Mustafa Khattab – Ramadan Reflections 14 The Boiling Frog

A couple of announcements before we begin, insha'Allah.

We had a fundraiser on Friday. If you

made a pledge to Allah

to pay a certain amount,

make sure to fill out the pledge and

bring it back,

hopefully, inshallah, by Friday. Before that, inshallah,

inshallah, sister Kathleen.

She came and she took shahada. I'm back.

No. So we ask Allah

to keep her on the Surat Mustafir and

protect her and give you that to her

family, inshaAllah ta'ala.

Kathleen Wynne? No. If not Kathleen Wynne. Someone

else.

We wished. We wished.

So, basically,

we know in Ramadan

Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala you have the switch

in your hand. On and off. On and

off.

You know, so in Islam Allah Subhanahu Wa

Ta'ala is teaching us in the month of

Ramadan to be in control.

The rest of the year, your desires are

in control. If you want to eat, you

just go and eat.

If you want to do whatever you want,

you go and do it. But in the

month of Ramadan,

you know, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala makes a

time to do things and a time to

stay away from those things. So you have

the switch in your hand, so basically

Allah puts you in control.

Your desires are not in control. And the

thing is, if you are not able to

do halal things during the day of Ramadan,

like eating, drinking, being with your spouse during

the day

then of course haram things are more haram

in the month of Ramadan.

Backbiting,

cheating, lying and so on and so forth.

The other thing that we learn from reading

the Quran

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not telling us

in the Quran

to not to do haram, He's telling us

to stay away from haram.

Now you say for example, He doesn't say

don't do zina

Allah

doesn't say that in the Quran, but he

says, Don't come close to. Because he knows.

Once you get close, you'll be sucked in.

And when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala talks about

Fawahish, he says,

He doesn't say don't do bad things or

shameful deeds, he says don't come close to.

When he talks about malul yateem, he doesn't

say walatakkurum

malul yateem, he says walatakkurabu

malul yateem. Don't come close to the money

of the orphan.

And also in the story of Adam

in Jannah,

Allah

didn't didn't tell him

He

says

Don't come close to the tree. He didn't

say don't eat from the tree. He says

don't come close.

And Abu

al Hadith,

Bukhari a Muslim, the famous Hadith Al Halalu

Bayin wal Haram. You know the Hadith. At

the end of the prophet

said, you know, Allah

has made certain things haram.

If you get close,

eventually you would fall into it, so stay

away. This is the nasiha of the prophet

And I always say that,

in the story of Adam alaihis salam when

he was told don't come close to the

tree

Adam alaihis salam didn't eat,

on day 1.

So one day he passed by the tree

500 meters away nothing happened. A few days

later he came a little bit closer and

nothing happened. A week later he touched the

tree nothing happened. 10 days later he ate

from the tree. He didn't eat from day

1. Right?

This is basically what they call in there

was this, you know,

experiment in psychology.

Always try to remember this one. It's called

the boiling frog experiment.

So basically, a 150 years ago, it's a

true experiment that took place in a lab

in, I think, Britain.

So what the scholar did basically,

he had a frog,

there was a boiling,

boiling water on the stove,

he tried to put the the foot of

of the leg of the frog in the

water, it was boiling,

so the frog screamed and jumped out. Right?

It couldn't bear the the heat of the

water.

A few days later, he brought the same

frog. He put it in water, which was

the room temperature water just from the tap,

you know,

and the frog was relaxed,

you know. Then he put the, the pan

on the on the on the stove, and

he turned the heat up a little bit,

5 degrees, 10 degrees, 15 degrees. So the

heat was growing little by little. And what

happened to the frog, it didn't jump when

the, you know, heat was going up. The

frog basically adjusted its body body's temperature to

the growing heat.

So 15, 20, 30, and eventually the frog

was boiled to death. Right? So now what

happens if someone tells you,

let's go, smoke cigarettes.

You say, no. Haram, man. I can't do

it. You know?

So if they say, for example, let's go

do cocaine, first thing. You say, no. It's

haram. I can't do it. This is too

bad.

But if they start with a cigarette,

you say, okay. No problem. What what's wrong

with the cigarette? Then eventually, we'll move to

with, you know, joints and stuff, then you

will do something else, and eventually, cocaine becomes

easy.

Because they they use this gradual progression. Right?

In the same way like the frog in

the second case. You start with something small,

then one thing leads to another, then eventually

you did something big.

The people who steal, the Chor or you

call them Hirsas in Turkish, lis harami,

when they steal if, you know, if you

talk to someone, you tell them let's go

rob a bank. They say no, man. This

is too bad. I can't do it. But

if you tell them okay, do you see

this, like this pen over there? Let's take

it home. Okay. What's wrong with the pen?

It's small. Then a week later, okay, let's

do the 5 bucks, you know, try to

take 5 bucks from the charity box. So

it's, oh, it's not a big deal, just

5 bucks. There is nothing wrong.

Then after a month or 2 months, let's

steal, like, a $100 or something from someone.

Oh, no problem. Then eventually one thing will

lead to another, you will end up stealing

or robbing a bank, you know. When you

initially refused, but when you start with something

small, slowly slowly, what happens to your damir,

your conscious your conscience? You know,

the first time you do it, maybe you

will have some, you know, the pangs of

guilt. You feel guilty.

But over time,

you get used to it, you become desensitized,

and eventually you do something terrible,

then khalasab becomes the norm to you.

The question for last night was

for zakat al fitr. If you are giving

out zakat al fitr in Canada, it's it's

$10. But what if you are sending the

money to Yemen or Turkey or Somalia or

Egypt? Do you still pay the $10 or

you pay based on the food over there?

And most of the answers I got today

are wrong. You basically pay the $10

Whether you are giving the $10 in Canada,

anywhere else in the world, it is $10

because you're paying $10 on yourself.

But as for feeding like kafara in Ramadan,

if you're feeding a poor person,

it is not on yourself, it is on

the food. It depends on the the price

of the food wherever you are you're feeding.

If in Canada, shawarma biryan is about $10.

But if you are feeding somewhere else, $4,

$5. It depends on the food value in

the country where you are feeding. But Zakat

al Fitr, you are doing it on yourself.

The fitrah, it is $10 whatever you are

giving the money, so it is different. The

correct answer and the only correct answer was

provided by brother Abu Badr. MashaAllah. SazakAllah Khabir.

Assent.

The question for tonight, we asked a similar

question about a week ago, but this one

is slightly different. Someone was sick in the

month of Ramadan. They couldn't fast a single

day in the month. After Ramadan, the person

recovered, they became healthy,

and they were told to make up the

days. They missed in Ramadan, but they were

lazy. They didn't make up the days for

several months, and, eventually, the person died.

Does someone have to make up the days

on their behalf or Khalas? The days are

missed. If you know the answer, email me

before tomorrow, Asat.