Mustafa Khattab – Two Wolves In Ramadan
AI: Summary ©
The importance of fasting during the month ofFinancial is highlighted, with the need to reset the routine and prevent waste. The "byproductive aspect" of the month is discussed, including the ability to eat, drink, and waste. The speaker emphasizes the importance of fighting with people and losing temper to avoid becoming " muflits." The use of shaitan in killing people is emphasized, and advice is given on how to avoid wasting money and distracting the month.
AI: Summary ©
Bear witness that there is none worthy of
our worship except Allah
And I bear witness that Muhammad salallahu alaihi
wa sallam is the seal of the prophets
and the final messenger to all of humanity.
Whoever Allah
guides, there is none to misguide.
And whoever
Allah leaves astray, there is none to guide
aright.
Praise Allah
and thank Him
for giving us the opportunity and the help
to fast in this month. It's an nama.
It's a blessing that deserves gratitude from us
to Allah
And also people in the community who are
not able to fast in this month, either
because they are very old or they are
very sick.
Some sisters are pregnant. They are not able
to join us for the fast in this
month. So if you are here, you are
fasting, you come for salatuljum'ah.
You are one of the lucky ones. So
you should say Alhamdulillah.
I know some people back home, they are
fasting in this month, and they are not
sure if they will be having food for
Iftar
at Maghrib time.
A few days ago, a friend of mine
was giving out boxes
of
about 20 kilograms of rice and pasta and
and oil and sugar tea. All the requirements
for iftar in the month of Ramadan. And
he said that some of the families who
were receiving the boxes,
they started to cry because they couldn't believe
themselves that they had something to eat at
Maghrib.
What is our excuse? We should always say,
alhamdulillah, we're lucky here.
Some people,
and I know some of them, they wish
they could come to the masjid for salatul
Jumaa or comfort tarawiyyah, but they can't because
they are either at the hospital or they
are at home, they cannot come here. They
are too old, they're too sick, they cannot
come here.
Some people, they do come to the masjid,
but they cannot do sajdah because they have
to sit on a chair.
I remember a few years ago I visited
a brother and he was very sick and
he had to stay in the hospital for
a number of for a long
time. And I asked if if there was
a wish that he had and he said
I have only one wish
because he he was like sleeping on his
bed, he couldn't move. He said my only
wish is to be able to make sajdah
to Allah
but I can't.
Some of you are lucky to be able
to come and fast and and to observe
them after Ramadan. I know some people
who took shahada recently,
their families are against it, they
cannot practice to the best of their ability,
and no one is fasting around them, and
they're struggling with their families.
What is your excuse?
I don't I don't think you have any
excuse. Right? So this is something that deserves
gratitude that we should always say Alhamdulillah
for giving us this favor from Allah
Now when I think of the month of
Ramadan, I think of a story from a,
first nation,
grandfather who was sitting with his grandson.
And they were talking, and he told him,
I feel like there are 2 wolves fighting
inside my heart. One of them is a
good wolf, and the other one is a
bad wolf.
So the grandson asked,
which wolf do you think will win at
the end? So the grandfather said, the one
that I keep feeding.
This is the one that will win.
We as human beings, we're not angels, We're
not shayateen.
But we have forces of good and evil
fighting inside our hearts.
So if you do your best and you
struggle
to do your best, to do good, come
closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, take care
of His creation,
eventually the good wolf inside your heart will
win.
But if you don't care, you turn your
back on Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, Ramadan, not
Ramadan, you don't really care,
then eventually the evil wolf will win.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in the month of
Ramadan,
and as I said, we're not he we're
not we're not shayateen, we're not anxious. But
we have the 2 forces fighting inside. And
in the month of Ramadan, you feel it.
You have that angelic aspect to you, and
you have also a shaitanic aspect out there.
So, for example, we know
that the Malayika, the angels, the way Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala created them, they never eat,
they never drink, they never have intimate relations,
they are not male or female, they don't
produce children.
And this is what we do, basically, when
we fast during the day of Ramadan. We
don't eat. We don't drink. We don't have
intimate relations.
And this gives you this angelic aspect.
If Allah
says,
Fajr time, no eating, no drinking, Khadas Sameaha
wa ta'ala.
Madly of time, you can eat, you can
drink. You have the on and off button
in your hand. As as we mentioned last
time, now you are on the driver's seat
in your life. You are in control. Your
desires are not in control.
So now you have this angelic aspect in
your life.
The other aspect with which is the shaitanid
aspect.
So let's say, for example, wasting in the
month of Ramadan and wasting in general,
this is something that I I usually see.
People waste when they eat, when they drink
atifthar.
There's waste, generally, in their life.
So basically, when I see kids, you know,
they take a full plate of biryani, whatever
food they have, and mashallah, half a chicken,
this, that, they take 2 bites because they
drink so much soda or water, and the
rest goes to waste.
They take one bottle of juice, they drink
one sip, it goes to waste.
One bite of the apple, the rest goes
to waste.
The family is sitting in one room in
the house, like in the living room,
why does the light have to be off
in the rest of the house?
When you brush your teeth before fajr, for
example, why do you have to waste 10
gallons of water? Right? Like this waste, you
invite 5 people to have iftar with you,
you have 5 or 4 members in your
family, a total of 9,
10 people. Why do you make food for
25?
Oh, as we get it. You are kareem,
jawadun kareem. You are generous.
And next day, the leftover, no nobody's gonna
eat it because our kids, like many of
them, they don't like leftovers. So you'll end
up throwing more than half of, you know,
the food that you cooked the day before.
You notice with your kids the first couple
of pages and their Kutch boxes
are full, then the rest is empty and
they demand a new one.
We see it all the time. There is
there is waste. Right?
So wasting and and this is why when
we speak about the shaitanic aspect in the
month of Ramadan, Allah
when He speaks about shayateen in Surah Isla,
He
says, Those who waste, they're like shayateen.
In which aspect?
The way it is explained,
Allah
blessed Iblis
before he fell from grace.
So He brought him closer to the angels.
He was not one of them. Kanim and
ajin, as we read in Surah Kaf. And
Allah
brought him in the company of the Malaika.
He blessed him with igaala, and so on
and so forth. And eventually,
he became arrogant because of this blessing from
Allah, and he ended up wasting all his
hasanat.
Now when Allah
blesses you with money, with health, with food,
and you waste it, what makes you any
different? And this is why Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is making the connection.
So now we have those two aspects, the
angelic aspect and the shaitali aspect in the
Mathur Ramadan,
and you have the reset button in your
hand. And this is one of the amazing
things about the month of Ramadan.
So, basically,
we have a routine.
So you go about your routine, and Allah
breaks this routine 5 times a day when
you go for your namaz. 4, 5 minutes
inshallah, you break the routine.
So now you're away from the money, from
the business, from dunya,
5 times a day. On a weekly basis,
when you leave everything behind and come here
for salatuljumah,
you break the routine.
Every
year, when you go for Hajj or when
you observe the Mathur Rahman, you break the
routine. Now you are in control, you have
the reset button in your hand.
Every time I have an issue with my
laptop or my phone, and I call the
technician,
the first thing they tell me
restart your your laptop.
Khilas. Or maybe shake your phone. I don't
know. It's like medicine or something. So shake
it, restart it, Khilas, it will work.
The same thing with the month of Ramadan.
The month of Ramadan is the restart button.
The reset button that you have, like the
daily namaz, the 5 daily salawat, the taraweeh,
the day of Jum'ah. You have the reset,
the restart button in your hand, So we
ask
Allah to give us the barakah of this
month, Amina Abdul Alameen
I'm gonna kindly ask you to move up
inshallah because people are waiting outside.
BazarakAllah.
We spoke about waste.
Wasting your hanalat in this month of Ramadan,
either by not doing enough. So Ramadan comes,
Ramadan leaves, you're not getting any closer to
Allah
You basically wasted another year, and another year,
another year. So this is a wasted time.
Or maybe you'll get the hasanat, as we
mentioned last time, and you will be losing
them the easy way. You gain them the
hard way, you lose them the easy way.
By fighting with people, losing your temper, cussing
up people because
I get it, you know, you're not smoking
in the month of Ramadan, during the day,
you miss your shay,
coffee, biryani flavored, you know, in this month.
So you are struggling inside, and at some
point you explode.
And if this happens, the prophet
says, inside Muslim, you become muflis.
You fast, you pray, you do this, you
do that, but you cheat this, you lie
this, you cuss at that, so you end
up with nothing
because you are losing your hasanat.
The other day in Taraweeh, I mentioned this
story of,
waste,
and some of you still hate me from
the last book of God when I spoke
about smoking and cigarettes and stuff.
Today, inshallah,
you will hate me a little bit more.
So basically the story I mentioned there was
this brother and he was married to a
teacher, see, she's a philosophy major, and this
brother he used to smoke. He smoked a
lot, like, 2 packs of cigarettes every day.
And she told him, You're basically wasting our
money. This is waste from shaitan, and she
told him the Khutba I gave about shaitan
and waste to Surah Isla.
So, he didn't stop, he didn't quit. So
eventually she told him, You spend like $100
on cigarettes every day, You're taking away our
money, you're wasting it. I'm gonna take Every
time you spend a $100 on cigarettes, I'm
gonna take $50 from your pocket.
Still, it didn't quit.
So, after so many days, she said, This
is not working, and I have to step
up and warn him a little bit more.
She told him, Every time you smoke, I'm
gonna take the $50 I'm not gonna keep
them or take them for shopping, I'm gonna
burn them in front of your eyes.
And she started to burn the money in
front of him. For 10 days. Every day
she was burning $50 in front of his
eyes and he was burning from inside.
So only then did he realize that he
made a big mistake.
He divorced his wife and now he is
smoking freely. So problem is solved. Right? So
there are so many different types of,
wasting and shaitan is very active. And as
we say, Yeah, shaitan is locked up in
the month of Ramadan. Where is shaitan?
At least now we know that you you
shouldn't blame shaitan for everything. Right? Because he's
not here, but we're still doing some bad
things.
When you look up at the month of
Ramadan, you remember the story of Adam alaihis
salam. Shaitan was not in jannah with him.
He was whispering to him wirelessly, remotely from
outside jannah. Shaitan is now locked up as
now and now he is whispering to us.
Do this, do that, and so on and
so forth.
So unless you are under the protection of
Allah
shaitan will always be distracting you from what
is most important.
And I'm gonna conclude with the story of
Imam Malik and the elephant. I mentioned it
in Taraweeh, but I will remind you that
we're missing out a big time if we're
not taking advantage of this month.
Of course, Imam Malik
didn't have an elephant.
The people of Arabia were not familiar with
elephants.
Many of them, they didn't see elephants in
their lives because elephants, as you know, exist
in There's the African elephant, then there is
the Asian elephant in,
India, other places of,
Asia, but they don't have it in Arabia
per se.
And this is why when, the Muslims opened
Persia at the time of Umar Radilahu and,
they brought one elephant,
to Madinah, some of the sahabos were so
amazed
that they looked at the elephant and they
said, amin khatillahi ma'am Ara. Did the luck
read this? Because of the trunk and the
big ears, so they couldn't believe their eyes.
They were so astonished.
So now the story of Imam Malik and
the elephant. Imam Malik was in Madinah teaching
watta,
and 100 and thousands of students came to
learn from him. And they were sitting in
his halacha, and Imam Malik, from what we
know, was so charismatic.
Waqan alahu samsil
Umar al salatin He was very charismatic. He
looked like Sultan. People have so much respect
for him.
So these thousands of students sitting around him
learning Muwatta,
someone came from the back door and said,
Guys, there's a circus, and someone brought an
elephant to to Madinah, to the city.
Every single one of the students ran away
to, you know, to see the elephant except
for one student. His name is Yahya Al
Layfi.
He stayed there. The only one out of
all the thousands that came for the halalah.
So Imam Malik said, SubhanAllah, and he was
surprised that, Yeah. He he told him, why
didn't you go with the others? Why didn't
you join them? And he said, Yeah, Imam.
I left my country. I left my family.
I traveled thousands of miles to come and
see Imam Malik, and not to see the
elephants.
I can see it some other time, but
I'm here to learn.
So now many of us have elephants in
the month of Ramadan that distract you from
what is most important in this month.
We know we need to get closer to
Allah, get your sins forgiven,
salah, reading Quran, dua, and so on and
so forth. This is your time. If you
don't get closer to Allah in this month,
then when?
So, our elephant could be social media, Instagram,
Twitter, Facebook, playing video games, sleeping all day
long, hibernating like theirs, and so on and
so forth. There are so many elephants in
the month of Ramadan. So I don't know
what your elephant is. You know it better
than me. So make sure you lock up
your elephant in this month if you want
to get closer to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Just like Yahia al Layfih in the story.
All the students of Imam Malik are forgotten
with the exception of Yahia al Layfih. His
cheddah narration of Malta is the strongest there
is. So I ask Allah
to bring us closer to him, forgive our
sins, accept our good deeds, give us the
best in this month. We ask Allah
to give us