Mohammad Elshinawy – Why Can I Not Change Already
AI: Summary ©
The importance of changing one's views of oneself and the world to confront self doubt is emphasized, as it is crucial for personal development and achieving personal and cultural enhancement. The speaker discusses the importance of learning to handle one's behavior and personality, finding one's potential, and balancing negative qualities with positive ones to be a forceful person. The importance of developing two unique strengths is emphasized, and the need to build a strong foundation is emphasized. The speaker gives advice on handling flood damage and building a bridge over it, emphasizing the importance of knowing one's potential and finding guidance from Allah.
AI: Summary ©
To begin, brothers and sisters,
we concluded last week's hutba
speaking about the importance
coming out of Ramadan to confront
our sense of self doubt.
Will I ever change? Can I ever keep
up the change?
And we said to remember that for certain
you can
change
after Ramadan
from where you were before Ramadan.
And you can continue to change.
It's an endless ladder. Year over
year
But how to do that, we want to
spend some more time on.
We said first of all, surah al Duha
taught us that Allah
has always been bringing about change. Didn't we
find you an orphan? Didn't we find you
impoverished? Didn't we find you
unaware? And so we gave you and we
gave you and we gave you. So Allah
is always bringing about change.
That is the nature of how he deals
with his creation.
It's always changing. And he is the one
that is forever unchanging.
And you know, you can think about this
in so many different ways.
You know, in one way, you can think
about how Islam has brought about such an
incredible change in the world.
A a lost,
evil,
backward society.
Shepherds of sheep and herders of camels become
the leaders of nations.
Umar al Khattab will never become Muslim until
his father's donkey becomes Muslim. That's what they
used to say. And look at what he
had become.
And then you can also look at
the fact that sitting in this masjid with
you,
people that are around you,
people that I know personally,
that perhaps were farther than all of you,
just a few short months ago,
that are older than 90 or 95%
of you.
And just a few short days ago, they've
changed for the better
and so can you.
And also think about change
not just in the religious improvement, in the
character development sense.
No. Look elsewhere.
You know, Muharib Ibadithar,
rahimahullah, he was a Qaldi, a judge in
the lands of Al Kufa in Iraq.
And the biographers mentioned
that he was overheard
frequently saying in his in
his soft intimate conversations with Allah
Oh Allah,
I am that child that you caused to
grow.
So all praise be to you. And I
am
I'm that weak person. I used to be
so weak, and you gave me strength. So
all praise be to you.
He says,
that I was that poor person.
How much money I used to have and
now how things are in my terms of
my finances.
I am that poor person that you enriched
so all praise be to you.
And then he used
to say, And I am that hungry person
that you have allowed to have his fill
these days. So all praise be to you.
And I am the naked person
that you clothe, so all praise be to
you.
And
I am that lonely single person. Remember those
days when I used to be single, wondering
how I'm gonna get married? And I was
that single person that you married off. So
all praise be to you.
And I am that traveler
that you accompanied on all his journeys, so
all praise be to you, especially in this
age of mass transportation
and facilitated travel. How many times have you
ever gotten drowsy on a road?
How many times have you crossed paths with
people that look like they did not want
well for you, were not well wishing for
you, or could have been you unwittingly
don't even realize that they were at a
moment of moral weakness
or financial desperation
and things could have ended very differently in
that journey. I am that traveler
that you accompanied on his every journey, so
all praise be to you.
And I'm that stranger.
Didn't know anybody, didn't know anything, and you
pulled him together. So all praise be to
you.
And you say, and I am that,
pedestrian.
I used to walk on my own 2
feet and you carried me. Didn't always have
a horse. Didn't always have a camel. Didn't
always have a car. Right? Look at me
today. Now I'm the person that just it's
it's a given. I drive. I don't walk.
And I am that foot walker, that pedestrian
that you carried so all praise be to
you. Then he would say at the end,
And so all praise, abundant praise, continuous praise,
pure and blessed praise
be for the fact that I praise you.
He praises him above all for the fact
that he enables him to recognize all of
this and praise him for all of this
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I'm praising you above all that you did
not make me kanud.
You know what Allah azza wa jal says
in Surat Al Adiyat,
the human being is a kanud, is a
denier of his lord, meaning the prevalent majority.
The default in humanity is that they deny
their lord. What does it mean deny? Mean
they deny that god has ever been good
to them. Al Hasan used to say about
this
aya,
that
all he'd count is his misfortunes.
He doesn't count his fortunes.
The times that things were easy, the times
he lucked out as we say, the times
that, you know, he dodged the bullet. He
doesn't count any of this. He just counts
the shortcomings.
And so even in terms of our dunya,
even in terms of things in our dunya
that we don't recall, these were all memories
he had and that we also can conjure
up. But even non memories, you know when
Allah
says, He's the one that fashioned you in
the wombs of your mothers however he wished.
And he gave you your image and gave
you the best image.
What did the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam
do with this? He didn't just say, I
don't remember that. He
said,
Oh Allah, as you have beautified my image,
so beautify my huluq, beautify my character. The
same way you've beautified my external features
at a time when I don't even remember,
now beautify my internal features, my inward and
then of course outward behavioral,
my my my personality.
And subhanAllah, you think about this day and
age, the age of entitlement, the age of
ingratitude,
people don't recognize
that Allah has fashioned them beautifully.
Everyone is upset
at their self image. They have a negative,
I wish I was taller or shorter or
skinnier or whatever it's gonna be. Right?
And what can I do to change the
way I look?
And because they don't recognize what Allah has
done for them, they also have such a
dark outlook
on taking life by the reins, by changing
themselves and their personalities for the better, for
their own good and the good of those
around them. So this is the first thing.
Our deen said look back. Keep looking back.
Don't ever become that mindless person.
Number 2, to to help us change and
tell you for sure you can change, Islam
came and said, change is difficult.
Maybe you're being a little too hard on
yourself, so you're getting demotivated.
Change is difficult, and that is exactly why
we sent prophets.
Prophets changed. Even they grew and developed. And
prophets came also to show us how to
change. You know, Ibn Qayyim
he says something very profound here. He says,
Why did God send prophets? Why did God
send revelation?
He said, Because treating the souls like the
personalities, the character, he says the treating the
soul, remedying the soul is harder than remedying
the body.
And so, if you try to remedy your
soul, how am I gonna sort of become
the best version of myself?
Based on your opinions,
when you hardly know anything about the nature
of the soul. Right? Based on your opinions,
that is more foolish than someone trying to
treat their body
based on their opinions. Without going to the
experts. Without going to those who spent their
lives sort of getting updated and trained on
the latest research.
It's even more foolish because the soul is
even more
unattainable,
indiscernible compared to the body. And so Allah
sent us the prophets to so we can
understand how.
Then of what those prophets gave us about
how to change yourself for the better, better
your nature, you can do it. The prophets
came to show you. The prophets themselves did.
Of what they told us to do this
is to harness our strengths,
our unique strengths.
You know, there's the famous hadith of Al
Ashedj. Very important hadith in this discussion.
Al Ashedj Abdul kais. Al Ashedj was the
chief of his tribe. And when they came
as a whole tribe or at least a
delegation from the tribe to wholesale altogether become
Muslim with the prophet alaihis salatu wa sallam,
they got to Madinah. Understandably, they were in
a rush. So they all rushed to the
prophet salam, and in the process they disrespected
their chief. Because you know in tribal culture,
the chief always has
first
dibs on everything.
And so they left him. They dusted him
and they ran to the prophet alaihis salatu
wa sallam. He didn't do that.
He just kinda let them go. He understood
their excitement. He ties up the camels.
His camel and maybe even theirs. And then
he says, I have better clothes in my
bag than the clothes, you know, the dusty
sweat, been traveling for weeks. He changes his
clothes and then he walks up to the
prophet alaihis salatu as salam, last but
most presentable.
So the prophet
said to him,
You have 2 qualities, 2 strengths, 2 personality
strengths.
2 qualities that Allah loves.
Is like forbearance. You can put up with
insult.
You put up with their insult. You're not
holding it against them. You did a good
thing. Don't hold it against them. Great job.
He says,
and deliberation. The fact that you're calculated, you
slow down, you're not hasty because haste opens
the door to shaitan. Right? So you're not
hasty, you're thoughtful. So wait a minute, I
have better clothes. Let me it's worth it
even if it's gonna cost me a bit
of time to come
best foot forward with the prophet alaihis salatu
wa sallam. So forbearance
and deliberation.
And so he said He asked an important
question that is at the heart of the
discussion of can I change?
He said
Did I develop these two qualities like do
I get credit for this? Or did Allah
just give me these 2? He I'm born
that way, just my nature, my personality type.
So he said,
rather Allah
defaulted you, disposed you in this way. These
are built in, these 2.
So he said,
All praise credit is all to Allah anyway.
Even if it's my effort, Allah made efforts
possible. So no big deal. He said, all
praise be to Allah who
put me
on two qualities that are beloved to him
and his messenger
You know why this hadith is so important
in so many ways? First of all, the
prophet alaihis salatu wa sallam didn't say, there's
no such thing as you developing good qualities.
When he said, did I develop them or
did god give them to me like freebies?
He didn't say no such thing as developing
them. He concurred. Right? That you can So
we gotta put in work.
But he also turned his attention to the
ones that are easier for him. He said,
by the way, these 2 are built in.
Low hanging fruit. Right? Begin with those.
So he reminds him that some of them
are given which means some of them are
harder. So begin with those begin with the
positives, not the negatives. That's the idea. Don't
be too hard on yourself. Harness those strengths.
Ibn Khayyim
he he has a wonderful parable about this.
He says most
people, you know, they don't know how to
handle their nature, their default, negative qualities he's
talking about here. You know, whether you're an
angry person, you're a lazy person or whatever
it may be. You're a scared, cowardly person.
Whether you're an impatient person, whatever it may
be. He says people get overrun by their
nature
because they don't know how to interact with
their nature.
You know, we always talk about nature versus
nurture. Is it my nature or do I
nurture it? Right?
This is what we're talking about here. He
says,
it is like a seasonal flood. Imagine you
live in a town,
town of people, and there's a flood, huge
flood that comes and destroys everything every year.
When the ice the iceberg's built and there's
a huge flood, landslide and flood every year.
So he says the people disagreed on how
to handle it into 3 categories.
Of course, there's a 4th category. Let me
get it out of the way. The 4th
category is the guy who just ignores the
flood.
You know, he keeps getting caught off guard
for a lifetime by his by his weaknesses,
by his negative qualities. He may even throw
some religious language onto it and say as
Allah's khadar, god destined, god made me this
way. He's saying the people that care about
developing themselves,
about improving,
change for the better, there are 3 categories.
One category said the flood is coming. We
have to build a wall. Big strong wall
so the flood doesn't ruin us like every
year. He said And now that was a
bad strategy because the wall, you can't confront
the force of nature. Right? Allah is nature.
Right? You can't. He says, So they built
this wall and all the wall did was
momentarily keep the water out, but in reality
it built up the pressure. Right? And it
cracked the wall and it did even more
damage because they tried to sort of stop
it.
The second category
of people said, no no no. We can't
let this happen over and over and over
and over again. We have to get to
the source of the problem. We're gonna go
figure out where this flood comes from and
we're gonna stop it at the roots, at
the source. We're gonna uproot the problem. He
said, and so they traveled away and they
never came back. They got lost. Gone.
Sometimes our lives are too short. Our sort
of abilities, our our shortsightedness
is just too much to be able to
pull this off. It's a bad idea, he's
saying, to figure out the root cause of
every single one of your weaknesses. Alright? He
says then the 3rd category are people that
said, listen, let's be practical here. We're not
gonna be able to stop it. We don't
wanna be like those guys who never came
back years ago. We're gonna build sort of
channels, ways
so that when the water comes, not all
of it hits us. Some of it is
moved, is redirected
left and right into our farmlands
so we can grow some plants with it.
So we can sort of have some He
says and these are the rightly guided.
These are those who notice Allah's wisdom that
that very force of nature, that flood
that could overrun you could also be the
flood that is redirected,
softened
to to grow your rose gardens.
Right?
Your darkest side could become one of your
strengths if you harness it. Focus on the
positive and harness the negative. That's what our
deen taught us to do. If you're a
man of great pride, like Abu Bakr as
Siddiq was, you're gonna channel that into, I
want to be of the few who get
into the all 8 doors of jannah, and
he was.
If you're like,
you're a forceful person. Be a force of
justice, not a force against, against the weak
and the powerless. Right? You channel it in
that way.
If if you if you can't get yourself
to stop boasting, it's a horrible quality in
general. In the battle of Uhud, Abu Dujana
took the prophet's sword. He asked for it.
He was the only one that was willing
to live up to it. It was high
big responsibility.
And he wraps his head in a red
turban to call all the attention to himself.
Who wants it from the enemy? Right? And
he then he starts strutting, walking around arrogantly.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said what?
This is a a despise, a hated way
to walk in the sight of Allah. Allah
hates when people walk like this,
except this is where you harness it now.
Except in the because in this case, you
are actually doing a good thing, which is
spiting
spiting those who have took up arms against
Allah and his messenger and the innocent.
And so
harnessing
those bad qualities and not getting
bogged down by them is of what the
prophets came to teach us to change for
the better, to maximize our potential.
That I'm summarizing for you here in the.
It is found in
in his famous book ranks of the divine
seekers.
He he says,
and I once approached my teacher
and I said to him, how do we
get rid of all of our bad qualities?
Quickly, before the day of judgment, before we
meet Allah
He said to him, listen.
Getting to the bottom
of your soul
is like getting to a well and trying
to take out all the trash from the
bottom.
The more you do it, the more you're
gonna muddy the whole well.
So you wanna build a bridge over it.
Ibn al Qayyim says when he told me
that, I shared with him something I heard
from another scholar. Another scholar said, it is
like you trying to ride a straight road,
straight path. Right? And there's snakes and there's
scorpions. It's if you try to kill every
last snake and scorpion,
that's not enough time.
You will never get to your destination.
And so whatever is in your way
that you can't get past, kill it. Right?
And Ibn al Qayyim, Bitesim his teacher had
said to him what? Don't try to stir
up the well. Build a bridge over it.
Right?
Get get past it. Don't stop at everything.
And this is by recognizing that perfection is
impossible. Perfection is for Allah
himself to begin with.
Right?
And that is the last advice. Our Islam
said be very careful
of being too confident in yourself,
being too preoccupied
with your mission to even better yourself.
Don't be distracted from the healer, al Shafi
of his names
by the disease.
You should be more focused on Allah, the
healer.
He's not just perfect. He's the one that
can heal your imperfections
more than you can at least. Right?
And so you want to be more focused
on Allah as the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
was when he said,
Oh Allah, guide me to the best character.
No one can guide me to the best
of it but you, meaning not even me.
And turn away from me the worst of
my character traits. No one can turn away
from me the worst of it or the
worst of these qualities but you.
Hand yourself over to Allah even more than
you work on yourself.
They say of the beauty of the Quran,
which is how you hand yourself over to
Allah, for sure. The greatness of Allah is
there. The guidance of Allah is there. They
say that of the greatness and beauty of
the Quran
is that no one can ever change it
until the end of time.
Nobody can change it. Whereas the Quran can
change anybody.
So that is the super shortcut. May Allah
make us and you of the people of
the Quran and better our character traits
and bring for us bring about for us
the best of our qualities possible
in our life journeys.