Maryam Amir – For the sinners
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AI: Transcript ©
Because you maybe are not good enough. Have you ever wondered
whether or not you should even pray, because maybe you're doing
something outside of prayer, and that thing you're doing outside of
prayer might impact whether or not he will accept it. I get questions
like this all the time, is my prayer going to be valid if I pray
and I do everything for Salah, but then I go out with my friends and
we go do something that Islamically is not acceptable.
Well, Allah, will he still accept my prayer? The prayer itself has
different conditions than life in general. But the fact is, so much
of the way that we have been programmed to see who Allah is is
based on how we feel about ourselves. So if you don't feel
like you are doing everything that you should be doing Islamically,
and you feel bad about yourself or bad about certain aspects of
yourself, then sometimes you start casting the way that you feel
about yourself onto how you assume Allah sees you, which then makes
it even harder to come to Salah, or harder to the qurahan, or
harder to go to something or someone when it comes to religious
connection, because in the first place, you're struggling with how
you view yourself in that space. So recognizing that Allah picked
you for a reason and wants to have a relationship with you for a
reason as a very interactive experience. So the first part of
interaction that we're going to do is I want you to open your
chocolate, and
I want you to take a bite or put the whole thing in your mouth,
whatever, however you eat chocolate, a chocolate in your
mouth. Okay? I want you to chew. Tell your brain to chew. Now,
while you're chewing, I want you to do, tell your brain to do all
the things you're not thinking about. Are you thinking about
telling your heart to be at the same time? Are you thinking about
telling your eyes to have moisture so that your eyes don't literally
dry out? Are you telling the blood in your circulation system to
circulate? Are you telling your lungs to fill with air so that you
can breathe at the same time? I want you to tell the neurons in
your brain to move around, okay, but don't forget to tell your
mouth to keep chewing. Okay, now you have saliva and food trying to
get down. To tell yourself to swallow, tell your stomach to
accept what, tell your stomach to start breaking it down. Imagine if
you had to do all of those things every single time you ate. We
literally would do nothing but eat, like our entire life would be
eat. That's it. There's nothing else. I don't know how long we'd
survive. Honestly, that's all we would do. And definitely, if we'd
make it through one bite without dying, because we would forget to
do something like Allah loves you so much that when you want to
enjoy chocolate, he allows you to enjoy chocolate. You don't have to
think about every other aspect of your body or your life just to
have a piece of chocolate, that love of Allah is. So
it's so sensual, and it's the way that we interact with him, our
perspective of him, that impacts the way that we see what happens
in our life. So there's that holy hadith where Allah says I am, as
my servant thinks I am. How many of you have made dua, and when
you're making dua, you're thinking, I'm making this dua, but
Allah a making this dua, and I want this but he's going to give
me the opposite what I'm asking for, because he knows how badly I
want it. Have any of you thought that before that? He's going to
give you the opposite, but he doesn't want to answer you. Why do
we see Allah in that way in the first place? That's where it
that's where we need to start recognizing that maybe we don't
know who Allah is. Because if you knew who Allah was, if you know
who Allah is, the way that you see him is not going to be based on
deficiency in you. It's going to be in the fact that no matter how
much you struggle with who you are, he wants to have a
relationship with you in the first place. And over and over again,
there was a man who committed so many sins, and as he was dying, he
told his children to cremate his body. This is before cremation was
like a thing. So he's asking, or at least it wasn't known in his
culture, he's asking his children to cremate his body and spread the
ashes around the earth so that he doesn't have to be held
accountable to Allah as quickly as somebody whose body is whole,
which doesn't make sense, right? Because your body is going to
disintegrate in the first place. But in his mind, he had done so
many sins that he was afraid that if he comes on the day of judgment
and Allah knows all that he has done, then Allah is going to
punish him so much. So he wants that one extra second that he
thinks it will take Allah an extra second to put his body together.
Do you think it's going to take an extra second for Allah to put his
body together. Absolutely not Allah sounds so powerful. But when
we're talking about this man and the way that he was afraid of
Allah, when Allah asked him about it, he says, I was afraid. I was
afraid of you. I was afraid because I know the depths of my
sins by how many sins I commit.
Many sins I have that Allah could punish him because of what he's
done, and so Allah instead forgives him for his sins only
because he had this estimation of Allah, like he was so afraid that
Allah wanted to show His mercy. Does it make sense? Like Allah SWT
so much more merciful than the way that we see him. And there's a
Hadith of the Prophet holy seven that said that if you were to
commit sins, if you were not to commit sins, he would replace you
with people who did commit sins that you did. You would commit
sins so that you could ask for forgiveness, because sometimes a
sin, like Ibn Al qaw Ilam mentions is the door to your return to Him.
Do you know someone who you can't believe who they are today because
of who they used to be like? Do you know someone who had in the
past, who had no care at all about Islam, and now they are someone
who's like, so connected and you're like, only Allah could have
known the progression of that person's life. But Ibn Al Qaeda,
he says that sometimes an act of OB of disobedience will be the
reason someone will come back to Allah, versus sometimes you might
do something that you think is good and you become arrogant.
You're like, Oh, I did all these good deeds. I did. Look at me, I
did all these good deeds. That feeling versus the feeling of like
humility and coming back to him and asking for forgiveness, like
I'm messed up. If a sin is what is pushing you to come closer to Him,
then imagine how many of us could be closer to him if we saw sin the
way that Islam teaches us to see it, which is an opportunity to go
back to him and then do what to replace the bad with the good. You
know what the Quran says about someone who commits sins? And so
to Quran, Allah talks about people who commit major sins. And then he
says, What except for those who repent and they believe and they
do righteous deeds? And then Allah says that he will replace their
bad deeds with their good deeds. Do you know what that means? What
it means to be have your bad deeds replaced with your good deeds. Any
ideas?
Say it and
what do you mean at Jannah,
something about the hereafter. You're feeling something about the
hereafter. Okay, tell me what. What does it
mean? No clue.
Yeah. Like,
what does that mean? Like, let's say you must,
well, you have more
bad deeds. So like, Allah will give you more good deeds. Yes,
okay, very close. What it literally means is a person will
come on the day of judgment, and they have all these bad deeds,
like so many bad deeds. And then Allah or the well, he will be
asked the person, the woman or the man, will be asked, Did you do
this? Did you do this? Oh, you have something? Yeah.
He will subtract the sentence. Also similar concept, but close,
very close. So he will be asked, Did you do this? Did you do this?
Did you this? And on that day, your eyes are going to testify
against you. When you say, No, I didn't. Your eyes are going to be
like, I Heck, yeah, you did. I was the one who did it for you. Like
your your hand. Your hand will say, I absolutely am. Your hand
will talk against you. Your body is against you, except for what
you use it for, in his sake. And so on that day, he can't deny what
he has done wrong, because his own body is going to witness. But then
what does Allah do? This person repented, they asked for
forgiveness. And so on that day, Allah will take their bad deeds
and he will make them into good deeds. They literally become good
deeds. And so this man then says, there's some stuff that's not in
here that I did too, because he wants his bad deeds to be turned
into good deeds. But if you ask for Allah's forgiveness right
away, he he wipes it away as if you've never done it. The angels
Wait, you know, they wait for you to come back, they wait sometime
like wait before you write it, that person might go back to Allah
and say, I'm sorry. I'm going to try my best not to do it again.
And then when they do it again, they say, I'm sorry again. They do
it again, I'm sorry again. And we spoke earlier, if it's an
addiction, if it's an addiction, we need to seek professional
support. But the fact that you keep trying to stop. Yeah. Means
that it doesn't mean that you love him, of course. It means that you
love him, of course. But do you know what the Quran says so
him, Leah Tubu that then he turned to them so that they would turn to
Him. If you have a thing in your heart like you want to go back to
him, that's an invitation. It's an invitation from him. And if you
don't have that feeling, and you've never have that feeling,
well, I mean, you're here, so you had to have had at some point. But
if you don't, then ask for it. And that asking comes from him too.
Allah tells us on the Day of Judgment, yoman Ayan, Salman wala,
then Ilana.
Bin Salim on that day, on the Day of Judgment. It doesn't matter how
much like who your family is, how much money you have, except for
the one that comes with a qad bin Salim. What do you think has been
Salim is a heart that is sometimes it's translated as sound or
sometimes it's translated as pure. What is someone who has a sound
heart? Tell me what's someone who has a pure heart?
What does it mean?
A pure heart,
yeah.
They have more good, deeper than bad, okay, tell me another, yeah,
they have good intentions, okay? Another,
they have that consciousness, yeah? Another, yeah, good
intentions, okay, another, or,
from the voice,
they're practicing Muslim, okay, yeah.
On the Day of Judgment, oh, Allah, except for me that I took them off
the bus, except for me that I was gentle to this person. And bless
me and bless him. Holy. I need you that way. It's totally good. Um,
look on the Day of Judgment, nothing really matters, except for
having the sound heart. What is the sound heart? Abu Bakr asked
some of the companions, what does it mean? They said, someone who
doesn't commit sins, someone who doesn't commit sins, Abu Bakr
said, you are giving it a meaning it doesn't have. It's not someone
who doesn't commit sins. It's somebody who believes in Allah and
believes in the Hereafter, and they don't worship anyone with
ALLAH, is that every single one of you,
if you worship Allah only, you don't also worship Jesus, you
don't also worship idols. You don't also worship other things.
You worship God alone, and you believe in a hereafter. You
believe that there's a forafter? Is there going to be times where
sometimes you have doubt in that belief? There will be absolutely
and do you know what the companion said to the Prophet, sallAllahu,
alayhi wa salam. They came to the Prophet has done this isn't
Swahili of Muslim. And they said to him, sometimes we have these
thoughts and like they're about Allah, like these terrible
thoughts, and we didn't even say them out loud. And the Prophet SAW
someone's like, You seriously have thoughts like that. And they're
like, yes, like, and he's like, for real, so the law, and they're
like, yes. And then he says that that is sorry. And Iman, that is
sorry for the man, it is sound. Faith, the fact that you have
thoughts and you're worried about the thoughts that you have, in and
of itself, is a sign of the strength of your faith when things
happen and we believe that Allah is punishing us, who is teaching
us that, where do you get the idea that Allah is punishing you,
verses looking at it in a way of Allah giving me opportunities to
Come closer to Him, because He loves me so much,
that perspective shift is something that is that is the
difference between walking through the world imagining that what was
ready to like get you at every second, versus someone who comes
to Him with hope and His mercy, and he promises Your mercy to the
one who has hope in him. I'm going to end by sharing a story with
you. When I was in college, I was super. I was I was on a whole
different level of intensity, and I totally was taught by the
masjid, may Allah forgive Allah individuals in the masjid natal
masjid, and then speaking to guys in any capacity was completely
haram unless it was absolute necessity. So I would go to
college, and the librarian and the like, you know, security guard
would say hello to me. And again, these guys are not even Muslim.
They don't know what am I doing. I'm standing at a computer, and I
need to do something for research. So this guy from my communications
class that I never talked to one time, I think he had given a
presentation, and he walked past me. I don't know anyway, he like,
comes up to me and he's just gonna say hi, just a respectful Hello,
and in the Computer Search bar, I didn't know as a public library
and university library, so the first floor was always open for
the public. I like, walked up and he walked up at the same time, and
he's like, Oh, I didn't know you're into Sesame Street, Sesame
Street. He'd literally never say, Sesame Street, Sesame Street. I
said, right, I didn't know you went to Sesame Street. I didn't
know you went to Sesame Street. Okay, okay, you get that. And I
look at the search bar, and it says to be suddenly messed up,
s squared. It says f squared. And I'm looking at this. And then I
like, I literally chuckle. All I do is go and
then he's like, see you later, and I'm like, bye. That moment for me,
I spent maybe three hours repenting. I went upstairs to,
like, eat the 11th floor of the library. I had a corner ride with
Ray, actually, first I made wudu again, and I was in wudu, but I
had learned which is true, but if you make wudu and pray to it, i.
Of asking for forgiveness. It's a means of forgiveness. Inshallah, I
went to the bathroom. I mean, will do I came to my spot. I prayed to
raka after two, raka after two, raka after two. Raka Ya Allah,
forgive me. Forgive me for chuckling. Forgive me for saying,
hello. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me. This is not piety.
This is spiritual OCD, and the fact that we make people like this
theme like they are pious, or examples of piety speaks to the
fact that we do not know who Allah is. People would see me like that
and praise me all the time. Masha, Allah, sister, you put headphones
on when you go to sit through a cartoon movie with your cousins
because you're trying to build a relationship with them, but you're
not actually watching the Masha.
Like, can I literally not spend an hour with my cousins without
seeing it as ay bada worship with Allah is what your intention is
about, as long as it's within the boundaries of Islam, living your
life knowing that Allah is not out to get you, but it's rather there
to be clothed and to be the one who you listen that he will listen
to and give all upon him. That change of perspective, go get it
together. Back that change in perspective is the one where you
start seeing him as your friend, start seeing him as your Wali, the
one who loves you, who is an ally, someone who loves you, someone
who's invested in you, someone who cares for you that is a Wali, and
he, he promises to be your Wali. Do you know why he says, Allah,
Wali, you ladina.
He is the Wali of those who believe. And you believe. So you
are of those people inshallah. Um,
lastly, this is the final quote
the Prophet SAW, excuse me, in the Quran, Allah tells us about the
angels. They roam around. They hold up the Arshad Allah, and they
praise him, and they believe in him, and they do what they still
they constantly make a still thought for those who believe,
they're always asking for forgiveness for those who believe.
And do you know what it means. It's not the person who believes
in every single minute they're worshiping, worshiping,
worshiping, that would be even meaning, or the people who have
believed, but they struggled with the practice. If you believe in
Allah, but you're struggling. You are the one that Allah has
ordered angels to make dua for you. 24/7, that's how much he
loves you. And angels bring with them protection and mercy, and
they bring with them baraka. And the answer to that's how much he
loves you. And if you are struggling, but you're trying
everything, and you're doing everything, and you're doing
everything, and you're still struggling. How much more so is
his love for you? It's worth the investment in seeing him in a
hopeful way, because when you see him in that way, he answers the
way that you see him. So Inshallah, we can be all those
people who are hopeful in him. I mean, it's kind of going well
behind the commission. Are we done, or do we have Q and A?
Okay? Any questions?
Yes.
Oh, thank you. Um, that. So it's it. There's so many meanings in
it. It's like a friend, a guardian, a protector, someone who
cares about you, someone who's invested in you, someone who
supports you. It's like all these meanings in one so someone who's a
wealthy it means that Allah cares about you. He invests in you, He
protects you. He is there to support you, like this best friend
relationship, but like, obviously way better than a best friend,
because your best friend can love you, but can't necessarily protect
you. They can protect you in some ways, but not in all ways you see.
But like, Allah can do that in every single circumstance. So he
is with you. He has your back. That is someone who is a, what he
in general, someone who has, like, got your back, but what's going
on? Tell that has a different level about your back. Did I
answer your question? Thank you for asking, because I'm sure,
like, at least 30 other people have already had that and I didn't
clarify the question. Does anyone else have a question?
Yeah, so I mentioned
like, so be either like, like, just the fact that sometimes
people might have bugs that they think are not like,
like, had like Islamic ruler, and just the fact that they fear that
is like, proves that they're actually citizens. Does that
extend also to, like, not
really, I wouldn't say agreeing, but like, understanding certain
things that God has
told us to do, yeah, but like, I mean, I understand that
assumptions, like as a package of following an event, if I believe
that I should have trust in the law, that all of his rulings and
all of his
like, the things that He tells us to do are tells us to do are good
for us, but is it okay for me to just not understand something as
much as I try
to, especially today, there's so much that, like, there's so much
that's changing, and there's so much that needs context, and we
don't often receive that when we're learning about these issues.
So the fact that you would believe in something.
And say, I believe in this, but I don't quite understand it, and I
want to learn more, but I don't even know where to start, and I'm
afraid to learn more, because what if what I learned isn't actually
something I want to hear? The humility it takes to step back and
say, maybe what I want to hear, maybe I need to grow and also
understand it at a different level. That is faith, in and of
itself. That is such a high level of faith, because you're saying I
might not see something that I agree with, and I need to work on
myself to understand why I don't agree with it, how I can
understand it in a way that I can agree with it and at the end of
the day, submit to it. So that is, that is a very high level of
faith. Thank you for asking. I know many of us navigate that,
especially when it comes to contemporary issues. Thank you.
Does anyone else have a question? Yes, I was wondering
how
to really
make your
attention. That's so sweet, you know? So it's like you enjoy being
friends. And so is it like? That is like you enjoy being friends
with like, really? Are you friends because of Allah? Are you friends
because you enjoy it? Like, what do you mean? Yeah.
So if you're questioning your intention, you're already sincere.
A person who is not sincere wouldn't even think about their
intention. But like, am I being sincere, that this is for Allah's
sake, that I'm doing this for the sake of Allah, that, in and of
itself, shows that you are doing it for the sake of Allah. And you
don't have to over index on your thoughts. You don't have to, like,
think about it like, okay, but like, when I smiled at that
person, was it following the Sunnah of smiling? Or was it
because, like, I just really, like my teeth, or, like, you don't have
to, like, think through it to that level. You could just be like the
Prophet, so I'm smiled. I want to smile. Allah loves smiling at
people who bring, bring to bring joy to people. You can think about
it, and then from then on, that is your intention and your
interaction when you realize you made the wrong intention. Like,
let's say you did something, and afterwards, you're like, Oh, I did
that for attention. I didn't do that for Allah. Then you just go
back and you're like, oh, Allah, I'm so sorry. I made a mistake. I
didn't mean well, I did mean it at the time, but I regret it, and
please retroactively, accept it as if it was sincere. Does that make
sense? The door is always open. He's literally a lot he can do. He
can, he can retroactively accept your deeds. Did I answer your
question? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for asking. Okay, we are done.
Thank you so much for coming to spanakal
before I am leaving right after the next lecture. Inshallah. So it
is such an honor to be with all of you this weekend. Michelle, I pray
that you are all successful.