Musleh Khan – Quranic Reflections #01 Verses to Shape your Spiritual Path
AI: Summary ©
The sharia course is designed to help students learn from the material and improve their understanding of sharia, rather than the academic side. The course focuses on the spiritual aspect of sharia, rather than the academic side, and the importance of practicing the belief in Islam for four years. Visits to finding solutions to problems are emphasized, and practicing the belief in sh matter is emphasized as crucial. People are urged to avoid distractions and focus on finding a solution.
AI: Summary ©
Welcome back students.
Those of us joining online, welcome back. We
are here for the last and final run
of the I guess you could say the
last and final run of the season, which
is, just before the summer break.
And, this is gonna be the last and
final
class or course that we will do here.
And, Insha'Allah,
what I have prepared for you is what
you see in front of you
verses that shape your life.
This particular subject comes from a lot of
thought and reflection and experience,
especially
with the communities,
not just this community, but the communities across
the city
and usually in my travels as well. Some
of the things that, I hear people talk
about, some of the struggles that people have
with the dean,
but more specifically
from an instructor
to his audience.
Some of the things that I see and
feel
that are still very weak
that the average Muslim still
struggles heavily with in their day to day
lives.
So there are obviously
more,
verse there are there are literally hundreds of
verses that can shape your life, but,
specifically, what I've done for this course is
I've looked at 6 different verses in 6
different places in the Quran.
And,
depend on how this goes, 6 could turn
into 12. I don't know.
But, I have a lot of other, an
additional material.
Even
I I I would like to, if it's
possible, depending on how the pace of this
program goes, is to add maybe 3 or
4 hadith
that shape your life as well,
that, I I really want to look at.
These verses that I've selected for you are
of a different topic every single class.
So just keep that in mind. If you
miss a class, you miss a comp an
entire subject by itself.
Okay? So every subject will have that. In
terms of a handout,
with with a subject like this,
I I don't
I don't see it's really necessary because it's
just averse,
and you will see a bunch of point
form notes on the screen, and you're welcome
to write those down.
I do it all the time in my
studies. Take a look. This is how I
study, guys. I just write.
So these are things that
when I go online
and if there's a PDF, maybe I'll print
it, but when I would listen to a
talk or study a subject,
I make notes just like any other student.
So this is what I do
every day, all the time. And some of
my notes look worse than, like, a 5
year old child
scribbling. Like,
you you you gotta see some of the
scribbles and, you know, it's kind of embarrassing,
but I'll show it to you. I'll expose
myself today. So
lots of scribbles that I I don't even
know
what some of the things are right here.
But this is more
dear to me than gold
and money. This is the most well this
is the wealthiest thing that I own are
these notes. Some of these notes, I've written
them more than 20 years ago. So a
lot of what I will share with you
are just bits and pieces of things that
I
see, experience, learn, and hear,
from the Muslim world at large
Okay.
So
we got lots to talk about students, lots
of introductory points, so I'm not really too
sure if we will get to the ayah,
but let's let's see how this goes. Okay?
So this is the intro.
I've talked to you about this. We're gonna
talk more about this today Insha'Allah.
So the intro. There are 2 requirements in
benefiting from the Quran.
And over the years, I've mentioned to you
that 2 of those requirements,
generally speaking, fall into these 2 categories.
You have the first, which is the academic,
the intellectual side of the Quran.
This is the part of the Quran,
and I will also add hadith as well.
Okay? So you can add that as well.
It's just that this course is focused on
Ayat, but the same principle, you can apply
it to all aspects of the sharia.
So when we say academic, this is what
we're talking about. The first point is that
this is the part that requires you to
sit in a classroom.
It requires you to have a teacher.
It requires you to literally stop what you're
doing and focus and study something.
This is become
today
one of the most
difficult things to do with students.
Now it's not like
if you if you ask people, they will
always say to you that Islam is important.
Islam is my life, and I need it.
And without it, you know, I live and
die for it.
But we have to when we wanna teach,
we have to sell it.
And I don't mean that in the literal
sense. Like, you have to really find creative
ways
to capture somebody's attention
so that they'll show and take interest in
the knowledge itself,
which is a really sad and unfortunate state
to be in.
If you just pause and think about
that, if you're just scrolling online and you
see a course that somebody's teaching, let's say,
on
Tajweed,
k,
and you find that your recitation is really
weak,
that is a real problem that if you
see the instructor,
everything fits, all the, you know, boxes are
checked, the timings are flexible, the there's no
price, it's absolutely free, and and and and
and still you're like, but this instructor is
still he's kinda weird, or I don't know
who she is, so forget it.
That's from shaitan.
That is one of the traps of shaitan,
our prophet
told us. Like, deter you from the path
and deter you from Surat al Mustaqim
also implies that
anything that can bring you there,
it becomes like it starts to lose its
taste, its attraction, its flavor, and shaytan
loves xena.
Everybody knows what xena is. Right? Things that
are really
extravagant.
Right? Simplicity
is is one of the things that you
can ward off shaytan with. Shaytan loves extravagance,
loves for you to look for more than
what is needed, to want more than what
is needed. So if you're sitting there and
you're like, you know, I need to work
on my tajweed, but I've gotta really find
every flavor and every sweetness has to fit
the puzzle and everything has to be perfect,
you're losing this first part.
This academic side of it, there are
not just books, there are volumes of material
that have written on this subject.
So I just wrote what is that? Five
words for you there
of what volumes
upon volumes of material that Olehme have been
writing on the academic side. Now one last
point I'll mention about this.
With respect to the academic side, we all
know people that are real intellectual. Right? You'll
find some of those Muslims that talk to
you and say to you like, oh, yeah.
You don't.
Allah
says that he has a foot. But what
exactly is that foot?
You know, philosoph philosophers over the year, and
they start getting into all of, like, these
deep theories and deep poetry, and this particular
author wrote a book in, you know, 600
AC and blah blah blah.
And you're like really brilliant men and women,
you only really brilliant Muslims.
There's just one problem.
Half the time you talk to intellectuals like
this,
they're missing the second part.
That's the second part. The psychological and spiritual
discipline of the deen.
This second category
is the category of Muslims that are engrossed
in
just,
I just wanna recite and recite and recite.
I wanna pray tahajjud all night. I wanna
just do khatam of the Quran off as
much and as often as possible.
I wanna be able to just,
listen to the Quran. I don't wanna listen
to nothing else. I don't wanna listen to
lectures, talk. So, spiritually,
they engrossed themselves in the discipline of the
deen.
But intellectually,
they couldn't tell you anything about who Allah
is, how the Quran is structured, the syntax
of any ayat. They've never studied a tafsir.
They don't know the history. They don't know
the sira. They don't know any.
So they don't know any reason why some
verses are revealed. Why? What was happening? They
don't know none of that.
So they engross themselves in the spiritual aspect
of the deen
and exclude the academic or intellectual side of
it.
Islam, remember the students. Islam,
not once, it requires
both
sides for you to truly capture and grasp
what this core n wants.
What this core n is is is doing
for you and me.
This is the biggest it's almost like the
whole,
Sunni and shared, you know, separation. Like, you
have one side that's just engrossed in one
section and the other engrossed in the other,
and it's rare to find that somebody's balanced
on both sides.
Now the next point,
what is the benefit of approaching the Quran
with this particular way?
K. That you're
engrossed in studying the
academic side, but also your the spiritual side.
Everybody knows the blessings of Tahajjud.
Everybody knows the importance of memorizing
Quran. Prophet
says, you will be
honored based on the amount of Quran you
have memorized. So for every Ayur and every
Surah, you'll be elevated on the day of
judgment.
You know, some students when they hear that,
do you know what they say to me?
I don't need that brother Mosley.
Like, I just as long as Allah is
happy with me and I get Jannah, even
if I don't get Jannah Tull Firdaus, like,
just put me in the basement in Jenna.
So I don't even need a a a
mansion.
Like, I can just have a 1 bedroom
basement in Jenna, and I'm good.
And does anybody know? Can anybody tell me
when Allah honors you on the day of
judgment? When Allah honors you, what does that
mean?
When you get several
stages of blessing and honor, what does that
mean?
Should we strive to have that? Or should
we just, like, settle for the standard and
for the basic?
Should we just settle for that because that's
good enough? And I gave a hotba a
while ago, I think a couple of weeks
ago.
And, I mentioned the hadith of our prophet
alaihis salatu wasalam. This was just after Ramadan,
actually.
And the 1st Friday after Ramadan. So, you
know, Ramadan is still fresh in everyone's mind.
Right? So the default subject always after Ramadan
you always talk about is
how do you keep the spirit of Ramadan
going. Right? And you start to give, like,
tips of what you should do and things
like that to keep that going. I personally
believe it's not possible.
It's not possible to keep the spirit of
Ramadan.
What's like Ramadan throughout the year? Tell me.
Nothing.
So if you're talking about keeping what you
did in Ramadan on the rest of the
year, you you can't do it.
There's no shayateen.
The doors of Jannah are wide open. Doors
of Jannah are closed. Your deeds are multiplied
70 plus.
And, you know, you're in the state of
fasting, so your mind is clear. That brain
fog and all of all that stuff is
gone.
I'm like a superhero in Ramadan. Like, my
the way my body is with fasting is
just
unbelievable.
But I also blame, like, that's just the
atmosphere and the barakah of this month. Right?
When are you gonna get that in the
rest of the year? You can't.
All you can do
is take whatever
you can that you did in Ramadan,
that you didn't do pre Ramadan,
and try to continue it post Ramadan as
best as possible.
That's all you can do.
And that the hadith
hadith tells us that that is
a great, great start, that you can add
an additional layer to your iman that you
didn't have. That's how one of the signs
that your Ramadan was accepted. If you're doing
something right now, you started this Ramadan that
you had never really done or you're struggling
with, but you're doing it now on a
consistent basis, It's the first most important sign
your Ramadan is accepted Insha'Allah.
For a lot of Muslims, it's the opposite.
Some Muslims even got, like, worse. Things just
got worse for them for various reasons. That's
a whole different story. The hadith that I
wanna share with you is that,
the prophet, alayhis salatu sallam, I was so
I was saying this to the jama. I
was like, there's a very famous hadith of
Thabit ibn al Qaysr, the Allahuans, an authentic
hadith narrated in the Sunun of Ibn Majah.
Right?
And
comes to the prophet
says, you Rasoolullah.
There were 2 men
that came from a city north of Medina
and Mecca. K. So up north towards Tabuk
and so on.
The city is called the Belyin.
Okay? Bely, b a l I.
So these two men, they were friends, and
they came. Have I told you this hadith
before? No. Right?
So these 2 men, they came to Medina,
and they accepted Islam.
One of them Now just look how you
can relate to this, because we all have
a scenario like this.
1 of the men
was a really practicing Muslim.
The other,
average.
So one was striving harder than the other.
We probably have siblings that are like that.
Like, you might be striving more than one
of those siblings and or a family member,
cousin, friend, whatever. Right?
Both of these men died.
One of them, the one who was striving
and practicing harder,
he participated in a battle, and he died.
He was martyred, which is one of the
greatest honor in the sight of Allah. Right?
The man who wasn't so practicing lived 1
year more,
another an extra year, and then he died.
Fabbit ibn al Qaysr radiAllahu anha saw these
2 men in a dream. Listen to his
dream.
He says, You Rasoolullah,
I saw
that the one
who wasn't so practicing
walked into Jannah first,
and the one that was really practicing
much much much later,
he came in afterwards and entered Jannah.
You Rasoolullah,
how did this happen?
So when Nifra is hearing this, it was
Thabit and a group of companions that are
talking. As they were talking about this, word
got around, prophet heard about it. So prophet
says,
like, what is it about that that surprises
you?
You know? Like, what what is it about
that scenario that shocks you? Then he says
this,
didn't the person who lived 1 year extra,
prayed
more,
did Sujood more,
and got another Ramadan.
So
everybody listened and said, yeah. That's enough of
a reason for him to proceed the other.
And the point of this narration is
this man
got one extra Ramadan
than the one who was martyred. That was
enough to get into Jannah earlier.
It's amazing.
You can't trivialize
that when you experience another Ramadan in your
life. You can't trivialize that because that one
extra Ramadan could be the difference between you
entering Jannah with the prophet together or you're
way
back somewhere, you know,
way back with a group. Now here's the
problem.
So after I did that,
obviously, there's always that group of Muslims that
kinda, yeah,
who cares what group I'm in? Who cares
if I got first, second, or 3rd in
I'm walking in Jenda.
What's what's the incentive for me
to strive
to
be
in, you know, 1st or second walking in
behind the What's
the incentive?
Because this narration proves
that even if I'm just a average basic
Muslim, I'm going to Jannah.
What's your response to that?
What do you guys think
is the response to that?
So, definitely, what we've been talking about, right,
is that the believer the attitude is completely
wrong because
you your your goal is to always strive
and and seek the best. So the whole
attitude itself is a huge problem.
And settling for the basic,
what you're saying to Allah is that
you don't care to or desire
to be at the higher level with the
angels, the Maharul Quran. You know, the hadith
the other hadith tells us, so a lot
of us we know, that the one who
struggles reciting the Quran gets
double their reward.
The one who recites the Quran fluently is
at the level of the Mahir ul Quran,
like the noble emissaries, like the angels.
So some people will be like, well, if
I struggle
reading and I just stay that way, I'm
always getting double real. I don't need to
be with the angels.
I mean, I can say salaam alaikum when
I see them, but I don't need to
be at their level. What's your response to
Same thing as the attitude. Right? It's like
you're intentionally
making it like a conscious thing where you're
like, let me stay struggling. I don't wanna
do any better.
I don't wanna, like Okay.
So the response would be,
but I still get Jenna.
I still get Jenna.
K. Fine.
You can you can live in a mansion.
I'm perfectly
happy with my 2 bedroom apartment in Jena.
What's your response to that?
You see, look. There's a deeper there's a
deeper,
attitude and psyche that you have to be
aware of. Okay?
This works in 2 ways. The first is
in the dunya.
If you
have the attitude
that I will always settle for the bare
minimum, you know what you're gonna end up
doing your whole life?
You will grow and mature every year, but
your iman won't.
You see the problem?
I'll prove this to you.
All of us know Muslims
that are the exact
their attitude on life,
their knowledge,
their discipline, their
is exactly
the same it was
2030
years ago. Tell me you don't know somebody
like that. We all know someone like that.
Is it
the scenario? Just think about somebody that you
know.
You've known them almost your entire life,
and they're the exact
same. They act the same. They behave the
same. They have the same attitude, the same
anger issues, the same patience problem. They're not
generous
or or and the list just goes on.
And but,
they're there for every Jummah.
They're there for every tarawee.
So they're doing the work, but they've built
nothing in here. They've built nothing.
That's the first problem with the attitude.
You know, psychology
has a whole section just focused on
shifting and creating an attitude of optimism and
strength and seeking
to elevate and become better.
Like, you go to school,
take courses to develop this mindset.
Allah just tells us in 1 ayat or
a few ayat or one hadith
to shift our mindset to always.
So when you develop this mindset that you
always want the best from Allah, then you
end up striving for the best in this
world as well.
It's amazing.
Amazing.
You know, there are experts like the Tony
Robbins of the world. This is all they
they had charged 510,000
US to sit for 5 days with them
just to get you to think this way.
We get it all for free.
So it's not the idea of just don't
just think about the Ramadan, and don't just
think about the extra this and extra. It's
about your focus and attitude in life.
And if you do that, then your iman
will constantly reflect it. Every year, that beard
gets more beautiful and it gets longer.
Your, you know, your your dress and your
attire starts to come and reflect more of
what Islam wants from you. You know? Start
to dress differently, talk differently, act differently, and
all of these things. And this reminds me
of a a student that that was with
me in Medina University,
and he had a he had he was
a revert from the, from the United States.
We were sitting one day having dinner, and
I just asked him, like, what's your story,
man? Gave us a story. You know, he
picked up the Quran, and he was really
angry when he was reading, and he threw
it across the room. He had a problem
with anger. Okay? This is before he became
Muslim. He threw it across the room. He
tried to burn it and so on, and
then he's like, no. I can't do that.
Gave it a chance. This is a student
in Medina University. Okay?
Gave it a chance. He sat. He really
took his time, asked all the questions, got
it answered, and and and everything fit right,
and he became Muslim. Now this is a
man that studied, a son that studied,
that had a huge problem with anger.
One day, he was sitting
and,
something happened, and his mom is across the
table.
He's sitting, something happened, and the mom immediately
prepares for her son to react
because she knows he has an anger problem.
She's like, uh-oh. Here we go. It's gonna
explode now. Like, he's gonna do something. He's
gonna say something. He's gonna throw something across
the room.
And he sat, and he said, this is
what I did in front of my mom.
He put his head down and just said
He said that a few times,
calmed himself down,
continued eating,
nothing.
The mother was like, you know, this is
the first time in your whole, like, adult
life I have ever seen you that you
were provoked
and you didn't react.
This religion must be the truth. 3 days
later, guess who became Muslim?
Her mom. His mom.
All because she witnessed
that he added this additional layer,
something new.
It has the attitude to keep striving.
See what happened? So it wasn't now just
about him anymore.
Now Allah used that attitude of striving, and
it ended up being
a source of guidance for people around
him. Don't trivialize,
guys.
Working hard, and when you read those hadith
and ayat about all of these gifts and
pleasures and so on, it's an honor and
a shutoff, a huge status in the sight
of Allah.
So in conclusion with these first two points
is,
the academic and the spiritual side, you must
have both, and not one is more than
the other. These are both that you and
I need
in order to really capture and benefit from
the guidance of the Quran. Why are we
learning this Quran? This is the number one
reason for Hidayah.
Allah guides us to make the right choice.
This is a very simplified so there are
more than a half a dozen definitions of
Hidayah. K. Guidance.
This is the one that I wanna focus
on for this program. K? And that is
you know, so you'll probably
see or hear definitions like guidance of Allah
is a love for Allah and his and
the sunnah.
Like, you love it. So when you love
something, you wanna know more about it and
you keep it close to you, so you
immediately develop guidance.
And some of the ulama also say that
guidance specifically is
when Allah
shifts your mindset to think and understand
and make a wise decision in something. A
responsible
decision in something.
You're not careless. You don't just jump the
gun. Even if you're upset or sad or
emotional or whatever, you wait for that moment
to sort of pass and calm yourself down,
then you say to yourself, okay. Now let
me figure this out. And it could be
for the littlest things,
the simplest and littlest things.
I gotta tell you, man. This is one
thing.
I do it all the time,
and it's it's amazing. Like, when you just
hold yourself back from jumping the gun and
saying something and just say, you know what?
I'll get back to you. You know what?
I'll email you. Let me think this through.
These kinds of things that you do to
sort of keep yourself
under control
and just to think things through, that's part
of Hidayah. That's a enormous part of the
of Hidayah.
It's one of the reasons why the Urulemen
say that the prophet got the Quran in
23 years and not shorter or earlier than
that. Is that every single time he got
a portion of the Quran,
it was a time for him to pause
and to really think, internalize,
teach, understand, reflect, recite, memorize, all of that
stuff, then he got a little more, then
he got a little more. Umar
memorized Surat Al Baqarah. Does anybody know how
long it took him to do that? 10.
Yeah. Almost 10 years.
One narration says 9, another narration says 11.
Okay?
One Surah.
Why?
Anybody who's memorized Surat Al Baqarah,
you know it's just like Fatiha. It's one
of the easiest Suras in the whole Quran.
It's long, but think about writing,
I don't know, 20 times. That's pretty much
what Surah Al Bhatta is.
Why did it take him so long? Because
I guess he lied to him to prevent
that he's been rising. Every,
he stopped. It's like, okay. We need to
take some time and think.
Figure this out and understand and internalize.
That's why you can't compare companions to anybody
in the world today. There is nobody on
the planet like a companion.
No matter how they self proclaimed they are,
I'm the next Abu Bakr. You know? I'm
the next.
No. You're not.
Nothing like them.
So we are learning this Quran
because
we want Allah
to guide us to always make the right
choice.
Let's talk about this real quickly. Do you
want guidance?
Yes.
So the first thing that we're gonna focus
on is to change the way you make
choices.
How?
There's a couple of things. Number 1,
so when I say to you change the
way
you make choices,
Number 1,
convince yourself what shaitan tells you.
What are some of the things that shaitan
does to us or whispers to us when
it's time to make a decision on anything?
Doesn't matter what it is. So, let me
just throw, like, a random example. Right?
Is it okay. I I'm sure that some
of you are not married. Okay. So let's
throw the marriage thing. Let's say you're looking
to get married,
and you have the,
the list of those potentials.
You've got them a nice folder on your
phone, and you've got the list of all
of these profiles. Right? So you're trying to
narrow it down. You narrow it down to,
like, a couple of brothers or sisters. Right?
And now it's time to really, like, decide.
So you go down and you look for
all the things that you hope for and
you wish for in a good husband or
a good wife. Right?
What does how does shaitan make that whole
process difficult?
Where does shaitan fit in all of this?
That journey of just trying to select and
figure out that right person.
What does shaitan do in a situation like
this?
You get distracted.
Keep going. Distracted about what? So for example,
if you're a fool of my kid, I
want her choice.
Okay. So you want a good practicing brother
or sister. Uh-huh. And what does Shaitan do
in a situation like that? That person may
not talk
So let's just say
Let's just say okay. So let's just say
you find a good practicing brother or sister.
K?
And, also,
they got a sense of humor.
They're funny. They're chilled. They're, like, they check
off all the boxes, but there's one box
that's a problem.
They're
not from the same culture
or color
or background.
So what where what does Shaitan do in
a situation like that?
Right? Like, they're just like, oh,
you're everything, but
you're from that part of the world.
You're from that part of the world.
How does shaitan
play and toy with the mind of that
individual as they make their choice?
So one of the traps of shaitan,
when I say to you pay attention to
what shaytan does and tells you,
shaytan
takes
a fly
and turn it into a beast.
Shaitan
takes a bedroom
and turn it into a building, a mansion.
So shaitan takes trivial things
and turn it and make it into a
big problem.
One of the
number one biggest traps of shaitan
is to make a mountain out of a
mole.
We all have an ex we all have
experiences with that. You find yourself, you do
that, and then you're just like,
god. I made a big deal for nothing.
Just for that? Got into all that argument.
I got angry. I did this. I said
that. And, look, it was just it turned
out to be nothing.
So pausing and thinking rational, that's from Hidaya.
That's from guidance.
But rushing that's why Allah says so you
get this, you know, from where?
Allah says,
I created
people
with this sense of hastiness and just always
being in a rush and wanting things done
quickly. Like, think about when you order something
on Amazon and it takes, like, 2 weeks,
and they promise that it'll be there in
3 days. How many stars do they get?
Exactly. Right?
It's the quicker, the faster. I want it
now. Okay. That's gonna decide that I either
enjoy this service or I don't. So it's
kinda like the same approach of what the
this is one of the things that does.
And unless I say I'm gonna show you
my.
So don't be in such a rush. Yeah.
In this way, like, the way she described
you or, like, your your cultural
or, like,
preferences, you know, these can also, like, be
part of, like, your your, like, culture or,
like, the people around you. Like, I guess,
like, people can be, like
like, a tool for shape on as well.
Right? And also, like, what you said about,
like like, being hasty and not having patience.
It's also, like, how
society is structured nowadays and, like, how, like,
we consume things with such, like, a short
attention span. So what do you how do
you battle that?
Well,
guys,
there are 2 types of Shaytan.
What are they?
Exactly.
There
are amongst people,
meaning
so there are about this.
Alassus that in the Jahannam,
we have placed
many folds upon folds of shayateen
from
their world, min al jinn from the jinn,
as well as from the ins, from amongst
people.
The number one enemy to prophets
is also the human
type of meaning,
the people who,
acquire and and and follow the teachings and
the behavior and the attitude and make the
choices and
actions of shayateen. They do what shayateen are
known to do. So they develop animosity, and
they keep it. They have hatred, and they,
exaggerate it and amplify it and increase it
and becomes worse and worse.
Like,
one very common example is,
we always talk about racism around the world.
We all like, we rarely,
like, recognize
the amount of racism
internally within the ummah.
Like, it's insane.
It is literally literally unbelievable
of the amount of racism within the ummah
itself, amongst Muslims themself.
Now if you recognize or see that you
have this attitude of judging people based on
their color or culture,
do you know what to do, don't you?
We know what to do.
You don't you don't just sit there and
be like, oh, you know, I was just
growing up this way. You know? Back home.
You know, this is the way we used
to treat these kinds of people, so it's
just ingrained it in me. No. You're not
a man now.
You know better. So you're supposed to, like,
erase that. Get rid of it. Stop talking
and belittling
and becoming more superior above others just because
of their race or color. You don't have
no right to do that because you know
what Allah says?
Allah challenges mankind and said, you had nothing
to do with their creation.
So Allah didn't create you before you became
a racist and said, look. I'm gonna create
a white and a black and a brown.
Are you okay with that? Do you wanna
add a little bit of shade of color
on this first? Yeah. No input.
So that's why being a racist is one
of the most shameful qualities
of a human being.
It's the it's literally one of the worst
and most shameful qualities is to be a
racist because
you're hating somebody for something that they had
no choice in and neither did you.
So you don't get to decide your that
you're superior just because of whatever, a belief
or a way an upbringing and so on.
So the point here is this. You convince
yourself
that
all of the qualities
and choices and attitudes
that lead to the displeasure of Allah.
So all of the things that we've talked
about or whether it's racism, anger,
things that will lead you off of Allah's
guidance,
always remember there is shaitan
there each and every time.
So to coming back to your question that,
you know, that this attitude also comes from
amongst people as well. Absolutely. I wouldn't I
would never disagree with that simply because Allah
says that there are shayateen amongst the people,
meaning there are people who live
exactly like shaytan in the human form. Right?
So it's just one of those things you
have to battle with. When you recognize this,
you just have to be able to battle
through that Inshallah. Right?
What are what tell me one more thing
that we should convince our ourselves about what
Shaytan does when we're trying to seek guidance.
What is another thing that Shaytan loves to
do? He wants us to go extreme. Yeah.
Extreme.
Yeah. Good.
Is that okay? Like, if I wanna be
extremely practicing?
What what what is your
what is your understanding of somebody being extremely
practicing?
Zuhud.
Okay. So Zuhud.
Okay.
Zuhud, for those of you
is usually looked at somebody who it's usually
translated as somebody who is not interested in
worldly affairs and worldly life.
That's not exactly what Zuhid is.
Zuhid is
it's it's deeply rooted in the heart of
somebody that can still enjoy the dunya and
all of its pleasures and all of its
luxuries,
but they never
get attached.
Like, they never say to themselves, man, I
spent so much time building this and, you
know, preparing it and perfecting it. I don't
want nothing to happen to it. No. No.
They don't do that. Once they're done, they
still say, you know, whatever Allah does.
If it's destroyed tomorrow,
I spent 30 years building it, but if
it's gone in 30 seconds,
it's from Allah anyways.
That's Zuhd.
That's not easy.
That's not easy.
Do you find
that extreme to everyone might be different? Because
for me, living in this society, I think
that it's hard to say extreme because everyone
extremes are different. Okay. Very good. So everybody
experiences and and has a different level and
understanding of what being extreme is.
So for some Muslims, being extreme is that
sisters only choose to wear black or dark
colors.
That's
really extreme. For another, it's like, no. That's
the sunnah, actually.
That's how we're supposed to be. Another will
be like, oh,
the extreme is your beard never touch it.
And then another would be like, no. What
if you just groom it or trim it
out? Like, that's not a big deal. That's
really extreme if you're just gonna be like,
oh, I can never touch it. What if
your beard goes into, like, your eyebrows? So,
like, you know, some or just your beard
is like this. It's gonna look untidy and
and and and and. I kid you not.
I even met 1 Muslim a long time.
I never forget him, man, because,
yeah, the meeting didn't go so well. But
he'll be like,
I don't believe that the long big beard
is from the Sunda because when you're eating
and rice and stuff gets in, that's not
from the dirty.
That that can't be from the, like,
so ignorant. So what if food falls into
your beard? You know what you do when
that happens? You clean it.
That's it.
And go on.
Does it your hijab gets dirty? What do
you do? Is that, I'm done with being
hijabi? No.
Silly. Anyhow,
so
I think we should talk about it very
briefly about extreme
being extreme in the Deen. How does it
define? Does anybody have any idea how this
is defined?
Listen.
The ulama have several ways that they look
at this subject. I'll tell you one very
simple hadith that you all know.
Prophet
says stick with the majority.
One of the first signs you know you're
drifting off to an extreme, whether it's extremely
too much or too little,
is when you start to disassociate
or
disconnect from the majority, the jama'ah amongst you.
You start to go to only 1 Masjid.
You're allergic to all the other masjid because
this one masjid
checks off all the boxes of your perception
of Islam.
So one simple example is, oh, I'm gonna
go to that Masjid because they have a
separate entrance for the ladies.
You ever hear that? Yes. Uh-huh. Yeah.
So I'm not arguing that that's a problem.
I'm saying to you, if that's your image
of what Islam should look like, that's extreme.
Because then what does that mean for the
100 or 200 other masjids that don't have
that accommodation?
Are you trying to say that they're all
off and they're not following the sunnah or
they're lazy and they're liberal? You can't make
that claim either
because we're all striving for the same thing.
Okay?
So that's the problem is that if you
single out yourself
from the majority or the and when I
say
just again for wherever this video may go
and whoever might hear it and
go crazy with it. When I say jama'a,
we're only talking about the jama'a of people
who follow the Quran and Sunnah.
So if you're living in a country or
a place or a village where the jama'ah,
the majority of Muslims
are of a different
sort of tariqa or path that they follow
that is not necessarily
coming from the Quran and sunnah,
this hadith is is not referring that. Jamara
here in the hadith is not defined
because of this issue. So when the prophet
says, I want you to stick with the
majority, he's clearly, of course, talking about the
majority of those who follow the authentic teachings
of the Quran and Sunnah as best as
possible. Okay?
So
that's one way to get yourself out of
an extreme.
So going back to now what you said.
Alright?
This is the next problem.
You and I do not get to label
what is extreme and what isn't. We don't
get to do that. The only the scholars
can do that.
The average layman Muslim should never do that.
What you can say is,
woah. That's
that's different. I've never seen oh, you it's
only you that's doing that. Like, one time
one time, a brother came into the Masjid
here couple years ago before COVID. I think
I told this story once, but before COVID,
and,
it was like
it was one of those, whatchamacallit?
It was one of those,
evenings where it was minus 40. All those
deep freeze nights that we get, minus 40
something. So it was terrible.
He walks into the mist city. He stops,
and he's like this.
So myself and a few of the other
brothers, we were just there in the lobby,
and he's like, oh my god. Oh my
god. It's freezing. And I'm like and I
look at what he's wearing. I'm like, bro,
look what you're wearing. He had a robe
on,
and he had ankle socks.
So he had, like, his entire leg exposed,
and he has this robe on. I'm like,
bro, have you heard of long johns or
something? Like, what are you doing, man?
We dressed properly. So you know what he
said? He's like,
It's the managers holding onto the.
So I said, man,
that's not no, man.
You know? Because I I can't see the
prophet
at minus 40 coming in dressed that way.
Right? And so
so that's one of the hikmah and wisdom
why
there is no Islamic uniform per se. There's
a specific way that you dress in nadeen.
There are guidelines to follow, but there's not
a specific attire you wear. Right?
So that's
another way is that you can recognize
when you fall into extreme,
if you start to label and judge others.
But
because, again, we don't have the right to
do that. So if you say, oh, if
my perception of that person is that they're
extreme, you don't have the right to do
that. That is only for the scholars to
do. They decide, and they set,
guidelines that we follow with respect to them.
What is the difference between us and Shaytan?
Besides that, you know, he's created from fire
and we're created from clay. What is the
difference between us and Shaitan? We have the
ability to decide
before he jumps.
Shaitan doesn't?
He does. He has no hope. We have
hope in He's never given the opportunity of
hope with Allah? Well, let me ask you.
Let me let me tell you why I
put this question.
Shaitan was created.
We are created.
Shaitan was honored. He was you you know,
Iblis was in Jannah for 1000 of years
prior.
Amongst the angels, he's living and so on.
Right?
And he knows who Allah is. He even
calls Allah, so so he understands Allah is
in control. That's an honor to to be
able to recognize and verbalize and say and
believe that. Right?
Because we know few people in this day
and age that don't believe in Allah, let
alone believe that he's the one that's in
control.
Shaytan
is also given
the choice,
make such that to these angels
or not. Right?
So he's given choice.
So we, as humans, we're honored. We're given
Islam. We know who Allah is. We're given
choices. What's the difference between us and him
and Shaiyateen?
You're you're on the you're in the right
place.
What do you call that? So listen to
this. Okay?
Here's the thing.
Did not so go back to the story
of Iblis.
He felt that when
he disobeyed Allah,
he did not
see the need to humble himself and ask
for forgiveness.
That's the separator.
Adam
and all of us, when we do something
wrong,
especially towards Allah, but even with each other,
What do, you know, the good practicing Muslim
that's trying to do the right thing, what
do they do immediately?
They humble themselves, and they're like, you know
what, man?
That was wrong.
And then you turn to Allah, oh, Allah,
forgive me.
That was the separator. Shaytan never even asked
for forgiveness. You know what he did instead?
He said to Allah, give me the power
to misguide them even more until the day
of judgment.
Like, and until the day that they're resurrected.
And even till the time that is understood,
meaning until the day of judgment. That's what
he asks Allah. So he asks for more
power to do what he did. So Allah
gives it to us. Okay. Fine.
Accept the people amongst us that, the slaves
that are sincere, you're not gonna touch them.
You'll never own them. You'll never control them.
So iman and sincerity
protects us from being trapped with the shaitan
to the point where
we're literally trapped. We can't figure it out.
We can't see. We can't understand when we're
wrong. We all know people like that. You
know you know, sometimes when you talk to
them and you and you try to tell
them, listen, man.
You can't be a racist. Like, you can't
hate people just because of the way they
look.
You can't be okay when children are being
slaughtered and killed for nothing. Like, you can't
support that. It's wrong. And they'll look at
you and be like,
whatever. It's our land.
You know? It's our land. It's our Mhmm.
That's the sacrifice we gotta do. We gotta
slaughter out third thousands of children. That's that's
that's where, you know,
they have reached to such a place and
such alone. That's what Iblis asked for from
Allah, because I wanna get them to that
point where they have complete
and complete confusion, and they're lost completely in
just seeing and making sense of things that
are logical and things that are part of
our fitra of how we were created, just
lose it all. Yeah.
What is the, like, line between,
the the place that Shaytan, like, brings you
to the threshold of evil?
And
does the rest kinda just manifest itself in
human nature?
So
there isn't a clear line of how far
shaytan can take you,
but
the ayat on the subject is that
shaytan can take you
as far as possible until it reaches the
point the point to compel you, to force
you. Right? That's why the
says don't blame me. Blame yourself. What does
he continue to say? Yeah. A lot of
people when they read this ad, they stop
there. No. No. No. Continue reading. Listen to
what he says when he's giving his chuppah
to the people of Jahannam.
Don't blame me. Blame yourself.
You know, I didn't, like, force and compel
you. You weren't forced and compelled either.
I only brought you to a place where
it looked nice. It looked attractive. It was
tempting. It was right there in front of
you. All you had to do is just
grab it. You could touch it, taste it,
feel it, whatever.
That's the threshold. That's the standard.
Shaitan has the ability to take you right
up to the sin,
but to now crossover and commit it,
that's your choice, all on us. That's our
life right now. Right?
We don't have to be here.
We don't have to pray.
We don't have to practice religion. We don't
have to do none of this.
Let's like, be honest. Like,
technically, we could just wake up tomorrow and
give all of this away and just be
done with it. Right?
We have that choice,
but we make the choice not to. But
Shaitan makes that choice pretty tempting.
You don't have to worry about me. We'll
do at 5 AM when it's freezing cold.
You don't have to break your sleep anymore.
You don't have to read the ingredients at
groceries anymore.
You don't have to worry about that halal
barbecue event. You can go to anyone now.
Yeah. You don't have to worry about it
anymore.
You don't have to worry about the second
lookish from shaytan and the third look. Oh,
you can have a million looks. It's all
good.
That's that's what Shaytan does. That brings us
to this aya.
This is the aya or aya number 1
that I wanna share with you today.
We
have
just, you know, about 10 or so minutes
inshallah until the Adan.
Right? Or 10 or 15 minutes till the
Adan from Maghrib Barayim. We will go up
until Maghrib, and then we will pray inshallah,
and then we're done for today inshallah. Right?
So I really wanna introduce this a. There's
a lot to hatch out. So this a,
we will do today. We'll start it at
least, and next week as well, we will
continue with it. This a is found right
here. Take a look at it, students.
Surat Al Hadid
verse number 16. Okay? Surat Al Hadid, which
I believe is the 54th
Surah. Yeah. 54th
Surah and verse number 16.
Allah
says,
Every single letter in this area
is something to pause on. K? Every single
letter. But let's just talk about it. Right?
As the time not yet come for believers,
that hearts
should be humble
at the remembrance of Allah and what was
revealed
of the truth. What what is the surah
number? 57. Okay. So surah number 57. Okay.
And not be like those who were given
the strict scriptures in the past, those who
were spoiled for so long that their hearts
became hardened and many of them are still
in that state of rebelliousness. Okay.
Let's take a look at some introductory notes
on this. Obviously, Surat al Hadid is part
of the Musa'bihaat.
It's
part of the section of Suras that start
off with or
Okay? This is one of those tours. Out
of all of the Musabihat
Surah, Surah Al Hadid
is the only one that's a Madani Surah.
K? Now this is really important
because even though it's a Medeni Surah and
the rest are Meqi,
it sounds exactly like a Medinistura.
It starts off like a Medinistura.
It ends like a Medinistura.
So everything in
it,
despite it being in Medina and being revealed
on after the Hijra in Medina,
it has all the qualities and the framework
of a Meki Surah.
Now
here's a couple things that you need to
know about this Surah.
Take a look at the first point.
This ayah is all about a qualitative
look at iman, looking at the quality of
our faith, the quality of iman.
Lots of people have iman,
but lots of them have very weak
e man or e man that looks like
and appears like e man, but really isn't
e man. And we're gonna talk about all
of that,
as we continue with the verse. We're gonna
talk about all these different layers of what
is iman, what iman should look like, how
you know you have authentic iman versus otherwise.
Now
Abdullah ibn Masrud
once said, everybody knows who Abdullah ibn Masrud
is. Right?
Ibn Masrud,
majority of the narration says that he was
a midget and he was also very thin.
He had legs that were really, really skinny.
Right? Today, we call these kinds of legs
chicken legs. I know because I just, I
just know. Okay?
And
so one day, Abdullah Ibn III would climb
the tree,
and he was just sitting there, you know,
maybe for a nice shade or something. He
just climbed the tree and he kinda sit
there. It was a windy day, so some
of his garment, the wind sort of blew
it and it exposed his ankles and his
legs. And the companions who were at the
bottom there looked up and they started laughing
at him of how skinny his legs was.
Prophet
heard about it and said his legs are
heavier
on the scale on the day of judgment
of righteous deeds than Mount
Uhud. Those of us who went to Medina,
you know what Mount Uhud is. The mountains
of Uhud are the largest and the grandest
mountains of Medina.
So Abdullah ibn Masud also, he had another
interesting quality about him.
He was also the one that resembled
and looked like the prophet the most. So
he walked like him, talked like him, sat
like him, dressed like him, had the same
posture, same speeds, main movement, everything.
And this is because,
he lived with the prophet for
some time. Okay?
I don't wanna say the exact year, but
it's somewhere between 6 to 11 years. He
lived with the prophet, alaihis salatu, so he
adapted a lot of what he could see.
And it just shows goes to show just
how to what extent companions go to when
they are with the prophet alaihis salatu wasalam.
How he looked, which which leg that he
walked out of the room with, or which
leg did he walk back in with, how
did he smile, when did he smile, what
time of the day did he smile, can
we smile the same way? Yeah. This is
just amazing.
There are narrations of the prophets of companions
that would take a path. So our version
of this I'm gonna give you our version
of this so you can really visualize it.
If Rasha'Sallallahu alaihi wasalam was walking on Nielsen
Road, which side of the sidewalk he walked
on? If it was on the up across
the road or this side?
Then when he's on the sidewalk,
did he walk to more towards the right,
which is the norm here? When you're walking
more towards the oncoming traffic of people are
on the left side of the sidewalk. Correct?
That's how it should be. Right?
And so which side of the sidewalk did
he walk on?
So don't worry, guys. It's just that something
fell was that a shelf actually?
Oh,
yeah. We shall blame the person who set
that up then. If that's one shelf, who
knows how many others?
So
that's the to what extent the companions,
followed the sunnah. Okay?
Abdullah ibn Masood
said an incredible thing about this ayah. Take
a look at it.
4 years passed,
then we received this ayah. What does he
mean?
We were Muslim for 4 years,
and then Allah brought this ayah. Now let's
go to the ayah.
Listen, look at the first word,
look at this, Has the time not yet
come for believers?
Here's where Arabic brings things to life. Okay?
Before we get to the other notes.
And yatmin comes from this word,
when the water boils. So if you're boiling
water in, like, a cup or a pot,
and the water starts to boil, it hasn't
gone over. No. No. No. It started to
boil. Usually, that means now you can start
to throw what you need to throw in.
Right? So the time has come now where
the water is ready.
Is Allah saying, what is, like, wrong with
you? Hasn't the time already come?
This anger is not a question.
K?
You know how we say to kids,
how many times have I told you this?
Hasn't isn't it about time you stop? You're
not asking them, I need a response. Yes
or no. You know what the response is.
But it's you questioning, like, when is this
going to end? When are you gonna get
your act together?
You're not looking for an answer, but it
is something for them to think of how
they will answer. That's what's happening here in
this area.
Allah is literally just saying,
what's wrong with you believers?
And you know what's amazing to me? It's
only after 4 years.
Maybe all of us sitting in this room
and most listening online, we've been with we've
been Muslim for more than 4 years.
Madinah.
But 4 years into the Yeah. 4 years
in well, for Abdullah ibn Mas'ud,
4 years. So he's narrating that he's saying
we, but we don't know exactly which companions
you're for, but he's definitely one of them.
We were only Muslim for about 4 years.
And then this ayah came to us,
which is remarkable.
That's a short period of time.
You know who can relate to this verse
more? The reverts.
Reverts can relate to this.
Because if a revert after about 3, 4
years, what do you expect from them? Do
do you expect for them to know how
to pray? Yes.
Yes. At least you don't know the fundamentals.
Right? They should be fasting,
should be praying,
should at least understand all the basics of
Islam, right, within 4 years. So put that
into perspective. Those of us that are born
into the religion may not really, like, grasp
this question or this this statement at the
beginning of the I. You may not grasp
it right away.
However,
how would you like so the way that
I like to reframe the lesson is this.
What if I came to you and I
said,
listen.
What's wrong with you? Isn't it about time
you've been Muslim your whole life you can't
get your act together? How would you how
would you respond to me? I'm never going
to his class again. Right? The way he
just talked to me, the way he just
had the nerve.
Allah is saying to the some of the
greatest companions,
Abdullah ibn Mas'ud
is amongst
the top companions when it came to the
knowledge of the Quran. He's number 1.
He is the companion that said,
there is not a single ayah in the
entire Quran except I know when it was
revealed, how it was revealed, what was happening,
the setting, the circumstance.
He knows all the background information. That's Abdullah
ibn Masood,
but the allah. And he's saying
that's when we got this aya.
So after he's gotten and he's developed all
this knowledge and living with prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam and he's still there and you
know he's all of this is happening,
Allah is just like look, you have so
much. Like,
what's wrong with you? So that's 4 years.
What about all of us?
What would Allah say to us if
we still have the same habit
of when we were, you know, kids that
are still carried on till this day? That's
the essence of how this AI has begun.
It's to cause you to stop and think,
like, are you still that same person with
those same issues and the same struggles
for the past 4 plus years of your
life? You still have it? This is Quran's
way of saying,
like, get your act together.
Yeah. This is the get your act together.
Next point. See this word here, students?
You all know what aladinahamanu
is, so I'm not gonna talk too much
about it. What's aladinahamanu?
Why not
Why not? Why is it?
I'm not just talking to believers
or to Muslims? You should all know this.
Because every course, I I talk about it.
What's the difference between
and?
Yeah.
Aladinahaminu
is you see,
but you don't
practice.
And
the believer, the mumin,
you see
and you
practice. Okay?
So
they recognize the truth, but they don't implement.
Mu'min, they recognize the truth, and it's a
part of their life. They they practice it.
Who's Allah talking to here?
These are not even believers.
Imagine that. These are just people who are
like, haven't you seen the truth? So really
what Allah is saying is like, how much
more do you have to see?
How much more do you have to learn?
Like, start practicing this stuff.
Do you see how powerful now, how deep
the message becomes when you tap into the
Arabic?
Now Allah is really saying, I'm not asking
you to be like the super incredible practicing
Muslim that's been engrossed in Islam for 20
years. I'm just saying to you for at
least 4 plus years,
you've seen what Muslims are doing. You hear
what Muslims are doing. That's not enough for
you to just change and get your act
together and start to, like, clean up your
life. That's the aim.
Now Allah tells you how
you start. So if you wanna know step
by step guide of how to
be guided or to develop guidance, here's step
number 1
is to recognize, wait a minute, I need
to get my act together. Where do you
start?
You start here that your hearts be humbled.
So let me just get to that section
there.
Okay.
So we've talked about this, we've talked about
this, lem,
the time has already passed, You're already late.
So.
It's the Quran's way of saying, like, it's
already done. Like, you're already late, so you
better do this.
Okay.
This is probably what will take us towards
the event now is
and everybody see that?
Hearts
hearts. So that's here, hearts to be humbled.
Okay.
What's?
God consciousness.
Consciousnessable.
Okay.
It's it's
sort of like, like, when I learn how
to make voodoo and they say, like, as
a kid,
try to make voodoo push you, concentrate.
So so what are they trying to what
is it telling you you should do or
not do? So concentrate.
Focus.
Okay. Don't get distracted with
focus. If you're washing your hands,
concentrate On washing your hands. Don't talk to
people. Okay. Very good.
So in a nutshell, remember this
guys. Hoshor
means you eliminate
distractions
and concentrate. That's what Khushur means.
So when you say when you say you
need to have Khushur in prayer,
when we say you need to have Khushur
in salah, what are we saying to you
to do? Stop doing this in salah. Is
it
No. Yeah. No. No. It's takshahran, but you
can write khushur. You just you write the
word Khushur. Spell it how you like. K
h
u s h
o u or o o or u.
H Yeah. U s h u. Yeah.
Yeah. So just type or write that way.
And beside it, these are the notes that
I want you to write. So number 1,
beside the word,
I want you to write that it's concentrating,
it's concentration
where you
focus on eliminating distractions. So concentration
equals eliminating
distractions.
So that's why
the more you will have if you're praying
in a room, like, when you're at home,
as opposed to, like, in the middle of
the kitchen where kids are running around, somebody's
in the kitchen, you know, bathroom is there,
and everybody's just all over the place. Right?
So that's why you're eliminating more and more
distraction. This is why
I, honestly, I actually discourage people from praying
in public.
When I say pray in public, praying in
front of, like, chaos and people and sidewalks
and in the mall, you ever see that
sometimes somebody will, like, pull over beside, like,
the Gap store and just pray their salah?
I I appreciate
the the the the desire and the love
for it.
Can't have Khushu.
When there's 200 people walking by,
scarcely dressed, noise,
songs playing, and all of that stuff. Right?
So you got to eliminate those things. Let's
pause
here,
for the adhan and sala, and then we
will continue.
We will continue next week.
What's that?
No. No. We will we will