Nadim Ali – Holistic Deen
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AI: Transcript ©
And in one translation,
indeed our praise belongs to Allah.
The most high, we thank him and we
seek his aid,
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 is no one
who can mislead him, and whoever Allah causes
to go astray, then there is no one
to guide him.
I be witness that there is no deity
except Allah, who is unique and without partners,
and I bear witness that Muhammad is his
worshipper and his messenger.
May the peace and blessings be upon him.
Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him
and his family and his companions and those
who follow him, and 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.
Oh, mankind, be careful of your duty to
your ab 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 many 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 Ar Raqib over you.
All 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.
For indeed, the best speech is the book
of Allah, and the best guidance is the
guidance of Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and the
most evil of all affairs are newly invented
matters, which has no precedence in Islam,
and all innovations are astray, and each astray
is in the hellfire.
Oh, Allah, save us from it. Oh, Allah,
accept our du'a.
Allah says
in the Quran,
To each of you, we have ordained
a code of law and a way of
life.
If Allah had willed, he would have made
you one community, but his will is to
test you
with what he has given each of you.
So compete
with each other in doing good.
To Allah, you will all return, then he
will inform you of the truth regarding your
differences. And that's from Surah Tamaeda,
ayat 48.
And so
when we look at this particular ayat, you
know, Allah tells us
Allah tells us that he gives us everything
that we need. We have a complete way
of life, a complete religion, a holistic religion.
We have to understand this, and also
we have to accept the decree of Allah,
and understand that the decree of Allah is
real.
And what we experience in this phase of
life are just tests from him.
Just tests from him. We get blessings and
we get tests. And our test, our Imtihan,
They are designed to strengthen our iman.
But when we have frustration
in the test, then what happens?
That weakens our iman, it weakens our faith,
and it weakens our resolve.
And so, you know, we have to accept
that frustration and becoming anxious over the test
that Allah may give us. You know, it's
it's it weakens us. And so, we want
to be of those who are strengthened
by the test.
Strengthened by this this struggle.
You know, Allah says that we are made
in struggle and toil.
And so we all accept the 5 pillars
of Islam, and we accept the articles of
faith, but again, how many of us internalize
these? How many of them how many of
us believe
that Allah
is the only true God?
How many of us believe that we need
to make the 5 prayers, fast the month
of Ramadan? How many of us believe in
the hereafter?
How many of us really truly believe it?
You know, and if we believe it, we
have to start acting like it. We cannot
engage in behaviors
that are inconsistent
with what we say verbally,
with what we say verbally.
We again have a holistic Deen. It's the
Deen al Haqq. You know, the true or
real deen, real way of life. It's not
just
a a religion or a not just based
on rituals.
Although we have salat as a ritual, we
have fasting as a ritual. We make the
Hajj as a ritual. We make the Jummah
as a ritual.
But
our deen is designed to basically cleanse us
spiritually. Hence, this is what we have to
really strive for. It's really internal cleansing that
needs to take place. As the prophet
said that everything rust, even the heart can
rust, and that which removes the rust from
the heart is remembrance of Allah. Remembrance of
Allah. That is the anti corrosive for our
our heart.
And so this deen is is from Allah
He is the creator, the creator of the
universe,
and he has given it to us. It
is not that Muslims have something new,
as we hear all the time and swear
to Allah.
This was in the books that came before,
the books of Abraham and Moses.
You know, so Islam is not a new
deen,
you know, it is something
that was
here even before mankind.
It is the deen from the creator of
the universe.
Although the Quran
is revealed in Arabic, and we use the
Arabic language to describe certain things, it's not
just for the Arabs.
It's for all of mankind.
You know, as we say and as Allah
says that the prophet Muhammad
was the seal of the prophets. He was
the last prophet.
You know? And so between the prophet Adam
and the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him,
you had many, many, many prophets. Prophets to
have come to
all people. Some prophets maybe didn't have any
followers or want a few followers, and some
prophets had many followers.
But we have to understand that message is
consistent. The message of the the tawhid, the
oneness of the the creator, the oneness, and
not to associate partners with Allah
You know, Allah says
and again,
this day, I have perfected for you your
religion and completed my favor upon you and
approved for you Islam as your religion.
But whoever is forced by severe hunger with
no inclination
to sin, then indeed,
Allah is forgiving and merciful.
So if you're forced
to to basically step away from the deen
by torture and things like that, Allah knows
your heart,
no matter what you say out of your
mouth.
Because we're in trying times where you have
people
who will be attacking
Muslims on many different levels, from the media,
even to the point of physical attacks all
over the world. We can't just be focusing
just on what happens in this country,
because we look at our brothers and sisters
who are Rohingya, we look at our brothers
and sisters who are the Uighur people in
China, we look at our brothers and sisters
who are incarcerated
in in this country.
Islam is under attack,
and so we have to basically fortify ourselves
with iman.
We fortify ourselves with iman, and then we
can sustain
any attacks that man brings upon us. Because
if we face a hardship,
remember, you know, Allah will basically
reward us for maintaining our faith
in the face of a hardship. And we
have to think of the prophet Ayub, alaihis
salaam, who basically lost everything,
and he maintained his iman. He maintained his
faith.
So these this is how we have to
look at our deen. It is, again, a
complete way of life. It is the true
way of life, and Allah has given us
this deen as a means of guidance
in this life and in the hereafter.
The prophet
says that wondrous is the fare of the
believer,
for there is good for him in every
matter,
and this is not the case with anyone
except the believer. If he is happy, then
he thanks Allah, and thus there is good
for him. If he is harmed,
then he shows patience,
and thus there is good for him. And
this is again a Sahih Muslim Hadith. We
have to look at that.
If
something challenging happens, you know, you see it
as a trial from Allah. But if something
good happens, again,
you know, we we we basically
see it as a gift from Allah, and
we maintain our gratitude.
How many of us fit this job description?
How many of us have this type of
iman?
So when we're faced with a challenge, we
fold, do we fold?
Do we fold, or do we seek the
spiritual lesson in the challenges that we face?
So this is one of the things that
we have to look at. We have this
holistic deen, a deen
that is so comprehensive.
It it it basically
regulates not only the human beings, but the
plant life and the life that we don't
even know about in this life and in
the hereafter. And as Allah says, he he
is the Lord of all the worlds.
Lord of all the worlds.
As Allah says in Surah Al Rahman, is
there
any reward for good? Any is there any
reward for good anything but good?
Just ask yourself that if you do good,
you're gonna get reward for doing good. So
as Muslims, we need to strive to do
as much good as possible.
The prophet
said that if Allah intends good for someone,
then he afflicts them with trials.
He afflicts them with trials. And so, again,
we've had the trial of the pandemic.
And it could be a purging, you know,
for us.
So we understand and, you know, and and
overstand
that Allah is in complete control.
And so if we fold
and again, in the field that I work
in, in mental health, many people are just
facing so many mental health challenges.
And so your mental health can can be
regulated by your spiritual health. And so it's
important for people to be able to
improve their spiritual health, and you'll be surprised
how it impacts
your mental health.
You know,
as Muslims,
we have to strive to be believers.
Because what happens is by
striving to be believers and attaining that, we're
in a win win situation. Again, if we
have a hardship, we win. If we stay
patient,
and if we have a victory,
you know, we win if we show gratitude.
So we're in a win win situation
if we strive to to allow the belief
to enter our hearts. Our deen is complete
and holistic. And again, it gives us an
understanding, an overstanding
of this life and the hereafter.
And it may Allah allow us to be
of those who
strive to be believers.
Because, again,
during these challenging times,
our faith is gonna be tested.
During these challenging times,
people will seek to try to disprove Islam.
During these challenging times, you have people who
engage in,
basically worshiping their own skin, worshiping black supremacy,
worshiping white supremacy,
worshiping brown supremacy.
But we have to understand
that
Allah is supreme. It is only Allah who
is supreme, and he tells
us that among his signs is the variations
in our languages and colors.
The variations in our languages and colors. So
mankind is just a tapestry.
It's a tapestry of the colors, and the
colors are just adjectives.
The colors doesn't it doesn't mean that
one color is better than the other.
You know,
as as I said, that, you know, we're
only best or better
based on our piety, based on our commitment
to Allah
If I've said anything that's inconsistent with Islam,
and
and what the prophet
has given us,
you know, I take full responsibility for that,
and if I've said anything in which you
have gained some new insight, as always, our
praise is due
to
Allah.
Our lord, take us not to task if
we forget or make mistakes. Our lord, lay
not on us a burden such as you
did lay on those who have gone before
us. Our lord lay not on us a
burden which we do not have the strength
to bear. And overlook our faults and forgive
us and have mercy upon us. You are
our guardian, so grant us a victory against
the disbelieving people.
Peace be upon you in the mercy of
Allah and his blessings. Please stay safe, brothers
and sisters.