Musleh Khan – Qur’Anic Reflections #06 Ayat-Un-Noor
AI: Summary ©
The importance of the verse 34 in the Quran is discussed, as it is a reminder of words used to affirm the faith of Islam. The holy spirit is emphasized, and individuals are advised to practice and pray sincerely to maintain a spiritual connection. Pr Prays only once daily are not enough, and pray only once every day is not enough. The importance of protecting one's soul and finding a way to increase one's faith is emphasized, and students are advised to stay on the path and pursue their dreams.AI: Transcript ©
So this is the last of
this particular course in which we will look
at today titled spiritual cardiology.
And I gave it this title because of,
obviously, the the subject of the ayah. This
is one of the most famous and important
verses in the entire Quran.
Every
believing
Muslim,
every person that has an atom's weight of
Iman
should know this verse.
If you have never studied this verse of
Surat An Nur, you will never truly understand
how to protect your faith.
So that's what we're going to look at,
how this ayah teaches us
to protect our iman.
In order to understand this ayah, verse 35,
you have to go to this verse,
34.
This is the introduction
of the next verse.
Well, Allah tells us here in Surat An
Nur, verse number 34.
We have no doubt sent down upon you
thoroughly
clarifying
signs.
So the first thing that is mentioned in
this ayah
is that Allah has
sent down has
sent down
all of his ayah that is.
The important thing to note about these two
words when they're put together, they happen several
times in Quran.
The ulema, they say that when aya and
mubayin are mentioned together,
this is an affirmation from Allah
that he gave us
everything that we need to know
and understand
to protect this religion, to protect our faith.
You know, like, if somebody wants to challenge
your faith and say, you
know, Islam is not the truth.
The Quran is filled with contradictions and mistakes.
It's ayat and words like this
that help us to affirm
that even if we don't know how to
respond to those challenges and those debates, we
can rest assure
Allah has given us everything that we need
to prove and to affirm
this Quran is from him, and it is
the ultimate
of Allah. It is the ultimate miracle of
Allah.
So
Allah says you have everything.
And if someone, you know, in life,
when you're challenged and people demand more from
you no. I wanna talk to Allah. Let
me hear his voice. Let me know who
he is. Let me let me just see
him just for a split second. I mean,
those are the things Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
outlines that it's not gonna happen in this
world. Right? Your dependence is you have to
depend on your faith, and you have to
depend on the perfection of this book and
all the ayat that comes along with it
in order to reaffirm your faith. Some people
will get it and some won't.
Right? And if those who choose not to
believe or ask for more and they don't
get it,
their Qadr is with Allah. Their faith is
with Allah.
So
with that being said,
the next word that this is hinting to
the next a is this word here.
And many examples.
What are these examples?
That's what's,
refer it's in reference to the next ayah.
So the scholars of Tafsir say
that this word here, methaline, literally means examples.
So Allah says clarifying signs and many examples
from those that came before you, and we
have sent okay. So a methaline, many examples,
especially from those,
nations and prophets and messengers that came before
you.
This word is extremely important.
It it is found throughout the Quran.
Is one of many words that means a
reminder,
but
is
this. It adds this layer of reminder to
it. You know, sometimes
you can just verbally remind somebody. You can
say a hadith. You can say a piece
of advice, and you leave it at that.
They take it. They take it. They don't
take it. They don't take it, and life
goes on. But sometimes, you know, you find
yourself
you really, really want to ensure that this
piece of advice or guidance
can get to this person. You really, really
like, you sit at home and you put
your thoughts together. You write down notes. You
do research. You do everything you possibly can
so that when you sit and you talk
with this individual, you really hope that the
words can resonate with them. That's called,
heart penetrating
counsel.
Also entails
everybody see this word, counsel.
It is a type of counsel. When you're
counseling somebody, do you argue with them?
What do you do most of the time
when you're trying to counsel someone? Do you
talk more, or do you listen more? Listen.
Yeah.
So what does that tell you about?
It has to be what?
Lengthy and complicated or short and simple? Yeah.
So
another quality of this type of reminder,
it's short. It's simple. It's effective. It's wise.
It's at the right time. It's addressing whatever
subject or issue at that particular moment.
You're not just talking all over the place
and bringing about, you know, what I grew
up as a kid. This is what I
went through. And no. No. You leave all
of that out. You get to the point,
but you try to be as concise
as possible.
For those who want to protect themselves,
This next area
is only going
to make sense
and resonate
with the student
who wants to take from it its lessons.
That's our ayah today.
Allah is the light of the heavens and
the earth.
The example of his light
is like an indent with which is a
lamp.
The lamp is within the glass.
The glass as if it were a pearly
white star.
Where a,
within the glass, the glass as if it
were a pearly white star lit
from the oil of a blessed olive tree,
neither of the east nor of the west,
whose oil would almost glow even if untouched
by fire.
Light upon light.
Allah guides to his light whom he wills.
And Allah presents examples for the people, and
Allah is knowing of all things.
Did you hear anything in this area about
iman?
No.
Anything about Islam?
Does the even Islam or the word Islam
mentioned? No.
Quran mentioned?
No. Salah? No.
What that tells you is
when it comes to our faith,
there is something
far deeper
and more important to focus on
than the practical things that we do to
take care of or maintain that faith. The
practical things we do, we read Quran.
We give sadaqa. We pray. We go to
the Masjid. We do all of these things,
but none of that will be beneficial to
you.
You're never going to bear the fruits of
your practice and your,
spiritual
labor unless
you work and you
purify
and you affirm
and you protect
your faith.
All of us will have days where
it's tough to concentrate. Like, you're gonna have
that salah.
Actually, as a matter of fact, in this
Surah, I have a section called the once
a year salah.
And I I because one of the ayat,
talks about that one salah
that,
you get where you're focused almost a 100%
throughout the entire prayer, and you wish to
yourself
you can pray every single salah that way.
But the only problem is it comes like
once a year or twice a year and
that's it. What Allah does with that particular
prayer
and and how Allah accepts it. And just
a long story short, that particular salah or
that act of worship that was so perfect
and good, So whether it be salah or
anything else,
Allah uses that as the measuring stick or
that's the bare minimum in which Allah will
start with
to
in which Allah
will start with to judge you. Just imagine.
So the bare minimum Allah will start with
is your best deed.
So you get graded on a curve,
which is amazing.
It's truly remarkable that Allah
will do this. That okay. That's
the worst that you've done, and that's what
we're gonna start with, which is actually the
best you've done. And from there, Allah will
bless it and add more to it.
So
none of us will,
bear the fruits of of our lay labor,
with Allah
unless we understand this ayah and journey through
this verse. So let's go through it step
by step. Allah is
the means by which the skies and the
earth can really be seen.
First word that you see here is this
word Noor.
Allah is Noor.
I can't tell you
over the years
how many,
scholars have
interpreted and tried to explain what this light
of Allah is.
You know? Some have
gone very far in in places where,
you know, essentially, you shouldn't
go. And the majority of our lemmah
criticize when you go to these places and
you try to
describe this light of Allah. Some have said
it's the sky. Others have said it's the
sun. Others have said it's the moon. Others
have said it's all the planets in our
solar
system. All of those are an extension of
this light of Allah.
Then others will say, no. The light of
Allah is in me and you. There's a
small minority group of Muslims that exist
that will literally say, and, I don't know
if you've ever heard this. I've heard it
before, you know, a few times here and
there. Alhamdulillah, it's not as common,
but, the light of Allah is inside of
us. Like, literally an extension of Allah is
in you and in me.
So, yeah, there is
a group, a small tiny movement
right here in the west
that carry that belief system that Allah or
a portion of Allah is in them,
and one of the proofs is they use
this word and this ayah.
So how do you navigate? What is this
Nur of Allah?
We know Allah
describes himself as a light because the says
so.
We don't know what this light is. We
know that this light is somewhere of the
Samawat,
and it can also be found on Earth
because auto disused.
Samawat is plural, so the several layers of
sky of the skies.
So perhaps that could extend all the way
to the levels of Jannah or and beyond.
Here's the point.
That is not
the point of this ayah.
If Allah wants us to know
more about his nur,
we would have more knowledge and more explanation
in the ayah. We have nothing. All we
have is.
Then Allah will give some description
that you'll you you really have to sort
of pause and think it through which is
what we're gonna do today to sort of
understand what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is describing.
The first thing is this, Allah is the
means.
The aya is actually in reference to that
Allah is the light that you're going to
need
in this world and in the hereafter
so that you can find purpose.
You can find purpose.
This Nur of Allah, you need this nur,
whatever it is,
but the purpose of that nur is so
that you find purpose in this world and
in the hereafter.
K. That's what our scholars tell us. See,
they don't get into what the note is,
what it looks like. Is it like an
actual light? Is it the, like, you know,
something as bright as the fire? Is it
the sun? They don't get into any of
that. Why? Because Allah doesn't tell us and
quite frankly, it's not important.
Whatever Allah doesn't tell us, we shouldn't try
to delve in and figure out because
Allah only tells us what we need to
know. So Allah is some sort
of Nur of the Samawat
and Arud. Now Now what does this means
by which the skies and the earth can
really be seen?
Here's the second point.
This light,
when
you understand it and you have it,
it's gonna allow you to see with full
vision and clarity. And we're only talking in
the spiritual sense, not literal sense. Like, spiritually,
you will see, you will look up to
the skies,
you will walk this earth,
and you will see and embrace this Noor
that Allah sent whatever it is. So the
second thing is
that
you will be able to see this Nur
of Allah anywhere you go in this world
and hereafter. You will see it. You will
know what it is. You will understand.
You see, we still haven't defined what this
nor is yet because we'll we'll go through
the a. The a will give us some
explanation.
K. So those are two points.
The next part of the a, now Allah
will break it down.
An example of this nur is like a
niche in the wall.
Here's the best picture I could find of
what a niche looks like.
See this indent in the wall?
That's called mishkat.
K?
Mishkat.
So that's in that I mean, in old
times, but even now, just probably, like, as
a as a decoration or just, you know,
a design. There are lots of homes and
buildings and things like that that would have
this as decoration. Right? But in old times,
this is how you lit your home. Right?
You say you would have this indent. You
would put a candle in the center or
a oil lantern or something.
And because it's sitting in this indent,
the light would reflect off of those walls
and illuminate the entire room. So you just
have, like, this one or two of these
mishkat into the wall, 2 candles, and it
would illuminate the entire room.
So
so here's the point.
The nur of Allah
is like this mishkat.
It's like this can where light illuminates.
The word for light here is.
How do we say good morning in Arabic?
We say.
We use the same word.
What does that mean? When you say good
morning, you're focused on when the sun is
apparent.
You never say, like I mean, we we
say it, but if you really wanna be
technical,
you don't usually say good morning, like,
immediately after Fajr.
Because the sun is kind of up, but
you can't see it yet. Right? Just just
you start to see the color of the
sky lighten up, but you don't see the
sun.
The sun is bright, it's clear,
and it's a nice sunny day. The same
word is used to describe the brightness
and the shine the shyness of this light.
Put us all together.
This nur of Allah
is a
tiny little light
that's sitting in the indent of a wall,
but the light that projects from this candle
can illuminate
the entire room. So you have a small
tiny
niche with a little bit of light, but
it's so bright. It's touching every part of
a massive room. Keep that image in mind.
Okay?
Now this light is in a clear glass.
This is the best image you could find
of that.
So this light
so think of the candle. Those lights
is in some sort of clear vessel or
glass. So think of that same niche, but
there's a glass cover over it.
This glass is like a large star,
extremely extremely shiny. Everybody see this?
See when the sun
touches the glass, it kinda creates this huge,
shiny, bright star
as if it's like an explosion of light
in the corner.
Right? Like, I mean, just when you're at
home on a sunny day like this, just
put a light by the, a cup by
the window, and you'll see it'll pierce and
it'll
illuminate certain parts of the cup.
Those parts that are shiny, bright as you
see in this image, that's called
an extremely shiny portion like as if it's
a bright star. You you see the rays
of the sun as it illuminates. It almost
looks like a star is stuck at the
edge of the cup.
That imagery is called kaukabunduri.
So let's
add this to the AI now. So you
have this niche in the wall,
and there's a light. The light is covered
with a glass,
and
this glass
and with this light,
it causes a reflection from the glass. Like,
there's a shiny star
sitting over this glass or at a corner
of this glass.
Like, the imagery is just unbelievable.
Okay?
Next,
a blessed tree.
Okay.
This light needs fuel, doesn't it?
Like, it needs to continue to remain lit
or eventually what happens if you ignore it?
It's gone. It'll disappear.
So there's a fuel to this light.
Allah says
the fuel for this light
comes from a blessed tree, Mubarak.
Remember,
students, when we use the word Mubarak,
it literally means,
like,
something that,
starts from the ground up and everybody
benefits from it.
So you plant a tree,
starts from the seed to the roots, and
then eventually it blossoms into a tree and
it bears fruits.
You more than likely, you're not the only
one that's going to eat the fruits of
that tree, but it's also going to be
a source of provision
for all those that pass by. They will
also enjoy this, whatever the treat, the tree
bears.
That's called Mubarak.
So when we use the word like or
we call it and there's so much
around us, meaning, like, this one thing was
so good, it just it just blessed everybody.
Everybody benefited from it in some way. Okay?
So this fuel comes from this imagery of
a tree that is so blessed. It's touching
everybody that comes in contact.
This tree is not in no extreme east
or west, meaning it's somewhere in the middle.
Middle of what?
No detail.
Just keep the imagery in mind.
Crude oil takes work to burn and refine
all oil that's highly flammable,
meaning the oil from this tree
is shiny all by itself.
So this crude oil and refined oil,
that is just an addition that I added
to to explain what this is. This is
the meaning of
the. Meaning, the oil from this olive tree
is shiny
Even if there's no fire or ignition that,
or,
it's not ignited on its own or by
some other fact or other
way. It's there's no need for anybody to
ignite this fire. It's always going to illuminate
and shine all by itself. Why? Because it's
being fueled from this tree. Okay.
So now you have this light. Now you
know that this light is not going to
extinguish
because it's got a source that's gonna constantly
fuel it.
So shiny. Light piled upon more light.
So now you have this light in this
niche, in this indent
and now it's being fueled but here's what's
gonna happen now. You know when you light
a candle,
you expect
at least the
candle to light about that high, maybe just
a little more. And if you get a
bigger candle and you expose
the candle even more, you might get a
a bigger fire.
This particular light was a tiny little light.
It was a small candle.
But for
whatever reason,
this light starts to become bigger, broader, wider,
more powerful
because it's gaining this fuel from this tree.
And so this light becomes
another layer of light, another layer of light,
and it just continues to expand and expand
and grow.
And it's all coming from one tiny little
candle.
K? Think of, like, those little tiny Dollarama
candles. Right? You get this tiny little missqin
candle, which you've got this light that is
so massive, it's illuminating this entire building.
That's.
We're not done. Now now we're gonna really
understand what this area is talking about.
Nuran, the Nur of Allah is,
iman.
You know, if I stop there and I
ask you,
now explain to me
what the connection is with Eman
and everything we just went through with this
niche in the wall
and
the light and the glass that covered it
and it's being fueled.
You should be able to at least do
and explain most of that.
Okay?
So you have now the Nur of Allah.
The light of Allah is our faith.
So that's sacred, isn't it? It's important.
This niche or this lamp,
it's our chest. Where does Iman reside?
Where does it reside?
In the heart.
Where is the heart? It's protected
in our chest.
So this niche,
it's got it needs some kind of protection.
So Allah place so so before we continue,
just put these 2 imageries together.
Your imen,
my imen
is the true light of a believer.
Like, that's the thing that you live for.
You strive to keep it illuminated as much
as possible.
And when that light is taken away,
then that individual's life becomes spiritually dark.
Like, the the first thing what happens when
you lose iman? What's the first thing that
the Quran tells us you lose?
When you lose iman, what's the first consequence
of that?
Purpose.
Why am I here?
Why am I
you know, somebody gets diagnosed. They're sick or
they suffered a loss, you know, the loss
of a loved one today.
1 week later, another person died. Why is
why is God putting me through all of
this? This? These questions get asked by those
who
have not found purpose in their life.
But when you have imen, how do you
answer those questions?
Like, if you say, why is this happening
to me? But you have imen,
How would you answer that?
So let's just say, you know,
got diagnosed with a severe illness
and you're you have iman.
How do you explain this to somebody? When
somebody says to you, but wait a minute.
You only eat organic foods. You exercise.
You're so healthy,
and you still got diagnosed
with this sickness,
you had to get whatever, you know, open
heart surgery, you got suffered a stroke, whatever.
Right?
How do you explain what's your response to
them when you have imam? What do you
say to them?
Yeah.
Don't trivialize those words. This is what Allah
wrote for me.
Only the people of Iman
can settle with that sentence.
People who don't have or struggle with EMAN
struggle with purpose. They'll be like,
oh, yeah. I know it's the Khadar of
Allah, but they they want more. Like, just
give me a more logical explanation why this
happened to you. Why would God put you
through this?
People as human never go that far. They're
just everything that they go through, every pain
and hardship, alhamdulillah.
And we see an example of that every
single day when you watch the videos and
the image images of Palestine
and you look at all those Palestinians that
suffer the loss of their children and family
and lose their homes and all of that?
You'll see that the vast majority of time
and unfortunately, you know, it those are video
videos you have to sit and search for.
You're not gonna see them on 6 o'clock
headline news. Right?
But when you sit there and you go
through and you search, you start to see
how many of these people
who lost everything. They still
and they just everything is just back to
Allah.
Right? That's that's iman.
That's the real light of a human being.
Now this light has to be protected and
so Allah put it in the chest of
the believer.
The brilliance the of this lamp and clear
glass
goes back to the purity of the human
being.
Glass, if you don't clean it on a
regular basis, what happens to it?
Starts to get dirty. Right? Starts to develop
a build up and eventually
you can't see through the glass anymore.
That's
the glass that we're talking about here
is if somebody claims to have iman, but
they live a life of sin
wrong, like, they're constantly
doing this stuff carelessly without any care or
any attention,
then this Nur will start to develop a
spiritual
decay or fungus.
And if it's not iman in and of
itself you'll see the spiritual decay in the
person themselves.
So let me give you all there's there's
millions of examples. Let me give you one.
Another Surah Surah Al Hashar Allah says,
Okay.
Allah says don't be of the people who
forget Allah.
Imagine, Allah doesn't say don't be of the
people who have no iman.
Who's Allah talking to? People who forget Allah.
Because as a result,
this part of the will give you like,
it'll explain everything.
Allah
says fa ansahum and fusam
because they forgot Allah,
Allah made them forget themselves.
How does that look when somebody forgets themselves?
Describe to me how that person
looks, how they live, how they appear.
What are some qualities of somebody that forgot
who they are?
Go back to the point they forgot their
purpose.
What does that person look like now?
They don't care about no prayer. None of
that. Okay. So that's gone. What else?
No Islam anything, but I'm Muslim, but I'm
just I don't pray.
I'll get there one day. That sort of
thing.
So their whole life is wake up,
brush your teeth,
breakfast, work, school, come home, chill, do it
again the next day.
Friday rolls by,
chill, relax, go out, restaurant, do something.
Weekend, chill out. Monday, start all over again,
and then you die. That's their whole life.
That's somebody
who
had this light,
but they didn't take care of the they
didn't constantly clean
this vessel. How do you clean the glass
so that the light can continue to penetrate
and illuminate?
What's what needs to happen in order to
maintain this glass and keep it clear?
If the glass is dirty, what happens? Light
of the heart cannot be received nor can
it be appreciated.
So how do you keep this glass clean?
It's all the things that we do. The
solar.
All of our.
Yeah.
That's your that's the spiritual kind and that's
the spiritual purification you go through every day.
What did the prophet say about praying 5
times a day? It's equivalent to what?
When you pray 5 times a day, it's
like the person who,
if there was a river
flowing in front of their door and they
jumped in it 5 times a day, would
you see any dirt on them? No. And
the prophet uses that parable to compare to
salah and the heart of the believer.
5 times a day, what you're doing is
you're spiritually
washing your heart.
That's what you're doing.
So
you have to really feel for the Muslims
who just pray for the heck of praying.
You know, there's there's lots of Muslims who
are so
dedicated and committed to praying on time,
but they're not really praying. Does that make
sense?
Like, they're just like, oh my god. Okay.
3, 2, 1.
And
just get right into it.
Because why? In their mind,
it's like a it's like an invisible checklist.
Done on time, check mark, next.
Can't do that.
You will have an automatic
preset
checklist in your heart if you pray sincerely.
It will become automatic.
You never have to keep track of every
salah
meticulously that way when you just pray sincerely.
Your heart will just pound and look forward
to the next salah, and it will be
conscious
of the timings and so on. So
this glass needs maintenance.
This light is eventually going to extinguish. Okay.
The Quraysh got the best tafsir of the
Quran. You know why I put this here?
So here's an example for you guys. Okay?
The prophet alaihi sata wasalam was alive in
front of the Quraish how many years?
How many years was he in Mecca?
30? 30 or 13?
Which one? 13.
Anybody everybody agree?
So 13 years, Mecca, 10 years, Medina?
Okay. Okay.
13 years.
Okay.
You have a walking Quran living with you.
The Quraysh.
Did that help?
This is a walking Quran.
You're never going to see someone
more committed,
more practicing
than the messenger, alayhis salatu wasalam,
himself in person,
live, walking the streets, walking amongst the stores
in the villages,
talking to you.
Did it work on the Quraysh?
No. As a matter of fact, it was
the complete opposite. They developed more hatred for
him. Why did that happen?
Right? Because of this.
No iman, no purpose.
When you lose these two things,
everything becomes uncomfortable
that is actually in essence pure and beloved
in all in the sight of Allah. All
of it becomes uncomfortable. It becomes dirty. It
becomes
it's rejected. It's hated. Don't we live in
that time right now?
We're we're Muslims. All we wanna do is
do what?
Just practice our redeem.
And we just wanna pray. We wanna go
to the Masjid peacefully at Fajr time. 4
AM, we would just wanna go and not
have to worry about that somebody will show
up at our door and do something crazy.
So
despite we have this,
at least you understand some perspective of what
iman is doing for us. It's more than
just an Islamic thing. It's giving us purpose
in this world.
That's why you keep on striving. Despite all
the challenges, you keep on cleaning this vessel
and feeding
it. Nor to the east or to the
west, the with no biases. This is your
soul. This is when we say the we're
talking about
you. We're talking about your existence.
The has extracted, but it never dies.
We don't know what this is but it's
a concept that has existed since the beginning
of time.
Like,
it it's impossible
for anybody, and I'm and I'm saying this
just because,
you know, today, there are circles across the
world that scrutinize
and pretty much dismiss the whole concept of
a soul and a ruh.
And they say that this is just a
figment of the imagination. It's folklore, and it's
just something that makes no sense.
But
since the very beginning of time,
every single
major religion
in existence
has a concept of a soul or ruler.
They might look and perceive it differently from
religion to religion, but the concept
and this idea of a soul that brings
life to our body that we that we're
alive, we can speak, walk, live, do the
things that we
do. And, eventually,
when our death comes, this
Roosh or whatever it is is extracted, and
now the body becomes what?
Becomes absolutely useless,
has no purpose anymore.
So, certainly,
this rush in and of itself, this purpose
is
what Allah is saying. Like, it has no
beginning. It has no end. It has no
description. It's there, and it exists.
Okay?
So now you have the ruh.
You have iman.
You have the chest, and iman sits in
the heart, and it's protected.
And they're it's protected with this glass, and
this glass needs to stay clean. If it
doesn't stay clean, it everything is lost.
The
tree
that fuels this fire,
this potential light of ruh in you. So
when we're talking about this zetun, this olive
oil that's being fed
from this tree
to keep this light to illuminate,
And this tree
will feed this light, and it'll become bigger
and bigger and bigger and expand.
More like, more like. Where is all of
that coming from?
What's happening here with Iman?
What's happening to it?
You know,
you have a Muslim that does all the
basics of Islam. Okay?
And then you have another Muslim that does
all the basics of Islam and then some.
Is there a difference between the 2?
One's waking up for Tahajjud every night, half
of the Quran and an an an. The
other good person,
but
they're at the basics.
They they've gone for Hajj. They do all
the fundamentals of the deen,
but all these additional things is not there.
Who has this additional
layer of light?
The second.
See,
you understand now where this
when this light grows and it becomes bright
and bright. Right? Why that happens?
It's because
the more you strive
to protect your faith, the more of this
light
illuminates and it becomes brighter and it becomes
more apparent and it doesn't just affect you.
Let me let me give you another example.
All of us, I'm sure, we know somebody.
I mean, this person could even be you.
You know, when you look at somebody and
you're like, wow.
Just something about their face.
Like,
back in Medina,
we had, like, some professors that were like
that. Like, these were, like, the Tahajjud professors.
Like, they're praying Tahajjud all night,
fajr,
and then they come to school and teach
for 8 hours, and then they go home
and they might take a little nap and
just do it. That's their whole life.
And when these professors walked in the classroom,
I just I couldn't even describe I didn't
I could never fathom that there were people
that on this earth that existed that look
like that.
Absolutely
beautiful in every way. Every way you could
imagine. Gentle, calm.
Their face just looked like a big huge
light bulb, and they just sat with all
this calmness.
And then they when they started speaking, this
ocean of eiran just poured out.
And there is a 1000 students in the
class.
And it's not like, okay.
300 of them are falling asleep. The other
2 are on their phone. No.
There are thousands of students just sitting there
writing
every word and sentence they could pass just
to just to take as much as they
can from this this great scholar. When the
scholar's done now and he wants to leave
the class, can't do that
because there's a 100 students waiting at the
door
not to just ask questions,
just to kiss his forehead out of respect.
That's it.
Follow him to his car just to make
sure, you know, that he's open. Just carry
his slippers
just out of love for him.
That's,
that's the light upon light like
like no other. That's our scholars.
Do you see why when you hear about
ulama,
you naturally have an not
just
because
It's not just because, oh, you know, I
read a biography and I think it's just
really awesome. No.
When you hear about Mariam alaihis salaam and
her story,
never met Mariam. Don't you're missing a picture
of her. You don't know who she is.
Well, my goodness, her story makes you just
appreciate and love her like anyone else.
Like, you wanna just can't wait to see
her and meet her in Jannah and just
be like, man, your story, it helped me
get here.
Saw the pain and the struggle you went
through
to protect your honor, your dignity,
your reputation,
everything just for the sake of Allah.
That inspired me. And this Noor just started
to become bright and bright in my life.
Yeah.
Light upon light. This potential light meeting
the opportunity
to light up.
So light upon light, one another interpret. I'm
glad I wrote this actually. Light upon here's
another
interpretation,
another opinion.
Light upon light, meaning
you have your original light, your that's already
there.
Either it's additional
more iman, you've done something else that adds
to your iman, reinforces strength, or it could
just be you're feeding this iman more Quran,
more Quran, more Quran,
every single day, just adding more.
And by that, I don't mean memorizing. I
don't I mean everything from memorizing to studying
and just repetition and reading.
And that's the glory and that's the beauty
of of Quran. You'll never get bored no
matter how many times you read it.
You'll get tired of reading novels and stories
and articles. You'll get tired of them.
You read a 100, you can watch documentaries
and watch 15 to 6 times, and then
eventually it's like, oh my God, this is
boring. I need to watch something else. It
never exists with Quran,
and only the people who read it on
a regular basis can tell you that. It's
like I I you can't.
If you get bored of reading the same
Surah,
it's a sign you have weak imen.
Okay? It's a sign you have weak faith.
So
to conclude,
an appetite of a human being is 2
types, the outer self and the inner self.
Please, this is really important because this is
kind of how I summarize all of this.
Okay?
So
the outer self,
you have to nurture 2 parts of your
life. The outer self, you on the outside
and you on the inside. This area focused
on what?
The outer layer or the internal?
Yeah. This this internal. So spiritually, internally, that's
what it's focused on.
So when you're actually hungry versus an appetite
for the soul, when you're hungry, you go
and you eat. But when your heart is
hungry, when your iman is hungry,
how do you feed that?
All the things that we've talked about.
How do you know your iman
is hungry?
Like, describe to me what that is
when your faith is hungry.
Anxiety.
Anxiety? Okay. Anxiety of what?
Like, just a little more specific.
Your anxiety is coming because of what?
Of the future.
Okay. So you're thinking about your future?
Restlessness.
No.
Okay.
Let me put it to you this way.
Let me put it to you this way.
The biggest
tragedy of Yiman,
I would argue this is literally in the
top three worst things that you could experience
with eMan
is
your eMan
stabilizes
and it goes into
it goes into autopilot or cruise control,
where your emen
is the exact same
today as it was 10 years ago.
That's the tragedy of EMAN
because you now understand
EMAN can be increased.
But if you don't take care of it,
the light will eventually extinguish
so emen can also decrease and disappear.
But if your iman is exactly the same,
meaning,
the way you pray is exactly the same
way you pray 10 years ago,
The way you experience
a salah, the way you concentrate, the things
you read.
Like, I've met Muslims over the years.
Is the only 2 Surahs they've ever read
their entire life in all of their salah.
Fajr, Zohar, you name it. That's the only
thing
under, like well, I I prophet says, you
know,
call towards his deen. If it was just
1 aya, I know these 2 Surah, so
I'm good. They just convince themselves that that
is okay.
Problem
so so if that we if we accepted
that, how do you encourage somebody to see
like, what's the incentive for them to do
more? If they say, well, look, I'm doing
the bare minimum. What's the big deal?
There's many times, prophet sallam companions will come
to him and say, you Rasoolullah,
I believe in you and then believe in
Allah. I pray 5 times a day. I
give my zakat. I fast in Ramadan. I
go for Hajj. Is this sufficient for me
to get into Jannah? What do you think
the prophet said?
Yes.
Yes.
Now
the apparent meaning of this hadith
looks pretty simple. Right?
You know the prophet he
he describes what he says
that it's jawaam Mir'ul Kalim.
It's comprehensive
speech.
When a prophet says one sentence,
you will write an encyclopedia about his one
sentence.
You never
explain his one sentence with one sentence. It
never happens.
If you do that,
that's a disservice to him
to his statements,
to his to his instructions. You're you're not
giving justice to what he's saying.
So
remember when those 5 fundamental things, the pillars
of, Islam,
if you practice it.
But when you pray, you're just doing the
movements. When you went to Hajj, you just
counted the days till it was over.
And when
and even same thing with the Ramadan. You're
just like, oh my god. I hate this
starving myself all day, and you just slept
most of the fasting day.
Do you fall in the same category of
this companion who came to him? So
you see well, you see my point?
So you don't want to be the kind
of Muslim.
Every year, you're exactly the same. Your mood
hasn't changed. You haven't worked on any of
the issues you have, any of the weaknesses
that you have. You never did anything.
Those are signs your your struggle is not
accepted.
Some of the scholars, they tell us one
sign to know if your deeds are accepted
or not is that if you see improvement
in your life,
if you don't see improvement,
but you're practicing and praying and doing all
of this, but you see no
results
of all of that effort,
it is a sign it's not being accepted.
You're not doing it properly.
Something is missing.
And the vast majority of time, if you
really
kinda sit there and think through it, you'll
realize, wait, man. My emen,
I need to work on that.
I need to get back to the basics
and focus on my faith and to reaffirm
and strengthen
my belief in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. That's
what I need to go back and do.
So you have the outer self and then
you have the appetite for the soul. The
appetite for the soul, most Muslims forget about
it. Don't even think about it. Take it
for granted even. So intellectually, you've accepted Islam,
but spiritually unfortunately
now. That's another annoying thing. SubhanAllah.
This is becoming more and more common today.
You know, the
in the intellect
you know that that Muslim that we all
know that will scrutinize the eye and be
like yeah yeah Allah does say that he,
you know, has a face,
but did you know and I read this
book and they'll name some like author from
500 years. Yeah. I wrote on this and
they'll just give you all this complicated yes.
Face is a face, but it's not exactly
a face. It's just like a face face,
but we don't know what this face is.
But if you go back and then just
put you to sleep for hours just telling
you about what this face is and just
getting all of these, like, deep theological
discussions
with all these philosophies and theories about Islam,
Dude cannot even recite Fatiha better than a
5 year old.
Right?
So
intellectually, Marshall, you got it done. You can
give a tafsir. Great.
You cannot recite Fatiha
at all to just survive salah. You cannot
even
lead anybody in prayer like you'd be at
the very bottom of that list. Those are
the things you gotta focus on.
So if you're great in something,
you've got to just
every single day think about the things that
you're not so good at. And if you're
at least conscious with that, awareness leads to
improvement.
So once you're at least aware and conscious
that, you know, these are my problems,
insha'allah, you'll work at them. Allah guides to
this light whomever he wills.
Where do we get guidance from?
Only Allah.
You don't get it from the sheikh.
Don't get it from the imam. You don't
get it from the scholar.
All these people, what we do,
like, imams, what we do,
is we try to
help facilitate
direction,
just keep you on the right lane.
But remember, we're also on the same lane.
We're all driving together,
but sometimes
you might exit off that lane and
drive towards Mars.
And we're kind of like, just like, listen,
come back here.
You're wrong direction. You need to come back
and drive towards
this direction.
So that's that's what scholars and that's what
the ulama they do. They help us to
stay on that path.
That's all the videos you see, all of
the reminders of your favorite speakers. That's all
we can do.
All we can do is just
okay. Here's what you do when you have
a problem, when you're angry, when you have
marriage issues, when you just got divorced, and
and your kids are going all over the
place. You're struggling.
All we can do is just give you
as Allah tells us. Like, all we can
do is just preach and teach and hope
for the best.
You have got to,
with this guidance,
nurture it. K. So and that only comes
from Allah
Quick question students.
How do you get this guidance from Allah?
So I'm going right back to the
how do we get guidance from Allah?
Don't tell me, you know,
pray and read and so on. No. You're
not even there.
Like, means nothing to you. Reading Quran means
nothing to you. So how do you get
this guidance?
You ask for it.
Okay. Tell me more. You ask for it.
Okay?
Did the did the disbelievers
ask for guidance ever?
Do they ever ask for guidance?
Let's say if there was a a kafel,
right, a disbeliever that just sat in their
room and they'll be like,
God, if you're there,
I really, really
want
some, like, confirmation
that you're there. God, whoever you are, just
show me something.
And this person is genuinely sincere
looking to find
God or Allah. Right? Looking.
Do you think or believe Allah will reject
that person?
What do you think?
Genuinely, they're searching for Allah. Do you think
the Allah will be there?
You don't have did you pray Fajr? No.
You don't even know what Fajr is. Go.
No.
So
how do you find guidance of Allah? What
do you have to do? Now apply it
to Muslims.
We have
Eman, but we may not always have the
guidance we need to do the right thing.
You have the faith. So how do you
get that?
You have to go back to exactly the
heart of this disbeliever. What did he or
she do to find Allah?
What did they what did they start doing?
You
they asked for it.
Did they just ask for it randomly just
out of curiosity, or was there a genuine,
sincere
interest?
That that's that's your
that's your beginning.
You have to want it.
You have to want Allah.
You have to want Him. If you don't
want Him and you're just like, oh, Allah,
you know, you told me to stay away
from haram, so I'll just stay away.
Not enough.
You have to want to stay away from
haram to please Allah.
That's a huge difference
of somebody's like, oh, I don't need these
things, you know, because, you know, Quran says
so I don't wanna do it as opposed
to if I took a bite out of
this, like, I'll be accountable in front of
Allah. He told me not to do this.
I'll disappoint my rub. You know, it's incredible.
You can live your whole life
disobeying Allah,
but all throughout the Quran, Allah keeps telling
you call upon me, call me, and I'll
forgive you, and I'll forgive you, and I'll
forgive you. You can't do that with no
human being.
All your entire life
you could just be doing so much wrong
but if you genuinely turn back and you
want a lust forgiveness, will Allah reject you?
Remember the story of the man who killed
99,
long hadith?
99 people just murdered him just for the
heck of it. He's gonna top it off
with 100. What happened to him?
Before he could achieve the 100, what happened
to him? He's just said, you know what?
He dropped his sword. He's like,
I'm done.
I'm not gonna do this anymore. I need
to repent.
He got Jannah.
99 persons.
A luck can wipe it all down. So
what I'm saying to you is this.
Your beginning
and,
the confirmation
you need
to,
stay on this path and remain here consistently
and and continue to build
is all gonna go back to one thing,
your desire. How bad do you want Allah
in your life?
How much of that do you want? I
can't answer. I can't give you those answers.
Every single one of us here has our
own answer to that, but it should all
link back to a strong desire for wanting
to follow his instructions. Okay? And then you
get this light that Allah gives to whomever
he wins,
who he wills. Okay?
That's all I have for you guys.
So inshallah,
I pray that
Allah
protect our e men,
and continue to increase our faith.
In my duas, you you hear me all
the time. I will say things like,
you know, we ask Allah to increase our
faith in a way that he is pleased
with.
Because sometimes
you may not find
satisfaction,
you may not be content where you are
in life,
but you don't know that perhaps Allah is
very pleased and content with you.
Sometimes people just have really low self esteem.
They think
very low of themselves. I meet a lot
of student, a lot of Muslims like that.
Like, they've done everything, and they feel worthless.
Right? So,
you know, you you start off by hoping
that you've pleased the love first and foremost,
then you work on yourself. So if you
at least are optimistic with
Allah, that's a good starting point to find
optimism within yourself. Okay?
So I pray that all of us will
have that and Insha'Allah, you guys journey through
this summer. Whatever it is that you choose
to do to spend your summer
that I pray that inshallah hu ta'ala your
iman increases
and that you continue to find certainty in
this Deen and Allah brings you closer to
his Deen closer to him and ultimately Insha'Allah
we can all enjoy the fruits of our
efforts in Jannatul Firdos Al Arla Insha'Allah.
So
students that concludes this program,
for those of you that came in afterwards,
this is the last session.
All the sessions, all the classes have completed
this week. So just in order to stay
consistent with them, we will also do the
same Insha'Allah.
I will
not be teaching until sometime this, September or
maybe even October,
Insha'Allah. So look forward to them. We will
have brand new subjects, brand new courses. I've
already decided on the course that I wanna
teach in September. Those of you who know,
no. Those of you who don't know,
you will have to sit and ponder all
summer
what awaits you Insha'Allah
in, the next semester. Okay?
So I will leave you with that.
And to students online,
Anybody have any questions? Mhmm.
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