
at giving advice
in this sense
that it would be called nasiha,
they gotta be ready to take some advice
too. Do you know what I mean?
And if somebody's just throwing words at us
or I'm just throwing words at someone, I'm
not really talking to them,
then that's a problem.
This religion
is really hard
to get deeply
involved in
if you're not open to kind of taking
feedback.
As well as
if the giving of feedback
just doesn't really have
mindfulness
and awareness to it. It's gotta have elements
of, like, real love and compassion,
real understanding.
There's a hadith where a man converts to
Islam,
and he asked the prophet to teach him
something.
And the prophet tells him someone sneezes, you
say, and
that's a right they have over you.
They stand to pray,
and in the course of the prayer, somebody
sneezes.
This man learned that when that happens, you
say, And
so he says,
out loud. This is a companion of the
prophet of God.
People
start to stare at him,
and he gets
upset
and speaks out loud again.
Why are you looking at me?
And the hadith says they start to hit
the inner parts of their thighs to get
him to
stop,
and he gets it, but he's upset.
At the end of the prayer, the man
says the prophet alaihis salam comes and speaks
to him. He says, I swear to God,
Muhammad is the best of teachers.
He did not scold me or repudiate me
or revile me. He simply said that in
the course of this prayer of ours, we're
reciting the words of God. It's not appropriate
to mix them with other words.
Both people got him to understand you don't
talk in your prayer.
One group
made him feel like he had no relationship
with Allah.
The prophet made him feel
that he still
was
able to have a relationship with Allah.
Do you see the difference?
Right?
So it's not just about, like, hey, I
want to jump to give advice and counsel.
Other assumptions here that you don't wanna have
is that you know every opinion on everything.
That's why the hadith that comes before this
is important to think about in relation to
this hadith. Right?
Indeed the permissible is clear and the impermissible
is clear, and then how does it continue
In between these
things, there are, like, ambiguous things. They're not
as clear. Right? Bayin
means it's unambiguous.
It's just clear.
Marriage, halal. Fornication,
haram.
Right?
It's just it. That's it's that's what it
is, you know?
Giving gifts, halal.
Stealing, haram.
Like, there's
there's not it's just what it is. You
know? But then there's stuff in between.
And so here now, you wanna even think
about this. Right? Like,
am I in a place where I know
enough to be able to comment on why
somebody might be doing what it is that
they're doing?
And if I don't have a sense of
love, admiration,
compassion, affection,
is what I'm contributing
gonna be helpful or is it gonna be
worse? Is it gonna be detrimental?
That's very different from
this kinda
overt knee jerk reaction
of
who are you to tell me what it
is that I am doing is wrong is
not wrong.
You know?
Contemporarily,
we run into an issue that the way
we get in people's business
is not really on the matters that we
need to. Right?
Most of you in this room, I work
with a lot of survivors of abuse, probably
know someone who is a survivor of abuse.
If not, you yourself, and I'm not trying
to be triggering, the law grants you the
healing that you're looking for.
How many Muslims do you know that get
into people's faces about, I can't believe you're
talking to the opposite gender. I can't believe
that you listen to this thing.
And then they're silent when they know that
there's somebody who's praying next to them who
hits his wife.
Right?
But just think about it in the concept
of what we're talking about here. Do you
get what I mean?
And where does that flip come in?
You don't wanna trivialize
this beautiful deen
and turn it into something that's just about
externals,
but also to be able to think out
why is it hard for me to take
advice?
Why am I, like, so excited to always
give advice? You know, like, why do I
want to always tell people that what they're
doing is just messed up? Because how you
see people isn't just telling you about who
they are, how you see people tells you
a lot about yourself.
And where in the hadith do you see
the prophet just knocking on people's doors? Hey,
man. You're so messed up, and I can't
believe you did this. And I'm the prophet
of God, so I know what I'm talking
about. You know? No. There's kindness there. There's
gentleness there. There's compassion there.
And these are other ways to convey,
like, advice.
Do you know?
But here,
when you get to a place of spiritual
growth as a metric,
right,
You want to assess yourself? You don't have
to stand and, like, give rise to the
ego because
arrogance is really bad. May Allah protect us
from it. Hadid says, like, a lot about
who enters paradise, who doesn't enter paradise. There's
hadid that say, if you have even a
mustard seed worth of arrogance in your heart,
you're not going into Jannah. Right? Because Jannah
is the epitome of purity. It doesn't tolerate
what is impure. So if you have a
habit of being condescending
or looking down or like a big indicator
of arrogance,
you don't know how to say sorry for
things.
And that doesn't go just to peer to
peer or somebody who's above you in power.
You got kids and you've never apologized to
your kids? Doesn't make any sense.
You're married to someone, you've never apologized to
them. How is it fundamentally possible?
You can be in space with people for
so long
and you've never done anything, like, that's a
mistake to them. Right? Like, what what is
going on there other than, like, what's inside
of me that makes it difficult for me
to express these things? Do you see what
I mean?
We're gonna pray Isha in, like, 5 minutes.
Yeah? Sorry. Not to you know? Yeah.
He's my friend, so I can give him
advice.
Right? We just ate lunch the other day
together. But in being able to understand this,
if we want to see people who are
at a high level of spiritual
growth,
inwardly, their hearts are, like, where they wanna
be. Even when someone's a jerk to them,
they're gonna say, if there's benefit in what
they're saying in some portion, I wanna still
hear what they're saying.
Even if they spoke to me terribly, even
if they spoke to me poorly, they're disrespectful.
The notion through which they exist
in terms of inward balance and character
still remedies
the idea that you don't become someone's doormat.
That's not what we're
saying. But can I still extrapolate something from
this that I need to hear in terms
of advice and counsel?
Do you see what I mean? Right? It
can sting a little bit,
especially when it's true.
Do you know? But it doesn't mean that
we don't have to hear it necessarily.
So the balance has to kind of exist.
Somebody says to you, hey, man. You probably
shouldn't be doing this. And then your response
is, well, you do this. Right? That still
doesn't mean that you don't do what they
told you that you shouldn't be doing.
You know? And that's where the ego gets
involved,
that I just have to be right. It's
not even about the discussion.
And this is where there has to be
elements of just softness, kindness, compassion
embedded in some of these things.
The deen is.
Like, that's just what it is. How can
you have spiritual growth if there's nothing to
improve upon?
Like, how?
How will you move forward if there's
nowhere else to go? Like, if you've already
reached it, great. Then what's the rest of
your life for? Do you get what I
mean? Right?
So who in your life are those people?
And where are you in relation to some
of the people that you have to be
able to give this type of advice and
counsel to also?
And so here, you're gonna give naseeha to
someone.
Make sure you have, like, a certain love
for them that exceeds the love you have
for you.
Because there's this subtle line that I'm elevating
myself by denigrating somebody else.
I get a kick out of being able
to put people in a place where I'm
just throwing information at them, you know, versus
I just really want what's best for this
person.
And then if that's genuine,
you understand that communication
is not just about the words you use.
Statistically,
7% of the impact comes from the words.
93%
is nonverbalized
aspects,
Tone,
like
volume,
all this kind of stuff, the packaging of
something. Do you know? If I sat here
and said all of this that I just
said to you for the last hour or
so, and you guys said to me what
you said to me,
and all of that's great.
What if I said it to you just
wearing, like, a pair of short shorts and
a tank top? Right? You'd receive it differently.
Don't play like you wouldn't. You definitely would.
You know? If I just had a piece
of cake that I finished
not for any reason other than last week
at the Ramadan class, I told people, don't
eat sugary stuff.
And I can't have them see me eating
cake now. Right? Put somebody's birthday and they
gave me a piece of cake, and I
don't wanna not, you know, take from them.
This cake was given to me on a
plate. Right? Clearly,
it was pretty good. All that's left is
these crumbs. Do you know? Right?
What if all of this stayed true?
But instead of serving it to me on
a plate,
they opened up a box,
took out a unworn
brand new pair of shoes, and put it
on top of the shoe and said eat
it. The shoe is not even dirty,
but already the packaging of it is going
to
have a different impact. This is sensational
transference.
Right?
I'm gonna cook you a big steak, but
I'm gonna serve it to you on the
lid of a garbage can. Even it's not
dirty. Your mind's gonna already not want to
receive it. Do you get what I mean?
I was speaking at a conference.
There's literally,
like, 30,000 people in the audience. No joke.
I'm getting off the stage,
and my mom is standing there with me.
And some guy got on the stage after
me and said
one part, like, verbatim what I just said.
It's not even exaggeration. You said the same
thing.
My mom was like,
He's so smart. And I was like I
was like, mom, I was like, I just
said that. And she was like, no, stupid.
You didn't say that. Right? I'm gonna always
be her youngest son.
Do you get what I mean?
It's not just about the words.
So if there's real sincerity,
do I have to be the one to
say it,
Or does it need to be said, but
maybe not by me?
Do you hear what I mean?
That if there's real love, I can sit
down with you and say, hey, man. So
and so is not doing so well,
but I'm not in a place where I'm
avoiding or deflecting.
They just really don't like me.
I know how I'm perceived by them,
but we gotta still make sure that they're
doing okay.
Do you get what I mean?
My mom,
she's not gonna hear what I have to
say. Can you go talk to her? You
know?
Do you get what I'm saying? Does that
make sense?
So much of this religion is rooted in
understanding the importance of language,
words, communication.
Every single day, you're talking to people
both through expressed
verbiage
as well as from your body language, your
tone, your silence, your quietness.
So it's not just I didn't mean to
say that. In the hadith,
you don't really see the prophet saying this.
Right? Does he have a subsequent hadith that
says, sorry. That's not what I meant?
Or they just understand him.
So you delve into hadith like this to
see what the masterpiece
of, like, communication is.
And then to just think and
understand, like, how do I better express myself?
If you ever met somebody who's a artist,
poet, a rapper,
musician, whatever,
they got little notebooks that they're constantly writing
in. Do you know?
You come to gatherings like this without a
notebook,
you're missing out on the opportunity
to
accelerate your expression skills.
If you don't carry a little notebook in
your pocket where you just write down things
that stick out to you,
you don't sit down and have a relationship
with language. Right? You wanna read books
not just because books are good to read,
for the importance of knowledge acquisition,
ideas, opinions, vantage points, but it increases your
vocabulary
also. Do you know?
Because what if the only word you know
is sad?
Then what happens when you feel grief,
or you feel anguish,
or you feel depression,
but all you can say is I'm sad.
And then you try to solve for sadness
when you really have to deal with grief.
But you don't know the word grief.
It's not part of your lexicon. Why?
Do you get what I mean?
You read this hadith,
and you're reading the word Nasihah
through what you know the word Nasihah means,
but not what it means in its entirety.
And when you can nuance it and understand
it from its
kinda depth of a word,
it just opens up what the hadith means
on a whole.
Right?
Do you get what I mean?
So I go and read the Quran. I
open up Surah Taherim.
It has, like, this word,
What does this mean then? If I only
think that this is about giving advice and
in this, like, kinda standoffish way, you were
doing something wrong. I gotta just tell you
that you were doing something wrong. No, man.
Like, that's not how it works, but there's
a lot more that kinda gets embedded into
it. Do you get what I mean?
As we apply this to the remainder of
the hadith, you're gonna see within these categories.
Right? The companions ask now,
because they don't say first,
what is that, oh messenger of God?
Right?
He didn't say
and then they say, what is
But their first question is,
who is it towards?
And I want you to think about that
between this week and next week.
Right? Because there's other hadith where the prophet
says things, and they ask. You know? The
prophet says they ask,
which man is the best? Which human is
the best? And the prophet respond with a
generic, not a specific. Doesn't say Moses or
Joseph, peace be upon them both. He says,
each one that has a heart that's and
a tongue that's trustworthy.
And the companions say,
We know what a trustworthy tongue is. What
is a heart that is?
So the next thing you can understand from
this hadith before we even talk about
Allah
and his book and messengers
and the leaders and the common people,
they already know what Nasiha is.
Right?
They're in the 9th year after Hijra, at
least, because this is when this man becomes
Muslim, Tamim Adadi, who's narrating the hadith.
So they don't have to ask what Nasih
is.
They're not in a place where Nasih is
a weapon
that is just breaking people down. They understand
it through love,
mutual responsibility,
care, affection,
kindness towards one another. So the prophet says,
and the first question they say is, who
do we give it to?
Who is it for, oh, messenger of god?
And then you have these broader categories
that have particulars that we'll discuss next week
that pretty much make up how you relate
to everything.
How do you relate to God? How do
you relate to God's book? How do you
relate to God's messenger? And how do you
relate to God's creation?
What else is left?
Right?
And then it serves as the foundation of
the deen, which is a way of life.
It's not
just a capital r religion, but it's a
lot deeper than that. You see? And this
is what's gonna permeate
every aspect of that lifestyle that you engage
in that is Islam as a deen.
These different buckets
are going to fundamentally
determine
how it goes. When you think about the
hadith before this, that talks to us about
ekam.
Right? We said this 2 weeks ago.
Every act has a to it. The idea
is to know the, the ruling before you
do the act, ideally. Right?
Now you're in a place where you have
a hadith
that says, how do you implement
those actions not in a vacuum,
but to particular
recipients
of what it is that you are given.
So how does this go now to the
divine? And we're gonna talk about what does
Nasihah mean to Allah? What does it mean
to his book? What does it mean to
the prophets?
What does it mean
to the,
I am, of the people. Right? The leaders.
And what does it mean
for the people who are am, like, the
everyday people? Right?
Everything is just categorized in this. Do you
see what I'm saying? Does that make sense?
Okay. Let's take a pause here.
If you're gonna stick around for the Ramadan
class, we're gonna start that at 7:30.
We're gonna be doing both on Mondays now
for those who might not have been here
last week. We're gonna pray Isha in between.
So people need to make will do.
What I'd like for you to do just
for 1 minute before you get up, just
turn to the person next to you. What
do you take away from this hadith so
far in terms of what we've discussed? Just
so some of the ideas stay concrete. I
don't want my voice to be the last
voice you hear. So we can just talk
to the people really quick next to you.
What are you taking away? And then we'll
call the Adan and Praysha, and then we'll
transition into the next class.
But go ahead.
Okay. So let's take a pause.
We're gonna pray Isha. People need to make
will do. We'll call the Adan, give people
a few minutes for their sunnahs, and then
we'll call the Akama.
And then after that, we'll start the Ramadan
prep class. People want, there's still some food
left from Iftar. If you're hungry, feel free.
The table is to the back, to the
left of the room.
But we'll pray in just a few minutes.