Mohammed Hijab – Spirituality From Al Ghazali’s Works
AI: Summary ©
The speakers stress the importance of behavior and emotions, mental and physical resilience, self-control, and self-seed testing. They also emphasize the root causes of pride, arrogance, and loss of pleasure, and the need for a strong personal and mental state. They emphasize the importance of gratitude in treating oneself and others with respect and respect for others' mental health.
AI: Summary ©
So before talking about sexual desire and anger, it's important to note that Allah has Ali has his own compartmentalization of the like, well, or the operations of the Pope of the heart, or he will talk about the spiritual life. And it does anyway, it's very clear the difference between the pomp the physical and the spiritual heart. So for example, he mentioned that there are three things or three processes, if you like, or three classes he refers to as which which kind of in here in the pub number one is, if you like the carnal desires, which includes section aggressive urges, which we're going to come to now, but the other two are the propensity for the human being to, to enact
Quadra to enact with power, whatever it is their will that they want to enact. And the third thing is he refers to as basically the bedrock or the house, the hum. So the five senses. So this is his compartmentalization. Now on the point of sexual desire and urges, Allah has any he doesn't paint the picture unnecessarily that anger and sexual desire are negative forces in of themselves. Fact, they have a function, if you think about and this is how we represent it, as sexual desire is a pulling force. And anger is a pushing force. Because when you when you're sexually aroused by something or somebody you want them whereas when you're angry is destructive. You want to hurt them,
or you want it away from you, you see. So it's a pushing force versus a pulling force, the appetites or the sexual desire, and, and the anger now, he puts forward a series of interesting analogies I just mentioned to him, therefore time and brevity and conciseness The first is of a city actually, in a city here, where your uncle or your your rationality, your intellect, your unemotional self, all these things are there represents the king and the police, the Chief of Police is anger, emblematic of justice, disciplinarian ism, and all those kinds of things. But the chief of police is his anger. So he says that you need to put anger into good use, basically. But if there's
corruption, let's call it for the sake of argument with the police. And then the police is trying to revolt against the leader than the leader needs must to you know, take charge of the situation. Likewise, he puts forth another very interesting parable, He compares sexual desire to a pig.
A pig is not to be held to account for his sexual proclivities and its behavior, we see how a pig acts as a beastly animal. That's why many people say that may not pick so many women out there say men are pigs because this is the truth and that they can't control their sexual desire men have sometimes a heightened intensity in not being able to or weakness you could say, and not being able to control their central desire. And this is why this this kind of criticism, there's some truth in it that men act like pig sometimes, and this is well because it mentions is that sexual desire represents the pig and anger the dog he mentions is I will read this in fact, from his translated
workers come a PhD thesis. In fact, translation of the first book of the third Quadroon hijab will call he says that the dog is hungry for the carnivorous beast, and the savage dog, or not the dog and the beast from the standpoint of their appearance or color or shape, but because the spirit and meaning of this beast to quality is savageness, and enmity, and slaughter. Now as in man, there is the savageness and anger of the beast, and the greed and voluptuousness of the pig. Thus, the pig through gluttony invites man to excess and abomination. And the wild beast, by means of anger calls him to oppress and oppression and harmful acts. The demon continues to serve up the appetite of the
pig, and the wrath of the wild beast, or to incite one by means of the other and, and he makes the inborn dispositions to appear good to them. The sage who represents the intellect, is in duty bound to ward off the plotting and guile of the demon by revealing his dissembling by means of His ie the sages, penetrating insight and evident clear eliminations and to destroy the gluttony of the pig. By setting the dog over him, for by means of anger, he breaks down the assault of Appletons advocacy of sexual desire he Ward's off the savageness of the dog, by setting the pig over him, and bringing the dog in subjection under his role, if he does this successfully, his affairs are set, right? Equity
is manifest in the kingdom of the body, and all goes in the straight path. What was Elliot saying is you need to be angry and he mentioned this in another book, actually, it's everyone has a buck or the book of self examination, vigilance or a color he mentioned, why are we not angry? We are angry when people you know don't meet our expectation to see. But we're not angry when we ourselves don't meet our own expectations makes this point or we don't meet the expectations of God.
You may feel guilty but are you angry. And this is the point, we need to stop being angry with our own selves our own shortcoming so angry needs to be redirected. And this is why the sexual aggressive desires of Freud mentioned these couples come together many psychoanalysts in the 20th century. They mentioned those two together, are inextricably linked in this way. If you are able to somehow get at instrumentalize and weaponize anger against sexual desire, then that is one step closer to achieving mastery. And he says, but if he is unable to overcome them, they overcome him and bring him into servitude. And so he continues to search out crafty tricks, and careful plans to
satisfy his fake and pleases dog. Thus, he is constantly in servitude to a pig or a dog. This is the condition of the majority of mankind, whenever their primary concern is the belly sensual indulgence vying with the enemy. The strange thing is that he disapproves of isolates his worshipping stones, whereas if the veil were removed, and his true state word is closed, and his true condition set before him, as it set before mistakes, Jonnie the the top guys in his eyes, either in his sleep, or whom, by when awake, he would see himself standing before a pig, now prostrating himself before him, and again, kneeling, awaiting his signal and his command. So whenever the pig is roused up to seek
the satisfying of any of his appetites, the man is sent forth at once, to serve them and bring that for which he lust. And the same thing you mentioned about the dog, come and show that now. And this is a very powerful image. Yeah, that is either you that's going to put the dog and the pig to service for yourself, or you are going to, figuratively, of course, prostrate to the dog, and the pig.
The issue of anger is one that the Quran and the Hadith and the companions and the predecessors all deal with, like for instance, in the Quran, where it mentions that a very famous verse a very important one on this issue, which is that while Calvary Mina, loyal will I feel an aliveness, the ones who are able to suppress actually, Calvin Calvin is suppression Calvin Amina live, the ones who are able to suppress their anger, and pardon the people, they will find that this kind of connection between suppressing one's anger and pardoning the people is kind of a line of reasoning which runs through the Quran, for instance. So the shorter, Allah subhanaw taala mentions are either already
warmed me up, that when they get angry, they forgive why because anger is a very volatile emotion. It's within the intuitive interests, the Carl beastial savage interest of the individual, at that time, the brutish interest Yes, to go ahead and inflict costs and harm on an individual the object of anger. So what the Quran proposes here is that if the high level people because it's referring to the mausoleum, the high level people, the top believers are the ones who are able to control one of the most volatile human emotions, which is anger. Yes, at that time, they do the counterintuitive thing, where they want to, at that time, exact anger on an individual, they do the opposite thing.
Exactly.
Now, this is Apex spirituality. This is the top level thing you can imagine. So look, what I'm how it deals with the MATA and the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he gave us many different advices. But one of them is really interesting. I mean, when he's mentioning the true believers in laser Shadid, over solar, it were in NEMA, a shredded lithium liquid. So why in the lab, this is narrated in him backwards. Kitab was that that actually the
strong one is not the one who can wrestle well. But the strong one is the one who can control himself at the times of anger, meaning what true strength is that is self control. Because in reality, self control, and mental resilience is a prerequisite for any physical endeavor, not vice versa. You need to have mental resilience and self control if you were to engage in any sport or physical activity, but you don't need a physical ability to engage in the mental self grappling, if you like. So it's a prerequisite if you are able to control your anger then for those who are engaging in all kinds of sports, this actually will help you in sports. As the saying goes, when the
going gets tough, the tough gets going. But for that to happen, you need to get tough and
Prophet Muhammad Salah Salem and the Quran is telling us have means to nourish and develop this mental resilience. Yes. And the Prophet gives us many practical pieces of advice. For example letaba Don't get angry. And if you're standing and sit if you're sitting then lay down like change, distract yourself really. And alpha Lee has a very interesting we've spoken about some of his analogies in another video. He has an entire chapter dedicated to anger in here along with Dean Khattab, well, then we'll have I'll be with Hector has had the book of the dispraise of anger and N, Mo Heckard is more resentment and has that is envy, a whole chapter dealing with the matter. And he
starts off by talking about anger is like a flick of fire, which afflicts the lowest part of the heart. It's like rubbing of iron against stone he mentions Yes. And then of course, he mentions all the headaches. And if that we've mentioned as well, the main thing that he's mentioning here is that anger is the enemy of intellect. But not all, anger is bad. And we've mentioned this before, and I'll mention it again, a sherfane mentions that someone who doesn't get angry at all is like a donkey. He said that all men install the volum Yahoo club for him or whoever is made to be angry, and it doesn't get angry. It's like, it's like hemolysis donkey, because if you see a donkey, yeah,
you'll realize that whatever you do with a donkey that doesn't get in different, apathetic, human beings are not meant to be like that to actually, that's not a natural way of being if you see injustice is in front of you, if you see wrong things happening, how are you going to discipline your children, if you don't get angry, there needs to be a level of anger that they see in you, so that they can fix their behavior. Anger is a healthy thing by has to be in moderation, which is why he actually breaks it down to classification, says you've got three different kinds of people. And people that don't get angry too. Of course, that's not praise. Well, people get angry all the time,
which is, of course, not praiseworthy at all. Because that is, in many ways can be worse, sometimes than the first category. And then the second gate was immediate, the Goldilocks zone, the happy medium, which is that you get angry sometimes when you're able to control yourself and don't let it obscure your your rationality. Yes. And then he goes into the discussion, which is very interesting about why people get it says that it's the removal of something, for example, it could be the removal of absolute necessities, I mean, for example, food or drink, if you're hungry, and you need to eat, someone tries to take your food away, you're, you're, you're gonna get angry, and this is
happens in the animal kingdom, it happens with human beings, it's an actual thing. And, of course, there's a limit to that. But we're seeing with also, he mentions, it could be that you do take something away, that makes something convenient for someone, for example, a servant or something like that. You have a servant, or maid or Butler. And then it's been taken away from you something which in Age of convenience today, the age of technology, and convenience is something which we need to know. Or he mentions that it could be something that you deem to be important, like for something books, people who like to read, they have books that they could sort of sentimental, or very
important to them, if that's to be taken away, the person gets angry. And he says that the way of dealing with those kinds of things is to be a minimalist, basically, to imagine yourself going on a journey and what will be the minimum thing that you will require that in reality, these things are superfluous, you don't actually need those things. You don't need those things be a minimalist, and the more minimalistic you are in your reasoning, the more you're able to control your anger if certain things happen to you. And so this is one thing and then he mentioned the reason why people don't get angry are able to control their anger. And he says those individuals who distract their
minds with other things, for example, for the Muslim, it will be something like to feed itself to hate the monotheism you can distract yourself with thinking about Allah's attributes thinking about Allah's names and attributes and all this you can you can distract yourself with that and knowing that Allah subhanaw taala does not live love anger you to be angry and have control. And so when he talks about the cure of anger is very interesting. He talks about you got to explore the root cause. And he said there could be many root cause he mentioned he enumerates many root causes. If you think about it, psychoanalytically Yes, it could be self conceit. Yeah, it could be diluted, could be self
praise. You think that why does he have this? How could this be taken away from right? Could be pride, your arrogance? And therefore, how could he say this to me? How can you do this to me? miserliness, which is Buckelew the idea of like, you know, I'm not gonna give this guy my money ridicule, like you enjoy to ridicule put people down once again that could be connected to pray that you just someone who's addicted to argumentation or could be greed that gives me this No, I want this and he basically proposes the following he says that for each of those sins, the cure of it is the opposite. So first, let me give you an easy example miserliness filbur heal if you feel yourself
finding it difficult to give more money than give charity give you a more charity and the same things like for example, self praise, you have to start becoming more distance and so on. But another thing is you mentioned is that you got to think about the power of Allah subhanaw taala the way you go
Think about the fact that everything is written to everything is meant to be. If you really believe in that, then you'll be okay. So these are some of the examples and some of the points that he makes cinematic moments, a library.
So this session that I'm going to be doing is really advising myself by summarizing some of the things that I've read. And we'll be talking about things that I haven't been able to master or even achieve. Unfortunately, things like humility, things like that, which I'm trying to work on. And this is not me being a artificially
humble. I'm not this is not one of my character traits with the edge map or consensus of people who know me. So I'm not just saying this. Having said that, this particular Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad Salam really stuck in my mind. And I want to remind myself of it, it's a hadith of masa. Some said lead for agenda Turman can if you can't be here with Carlos ora, mineral keeper whoever's got atoms way of arrogance in his heart will not enter Jannah when somebody came from the Companions, it says in love Roger, lay your head in your corner ThoughtBot has said no, and Allah has that surely, you know, a person loves a man likes to wear beautiful clothes and beautiful shoes.
And the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam said in the lahat Jamila on your hippo Gemma that certainly Allah is beautiful and he loves beauty but then he defined for us and it's very important what giver is what is arrogance. He says arrogance means bottle Huck walhampton Ness rejecting the truth and belittling the people. Now this is very important. lazily actually has an entire chapter of this, which I'm just reading some of the notes of will try and summarize the to myself. And this is essentially been translated, they've translated to a book called on the condemnation of pride, which can be purchased. Very good. Some of the references is a bit difficult. But having said that,
first of all, you know, you mentioned some of the Hadees, condemning pride and arrogance, the ones I've just mentioned, another one, which I found really interesting and very powerful. Actually, when one considers another Hadith I just want to share with you guys is the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam where Allah is headed footsie and the law saying honor is my is off is our and pride is my cloak. This is obviously expression expressed via whoever visor with me regarding one of them shall be tormented l Kibriya. Ri de Kibriya. Re de Subhanallah is, do you not because as Kibriya for Allah, it's not arrogance for Allah is Grando. For us, it's arrogance. So if
you try and self aggrandizing, you're vying with Allah with that which belongs to him, this is a very powerful thing, which reminds us of power law, our and significance of us only actually makes some really interesting distinctions in his book, and he differentiates between Al Qaeda and Al Jarreau. And the way he does, so it's very interesting. He says, a keyboard, the keyboard, which is arrogance, it requires an object, like, for example, if you were alone, in a desert island, and you are self praising, and looking into the water and thinking, wow, I'm such a great person, this would be a job not Cuba, because Cuba requires an object to be done to. Okay, so after kind of
distinguishing between one of the one or the other, he mentioned seven major reasons. You see for Keba for arrogance, why does somebody become motor cabinet? Why does somebody become arrogant? And one of those reasons is, well, let's let's go through them. So one of them is attribution, is for example, you can say is knowledge. Person has knowledge. He thinks, because he's learned a few things that he can start putting people down. And we see this in the culture of students of knowledge and mache, that they're all attacking each other. It's a very horrible scene out there attacking each other's knowledge, or he's not on this level, and he hasn't even read that book. And
we also see it in different different industries are on YouTube, and in other places, or this person is not qualified this person is not that sometimes people are not qualified. Some people are problematic individuals. However, if you think you're better than somebody, because you have been given some knowledge that they have not been given, intrinsically, this is arrogance, you think you're better. And this is an important distinction. If you think you're better if this increases your intrinsic worth, and this is me, advisor myself. Number two, he says actions and these can be obviously religious actions for religious people or other kinds of actions. I've done this, and I've
done that, why do this and I do that, and this person doesn't do this and doesn't do that. So then someone can start becoming arrogant because of it. Another reason he brings forth is lineage, I come from this family, we're from this clan, and arrogance can come about because of that. And like I said, he has some very interesting, you know, chain kind of analogies here, where he's talking about the fact that was the case, you know, a bacteria or worms, which reside in the body of an animal versus a human being is the same thing but is it
You know, he talks about the fact that it does, you are not responsible for where you came from, just as the worm or a bacteria is not responsible for where it's, you know, in what it's inhabiting. So why would you try and glory harm, which maybe we'll do now football, soccer culture, for something which you yourself have not achieved. And you mentioned also beauty, which is of course can be for men, it can be for women. I mean, it was a look at how he looks, how she looks, she's done this to herself, and she doesn't look at that and look how big your fat she is. And because of that, or how skinny she is, and look at how small her * are, and women do this to each other
men do this each other to how his biceps are, this is legs us more, or look how short he is. And these are some things that are completely out of our control anyway, and what levers that he wants us to remember here is actually your beauty, or what you think is beauty is going to wither. And the same thing he mentioned which is another reason is strength is going to decline your strength is going to decline. So oh, you know, this guy's weak I can finish him whatever is very much there. Another thing which is he mentioned a reasonable we will get angry is money. I've made this about how much money do you make bro like what you make this much money? The people that compete on this,
and the Quran has ah on this enamel has dunya live on the left one.
What's the first one being, you know, and so on. And so to Hadid or to cathode Antifa or what people they try and pile up money. And they think that money makes them rich, makes them a better person intrinsically better person makes them rich, it doesn't make them rich, makes him a you know a better person. So Allah you know, the panel has Elia is reminding us is not the case and clearly in the Quran. So the case, yes, it will in the mela who are flooded. For example, The Quran mentions that he thinks his money is going to make him immortal, to become self deluded because of it. So these are some of the things and he says that there are some fundamental causes of pride and Kippur.
And he narrows them down into four. He says, Look, you've got one of them, which is internal, I have three of them, which is external. The internal one is art of itself, which we talked about. So allow job, which is self amazement, can lead to arrogance. Because you think well look how amazing I am. Well, these guys are not as amazing as I am, the moment you connect it with an object, another object outside of yourself can become arrogance. And so he also mentions some other external things, pretension, and potential as basically you're just speaking and pretending to know what you're talking about. So that you can be seen as higher up reality you're not you know, that guy. Like, for
example, when a child debates with more intelligent parents, you'll be in pretentious here, because you know that, that that parent is more intelligent than you, but you're just doing that, because you want to show that you're, you're clever as well, or something like that. Another reason is resentment. And heck, and, you know, you might resent somebody, so you think you know what this person is not and this is shame, satanic Luciferian, this person, I don't like him, therefore, I'm better than them, you know, it comes quite easily comes naturally. Envy is the same thing, because what is envy, you want that person to lose their blessing. So if you're envious of something,
someone that you're more likely to, to start being more to combat towards them as well. And so what he does in terms of now was the one to treatment for this problems, because he we've spoken here about some of the problems or the treatment for some of these problems. And basically, he says, Look, you need to it's the whole issue is one of ignorance versus knowledge. And he has a long discussion on the issue. But basically, he says that you need to know that you you are not as you think you are, you are not as you think you are. You don't you you are self deluded into thinking that your wealth has made you better or higher value or this or that, when you realize that you're
going to die that 100 years from now, you're not ever going to be mentioned that you're going to be under the ground here. The people are ever gonna bear to be near your dead corpse because of how the stranger that certain corpse, people are going to actively want to forget you. Can you imagine this, when you remember these things, then you acknowledge that you are you're a temporal existence in this transient space called the dunya. When you have proper knowledge of that, then you don't really have a reason to want to keep it at all.
You know, we are living in a culture nowadays, which basically people don't want to take accountability take stock of their own action. And this destroys relationships and destroys communities destroy societies, by not traditional Islamic tradition. The idea of self accountability was certainly one which was emphasized pretty deeply. And in fact, so much so that Allah has Allah he's got an entire book on the matter in his magnum opus, his compendious word here alone within the masterpiece. And the Kitab is called the Book of Kitab and what Acaba and Maha Sabha it's actually been translated into English which is the book of soul
for examination and vigilance, I'm going to be looking at the some of the notes I've taken and tell you some of the things that he has said in regards to self examination. Of course, first of all, I mean, there are many acquired of the honor and speeches of the predecessors which are very pertinent to this particular inquiry or the subject of inquiry achieved most I would say, of the predecessors is what Ahmed top has said, which is that has worked for several popular to have several that hold yourselves to account before you are held to account I found very interesting about the book about this particular book is that Allah zali, he starts off by putting forward a trade analogy. And he
does this throughout his book, he makes analogies for states of mind and psychospiritual states. So to read some of it he says, Know that when those who engage in commerce and dealing commodities settle accounts, they seek a healthy profit. Hence, the trader avails himself of his associate, handing him his money for the trade and then settling his account with him is the same with the intellect Apple, as it does Commerce on the way to the hereafter its object and profit is the purification of the soul, because it's Felicity is through this Felicity is basically good fortune or its success. It's very interesting how he phrases that because actually, he's what he's saying to
us is, we should think of purification, self examination in the same way as we would think about business, we should want to make the biggest profit possible. And of course, making the biggest profit possible. It's not just getting new business, which in this case, would be doing good deeds, but it's also making sure that the customers remain that we don't lose capital, or that we don't lose investment value. That, of course, means purifying ourselves. And the way he mentioned, this is very powerful. He considers the heart as the main organ is the main organ. And then there are seven members that lead to the hearts and which needs to be purified. And he mentioned that then the seven
of God's counsel to soul about the moments of his life, after which he prefers counsel about his seven members. And what are the other seven members the eye, ear, tongue summit, the private parts, hands and foot, these are the seven members. In other words, one needs to keep track of what he is seeing what he is hearing what he is saying, especially saying and he's got an entire book on this. In fact, as Ali Baba, how we are words can get you in trouble in the many Hadith on the matter, you know, the ultimate agenda. The Prophet Solomon said that I guarantee Jana, meaning that Allah guarantees it for those who are able to guarantee that which is between their two legs and their
tooth and the jaw, basically. So this is and then he goes into detail. It'll Hazari about all of the seven things while holding yourself to account for those seven things. So he breaks it down into different few like categories. The first thing is you have to make a commitment to yourself, you have to condition this is called a Masato, you condition I am not going to do this things. I am not going to you say to yourself, speak up a bad words, swear words, I'm not going to sweat, you know, I am not going to backbite this person, I am not going to say I'm always Backbiting is the critical faculty MCRA hate saying that about your brother, which he hates, or your sister, of course, do not
say that which your brother Muslim brother or sister will not like some form of cowardice don't do this as well, I am not going to see something which is haram, because it's difficult to do nowadays in the age that we're living in. But we have to do more Charata we have to condition ourselves for these kinds of things. And once you've done that, once you've conditioned yourself, then you start to examine yourself. So this is the stage two, which he mentions here. After you've said to yourself, look, I'm not going to do this and everyone's going to fall into and this is goes back to a nefs Allah worm a duck for answers that he swears a little person will be left in law will swear
by the self, reproach and soul, meaning you keep exams so important that Allah actually even makes custom by it, which means he he swears by it, the reproaching so you keep going back to why have I done that regretting now in modern culture, because you shouldn't do regret anything. I say you shouldn't regret anything except for your sins. And I see this is exactly how Islam you must regret your sins is a part of Nedim it's a part of Tober net them as part of October regretting as part of tobacco. So after you've done the mug shot, then you have to be steadfast is the karma you have to have is the karma. Now you try your best stay on the path that you're on. And then you do Maha
Sabha, which is self examination. After the act, you do something bad you examine yourself now, if you think why did this happen just as you would in any situation life yeah, something happens. You get into a big argument with your spouse, you say something bad to your parents. You commit a major sin you commit a minor sin, you look where you shouldn't be looking at you then you sit with yourself after you've committed this sin which we're all bound to commit and you say to yourself
That's, you know, I, why did I do this? What triggered this behavior? Why did I fall into this? How can I make sure that I don't go into this again? So this is another thing you do after you've done that, and you go on to the next stage, which he mentioned and this is guys this is extremely important is to be honest, because he mentioned him The fact is, this is in his fifth chapter, and this is Dr. Latham can really fast is when a person examines his soul he finds tempted he finds it tempted by sin, therefore he must punish it in manners described, you mentioned it before. You have to discipline yourself wha clubber you don't just discipline your child you don't discipline this
one or that will you discipline yourself as well? How are you going to discipline yourself you can fast you can do this you can you can do men that you can stop yourself from having certain things if you don't discipline yourself, life will discipline you, you see and so that is the next step. And then this is a very powerful mystery in the six chapters as he saw I say, know that you you that your worst enemy is your soul inside you. It was created to incite ill and predisposed towards evil and desecration of a good so this once again, it's a very interesting take and he starts going into a monologue and has and he's got this very powerful way of just telling it how it is listen to what
he says here. He says also, if a servant of yours knee a brother should confront you with something you dislike, what anger and loathing which You have for him yet how recklessly you then expose yourself to God's loving anger and stern punishment. You think you can bear His wrath far from it. If your cockiness has lulled you away from his painful wrath, then try for yourself. Put yourself under the sun or in the bath house for an hour. Bring your fingers close to the flame and find out how you bearer or are you deluded about God's nobility and favor his disinterestedness with respect to your acts of obedience and worship. Why do you not rely on His kindness and the weightier matters
of the world? When a focus use you? Why'd you devise a strategy to repelled him without relying on God's kindness? You see, we are self deluded. And he has a very powerful monologues. The book is filled with these kinds of models, one should have a systemized method of holding themselves to account. And with that, I conclude this article was like water castle. The issue of envy is of particular significance today in the age of comparison, yeah, social media has made the world like a global village, you've got Instagram, you've got YouTube, you've got all these kinds of Facebook, whatever it may be, and people are just kind of comparing one another with one another. And as such
envy creeps into the heart, and it creates great discomfort and inconvenience. I think we should start off by talking about the main a hadith that relate to hazard. Of course, we all know the verse in the Quran, or Michel de has it in either hazard that we seek refuge from, and one of the things that we seek refuge from so the follow up is the envy of the envious person when they envy. But there is a that's more of a protective measure. We see
in the Hadith, which is also an 40 Hadith of unknowing. We have a very interesting and very powerful Hadith which is starts actually the Prophet saw I saw and said led to hacer Do you know, do not envy one another? And there's all kinds of things that it continues saying, you know, do not inflate prices of one another does not hate one another do not turn away from one another do not undercut one another and trade. However, instead be what Kuhn why bed Allah He when l Muslim, Muslim? Yeah, that instead be you know, the brothers in faith. And a Muslim is a brother of another Muslim. He does not oppress him. Notice he failed him, nor does he lie to him, nor does he hold them in
contempt. And then he pointed to his heart of a lie to solemnise Taqwa Hoonah. That Taqwa is here, that attack which is God, consciousness or piety is in the heart. And so this is the first thing you know. And another Hadith which has been as important maybe, is where the Prophet SAW Selim told us once again, the Yak one has had, you know, that be aware of envy because envy consumes the virtues, just as fire consumes the firewood. Now, it was Allah mentions in his book, this one is his book of basically a hacker.
As I've heard that story of envy, that way you got to conceive of this is that God gives gifts to people, you see. So to envy somebody is to express displeasure with the distribution of God. Now, I want you to think about this for a second.
If your issue with someone is that they have something you don't have you wish you had it. And we're going to talk about the levels of envy here but if you you have to
In your heart, why did they have a not me this question pops into your mind view if you're female, you thinking about someone else who has, you know, another woman, for example, who has certain things that you don't have a certain life that you don't have certain house that she lives in that you don't have. Because these are the kinds of, if you're a man that you may be thinking, once again, the man, this guy's making more money than I am, he's driving a different car, the idea to me he's got better status or worldly status. And of course, religious people will tend to be jealous over religious matters. So this person is more knowledgeable than I am, we'll come to this as well,
wherever it is that comes into your heart. This is problematic, because it expresses a displeasure with the distribution of God. Of course, we've got the famous story of sort of Joseph in the Quran, which kind of exemplifies his point. And however, there is one thing which is important I should mention, which is that the Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam who said, you know, Lhasa in fitna, Taney, that there is no fee like, envy that is justified except for two types of thing, which is the process of a man who Allah has given knowledge of the Quran, and so he recites it during the night and the date, and the man who Allah has given well, so he spends from it during
the day in the night, what kind of envy is allowed him and scholar seydel, as elementary as well, is to kind of end so called envy. And this is envy and kind of quotation marks. Yeah. It's the kind of envy way you don't wish that the other person lost their blessing. And so there are three stages of envy that oversell dimensions. The first one is that you'd love something, for example, wealth and wish that the person didn't have it. Now, this is a blameworthy type of asset, which there is nothing in the religion of Islam, or in fact, that justifies, generally speaking, having this kind of devotion towards someone else, and you can and you'll tell yourself, if you have this, we have to
be honest about it, expand yourself have such a feeling. The second is that you wish to have something that someone else had, but you don't wish for them to lose that blessing. Now, this is lawful, but it's not commendable. So you're still kind of thinking, because there is a, there's an aspect of okay, well, I'm not happy with what I have. Half, there's an actual aspect of lack of contentment here going on, is so this is important. The third one is to wish someone sorry to wish that you have what someone else has, on religious matters, like the Hadith mentions, you see, for example, more knowledge of the Quran, more money, so they can give it in charity, and these kinds of
things. There are seven causes you mentioned, I was Allah mentions, of, of asset of envy. The first one is enmity, that you feel like, Oh, this guy's my enemy. And therefore, I wish that whatever he had didn't have it. So anything that happens good to that person, you know, you're actually you get disappointed, there's a feeling of your heart, your heart gets hard, maybe you know, or a drops your heart, your heart drops when something good happens to someone else that you dislike. I didn't want that to happen. Do you mean you didn't want that to happen? Why? Because you don't like that person. And this is something which is not allowed in the Sharia. The second one is dislike for another's
good. The only, for example of someone else, someone's got something good. And you think like, you know what, I don't want that person to have that. But it's not because you necessarily hate them. But it is what is. The third thing is pride or Keba. So you hold a certain person in contempt. However, having said that, modern psychologists differentiate between arrogance and contempt. And we're not going to go into the distinction, although spicy for me to say this juncture that contempt by modern standards is where there's equality in the equation. And Kibera is when this supposed hierarchy in a situation, that's another point. But when you when you don't like somebody else, you
feel like you're better than I should say, someone else. So it's more, you know, a feeling of superiority. I deserve this, not me.
So that's another reason. So prior to Kibana is to kind of keep it actually the fourth thing is expressing your tag job that you feel like What's this like? Why is this happening should be me and that's once again, it can link to Cuba. The fifth thing is fear of failure like objective for it for example, that you're both in business you and a friend of yours and when you're in the same line of work, and you feel like the more this guy succeeds, the more you're gonna fail, you see, or Elvis Elementary School wives, the more he loves her, the less he loves me, and both things are kind of misplaced here. The sixth thing is name and power that you want Jackie wants status and you want
power. And so you feel like this guy shouldn't be getting that power should be me. And the seventh thing is basically your narrow minded and believe everything good should come to you, especially in this particular industry. Why wasn't it me that got this interview? Why isn't me that got for example?
Who wasn't called to do this talk or whatever it may be. I'm just speaking about kind of what happens in our industry. Why it wasn't me that happens here. Or why wasn't for example, in this classroom setting? Why was the teacher didn't choose me? Or at a sports day event? Why didn't the team choose me, for example? So people have you another four, four kinds of reasons, power, wealth, etc. But the truth is, on these points, religious people shouldn't really have it. That was the medicine because obviously religious people, you know, they shouldn't you want money and power and wealth. At the end of the day, if you believe in an afterlife, these things are temporal and
transient. That's the first thing. The second thing is what is the medicine now, the first thing is to know and this is point one of the medicine he says that you've got to know that this is injurious to someone in this world and in the hereafter that it hurts you its own, there is no benefit, there's no utility that comes from being envious. This is the first point. The second thing is that it burns your heart and mind is kind of like a rash or some kind of itch that is or insatiable feeling or unquenchable thirst, it's, there is no end to it. So unless you realistically want there to be an end for it, and try your best to put an end to it, then there's not going to be an end to
it. And the third point is, you should be the knowledge that you're not actually harming the person being envied the fact if the person being envied has a mutual dislike towards you, you're actually doing something which is in their favor, because you're injuring yourself. And of course, when someone does this, it's a waste of energy, and you can't change the decree of God anyway. So it's like smashing your head against the mountain, you're not gonna change anything. The fourth thing is that not only does it benefit, the envied person, maybe there's dunya, through your worldly anxiety and so on, but will also benefit the Envy person in the hereafter if you've sought backbiting the
individual, and so on on the day of judgment. And so these are the kinds of medicines he also mentioned in terms of actions you should try, maybe a facilitate that good that that person is doing, doing an app. And because this is a theme that runs throughout as well, because if you feel a certain way, do the opposite. So do an action, opposite of the course praise the Envy person say good things about them, or even if you don't envy them, but you feel it may envy them, then praise them, and do good for them so that the Envy doesn't come into your heart. And these are the kinds of practical advices that he's put forward this animonda commandments live on.
One subject which I have been in my own public life, talking about Islam and things like that deficient in mentioning as much as I should, really is love.
And not least because the religion of Islam has a major emphasis of love, of course, Allah subhanaw taala is referred to as a widowed with a loving one. It's one of the names of God, Himself. And of course, it was Ali and his masterpiece here along with Dean he has a whole Book of Love, which has been translated. He's gonna talk about some of the things that he mentioned in that book, which I think is very pertinent this discussion.
First of all, what is love? I think this is the first question anyone should ask what is love itself.
And really, a linguistic definition, as mundane as it is, is simply inclination and may learn, okay, which is a help which is love is really an inclination to a thing.
Which is, for like exuberant Love is a higher level, even erotic love, or romantic love, or whatever you want to translate it as,
it's the kind of love you would or infatuation is the kind of love you would describe between romantic partners,
a husband and wife example.
Now,
to proceed with this, obviously, there are things you can love, it's possible to love humans and nonhumans. Now, what you're talking about here, from Muslim perspective, or a human perspective, you can love something which is non human, you can be inclined to it. So for example, the Hadith of the Prophet that two things have been made, beloved to me, or lovable to me. And he mentions a pull up as one of them, which is perfume,
which is something you smell it's Alpha Lee mentioned, it's not something which you see with your eye or is interesting is perceptible through the sense of smell. So you can even love something which you can't see or you can't hear, and which is not human.
But the question is, what do we love them? And what what what is the rationale behind it? Is it something that doesn't have rational? Does love have a rationale?
Yes, it does have rationale. And really, this is the main rationale is about survival. And now this sounds very much like something you would hear from an evolutionary psychologist or something like that, but
This is something that Al Hasan, he does mention, quite frankly, in fact, he's very explicit about it.
He says that, you know, we love all things, which fulfill the objective of
basically allowing our existence to continue. It's a kind of survival mechanism. Anything which has the objective of allowing me to exist or continue existing, is something I will love,
which is why people love their family and their friends, because family and friends, you know, they fulfill that objective of allowing you to continue existing. And the case of offspring obviously, it's a different kind of continuity, but it's still a continuity nonetheless.
And so there is a base survival instinct which is connected to love.
In other words, on another way, you can say that we love things
that can benefit us. And this font sounds very utilitarian, but nevertheless, it's true. We love those who can benefit us as well. And everything goes back in a sense to this kind of benefit.
But he doesn't numerate that there are different kinds. This is not the only kind of law I know sounds very selfish, narcissistic, if you like self love, because what is narcissism? egoism is not an amplified sense of self love. Everyone has that level of survival egoism in that this is Al Hasan, this notion that everyone has that it's not unnatural, it's not even something to be ashamed of.
However,
there are different kinds of love. So it says that you can either the cause of, as we've said, of love, and the numerous them can either be because this thing allows him to exist, continue existing. So obviously things that cause an individual pain, he won't love them pleasurable things are loved, because for the most part pleasurable things will bring us closer to a continued existence. The second cause is some kind of a benevolence, that some good thing, Sam, that another person bestows upon us when people are kind to you, and they bestow benevolence, you start loving them a little bit. Why? Because you, because we want our continued existence, basically. And the third causes
loving something for its own sake. Now this is a very interesting in many ways, he mentioned especially vis a vie with Allah subhanaw taala, which we'll come to now is the highest form of love, in essence, you love something because of what the actual use of that thing is.
Another reason why you might love something is because it's beautiful. It's beautiful, something you love it, you just look at it, even though it may not
benefit you directly, but you look at it and you love it, like flowers we give example is that it gives example flowers, you look at flowers, and you love it, because it's of the beauty that it has within it, you see. And the fifth thing is, he mentioned this kind of inner affinity that someone may have to someone else, because they've been through different maybe experiences that they're similar to them, or they've been through some trauma together. And you know, we've seen this kind of thing, nowadays, trauma, bonding, and these kind of things. But the point is, that these are the five main causes of love. Now with this
allows le makes the case for loving God.
And he says the following is very, very powerful, says Therefore if man's love for himself be necessary, then his love for Him through whom first his coming to be. And second, his continuance in essential being with all his inward and outward traits, his substance and his accidents occur, must also be necessary. What he's saying here is, if you love yourself,
and if you consider loving yourself to be necessary, then that which brought you about and is continuing to allow you to exist, you should love the ultimate source of that, which is ALLAH SubhanA.
There is nothing
and no one not a family member, not a friend,
that can be as benevolent to you, as Allah subhanaw taala has been in allowing you to exist and allowing you to continue to exist, whosoever He continues, is besotted by his fleshly appetites as to lack this love. neglects his Lord and Creator. He possesses no authentic knowledge of Him. His gaze is limited to his cravings, and to things of sense. This is the world of phenomenal reality, which she shares fully with the beasts, not the transcendent world, the ground
Out of which no one made Trent except Him, who was close in likeness to the angels. He gazes upon that realm, in proportion to His nearness to angelic quality, but falls far short of it, in the measurement of his plunge to the level of the Beast view world,
if you don't have this love for God,
despite this sad and it's benevolence that he has bestowed towards you, then the truth of the matter is that you're ignorant of the reality of God. And this is the point here, because it's not just that God is generous, he's not magnificent towards you.
In a way that human being may be
why he is purely magnificent, where this kind of beautiful benevolence
can be described as motiveless from a selfish perspective. In other words, it doesn't benefit God
to give you
he's not being strategically generous, he gives you he is benevolent to you. And so this is extremely important.
In addition to that, we must appreciate we've got to describe why do we consider things beautiful in the first place? What beautifies thing sauce was beautiful vision.
When we consider that God is perfect, from all perspectives, now we go to the other reason for why we we love things, which is that we love things because of their perfection because of their beauty.
If you consider the fact that Allah has perfect qualities, that he's got perfect knowledge, perfect wisdom, perfect power, that should shake something within us, move something within us to loving Allah subhanaw taala not just because of what he gives us, but because of who he is. And that's a higher level that is higher level love. And he mentioned these kinds of things. For example, His power is perfection, or the lack of power is imperfection, or perfection, splendor, grand Your glory and mastery are loved and their perception gives pleasure.
When we look at certain forms,
we can distinguish as human beings between what are the lovely forms, what are the beautiful forms from those which are the odd ones. Why, because of completeness or lack thereof.
Round cars, round watches round, the architectures will very precise metrical, because we love complete things. And God is the most complete of all. So it takes every reason why you should love anything, loving God, because he's perfect. He is the most beautiful,
he is the most beautiful from that perspective. He is the most beautiful,
and he has the perfect qualities which in himself, makes him most worthy of love, in addition to being most benevolent to yourself, now this is true belief. And this is the highest level of worship by the way when you when you worship God because you love him because of who he is not because you want some something in return. It's transactional with God, the highest level is because you love Allah subhanho wa taala. And he deserves that worship because of how he is when he says the second cause of a powerful love is extensive knowledge of God which over masters the heart. This comes after the heart has been purified from all worldly distractions and connections and is analogous to
sowing the sowing of seeds in an in the earth after it's been cleared of grace. Meaning, if you really want to have a pure love for God, then you have to remove the distractions of the world. The reason why we don't conceive of God in the ways I've just described, is because we're distracted from the world. We need to clear up like weeds take out the impurities and distractions from our lives before we can refill it with majestic and the powerful Allah subhanho wa taala.
And was connected to lovers of course, contentment, river, and he mentioned you know, Nixon has only mentioned in addition to love, River.
Contentment, you're content with with the love that you have, with the beloved with Allah subhanaw taala with the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam with the Muslims because they're all in the same direction.
And if love is taken away, we all know what that feels like.
It's very painful. If you feel like a child of yours is lost or your mother Your father has passed away. There's grief.
And so this is what I was referring to was groan longing, when you start longing for the beloved and how to long for Allah subhanho wa Taala
and he talks about his seclusion. There's you should want one of the things to manifest
Laughter is to want to be alone just to speak to Allah wa Nyjah dua, supplication. And these kinds of things. And this is very powerful indeed.
And this actually increases your pain threshold, funnily enough, and this is something that he speaks about.
In fact, you mentioned
shirtliff bofi Very beautiful quote, which I put on Twitter. In fact, he considers the reward for suffering has no desire to escape for from it, when you know you're doing something for our beloved for the one who is the most beloved, then is one of the ultimate motivation and that gives you power, the lack of which there is nothing to substitute that kind of power. And this will give you like, a kind of, if we if we internalize these notions, I think we will transform our lives in a way which is
nothing nothing material can can provide us. The whole religion really of Islam is based on intentions. The Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us in the Malama Lavinia to in the medical limit in Manila, that certainly all actions are based on intention. So what is intentions and intentions what Nia loosely translates into intentions, as Ali thinks that Iran will, which has huge differences as well cost and that they are synonyms as well for a for the word near, but what is it it's really like, having knowledge and then acting upon that knowledge? It's interesting that he starts off his book, he's what book of intentions here and then he starts off his book talking
about the purest type of intention, and something we can all relate to, like, a Hara is the the the instinctive intentions, for example, he gives the example of an individual is walking in the street or something and a wild animal, a dog tries to attack him, his will to want to run away from that dog or to avert the danger of that dog, for example, or a wild animal of some sorts, His will or his intention to not be in that particular place at that particular time, will be very pure, instinctive to the court. That is the purest kind of intention. But there are sometimes we have more than one intention by doing something like allows IT managers for example, an individual who will fast Yes,
he may foster supererogatory, faster, a supplementary Foster School it, but he might he may do so not just for the fact that he wants to get reward, but he might feel like you know, there's a good for my health, obviously. So if someone thinks that this will be good for my health, now they're mixing their attention. Is that a bad thing necessarily? Well, it's not the same as having a pure intention, or fully pure intention. And so if you divide it into different kinds of things, like for example, in the sinful acts, you can never have good intention for that demo, hardly met in Islam, the Haram things that are prohibited things, you can never have a good intention for that. As for
the mobile hat, or the halal things in Islam, you can have a good intention, and you can transform them into a kind of worship, but you must be sincere and so doing, like, for example, if I drank something, or ate something, because I know that okay, what are we? Well, I've got some praise I've got to do so let me me drink this so I can get stronger so I can do these things. Now the act of eating itself, school has ever, the act of eating and drinking itself will itself be an act of worship. But ironically, the third issue like category of when you have to have good intentions is most important, but it's where some of the biggest problems can be, which is worship itself, because
that's when ostentation can creep in with the idea of Riyadh the idea of doing something for show. And if for example, if someone prays, obviously praying is meant to be purely for Allah subhanho wa taala. Like if you're praying the five prayers or fasting all these things, it'd be built of Allah, if you're doing it so other people can see you. Now you've added this aspect of RIA and this is the thing that the Prophet Muhammad Salim says was the thing he fears the most of afflicting the Ummah is a React or he called the Usher as well. There's the minor shock is a minor shock but it's not so difficult to to absolve yourself in this. Someone show that Allah Himself counsels us no promises
that Omar will enter the Abdullah McCullough similar Hadith, that in sort of a tuna that would they have not just they have not been commanded except that they worship Allah alone. And the idea of having a sincere intention is something which is is central to the religion of Islam. And it's not so difficult. And some people may think this is so difficult. And a good litmus test for for its practicality would be if they if you're alone, and you pray, and you fast, and there's no one watching you, then this is most likely to be sincere action. Obviously, if you remove people from the equation, then there's no one there's no object or third party object that you can show off to
than that you're most likely therefore to be absolved of a rear. So yeah, ostentation is something which is the most of these really think carefully about and it as it really is like the the basis of the religion of Islam. Patients is really a cornerstone of Islamic practice. There are many verses in the Quran which kind of relate to this. For example, COVID with Allah Allah says, willingness Sabado offer
In that he can let me know as much or more that whoever is patient and forgiving. Certainly this is the pinnacle of action, the best kind of action, the strongest type of action. And obviously, as you guys know, I'm sure you've heard diversity in law, mass slavery in that Allah is with those of our patients. And they've been Mossad mentions that a suburb of Innisfil. Eman that the suburbs are patients loosely translated, is niffle. Al Eman which is basically half of all of faith. And there's a beautiful Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa salam, it says, or mainly at a sub bar, use of beautiful law, whoever seeks to be patient, Allah makes him more patient. So what is
this patient's or is the server that we refer to software is not just patients because patients is an ambiguous term and reality. In reality, it's a kind of resilience. That's what patient what is Saba is a kind of resilience. And its opposite is a Jezza. Okay, jazz that is in the Quran, in the Lisanna Philippi, the MSL shovel, just who are the human being has been created in state of anxiety that when evil touches him, he has Jisu Ah, he's in a panic state. So Java is not just anxiety, as many translated, but it's, it's a kind of panicked hopelessness, it's more intense than just normal anxiety. And it's certainly not the kind of anxiety that people refer to modern day psychological
literature. It's more of a panic, it's a hopeless state, and so on what patients is, as Elin mentioned, this in these categories, is fortitude against the impulse of say, desire, or you can have a desire to do things, or you can have a desire to quit things, you can want to quit things in life, and it will be subpar. Or patients resilience that will stop you from doing that. And there are two kinds of cyber, there's the physical type, and there's the can call it the psychological type, physical and psychological, the inner type, the mental type, and really, both have, you know, the difficulties, depending on what we're talking about. And as I mentioned, the interesting
hierarchy says that really Patience is a prerequisite. It's not, if there was a hierarchy of different things, patients wouldn't be at the top of it. In fact, he says love is at the top of it, patients would be at the bottom of it. And then after that, you have contentment, actually, which is the river. And then above that would be love. Because action done because of love is the is the epitome of human expression. terms of emotional standpoint. Of course, for us as Muslims, the surely I must be the judge of what is correct patients and what isn't correct for patients. And if you if you think of or conceptualize everything in life, or has that you mentioned is an interesting point,
he says that look, it's going to either be in line with your desires, or it's not going to be in line with your desires. And in the case of the latter, if it's not in line with your desires, that's when patience is required. That's where you'll find quite frankly, any successful person in the history of the world, as we know it, in the history of civilization has never been able to achieve what he or she has ever achieved. Without having patience as a prerequisite or having resilience as a prerequisite, about having to do things they don't want to do. Whether it's because they're bored, whether it's because they're going through pain, whether it is because they are angry, or they are
sick, or whether it's because whatever is fill in the blanks, there's never been a successful human being in history, except that they have felt the discomfort and accepted that pain and went forward with it. And that is the essence of a sober or resilience in patients. We have all kinds of, you know, patients, we have all kinds of things. And oh, Holly mentioned, for example, a sub against the ma c or the Haram things. And if you really think about what harm things we're interested in, it's usually things that are in line with our desires. And he gives he brings forth a lot of these parables very interesting parables which are good. And he's got a whole book actually, in the hair
along with Dean talking about the two desires, sexual desires, and the stomach, because someone he really is that has a very, like insatiable appetite for food. That individual is likely to put themselves in danger, they're likely not to get what they want from life. So he makes you imagine food as some kind of a dog that you must starve or at least discipline in not into not eating too much. Otherwise, that dog will become vicious. And he says that you've got to control your hunger and you've got to control your sexual appetite through fasting another means there has to be a checking mechanism where you're restricting yourself so that Raisa desires, but there's also a sub
of as it relates to for example, doing good
D is being continuous, being persistent in doing the prayers, for example, doing the five pillars of Islam, for example, all of these things. And there's also and this is a very high level of support as well as Subhan, Allah, and then you say, Messiah, for example, the things that happen in the afflictions, the sub afflictions happened during your life, that you're able to go through it, and you're not hopeless, and you're not blaming God. And he says that somebody is he compares it to kind of like training, physical physical training. For example, he mentioned freestyle wrestling, someone who's training for freestyle wrestling or for any kind of exercise. He says, You need to train
somebody, like a muscle SubhanAllah. If you're able to train someone like a muscle, life becomes easier because it's life can become easier. And two ways. If you think about it, life can either become easier if there are no tribulations, for life can become easier if you're able to deal with the heart and tribulation in a better way. Which reminds me of a quotation that Bruce Lee said, which is that I don't pray to God for an easy life. I pray to God for the ability to deal with a difficult one. Nowadays, even among people that are not religious, the idea of gratitude journaling, for example, has become somewhat of a fat. Why because there's been studies that have been done on
it, it has shown to improve physiological and psychological state, the increases your dopamine, it balances your mood, all these kinds of things. But of course, from an Islamic perspective, you know, this has been one of the main prescription spiritual prescriptions from day one, it's in the Quran, as sits actually off repeating the Quran. I'll just give you one or two verses to whet your appetite on the issue then you can go ahead and you know research this yourself. One I find very powerful and the Quran the vs will insure customer as he then Nicola and convert them into other biller Shadid that if you are thankful I will increase you and if you are ungrateful than my punishment is
painful. Allah subhanaw taala and this is something hustle and bustle dimensions clay you don't Yama luxrender constrain the near him of Allah the blessings of Allah with the shocker of Allah with the with the thankfulness of God, what are the key principles here is if you want more things in dunya, and akhira, in this world, and in the next, then thank God for what you already have. What's interesting is that when you start thanking God for what you already have, it amplifies in your mind what you thought you didn't have, which is a very powerful thing. Elvis only, for example, in another day, and he's got a whole chapter on this. He starts off by saying that Ashoka really is one
of the divine attributes, some names of Allah subhanaw taala, are congruent with some of the kinds of states that we can be in or attributes that we can be described with, however, obviously takes a completely different reality, but a shortcode or that Allah subhanaw taala is the thankful one is one of the names of Allah subhanho wa Taala what is a shocker tarrif and over definitional perspective, the word shock really means that they are ticked off OpenIndiana or admitting, confessing to the fact that you have been given a blessing and then praising Allah in this case, obviously, for it. And as I mentioned the hit on the deen there are three aspects of shocker. And
each of those three are divided. So let's go through them they're very important to know. The first one is knowledge. You see, you cannot be a thankful person unless you admit that you have certain things. And this is where artificial humility is actually not humility, but it's ironically the opposite of that. Some people will be praised with certain actions and told that they have certain things in life and they will deny that mashallah, if you've done really well, even for yourself now nice, not really anything, brother, you know, no, no, it's something and it's something that you should be thankful for. But you cannot be thankful for something you don't think you even have. So
you must confess to yourself, that you have these blessings. And we're going to talk about what kind of blessings we'll talk about. So number one, the knowledge of the blessing, everything starts with that you cannot be thankful it's a prerequisite for a shock of the cannot be thankful until you admit that you have gotten a blessing of some sorts, that it's there they exists. That's number one. Number two, the connection with the person or the servant, you must realize that okay, I possess this is changed my life in these ways. So that's another knowledge you need to kind of connect the abstract blessing that you've been given with the applicable reality in your own personal life. And
then the third thing is the nature of the Bestower. Nowadays, we hear a lot of people who are atheists say I'm grateful that is something people say, You're grateful to who who is the object of gratitude? What is the object of gratitude so
Some of them will even have the audacity to say, Mother Nature gave me such and such with the universe. So the universe that as if the universe now has an intellect, and has mind and has these features, sentient features, so if you don't really have an object of gratitude, your gratitude will never fulfill the objective really, it will always miss the mark or be off the mark. So these three things are always met. And obviously, ultimately, Allah subhanaw taala he is the one who provides all the good things, and in fact, all the things all existence. If any Thankfulness is to be done is to be done to Allah. But the prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam also told us when the
national Nestler Masha Allah, whoever does not thank the people does not thank Allah sometimes Allah uses as a cause, person, actual person, why a person sent these individuals, sometimes they bestow something upon you, which you also need to be thankful for. So your husband or your wife, we or your parents, your children, even, why not? Men lemme Ashura, Nestler, Michigan Allah, and it doesn't say manlam Yash, Quran, Muslim Mina, it doesn't say that those who don't think the Muslims, it can even be disbelievers, that have done something for you. Sometimes in the West Muslims, for example, we live in a we have this very ungrateful attitude to people, teachers of ours, doctors of ours, who
are non Muslims, and this puts people off us. And as a result of the religion of Islam as well, it's not actually in line with the Islamic ethic at all. So we said the first thing was knowledge. The second thing was the state, when you are now acknowledging the blessings of Allah, then your state will has any bench that should be a humble one. Why should you be humble and joyful? In fact, it's a natural thing for you to be joyful, happy, when you're thinking about all these things. That's when people put memories on their phone, take pictures, videos, and so on. So they can remember good moments. But why don't these moments thank God for them? Instead of going oh, that was nostalgia,
said of that just thinking, oh, you know, this was Hamdulillah that we've had, that God blessed me with these gifts. But you should be thankful for three reasons, or joyful. In fact, for three reasons, you know, as Ali mentioned, one is that was that because of the thing itself has value, whether it's monetary value, or sentimental value, or any other kind of value, the thing itself has value intrinsic value. In fact, the second thing is that, you know, Allah gave this to you. So knowing that Allah gave you a gift itself should make you joyful. And the third thing is because whatever has been given to you has utility has utility. And so the fact that you are able to benefit
from the thing is also something we should be thankful for. And as a result of all of this, the third thing is we said number one is knowledge number two is state and number three is action. And the action here is Amel. Calbee are the actions of the heart, which eventually makes us way to the organ of the tongue, where you saw seeing it handled and handled and handled a lot. And you're thinking about how great God is that He gave you such a blessing. And that even if he didn't give you such a blessing, he'd still be worthy of praise. Because you'll have this not just by the way, it's not just a shocker, it is authentic as well, which is praised for the intrinsic, essential
attributes of perfection that God has. So Hassan after speaking about all of that, he mentioned some of the blessings. And he said, Look, if you think about it, you've got two kinds of blessings. You've got general breath blessings and specific blessings. General blessings include things like air, like I When was the last time i Oh, you said you know, subhanAllah hamdulillah for the
for the oxygen I've been given a need to put some very interesting story is that you know, a king, at the time of I think it was the best it's maybe that he was said he was so thirsty. And someone said to him, Listen, I'll give you a cup of water so long as if you were told that if you give up your kingdom, I have this cup of water, what would it be in your last dying moments of thirst, he said, Of course, I will take a cup of water. So the wise man said to him, then therefore this cup of water is a bigger blessing than your entire kingdom. A bigger blessing. Every human being on the face of the earth has a heartbeat, otherwise he wouldn't live is that not a molten shocker is that
not a place where you can thank Allah subhanaw taala Can you will always find something to thank Allah subhanho wa Taala for whether it is oxygen or the heartbeat, the energy that is used to sustain the body of the human being whether it's done through food or glucose drip, however, there is a baseline we're all living things that are able to do so can thank Allah subhanaw taala for those things, that they have to give them a life and so they these are kind of general blessings. And by the way, you will find that children are most able because of their innocence to identify these blessings, the general ones as for us when we get older and stuff like that we have this
entitlement schema where we start to think well this person has that why don't we Why don't we Why don't we why this person has that why don't we so things which we consider to be basic necessities. We don't even see it as a reason to thank God. Yeah, I've got water of course I've got
After I've got food Yeah, of course. And that's why we need to go to places where the prophet Muhammad wa salam said and this is one of the medicines the main medicines for ingratitude on duro Illa men who are astronomical look at those people who are lower than you in the dunya and don't look at those who are above you and because I mentioned this in detail for as the intestinal now much like that is it is something which if you do you can deny the blessings of God you always go look at that we're looking at the age of Instagram people look at people's cars of Bugatti and this one or that one. We think I wish I had ELA Teddy with them, it will tear cotton. I wish I was given
that wish cotton was given. What do you mean? Are you not thankful for what you already have? You're probably especially if you're listening to this in the English language understand that you'll probably have more than 95% of the world's population what's wrong with us? That we can't thank Allah subhanaw taala for these things. The reason why in fact will has only mentioned this for two main reasons were heedless of alpha and Jackal, were ignorant and where he lists because of the age of distraction when titled and so we need to remind ourselves of the blessings of God when to add to Namath a lie that saw her and Allah says if if you count the amount of blessings that He gave, you
will not be able to enumerate the biochar Calimesa tomorrow, and he gave you from all that you asked for. It's another verse in the Quran. Subhanallah How ungrateful we have