Khalid Latif – Imam Nawawis 40 Hadith for Modern Times #23
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AI: Transcript ©
So we're looking at Hadith number 9
from the 40 Hadith collection.
We've been looking at it for some weeks
now.
We talked about the companion who narrates the
hadith, Abu Huraira
We talked about
the different parts of the Hadith
in terms of
what
I have forbidden for you, avoid what I've
commanded,
do to the best of your ability. Today,
we're gonna talk about the latter part of
the hadith.
Can somebody read,
the English, the Arabic? You don't have to
read both, but if you can if you
can read both, read both, but one or
the other.
Yeah. Go for it.
When I have forbidden for you, avoid
what I have ordered is to do.
As much of this as you can. But,
apparently, it was only their excessive questioning
Great. Can someone read the Arabic?
Did you raise your hand?
Is that what you're doing?
Simon? I didn't know I was
volunteering. Yeah. Go ahead.
Sorry. You can just breathe out. This is
not working. Somebody else alright. Yeah. Go ahead.
So
one of the things that I asked people
to do 2 weeks ago,
and only one person did it,
And I said last week, let's try to
do for this week, was read this article
by Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad. It's called the
sunnah as primordiality.
Did anybody read it? You read it? You
read it?
Did you read it again? You read it?
You had read it the first time. Right?
No. But I went down the rabbit hole
of
Imam. I'm projecting him out. And now that's
a lot of confidence. I'll post. Oh, yeah.
It's good stuff. Right?
Yeah. He's so great.
Who else read
it? You guys read it?
Great.
So let's try to get everyone to read
it. What was some of the crux of
what Sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad is talking about
in this article for those who read it
and how it relates to this hadith where
we're talking about,
the prophet,
some of the things we were discussing before
about
essentially how this hadith is also telling
its listener to kind of follow
the the teachings of the prophet. Right? So
why was that article relevant
to this discussion?
Yeah. So it talks about how,
there are trends in art
that come and go and and lifestyles,
but when you follow the sunnah, it's not
about a trend. It's just something that brings
you home and helps you have a connection
with the last one at Thala.
It just it just,
I I liked how it talked about just
the beauty of Islam
compared to these strange art trends that come
and go.
Yeah.
Anything else when people yeah.
Did you read it? I read half of
it, which I didn't really know because I
remember the last week, you're like, doesn't count.
But, from the beginning half and what I
got,
relating back to the stuff we talked about
before, It's talking about how our environment is
kind of changing
and kind of attaching religion and
our Islam to our environment
isn't the strongest Islam because the environment is
changing. And following the sunnah allows the Islam
to come from, like, within, and that is
what's strongest.
Yeah. Like, the idea with a religion
that claims to be
a last testament
to humanity,
it necessitates then having elements of both continuity
as well as change.
And so reductive approaches to religion that don't
connect text to context
and creates this homogeneity
that doesn't allow for there to be adaptability.
There's certain things that just don't fluctuate in
Islam.
Right? We're gonna have 5 prayers. That's just
the way it is. Do you know? There's
things that don't have
room to
have adaptability
as such. There's also things that are gonna
vary and differ from culture to culture
and at times from time to time. Some
of them are gonna be necessary. Right? Like,
how would you know
how religion applies to an era where everybody
carries a computer in their pocket?
60 years ago.
Like, it wasn't a thing that existed at
that time. Do you know what I mean?
So certain things are gonna just necessarily
require us to understand
how it is that things around us,
that are deemed
to equate to normalcy
kind of fluctuate,
but the religion has elements of continuity and
change
underlined with this idea of what is actual
beauty.
Right? When we talked about this a few
weeks ago,
the whole
premise is to not exert the implementation of
Sharia in a vacuum,
but it's meant to increase benefit and reduce
detriment.
And what the sunnah calls you towards
is this sense of beauty inwardly and outwardly
and not this superficial sense of beauty, Right?
That in the world we live in today,
it's gonna be rooted
in
supremacy,
whiteness,
anti blackness.
Most of the billboards that we see on
the streets don't have people that look like
us. Do you know? And a lot of
what it is that is catered to
creates now very particularly and purposefully
psychological
impacts that have us build up a sense
of self loathing or a sense of internalized
racisms.
The sunnah doesn't call you to that. Right?
It calls you to be able to recognize
what is inherently beautiful in others as well
as recognize what's inherently beautiful within yourself and
to feel empowered through that that you can,
in fact, have a relationship with God,
that you're not meant to pursue perfection
because that's a futile pursuit.
The article also talks about a lot of
other things that you should definitely read. Right?
It's great. Now we went up, like, 800%
from last time,
but we started last time with 1 person.
Right? So now
7 or 8 people reading parts of it
or the whole thing. Like, gradually, everyone,
will read it. Any other takeaways from the
article? Yeah.
The article is called the sunnah as primordiality.
It's by sheikh Abdul Hakim Murad.
And so this hadith,
you know, at a base is talking about
following the prophet, peace be upon him,
And so we wanna be able to kind
of understand and reflect deeply because a lot
of us in this room are taught to
do the sunnah,
but we're not taught necessarily,
like, why.
Do you know? Pray your sunnah prayers before
you're taught whose sunnah you follow
and to be able to understand
what is
the
fundamental objectives
of some of these things.
The implementation of the sunnah shouldn't create ugliness,
right, and not, like, ugliness, again, the way
that we understand superficial ugliness.
The prophet, alayhis salaam,
was not harsh with people. Right? This is
hadith.
That indeed Allah is kind and he loves
kindness, and he gives for gentleness what he
does not give for harshness.
Right? If you follow the sunnah,
like, you can't be harsh.
Do you know? It can't create harshness.
Do you see what I mean? That's not
the purpose of following the sunnah.
Does that do you see what I'm saying?
Which isn't the same as, like, standing up
for yourself. Right?
But understanding what's, like, the basis of these
things, what are we hoping to see as
outcomes of these practices?
And then the outward and the inward implementation
of these teachings are meant to have transformative
effect that then render through the practitioner
not just the exertion of beauty, but so
that you can see things that are actually
beautiful
as things that are beautiful. You're not drawn
towards things that are ugly.
Do you know? You're not in pursuit of
things
that are just temporary or rendering complacency,
but you are able to see things from
a deeper perspective
and not just in terms
of instantaneous
gratifications.
Do you see what I mean? Right?
That's what the prophet
was able to do. So people that no
one thought had anything good within them, he
saw what was inherently good within them. Do
you know people that nobody thought had any
purpose or benefit to society?
The prophet was able to see them differently.
Do you see what I'm saying? Right? That's
that's the whole idea. Like, why when I
look at you, do I see you in
the ways that I do?
Why when I look at myself,
like, do I see myself in the ways
that I see myself?
You know? And a a consequence
of following the sunnah
is that it can yield when done
properly
the capacity to actually see,
like, beauty as real beauty
and to not see what is the facade
of beauty
as of actual beauty, but to see that
it's ugly.
Do you know? And this is like duas
we make to see truth as truth and
falsehood as falsehood.
Right? But thinking about that
in the ways of, like, what does this
and this is what this article talks about
pretty much. Right? Is that fair as an
assessment?
Yeah. Anything else that stuck out for the
people who read the article? Yeah.
I'm halfway there.
But one thing really no. But it's still
it's very interesting for me when I'm reading
it because I did study the renaissance art
and from about 2
1800 and all that. And that's how the
article started.
And then when I gradually see the contrast
of how Islamic art and architecture influence the
Western culture and art and architecture influenced
the western culture,
and I came to stuck in one coat
and,
Blissful sensation of being drowned in the desert
where nothing is fear but feeling, and feeling
became the substance of my life.
I'm still trying to get the depth of
that
sensation that he felt when he was painting
the black symbol
that,
similar to cover.
Later, I guess, more explanation, but
Yeah. Simplicity is beautiful.
Do you know? I mean, how many of
you feel peace in this room when you
come in?
What is there? It's a green carpet.
There's nothing on the walls. Right? I don't
even know what color these walls are. Right?
There's not a lot going on in the
room.
You don't sometimes need that. People like being
in this building because there's a lot of
natural light that comes into it. A lot
of people like sitting in this room because
there's an unobstructed
view of the park, you know, and you're
feeling the benefits of just, like, the greenery,
the flowers when they're in bloom,
seeing also people,
right,
and people watching, not like in a creepy
way, but in a place where you're able
to
ascertain meaning through some of these things. But
sometimes it doesn't have to be, like, very
loud and ornate. It's just very simple. And
in the most simplest of things, there's the
most depth of of beauty. Do you know?
I was in Denver
last night and this morning,
and
if you ever been to Denver before,
just looking at the
the the Rockies, the mountain range,
you could see, like, even from a distance
that the tops were covered with snow,
and
it's just a very different landscape.
Do you know? But it's a you know,
it's not simple in that sense, but it
doesn't have the complexity sometimes that we seek
out
to kinda ascertain meaning from certain things. Sometimes,
like, the pursuit of beauty is just a
very easy process.
Like, everyone has beauty to them, and when
you can buy into that and the potential
for people to have change and adaptability,
the world just feels a lot different. Do
you know?
And then the exercises
become that much more important.
So why,
like, is the prophet saying this? It's not
for his ego, but for our benefit.
So what I have forbidden for you, like,
avoid it. And what I've commanded you to
do, do to the best of your ability,
what's the gain?
You start to, like,
take meaning in ways that it's not
impossible for people to harness,
but they're so confined by these other variables
that it just becomes something that escapes a
lot of us. Do you see what I
mean?
Does that make sense?
Right?
And, you know, the implementation is outward and
inward.
So where we looked at last time, we
were talking about now
this second part of the hadith that said
do as much of it as you can,
and we were talking about that that's not
in terms of,
like, the actual,
like, obligations and prohibitions.
You do to the best of your ability
what you have the capacity to do. You
know, and I gave the example of, like,
if you're praying in an airplane
and you can't prostrate,
then you do as much of it as
you fundamentally can.
So you stand where you're able to,
and then you sit for the parts that
you're not able to prostrate.
But it's not saying you just don't pray
at all.
Right? Does that make sense? Or we talked
about the best of your capacities
in relation to
the things that
you might do that are recommended,
but certain instances might necessitate you foregoing something.
You know? So if you're sick and you
observe, like, a recommended fast,
then your ability
to fast
is not there if you're sick.
So don't fast and make yourself more sick.
Like, in some instances, you would
choose to not fast,
even if you're regular with it because it's
not within your capacity
in that moment. Do you see what I
mean?
Before we get to the last part of
this, this idea of capacity becomes something that's
an important thing to also
start to think out.
In our tradition,
the idea isn't that a believer puts themselves
into a circumstance that's beyond their ability to
handle.
Do you know?
And it doesn't mean that it's gonna always
be beyond my capacity.
But in the moment, if I know that
something
is not within my grasp to do,
where is their dignity and honor in still
pushing forth in something
that doesn't make sense for me where I'm
at right now.
Capacity
in our tradition. Right? Like, here, the word
that's being used
is,
a derivative
of, like, ability.
Am I able to do this? Do you
know? Do I have the fundamental
capability
of doing something?
Right? I don't have the ability to build
this computer. I don't know how to do
that. That's the kind of thing that we're
talking about when we say
that I have capacity.
Do you see what I
mean? So
recognizing
in this that capacity in and of itself
also
has
elements of change to it.
And where I'm at now becomes important for
me to understand in relation to objectives that
I want to be able to harness
down the line.
And for a lot of us,
it's not that we don't identify
goals for ourselves. Do you know? I want
to read more Quran. I wanna do more
charity work. I wanna volunteer more. I wanna
start my own nonprofit
or a startup biz like, it could be
in any arena,
whether it's worldly or otherworldly,
whether it has to do with spirituality,
faith, religion,
family, relationships,
friendships, whatever it is.
But the notion is to be able to
understand
capacity
with an air of vulnerability.
A lot of us don't get to where
we want to go,
not because we don't define and identify an
objective well,
but it's hard for us to get to
a place that we want to be at
because we're not necessarily
open to where we're at
as a starting point.
And if I'm in a place where I
don't have that sense of self
that says this is where I'm at in
this moment. It doesn't mean this is where
I have to be forever,
but if I don't have a recognition of
where I fully am at right now,
I'm not gonna be able to get to
places that I want to be because my
ending is defined, but my beginning isn't
really as accurate as it could be. Does
that make sense?
Like, if I want to get from here
to
where this camera is right in front of
me,
it's a very easy
trajectory
to go from here to there. Do you
know what I mean?
If any one of you wanted to get
there, you wouldn't walk in any of the
same exact steps as anybody else. There might
be some overlap, but all of you are
in different
beginning places.
If you try to get there
through my steps, none of you would get
to where you would go
because the steps are not
indicative of where you're starting from. Does that
make sense?
If I wanted to get from here to
the other wall,
I know where I want to be.
But if in my head,
I am
not necessarily where I'm at, but I think
I'm over there.
I'm not gonna be able to get from
here to there
because the steps that I would take are
different. It's gonna move me over in that
direction,
not because I don't know where I want
to end, but I don't know where I'm
actually beginning.
Do you see what I mean? Does that
make sense? And this question of capacity
is important to understand.
What is my capacity to hold emotions
right now? What is my capacity to be
in control of myself?
What's my capacity
when I'm around certain people, but not around
other people?
What's my capacity when I'm around those other
people and not some people?
How I know a little bit about my
ability
becomes now a mechanism for me to actually
be able to say, am I doing it
to the fullest extent
of the capacity that I've been endowed with?
How would you know what your ability
actually is
to be or do in certain circumstances or
situations
other than if you were in those situations
to begin with?
Do you get what I mean?
And then thereafter,
how do I reach a concluding point on
knowing
what
I can take from the experience fully
that helps to identify
where it is that I'd like to be.
Say, you
came back from Umrah, from Hajj, Ramadan is
done, and you've had these, like, deep spiritual
experiences.
You had demonstrated ability
in the cities of Medina and Mecca. You
had demonstrated
ability
throughout the nights of Ramadan,
and then the maintenance of it thereafter
shifts a little bit.
But it came from me when I was
in those places, didn't it?
Like, I was the one that was praying
in the late hours of the night in
the prophet's masjid. Allah accept.
I was the one that was seeking out
laylatul qadr in the last 10 nights of
Ramadan.
Right? I know that I did that. I
listened to the Quran every single night in
Ramadan. I read it every day. I was
giving in charity. I was volunteering.
I was talking to different people when we
were sitting in the Masjids in Medina and
in front of the Kaaba in Mecca. I
was willing to, like, share things with people.
So what shifts then?
Do you see?
Or on the other end of it, like,
I decide tomorrow,
cold turkey,
I'm gonna try to wake up for tahajjud.
And I got up tomorrow, and then the
next day I got up, and then 3
days from now I was falling asleep at
the middle of my desk.
I was gonna try to fast and I
decided to fast
outside of Ramadan
just this week. You know, they keep talking
about fasting, maybe I should be fasting too.
The first time I decided I was gonna
fast was in the middle of June July
in the summer.
Right?
A lot of people make up their fast
like in December. They don't choose to make
them up in the middle of the summer.
And then it's difficult, it's hard,
and I get exhausted, I get tired, my
brain is hurting from caffeine withdrawal,
Does that mean
the immediate
outcome of those experiences
are telling me what my capacity is? When
Ramadan is done and I came back from
Umrahaj
and I could no longer, every single night,
go on 2 hours of sleep, or I
could no longer
maintain
certain things I was doing in Mecca and
Medina,
does it mean
that I have no capacity
to do it?
But that's where shaitan gets me.
And the prophet is also saying here is
that if you're going to listen to somebody,
listen to me,
Right?
Don't listen to your ego. Don't listen to
the whispers of Shaitan.
Don't get into your head in such a
way where you are identifying
capacity
through parts of yourself that you don't like
about yourself.
The prophet
helped people to feel empowered,
to feel as if they could have a
relationship with God,
that when they fell down, they knew how
to get back up on their feet.
When you try to implement something new in
your life,
new relationship,
new job, new city, new town,
new practice,
new
ritual,
new habit, whatever else.
How do you know
what your actual capacity is,
your ability? Does the question make sense? It's
an important thing. Right? A lot of us
live every single day the same.
And then when we try to implement change,
it comes very seasonally.
Right? Many of us, like the rest of
the world, buy gym memberships
after New Year's, and then people stop going
to the gym. Why? You have the ability
to go.
Do you know? You do.
If you could come and break fast with
us every night in Ramadan,
why couldn't you come on other nights outside
of Ramadan?
How does one reflect on capacity?
How does one even know what their abilities
are?
Do you see what I mean? It's an
important thing to understand. Right? Abu Bakr he
gave all of his wealth
for
the
early Muslim community,
bankrupting himself on different occasions.
Right? He said everything of his was for
Allah and his messenger. There's companions that came,
and they tried to give the prophet a
good amount of money. And the prophet said,
you need to keep this because you're not
gonna be able to handle what's gonna happen.
Do you know?
How do you know what you actually have
the ability
to handle and you have the capacity
to kinda deal with? Does the question make
sense? If you can turn the person next
to you just so we can start talking,
How do I start to assess
what my ability actually is,
the potential of capacity
that I have? We can talk about it
for a few minutes, then we'll come back
and discuss, and then we'll we'll move forward
and wrap up with this hadith for for
today, but go
ahead.
What's up, brother? How are you doing, man?
You okay? Yes, sir. I feel like I
don't see you without a suit so often.
When I'm in the suit, I'm gonna be
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah? Nice, man.
I'm glad you got a day off.
So I'm glad you got a day off.
You usually don't have work on Mondays.
Mondays Sundays. Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you get some food?
Grab some if you will.
Okay.
So how would one begin to determine this?
Right? This is important. Why is this is
an important question. Right? Because especially in religious
kinda
understandings, the only time we talk about capacity
is when life is, like, super tough and
then people throw out verses at us, like,
that Allah does not burden a soul beyond
its ability to endure. Right? But it's not
in, like, a helpful and empowering way. It's
like I'm miserable and I'm broken. And on
top of that, it's like, well, God's not
testing you beyond your ability. And while you're
drowning, you're trying to figure out what the
world means. Do you know? So we wanna
not wait till we're pushed down to then
think of capacity.
We want to be able to be honest
about capacity.
How do I know, like, what my ability
is
capacity is?
What did you discuss?
Yeah.
One way to try and answer that question
might be
to think to yourself, like, if I if
I were someone else, if this was a
friend of mine and they had these situational
factors and these resources available to them and
this level of support
around them,
would they be able
to get through this?
And so, like, trying to remove yourself
from yourself or to see yourself from an
outside perspective
can help you be kinder to yourself and
more realistic
about what's achievable.
Great.
What else?
Yeah.
So we discussed, capacity is less of an
ability to do and more of, like, a
prioritization.
So, like, for example, doing it on Amazon
or if you're in a place like Nakamura
Medina,
you understand that you you're almost getting with
a great deal in terms of, like, the
spiritual benefits.
So you might put aside some of the,
you know,
the,
some of the things that you do on
a regular basis
because you realize that you're in a special
place or in a special time. So all
of a sudden, prioritize something. And then,
then you might find yourself whether it's coming
from a place of of discipline, like, really
how you shared or a place of emotion.
You find yourself putting it above
most of everything else. So, so just to
answer the question, I feel like capacity is
more of a thing. Like,
what allows you
to do something
and maintain certain balance, whether it be in
consistency.
You know what I mean? Because I feel
like I'm trying to do something and it
it throws you in a rut. And it's
something, you know, that means a place that
Maybe that's not what you need to ask.
Maybe you don't have the ability to prioritize
that and maintain, you know, consistent or, you
know yeah.
Well,
if any other thoughts, what else do we
discuss? Yeah.
How this is impacting you. Did you challenge
yourself with,
but still giving yourself grace but not making
excuses either? If you get into that practice
of just
Yeah. Right? And there's a thread here
of reflection.
Do you know? Whether you have, like, people
that you can turn to and talk to,
your own individual reflection, contemplation.
But understanding
the ability to do to the best of
your ability
means that it's not
what sometimes we are limited in perceiving.
It's what is actual, and we don't always
acknowledge fully.
Do you know? Like, all of us have
the ability to put the chairs back at
the end of the day. Do you know
what I mean?
Some of us won't.
Why?
Do you know?
You have the ability to do certain things.
Like, why at any juncture in your life,
did you stay up till late hours of
the night,
like studying for what?
Why did you pursue
and make dua
in
conjunction with what?
Why were you willing to, like, make promises
to Allah in exchange for what?
Right? What did you work like 12, 14
hours a day for? I'm not saying any
of those things are wrong, but it shows
you capacity.
Do you know? If you could stay up
till 2 o'clock in the morning
studying something, then you could stay up till
2 o'clock in the morning. Right? Doesn't it
show you that You have that as an
ability.
So
why
is that not used towards other things? Do
you see what I mean?
If I have the capacity
that's demonstrated to me and I can reflect
on it in terms of its utility.
Do you know? So I have the ability
to actually do certain things. What's getting in
the way for me doing that? Like, I
can actually get up to pray fudger because
I got up when I had no energy
to take a test or take an exam.
I got up and moved in all kinds
of directions
in pursuit of x, y, or z.
What is it that's limiting me from using
that capacity
in these things? I have the capacity
to be patient when the person who's talking
to me inanely is somebody that I work
for or somebody who holds authority over me.
But when somebody that's talking to me comes
from a lesser power dynamic,
I don't exert any patience for them. Why?
What happened to the capacity?
Where did it go? Do you see?
And the ability to understand it becomes important
because it's not gonna simply be enough to
say, I just couldn't do it.
It was too hard.
The self talk can create a prism
that is not necessarily
rooted in what is actual and real. And
then the things that are really hard to
struggle with,
they don't necessarily get addressed.
And growth,
forget about becoming stagnant,
we just stay stuck all the time. It's
in the same place. There's no movement whatsoever
because I'm not actually willing to recognize
who it is that I am
as a whole. The feeling doesn't identify it.
You should be sad if somebody passes away.
You should be sad if your pet is
gone. Someone stole something from you. Do you
know what I mean?
Those are normal feelings. That's not about capacity.
The capacity
to be able to learn how you endure
in a state of loss can only come
when you've actually lost something. And then thereafter,
you reflect and say, hey. I got through
it. Like, I'm still existing in this mode.
Do you see?
And so when the prophet's saying you do
it to the best of your ability,
it's not what you believe. Right? Like, somebody
can read the article and somebody can read
half of the article, but you all have
the ability to fully read the article. Do
you know? Right?
What am I telling myself gets in the
way,
and is it actually
rooted in my capacity?
Do you see what I'm saying? Does that
make sense?
Sometimes you're not able to taste the sweetness
of something
because the obstacles that are in the way
are not outward, but they're inward.
And the difficulty of something is not the
metric of your ability
to still deal with it or to take
it on.
And all the other stuff that's gonna pull
us back.
You want to be able to connect
to those elements that are gonna be uplifting,
that are gonna encourage you to want to
get to your potential best and to understand
potential goodness,
not in pursuit of what is just limited
to worldly acquisitions of things, but through the
prism of
what stations and exist
with Allah
and what he has defined it to be
as places of virtue and goodness. Do you
know?
So hadith that say food for 1 is
enough for 2 and food for 2 is
enough for 4,
you actually have capacity
to give to others.
But why don't I give as much as
I can?
What gets in the way?
I have the ability
to check-in on people that I don't see
for some time, people that I know are
not doing well,
why am I not engaging in that?
What is it that's defining for me
my
potential
ability to actually perform in certain situations?
Do you see what I mean?
And then when I reflect, I can say,
what's actually getting in the way? You know?
When I went to Denver yesterday,
I
went for a wedding. I performed the wedding,
and
I like, wedding is done. I got back
to my hotel.
I didn't know what to do with myself,
and I was maybe I should just go
back to New York.
And
the red eye flight was booked, so I
had to wait till 6 o'clock this morning.
And
I'm sleepy right now, and I know I'm
very sleepy.
And in the state of my sleepiness,
I don't have to respond to it in
terms of capacity,
but
it's not gonna make sense for me
on these 2 days that I knew
that the amount of time I would be
physically sleeping was limited,
that would then pile on into my routine
a bunch of other stuff.
Right?
That doesn't demonstrate
my ability
within the moment that I'm in right now?
Do you know?
Why are you having important conversations at times
that make no sense?
Why are you talking about the most serious
parts of your life
when you're filled with anxiety
and overridden with emotional angst?
Doesn't mean you don't have ability,
but if I can't do certain things because
I've slept, like, 5 hours in the last
two and a half days,
if you've just lived with heavy thoughts for
the last however many days, weeks, months,
why wouldn't it impact capacity?
Do you see what I mean? Does this
make sense?
All of you is connected to the rest
of you.
Most of us are only understood
in terms of our ability
based off of arbitrary
metrics of success
that equate to acquisition of dollars.
Allah does not care how much money you
have. All he cares about is how you
attained it and what you're going to spend
it on,
and that's truth.
It doesn't make a difference
how many pairs of stuff you own or
how many people
acknowledge you or know your name or whatever
else. You could do whatever you want. You're
just gonna have to explain why you did
it in the ways that you did it,
and knowing ability and capacity
is going to still be fundamentally
your prerogative
to
base decisions off of. You've lived with yourself
every day of your life. You know your
emotional states. You know what it is that
sets you off. You know when you're at
your strongest. You know when you're at your
lowest. You know spaces that uplift you and
spaces that exhaust you and break you down.
How do the decisions
have anything to do with an overall sense
of self?
And I know if we go around this
room right now,
every single one of us would say, man,
there was a time I had a conversation
that I just shouldn't have had it. I
wasn't ready or able to have it. I
was running on empty. I was exhausted,
burnt out.
It's not befitting for the believer to put
themselves in a situation
that's beyond their ability to handle.
That doesn't mean that it's always, but then
you get to the place where you can
take it on.
But when
strength is exerted
only in the acquisition of what is materialistic,
When we have hadith that tell us we're
gonna be asked about things, like our youth
and how we spent it. Right?
We use a lot of like prime years
of our existence
in pursuit of things that are just temporary.
It's not why Allah gave us, like, strength
and energy for alone,
but you
pile in
all of your ability
in order to get that house,
get that spouse,
have those kids,
get that job, get those degrees.
The capacity
and exertion of an increase
or even a recognition of ability
beyond what it is that's the approval of
others or worldly gain,
it just becomes nonexistent.
Why do you not have the ability to
make dua at the end of your prayer?
Why?
What else is pulling you other than something
that's distracting of the dunya?
Why don't you have the ability to say
hi to
the person who's picking you up in the
Uber or the driver of the bus or
the person who's serving you food and exerting
kindness to them.
You do have it.
Just because everybody else doesn't do it doesn't
give you a reason as to why you're
not doing what you have the ability to
do.
Do you get what I mean? Does that
make sense?
Why is this an important thing for us
to understand?
Like, the entirety of this conversation
around capacity and ability,
Is it important?
Why? Why is it important?
Yeah.
What
I'm thinking about it.
What holding me back not to
take action into those things that I know
I can do it.
I feel like whether we lack of compassion
not to be able to wake up 5
in the morning and do morning prayer.
Or we are compassionate, and we wake up
before the alarm goes off
and then tomorrow. Right?
Or the other good deeds that we can
do every day
throughout
the day or night
in every moment that you have mentioned.
I think compassion and followed by reflection
kind of intertwined each other into this ability
matter? Yeah.
The reasons as to why we might not
exert our full abilities are gonna be different
from one another. Do you know? Some of
us might be afraid, some of us might
be scared, some of us might have grown
up where everybody just told us what was
wrong with us and not what was right
with us. Right? People can be horrible. They
just give us their trauma. They give us
their hurt, their pain.
It's not a self deprecating reflection. That's not
reflection. That's rumination.
Right? You want to contemplate
effectively.
Why we want to think about this, one
of the reasons
is what we're gonna be asked about when
we stand in front of Allah is not
just what we did and did not do,
but what we had the ability to do
and still didn't do it.
And I'd have to be able to own
up to that. Right? Like, when I get
a call to get on a plane to
go to Morocco
the morning after an earthquake,
I I go because, like, I can go.
Do you know?
Somebody says, why do you do some of
the things? It's because, well, like, I have
the ability to do it. And it might
be nice, and it might be, like, helpful
or whatever else, but I'm gonna have to
explain to god why I didn't do it
when I had the ability to.
Do you see what I mean?
And that's an important thing to understand in
terms of accountability.
Excuses give us a big pile of nothing.
Do you know? And this hadith is giving
us not just an insight
on, like, don't do what the prophet said
not to do
and do
what he said to do to the best
of your capacity.
It's also teaching us, like, we have to
be attuned
to what we have capacity
of being able to do.
You have the ability
when you walk down the hallway
and you see somebody sitting alone that you
just prayed with
that clearly nobody is engaging with whatsoever,
and you can look at their face, and
they are just waiting for someone to acknowledge
them.
Why are you not doing it?
What's getting in the way?
And then you reflect on these types of
hadith in different modes. Food for 1 is
enough for 2. Food for 2 is enough
for 4.
Do you see what I mean?
You can think about it in other modes.
Right? Like, I don't get up to pray
fudger. It's hard to get up to pray
fudger. I get up to pray fudger from
the law.
But just so we're on the same page,
so no one comes back later and is
like, the mama of our mushed doesn't pray
fudger.
But reflection can say, well, how was the
night before spent in a way that indicated
waking up at 4 in the morning was
something that was important to me?
But then asking like, well, why is it
not important
in relation to some of these things? Like,
I can stay up till 2 in the
morning
doing this,
or I can forego eating, sitting at an
office desk in pursuit of what.
But in these other capacities,
what else is there that's getting in the
way?
The other part that you could think about
is that all of you has to be
important to
your emotional self, your physical wellness, your mental
wellness,
and capacity to be able to take care
of oneself in a whole sense
and not just limited to what it is
that's going to stay behind
in this world.
There's a lot of people who achieved many
great things while they lived in this world,
and there's trillions of them. Nobody knows their
names, man.
Do you know?
This question of ability, you have to ponder
on with contemplative
modes of understanding.
I do have the actual ability.
Right? And then you can think about it
in one last frame, and we'll move on
into.
Where is my other abilities
that are not necessarily
rendering benefit?
Like, my words do have the capacity
to hurt
As much as they have the ability to
heal and I can acknowledge the person no
one's talking to,
I do actually have capacity
to make you feel bad.
If I took one of you
into my office and just yelled at you,
do you know?
Some people are like, what just happened?
I said, never come back to this place
ever again.
I've met millions of people. You are the
worst out of everybody.
Did it make you feel good? No. No.
I have to be conscious
in the different roles that I have
about my capacity
to be irresponsible
with my language.
I chose to be married. I chose to
have children.
I didn't choose to be somebody's kid, but
I'm somebody's kid.
So I have to understand
capacity
in terms of what it is that impacts
my babies.
Right?
They're 8 and 11 now, but I still
love them deeply.
So that part of ability and capacity
also is important to understand,
and it goes in the same frame.
Most of us
don't have comfort
in dealing with what are perceived non strengths
and shortcomings.
So if I ask you to tell me
all the things that you think are wrong
with you, you probably wouldn't stop talking.
If I asked you to tell me what
are all the things that are beautiful about
you,
Some of you might not know how to
say anything.
The combination of those two things
are a strategy of shaitan. May Allah protect
us from his whispers
to get us to then
pursue
what it is
that
numbs and desensitizes
and gives the facade of contentment, but is
really just complacency.
So when you have this conversation of ability,
think about it also in this way,
that I have to be comfortable with the
fact
that from me
can come goodness
as much as can come
the absence of goodness and can also come
ugliness and things that are evil.
When you can
acknowledge and accept that capacity and ability to
hurt can come from you,
it's gonna heighten the ability
to make sure healing comes from you
as well as
limit,
hopefully,
the hurtful things that come. Do you see
what I mean?
And what contributes to it? What creates justifications
or validations
that keep me from doing things? All of
us have the ability to not gossip.
Right?
It's not something that should be just, like,
innate the way you
breathe. But when I can understand
the capacity I have to harm
as a result
of
me delving deep into this
and put it now in a place where
reflection comes in.
Mahasabah
is about
inventorying. You're taking hisab of yourself,
But that hisaab
of what you do in the course of
the day,
right and wrong, good and bad, what's futile,
is not just a checkbox, but it's in
the prism of divine judgment.
How is what this day that I just
lived going to look like when it plays
itself out on a day of reckoning, a
day of accountability?
It's like, oh my god. Like, I could
go home right now.
I have this ability as a human
and speak to my son in such a
way
that he will hate himself for the rest
of his life.
Isn't that true? Yes.
I have that ability
just as much as I have the ability
to speak to him in such a way
that he's gonna be able to believe that
he can take on any challenge the world
throws at him.
My capacity
and how I utilize it
will
impact how he sees himself,
and that's where it gives life in this
kind of circular, continuous
mode.
Do you get what I'm saying?
Okay. Let's do this. We can turn the
person next to you. What are you taking
away from this so far? What is it
bringing up for you? And then we'll look
at the last piece of the hadith
on questions,
before Maghreb comes in in a bit. But
go ahead.
What's coming up for people? Any thoughts, insights?
Okay. So what are some of the things
that are coming up for people?
What are you taking away so far?
What are we discussing?
Yeah.
Alright. You'll see that. Just alright. No. So
I'm gonna say,
so what we talked about here was that,
I I guess one of the questions
that's coming up is how closely associated
should capacity be
to comfort?
And I guess a follow-up question as first
one. The second question is using comfort to
gauge capacity.
Is that also being complacent?
And then, those are the third thing.
It's like as you define capacity,
I feel like for me anyway,
I tell myself if I have the capacity
to do it and I do it, it
has to be done quickly. You know what
I mean? Like, I have to see the
results quickly. And I feel like that makes
it really intimidating.
You know what I mean? So,
but then if I don't push myself to,
like, you know,
to do as fast as much as I
can, as fast as I can. Again, just
that letting comfort
regulate what I can do, which is that
in complacency.
So I feel like it just becomes a
complicated conversation with myself. I'm not really sure.
It makes me uncomfortable.
So I don't know. Yeah. And that's all
what's contributing to that? Right? Where is there
rest in the reflection?
Where is there ease in the reflection?
You know, where is there an understanding of
something
that is not just
immediate or tomorrow, but everlasting
and going into a eternal existence
so that these are things that we understand
as a work in progress.
And I don't know if I'm gonna live
beyond tonight.
Right? But, fundamentally,
I'm just trying my best to get through
some of this stuff. Do you know? And
capacity and comfort,
I would say,
go hand in hand, but ethics are situational
in our tradition. Do you know? So you
can imagine if any of you have ever
come and sat in my office with me
or we've gotten
on a phone or on a Zoom or
I've driven to some place where you are
after, like, a 9 to 5 hour,
would it be the same if I just
sent you a text message?
Do you know? And I'm not saying, like,
that to say something about myself. It just
fundamentally wouldn't work the same way.
Do you know? It's very different,
like, when you show up for someone,
But the consequence of it is not just
the benefit to that person,
but it comes back to you
carrying out the act of kindness
and compassion and mercy.
You benefit more from interjecting beauty into the
world than the person who receives the beauty.
And there's certain things that are just categorically
always gonna be good to do,
and wrestling with capacity and some of that
becomes important
because saying yes to something means you're gonna
say no to something else. So everybody else
might be doing something
on a Thursday or Friday night,
but you went to go visit the person
that you know
is, like, all by themselves and not doing
so well. Do you know what I mean?
And the egos that we have,
right, like, there's a lot of people who
are adult
like, physically
adults. Right? But they have children,
like,
as spirits and souls. You know, never weaned
off of certain things. And there's just this
idea of, like, well, I want it. I
must have it. And it's antithetical to what
the sunnah calls to and what Islam calls
to. So I should go read the article,
the sunnah's primordiality.
I'll tell you a little bit about what
this is all about and some of the
other stuff. Like, read the Quran.
Actually, read it and see what it says
about some of these things, like hastiness
and immediate gratification
and whatever else. Do you know?
It
it's not gonna be convenient. When there's love,
you do it even when it's not convenient.
You do it when it's inconvenient.
Do you know what I mean?
Does that make sense? Like, I'm sleepy.
Do you know? If any one of you
asked me to stay with you here till
the middle of the night, I still would
because I love you, and I'm not gonna
hold it over your head. I'm comfortable in
saying that because I know that it's true.
And when I get home, if my kid
is up and he's not doing well, I'm
not gonna be like, man, what is you
know, I'm sleepy. He's my son. He's my
daughter. I love them. My wife needs something.
Right? It can give you a sense that
the focal point is not on what is
this that it's costing me,
but in the midst of it, right, if
none of those things happen, I'm gonna go
home and go to sleep because I know
I'm running on empty right now. Doesn't mean
I can't still perform,
but I tap into another source of energy
if it comes up right now when my
physical,
like, strength is running on empty. Does does
you get what I'm saying? Does that make
sense? What else did we talk about?
Yeah.
It takes a conscious effort to understand your
capacity.
And once you establish that
it then informs your decisions because you're able
to
tell what is it that is
stopping you from doing something.
So
it's like a it it helps you gauge
and then it then once you understand your
capacity and what decisions you can to help
strengthen
your capacity for certain things that then alters
how you live your life and
Yeah. And mental strength is gonna be really
important in all of this.
Building that
can take time,
especially in a world that is built off
of
keeping you distracted
and vying for your attention
in every which way of your wakeful moments
in this world. Like,
where can you walk
where there's not every piece of, like, concrete
in this city
plastered with marketing and advertising.
You got stuff stuck in your ears that's
marketing to you. Everything in front of you
that your eyes are engaging, there's marketing to
you. Right? When you sit next to people
and they're wearing things with logos on it,
there's marketing to you. Do you know what
I mean? Everything is just marketing to you.
Do you see what I'm saying? And it's
purposeful
because you're consuming. The command to lower your
gaze
is not just in this kinda simplistic understanding
of gender relations, but you consume with your
eyes too.
Do you know? And you're constantly just consuming
and consuming, and people know how you work
more than you know how you work. Allah
gave you a book to teach you how
you work, but all these other people know,
like, your inward and outward
because they want you to buy what they're
selling to you.
Do you know? And if you can build
mental
strength
that's attached to spiritual strength, emotional strength, physical
strength, but how do you start to build
mental strength
so that I'm not just
brought down by, like, heavy feelings
that are hard enough to deal with,
but the thoughts that then
spiral downward as a result of those feelings
that just suffocate me. Right? And it's all
taking place in arenas of cognition
that I don't confront,
and then it just keeps getting deeper and
deeper. Do you see what I mean?
Okay.
Yeah. I just wanted to say one more
thing.
As you're talking about this and as we're
talking about capacity, I feel like
I feel like
like,
hindsight is 2020. So, like, in capacity, it
may not only always be all the time.
So you you may think you're only able
to do something, and then later on, you
might miss a huge opportunity and then realize
you were able to do a lot more.
But being able to forgive yourself, like, oh,
for I quote, unquote,
not living up to what you could've did.
I feel like that's really important too because
as so many opportunities pass,
I feel like the guilt, right, like, what
Ali was talking about could grow
and then maybe even become an aim like,
something that drags you as opposed to, like,
you know, helping people with clothing. Yeah. And
that's where, like, Hadid did say, like, love
for your brother what you love for yourself
means that it's okay to love things for
yourself.
Right? Love yourself.
That's embedded in the hadith.
How can I love something for you that
I love for me if there's not an
element of love back towards me?
Do you know?
And it's hard to love fully outward
when you don't like yourself so much.
Right?
But why don't you like yourself? You actually
have capacity to like yourself.
Do you know? There might be things that
you do that are terrible. You don't do
those anymore, but you recognize
your ability
to actually hurt. You don't make justifications.
Yes. I did that becomes important
so that I own up that I won't
do it anymore. Do you know? Not that
I keep doing it by making an excuse
as to why it was done. Like, sometimes
it's just wrong, and that's just what I
have to acknowledge
so that it keeps me from doing it.
Right?
He
literally,
like, strikes his sister
in the moments before he converts to Islam.
He has to go through the grotesque
act
of hurting his sister,
like, physically,
for him to realize what it is that
he's turning into.
It doesn't make it okay that, like, well,
that became this catalyst. It's wrong. He's not
supposed to do it.
And there's a lot of instances
throughout the remainder of Omar's life where he's
constantly commenting on how everyone else knows more
than he does or how he becomes a
champion
to ensure that women's rights are not, like,
oppressed or held down. Do you see what
I mean?
So think about it. Just think about it
in a productive way, in bits and pieces.
It's not meant to add to overt scrutinization,
but you build stillness into your life and
you just think, like, what is my ability?
What is my capacity?
And I'm not better or worse. Some of
us are morning people. Some of us are
night people. Right? That's great. We're just wired
differently.
I like to sleep. I love sleeping,
and I'm getting to a point where I
like to also eat a lot. You know?
I walked in the office today, and there
was a salad on Amira's desk,
and she had left.
And I was worried because the tuna salad
that's gonna sit there, it's gonna stink up
the office. So I was like, hey. There's
a salad on Amira's desk. And Farhad, who
just started working for us, she was like,
you want a salad? And I was like,
are you saying I'm fat, Farhad? I don't
eat salad. What are you talking about? But
understanding for yourself
that
this is a baseline.
It's not what I do and I don't
do, but also what I have the ability
to do, and I still didn't do it.
Just because it's easier doesn't make it better.
It's easier to be negative. It's harder to
be positive.
May Allah make us people of positivity,
but you don't want to just give in
saying that, well, it was too tough for
me. Oh, man. Sometimes,
like, it's not our fault what's in our
hearts,
but we're still responsible for what it is
that we're doing with what it is that
we feel. And we hurt a lot of
people in ways that we don't necessarily
realize.
You don't wanna get to a place where
that becomes an end concluding point.
Does that make sense? And so spend some
time just thinking, what capacity do I have?
How do I build capacity?
The increase in a virtue is the practice
of the virtue itself.
So if I know, like, I have zero
tolerance,
I'm highly irritable,
I have no patience,
Then I bring some energy to me, and
I start to build up patience by just
being patient.
And I do it in increments. I'm working
towards something. It's not a overnight thing that
I go from,
you know, one to another in a complete
180.
That's where the kindness
back to oneself is important.
Just because I'm at some place doesn't mean
that's where I have to be, but if
I wanna get to where the destination is,
I have to own up to where I'm
actually beginning and starting. Do you know? Does
it make sense?
Okay. So the last 15 minutes, let's go
through the rest of the hadith. So prophet
says,
for indeed it was only the excessive questioning
and their disagreeing with their prophets that destroyed
the nations who were before you. So if
you
222.
If you go to Surah Maidah, which is
the 5th chapter
of the Quran,
to its 101st
verse.
So people wanna pull that up really quick?
So 5 101.
Does anybody have it?
You just read the English. You don't have
to read the
Arabic. It's tough. It's it's hard.
Anyone have it in front of them? 5101?
You do? Can you read it?
Oh, believers, do not ask about any matter
which, if made clear to you, may disturb
you. But if you inquire about what is
being revealed in the Quran, it will be
made clear to
you. Allah has forgiven what was done in
the past, and Allah has all beginning. Most
will give. So this verse,
like, was revealed
in relation to the hadith
that we talked about on the 1st day
that we started talking about this hadith And
the prophet is talking about Hajj to his
companions,
and then one of them says, do we
have to do it every year?
And the prophet was silent in response to
that. And then he says to the person
that if I was to have said yes,
then you would have had to have done
it every year, and you wouldn't have been
able to do this thing.
Then there's a different kind of variance to
what we've been reading in this 9th hadith
where he says,
like, to, you know, what I've commanded you
to do, like, do to the best
ability. What I've forbidden for you, avoid.
But this verse is contextualizing
that type of questioning.
It doesn't mean all questions are a problem.
If anything, questions are a very healthy part
of one's spiritual growth, and they're necessary.
If you get to a place where you
stop asking questions
and you only have answers,
Right? And this is a challenge. When you
live in echo chambers where egocentricity
is the focal point of one's engagement societally.
You have a thought, an opinion, an idea,
and everything.
Do you know?
People, like, tell me I mean, the number
of people who say to me, like, I
don't really know what's going on in Palestine,
but this is what I think. And it's
like the entirety of the first part of
your sentence
negates and gives reason as to why you
shouldn't say what's happening out of your mouth
in the second part.
And you can replace the word Palestine
with so many different things. Right? I don't
know what's happening in the Congo. I don't
know what's happening in Sudan. I don't know
what's happening here. I don't really know about
this, but I don't know about this, but.
Right,
the basis of it is that you should
be asking questions. We should have a thirst
in being able to understand
a little bit more deeply.
If you go to the 16th chapter of
the Quran, Surah Nahl,
it's 43rd
verse.
It says within this,
that
a verse is quite often quoted that you
wanna ask the people of knowledge if you
don't know.
You wanna get acquainted with these verses,
at least know where they are in the
Quran, try to, like, learn them and reflect
upon them.
The people of knowledge here are not just
people of, like, religious knowledge,
but you wanna ask people who know certain
things
based off of their expertise and their skill
set. Right?
So don't pretend that you know certain things
when someone asks you. If you don't know,
then tell them, I don't know, but then
you can help connect them to the people
that do know. Right? Someone comes to talk
to me about things that are beyond my
capacity.
It's a daily experience
in what we do here. Right? There's thousands
of people who consider this to be their
community.
And because many Muslims
only understand
inroads to their personal development
through religious leadership.
I get all kinds of questions that I
have no qualifications of being able to answer,
but referral systems are in place. So somebody
says, hey. Like, how do I do this
or that? I don't know how to do
a lot of stuff, man. I don't know
how to do most things, and that's okay.
I can be comfortable with that. But if
you're gonna ask questions, you wanna make sure
that you're asking the questions
of the people that know. And if somebody
asks you,
sometimes it's not enough to just say I
don't know. You wanna equip yourself with an
understanding
so that if it comes your way again,
you're not meeting somebody
with,
becoming an obstacle in their growth. I was
18
the first time I met somebody who was
a survivor of domestic violence.
A young woman who came into a college
class that I was in, She had makeup
caked all over her face because it was
covering bruises.
When I asked her about it, she said
she fell downstairs.
Right? This is kind of a very common
response. You know, I fell down something. And
I was like, we live in Manhattan.
Like, where did you even fall down a
staircase? Do you know?
And then when she opened up and made
herself vulnerable about her experiences, she was being
forced into a marriage against her will. When
she said no, her father responded by hitting
her.
And now as she's turning to me looking
for support,
I had no idea, like,
what to do for this person.
And other people who knew of her situation,
nobody did a thing.
In response to that, when people say, well,
like, why do we do what we do
in this community around domestic violence
and shelters and whatever else?
Because that person's
narrative can't be in vain.
And so someone comes and I don't know
what to do. I have an option now
of choosing to maintain ignorance or say, what
do I do the next time somebody comes
in this circumstance?
Do you see what I mean?
Somebody comes and they're struggling with something, or
even if they're not struggling, you tend to
get a lot of people asking you the
same things. Right? People reach out to us
all the time about finding housing in New
York City. You know, we had set up
some stuff before COVID. They went defunct. Now
we're looking to start it again. But it
can't just continuously
be
like we don't know. We don't know. We
set up the systems. We make referrals.
We gain the knowledge base so that we
have some opportunity.
And a lot of the things that you're
gonna learn is that there's so much out
there more
that any particular skill set you can hone
in on is gonna bring some opportunity of
benefit to people societally
because people have such diverse needs more so
than we can imagine quite often.
This verse is telling us, like, ask people,
but ask the people who have the knowledge
that you actually are looking for.
If you go to Surah Baqarah
from verse 67
to verse 71,
These are verses
that, if you read through them,
Musa, alaihis salaam, the prophet Moses,
is told to tell his people to slaughter
a cow.
A lot of us might be familiar with
this narrative,
and what they continue to do
is respond back to the prophet Musa
in these verses,
narrowing the definition
of what it is
that he initially asked of them.
So he starts with just a generic
kind of animal,
and then it trickles down more and more
with specificity.
What this hadith is telling us that ruined
these nations
is that the end result of what this
is. Right? And recall when Moses said to
his people, indeed, Allah commands you to slaughter
a cow. They said, do you take us
in ridicule? He said, I seek refuge in
Allah from being among the ignorant.
They said, call upon your lord to make
clear to us what it is. Musa alaihi
Salam said, Allah says, it is a cow
which is neither old nor virgin, but median
between that, so do what you are commanded.
They said call upon your lord to show
us what is her color. He said, he
says it is a yellow cow, bright in
color, pleasing to the observers. They said, call
upon your lord to make clear to us
what it is. Indeed, all cows look alike
to us, and indeed, we, if Allah wills,
will be guided. He said, he says, it
is a cow neither trained to plow the
earth nor to irrigate the field, one free
from fault with no spot upon her. They
said, now you have come with the truth.
So they slaughtered her, but they could hardly
do it. Why was it difficult to do?
Because they went from something that was this
expansive
to something that was this narrow, and their
incessant questioning
with an intentionality
of just being difficult.
Why do I have to do this thing?
Why do I have to pray these prayers?
Why do we have to eat this way?
Why do I have to dress this way?
Why do I have to be nice to
people? Why do I have to apologize?
Why do I have to say thank you?
The difficulty
is giving an indication
of the self.
Because they ask the questions
again and again and again,
it now becomes haram on them
to do anything other than what the final
narrow depiction
is
of that particular cow.
Prior
to, all they had to do was get
a cow and slaughter it.
And then they took something from here and
brought it down this way.
It wasn't in pursuit of just understanding or
awareness.
They were just trying to be difficult.
They wanted to make it harder for him
to do
his job.
And as a result, they created more difficulty
for themselves.
You see what I mean?
The connection point between all of these things
is that I sometimes don't have to comprehend
it for it to be true.
And if I don't have a knowledge base
of something, but I'm still conjecturing
upon what it means to me or why
it may or may not be Islam,
well, what is
the base of me being able to ask
the question
other than I think I feel I want?
Do you see?
And if I don't know what it is
to begin with, then what part of me
is telling me to challenge and push back
on something?
Does this make sense?
So you wanna know the nature of the
questions
and where there's comprehension and understanding
and a desire to just know a little
bit more
versus
understanding
where we create difficulty
through an intentionality
of a questioning
that's meant to just be purposefully argumentative,
disagreeing,
you know, create all kinds
of kind of fissures.
These are problematic
qualities.
When you look at descriptions of what good
character is in Islam,
every understanding of good character
tells us that someone with good character is
not argumentative.
They're not purposefully quarrelsome.
Do you know?
You just fight for the sake of fighting.
At that point, it's you're learning a little
bit more about yourself. Like, why do I
always have to be right? It's not even
the other person has to be wrong. I
just have to be affirmatively the one that's
always right. I can't ever be in a
place where I can own up to the
fact that I don't know something. It's liberating
to be able to say that you don't
know something. Do you know?
It gives you a sense of freedom. Like,
I don't know the answer to that. Go
ask somebody else. I don't know it. Why
would you wanna know everything?
So looking at these sets of verses altogether
in relation
to this part of the hadith,
but not to a place where it creates,
like, a myopic perspective,
you wanna be able to ask questions. Right?
We've said in this halakkah at different times,
even the angels
ask questions of Allah.
When he sends his,
that I'm sending a Khalifa representative
on the earth and they
say, that are you gonna send one who
creates, like, corruption and facade and sheds blood?
But they're creatures of light, like strict obedience,
and they're asking questions.
You should ask questions. You should have a
thirst for knowledge and wanting to grow in
those regards. Do you see what I mean?
It goes back to the question of capacity.
When you drain your energy and capacity
in pursuit of just what is,
it's not going to then leave room to
pursue things that are going to bring contentment
and balance to the heart from the questions
that the heart wants to have answered.
You know, who is God to me?
When you start to know who Allah is,
it brings you an inward state of contentment
that other things won't necessarily bring.
And then this type of questioning also. Right?
There's a hadith that says,
that from the beauty of one's Islam is
to leave behind that which does not concern
them. You don't need to ask people why
they don't have babies.
You don't need to ask people why they're
not married yet.
You don't need to be asking people questions
that are not your business to be asking.
It's going to destroy you the way it
destroyed nations that came before you if you
can't mind your business.
The questions have to be rooted in what
has beneficial
intentionality.
You know what it is. Right?
I am blessed to serve this community. So
when I go to a lot of gatherings
of this community,
it's of gatherings that are like this.
I don't go to, like, a lot of,
you know,
like,
family friend type gatherings
that people grow up going to. But I
know when I was younger and I would
go to it, I'd always see people that
were miserable because there's aunties that were always
willing to go to someone and say, you
know, your daughter is still not married yet.
Right? Or, you know, are you don't want
to have a child? Right?
From the beauty of one's Islam is to
leave behind that which does not concern them.
That has nothing to do with you.
You don't ask questions
that are not your business to ask.
Do you see what I'm saying?
And it's not going to be helpful to
your heart
other than to
inculcate,
like, bad intentions,
look down at people about things that aren't
even things that they should be looked down
upon.
Imam Nawawi, whose 40 hadith collection we're reading
right now, he wasn't married.
Every Muslim throughout the Muslim world knows Imam
Nawawi's name.
So
understanding
the type and categorization of question here
and who it is you take information from,
how it is you're responding to questions that
are asked of you. Right? And don't
give people information
if you don't if you don't know the
answers. Do you know there was an instance
where,
there was a man who asked,
he had a wound on his head, and
he asked companions
that at night, he had a nocturnal emission
and he had to do a.
And
the companions were asked,
like,
does he have to remove the bandage from
his wound
and let the water wash over it for
his shower, his,
or is it enough to just wipe over
the bandage?
And they said, you have to remove it
fully. That's how they knew
to be. And water got into the wound.
It got infected,
and then the man died as a result
of it. They go back to the prophet,
and the prophet says, why did you tell
him to do this?
It would have been sufficient for him to
just wipe over the bandage,
but they're answering questions that they're not qualified
to answer. That's, like, the problem. Do you
know? And there's a lot of us who
just say stuff as absolutes
that are not absolutes or answer things that
they don't.
Like, there that aren't even actually like what
Islam says fully. Right? You don't wanna get
in the mess of that because it's got
deeper implications
because you're claiming either then Allah said or
Allah's messenger said something that they didn't fundamentally
say,
and that could be a big problem. Do
you know? It's haram for you to marry
someone from a different culture.
Like, where does it say that? Do you
know what I mean? So I once told
me when I was younger that it was
haram for me to eat baked ziti. Right?
And I was like, what? What do you
mean? Do you know?
And it was what he was trying to
say was, like, they don't eat that food
in his culture. Right? And he was saying,
we don't eat this food in this collective
we. I was like, hey, man. I love
pasta.
Do you know?
But the language is there, and it has
implications, and then people get confused.
You know? And you get a lot of
people who become disgruntled with Islam
because they're assuming Islam says something
when in reality, that's not what it's
necessarily
about. Do you see? So in this last
part of this hadith,
like, yeah, you should be asking questions. Make
sure when you're asking, you're asking the right
people.
Somebody's asking you questions.
Like, make sure you know what you're talking
about when you answer the question.
And don't be asking questions that get in
people's business.
It's just not a good habit to be
in.
Somebody wants to open up about you. If
you have a deep relationship, you can tell
when someone genuinely is asking because they have
concern
versus they're putting you on the spot
just to be able to
elevate their own egos in some ways. Do
you see what I mean? You don't wanna
do that to somebody. Do you know? It's
just not gonna be it's not gonna be
good for yourself more than anybody.
Okay. So let's take a pause here.
Maghrib just came in.
We'll,
meet again next Monday. Just
the building's gonna be closed this Thursday if
anybody's around. We'll be open for Jummah on
Friday,
only for Jummah. The building will be open
from, like, 12 something to 4. We'll have
lunch after also so that people who are
here for the long weekend,
will have, you know, a little bit of
time to spend together. So try to come
for that, Inshallah, if you can. Okay. We'll
be able to put the chairs against the
wall. And once we're done with Maghrib, anyone
wants to grab some of the food that's
left over also,
we'll see everyone next week.
Can one of you guys call the adhan
for for?