Nadim Ali – Even A Smile Is Charity
AI: Summary ©
The importance of learning to be oneself and avoiding victimization in Islam is emphasized. Fasting, being mindful of deeds, and being a means of contributing to one's life are also emphasized. forgiveness and internalizing one's attributes are also emphasized. The speaker emphasizes the need to be charitable, open-minded, and humble in order to increase one's Ib t b r and eliminate character defects. Additionally, the importance of forgiveness and making a smile is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Indeed, all praise belongs to Allah, the most
high. We thank him, and we seek his
aid. And we seek refuge with him, and
we seek his forgiveness,
and we seek refuge with him from the
evil of ourselves and from our bad actions.
Whoever Allah guides, then there's no one who
can mislead him. And whoever Allah causes to
go astray, then there's no one to guide
him. I bear witness that there's no deity
except Allah who is unique and without partners,
Muhammad is his worshipper and his messenger. May
the peace and blessings of Allah be upon
him and his family and his companions and
those who follow them with good intentions until
the day of judgment.
All you who believe, fear Allah as he
should be feared and don't die except as
Muslims. Again, all you who believe, fear Allah
as he should be feared and don't die
except as Muslims. And, oh, mankind, be careful
of your duty to your Rabb who created
you from a single soul and from it
created its mate, and from the 2 of
them, he spread forth many men and women.
Be careful of your duty to Allah whom
you demand your mutual rights and be careful
of your duty to the wounds that bore
you. Indeed, Allah is our over you. Oh,
you who believe, fear Allah and always speak
the truth, He will cause your deeds to
be beneficial and he will forgive for you
your sins and whoever obeys Allah and his
messenger, then he has truly achieved a tremendous
accomplishment.
Allah says in the Quran,
oh, you who believe,
decreed upon you is fasting as it was
decreed upon those that be came before you
that you may become righteous.
In another translation, it said, oh, you who
believe, fasting is prescribed for you even as
it was prescribed for those before you that
you may ward off evil. And one more
translation that we're all familiar with from Youssef
Ali, oh, you who believe, fasting is prescribed
to you as it was prescribed to those
before you that you may learn
self
restraint. And in the Arabic, it has the
word, tatakun,
tatakun,
and it's similar to the muttaqeen.
And so
one translation
or meaning of the tatakun or the god
conscious or the one who has attained a
level of fear or awe of Allah
and what we know as the word taqwa,
taqwa,
you know, and fear of Allah, utter obedience
to him in preparation for meeting
with him, the most high.
And again, thus,
the wisdom or the hikmah behind fasting
is to overall
learn self restraint. These are some of the
things that we have to recognize. As the
prophet
said that
all the deeds of Adam's sons or the
people are for them except fasting,
which is for me, and I will give
a reward for it. And this is what
he said as a Hadith Qudsi from Allah
that all the deeds of Adam's sons
or people are for them except fasting, which
is for me, and I will give the
reward for it. And what we have to
understand is that during this month, that we
have to take advantage of all the goodness
of these 29 or 30 days. We have
to be of those who are mindful of
the duties that we have as Muslims. And
again, we don't just want to practice Islam
or or just pretend Islam, we want to
actualize our deen. You know, we must, again,
use Ramadan as an opportunity to do as
much good as possible because, as the prophet
said that
when you do something good during Ramadan, you
get 70 times the reward, 70 times the
reward. And what we have to look at
is that
during this period, you know, the period of
time that, you know, that that no other
people have been given this this month, no
other people have been given Ramadan,
so we can accumulate so much good, and
this good goes into our hereafter account. Allah
says we sent down the Quran,
and that which is a healing and mercy
for the believers,
but it does not increase the wrongdoers except
in loss. And again, we have to look
at the fact that when people say, well,
you're gonna fast, you're gonna, you know, just
not eat all day, or you're gonna starve
to death, people try to minimize
what we try to do, but we're trying
to actualize what we are trying to do
and we're demonstrating
our submission to Allah because
he says when you see the moon, fast,
and when you see the next moon, you
stop fasting. And so we have to be
as charitable
as possible, and again, any act of charity
that you give is increased by 70 times.
Jabay ibn Abdullah
said that the prophet
said, every good deed is charity. Verily, it
is a good deed to meet your brother
with a cheerful face. So brothers and sisters,
we have to remember that even a smile
is charity.
Even a smile is charity.
You know, even if you're broke, you can
give charity. You can be financially broke, but
spiritually rich. But you can also be financially
rich, but spiritually broke.
How do we define charity? Again, it's from
the root word of truth or sadiq, truth,
and sadiqah
because, again, when you're giving charity, you're being
sincere in what you're giving. You're being sincere
in wanting to please Allah. You want to
do things.
That's the importance of giving charity, and again,
charity is a means of
contributing to your hereafter four zero one ks.
We have to be able to do this.
You know, again, we don't give charity just
like when you see the people when they're
giving charity with these large checks. You don't
give charities to be seen of people. You
wanna give charity very quietly.
As the prophet, peace be upon him, says
that a man who gives charity
and and and hides it such that his
left hand does not know what the right
hand has done.
The left hand does not know what the
right man right hand has done. And, again,
they're one of the people who are considered
the shade of 7, people who are guaranteed
paradise.
Others of those are a man who remembers
a lot in private and so that the
eyes shed tears. That's another one. And so
even during this time, we want to engage
in private worship.
Although we engage in the night prayers and
and break fast together, you know, we have
to be of those who are
just
trying to increase our Ibadah, increase our connection
to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We can do
as much good as possible. We can do
as much good as possible, and again, we
get 70 times the reward than if
during other times, during the normal times. This
month of Ramadan is such a blessed month.
We have to be of those who
seek to do good, seek to do as
best we can, and to try to eliminate
our character defects, and we also, again, remember,
give to charity, and even a smile is
charity. I remember this story that I read
about years ago when I took a class
on suicidology
and just wondered what drove people to suicide,
and this is a person who's now an
author and mental health advocate.
This is a man, his name was Hines.
He threw himself off of the Golden Gate
Bridge 14 years ago,
and he survived.
And at the time, he was a distraught
19 year old college student with issues of
bipolar and voices in his head
telling him, you know, that to to destroy
himself, and he kept those a secret from
his family and those close to him and
his doctors also for 15 years.
He didn't want to die, but he believed
he had to do, he had to die.
Hines had taken the bus to the bridge
visibly in tears,
visibly in tears, and he looked to people,
looked at strangers, and they saw him crying,
and and nobody asked about him. Again, that's
about they didn't show empathy towards this person
who was obviously suffering.
He counted all sorts of people along the
way, and no one would ask him what
was going on with him. No one asked
him what was wrong with him, you know,
and if they had asked him, they would've
probably convinced him not to jump.
None of them did. He ended up vaulting
off of the Golden Gate Bridge,
but it wasn't decreed for him to die.
He lived. He lived
and,
you know, he,
he basically said that another man
basically
jumped off the bridge and he completed the
suicide,
but he left a note. He left a
note and he said on that note
that
I would not go through with it if
a single person smiled at him that day,
if a single person smiled at him that
day. And again, and when I heard that,
I immediately reflected on the words of the
prophet said
that even a smile is charity. And so
Haydn said that man is dead, and he
told
the crowd that if they ever see someone
visibly upset, even a stranger, they should ask
them, hey, what's going on, what's wrong? Is
something going on? That can be enough to
keep a person alive.
That can be the person, that can be
enough to keep a person from destroying themselves.
And again, smiling,
treating people kindly, being empathetic towards others. This
is the essence of Islam as well, the
power of a smile. Being empathetic is a
form of charity, and again, as also the
old saying goes, charity begins at home. So
we want to also be empathetic
towards our family members. As the prophet
said to the best of you are those
who are best to their families, and I
am the best of you because I am
the best to my family. This is what
he told us. He taught us this, and
so during this month, if you have some
estrangement
between
your parents or the parents have some estrangement
with their children, this is a good time
to to seek forgiveness, and I always say
forgiveness should not come without contrition, and contrition
means to accept,
you know, what you did, what what damage
you caused, and try to repair the damage.
Scholars of psychology talk about the way to
apologize, the first step is to say I'm
sorry. The second step is to empathize, to
say I'm sorry for what I did, and
you're letting that person know what you
did, you know, and again, the 3rd step
is to commit not to do it again.
The 4th step is the negotiation step.
What do you need me to do to
fix it? What need do I, what can
I do to fix the damage that I've
caused?
And then the 5th step is just do
it. So, we have to be forgiving and
forgiveness is not necessarily for the other person,
it's for you, and
as Allah says that if you choose not
to forgive,
you expect the law to forgive you?
You know, those who choose not to forgive,
it's gonna be difficult, you know, for Allah
to forgive them, and so we have to
be forgiving. We have to have
internalized the attributes
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and he's the
most he's all forgiving and most merciful,
all forgiving and most merciful. Again, if I've
said anything that's inconsistent with what Allah has
given us and the prophet, peace be upon
him, has taught us, I take full responsibility
for that. And if you have learned anything
today and if you have been enlightened by
anything today, as always, all praise belongs to
Allah.
And again, the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon
him, said that when a man dies, his
deeds come to an end except for 3
things, sadhikajaria,
ceaseless charity,
a knowledge which is beneficial
or a virtual descendant who prays for them,
you know, when they pass, a virtuous descendant.
We want our children to
pray for us, and so we have to
not break the family ties and we have
to be of those who strive to strengthen
the family, strengthen the family ties and so
as Muslims, you know, we have to basically
not just wear this deen, but internalize this
deen. Again, if I've said anything that's inconsistent
with what Allah has given us in the
prophet, peace be upon him, has role modeled
for us, I take full responsibility
for that and if you have learned anything
and have been enlightened by anything today, as
always, our praise belongs to Allah.
Our lord, take us not to task if
we forget or fall into error. Our lord,
lay not on us a burden such as
you did lay on those before us. Our
lord, lay not us burden greater than than
we have the strength to bear and overlook
our faults and forgive us. Have mercy upon
us. You are our protector and grant us
a victory over the disbelieving people.