Nadim Ali – The Middle Course 030521
AI: Summary ©
The speakers stress the importance of not dying as a Muslim and not dying as a wasAT. They stress the need to be mindful of one's actions and not become information-obsessed, balancing one's deen and allowing the deen to purify oneself, protecting and learning from past hadiths, and showing pride in one's actions. The speakers emphasize the importance of learning to be a good fit for Islam, being mindful of one's body, and not just fasting all day.
AI: Summary ©
Indeed, our praise belongs to Allah, the Most
High. We thank him and we seek his
aid and we seek 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
can mislead him, and whoever Allah causes to
go astray and there's no one to guide
him. I bear witness that there is no
deity except Allah who is unique and without
partners, and I bear witness that Mohammed 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.
Oh, you who believe, fear Allah as he
should be feared, and don't die except as
Muslims. Again, oh, 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 Arab who created you from a single
soul and from it created its mate, and
from the 2 of them 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 over
Rakeeb over you. O 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 indeed, all innovations are astray, and each
astray is in the hellfire. O Allah,
save us from it. O Allah, accept our
du'a.
Allah says,
And thus we have made you a wasat,
a moderate community, that you may be witnesses
over the people, and the messenger will be
a witness over
you.
Witnesses over the people, and the messenger will
be a witness over you. And we did
not make the qiblah which you use to
face, except that which we might make evident
who would follow the messenger from who would
turn back on his heels.
And
And indeed, it is difficult except for those
whom Allah has guided,
and never would Allah have caused you to
lose your faith. Indeed, Allah
is to the people kind and merciful. And
that's from Surah Tabakara,
ayat 143.
When we look at that particular ayat, it's
talking about the importance
of being balanced and being moderate.
Allah
gives us instructions on how we are to
be here on earth. Allah
he describes
the best of people, the best of people,
you know, those are the best people of
that time, you know, the the the wasatiya.
You know, linguistically,
the word, it means the best, the middle,
centered, balanced,
middle way or moderation,
right way,
middle of the way, honest and truthful, you
know, just a balanced human being.
And this is what we want to strive
to be, brothers and sisters. This is who
we want to be. As Muslims, we have
to strive to be the best of these
people.
People who don't follow excessive
ways or excessive desires, but people who sacrifice
for Allah's
sake. You know Allah says that the best
among them,
he says that did I not tell you
why do you not say 'insha Allah?'
So he talks about the best people that
use the word 'insha Allah' if it is
Allah's will, you know, because we know that
everything
is in Allah's control. We look at this
pandemic, We look at all of the problems
that we are having and all of the
things that's going on. It says, okay. What
Allah, what are we to learn from this
as human beings?
You know, the Muslim knows that this child
that we're facing is a trial from Allah,
and so we have to weather this trial.
Many people have died, and specifically in America,
half a 1000000 people have lost their lives
to an illness,
and so we have to be of those
to take this illness seriously. We have to
be of those who are striving,
striving so that we can improve our worship.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he tells us, you
know, that those
who are the devotees of Allah are the
best, the devotees of Allah. They are the
best people. And so that's how we have
that's what we have to look at brothers
and sisters. We wanna be the best,
you know, the best of mankind. The best
of mankind, as I always say, not the
beast of mankind. Because man's Because man can
can basically have the ability or the nature
to be able to rise above the angels
and seek beneath the belly of a snake.
So, you know,
we have to be of those
who are the best, you know. How do
we accomplish this? How how can we accomplish
this this best, brothers and sisters? These are
some of the things we have to look
at, because again, Allah tells us that those
who are the devotees of Allah, subhanahu wa
ta'ala,
are the best,
You know, so we want to learn how
to accomplish this. He
says that the religion of Islam is easy,
and whoever makes the religion a rigor or
make it hard, it will overpower him. In
other words, it will burn you out. So
follow the middle course, brothers and sisters. Follow
the middle course in worship. If you can
do this if you can't do this, rather,
do something near to it. Do something near
to it and give glad tidings and seek
the help of Allah
at morn and at dusk in some part
of the night. In other words, you'll see
people, I walk down the street and I
see people
sleeping on the porch, sitting on the porch,
see people just sort of gathering on the
corners
and just talking,
but we're on the way to worship. And
so, if we're worshiping Allah, is that
least important than the people who are just
talking amongst themselves or just sitting on their
porch and just you know, basically
spending time watching
frivolous television, or just doing unnecessary things. So
we have to say, you know, how can
we serve Allah to the best of our
ability?
You know, we have to be of those
who
avoid
excesses.
We want to worship in the morning and
at dusk, and as the prophet
said, in some part of the night, and
that's from Bukhari, we must not be prone
to excesses.
We have to pace ourselves in acquiring knowledge
so that it just doesn't become information.
As you know, a computer or a parrot,
they can absorb information,
but they can't worship.
They can't worship for the most part, you
know, or don't have free
will. So these are some of the things
that we have to look at. We don't
just want to externalize
our Islam. We don't just want to be
checkoff Muslims,
you know. We don't want to just dress
the part. We have to allow
our deen to seep into our hearts, to
seep into our marrow, brothers and sisters.
This is how we want to be.
We
want our deen to be actualized in our
behaviors.
Who are striving to be the best people
that we can be, because we're human beings
first, brothers and sisters. You know, we have
to look at the fact of congruency. Congruency
means that who you are on the inside
is what others see on the outside.
You know, you're consistent,
And so we don't want to basically
be actors as Muslims. You know, we want
to be consistent, brothers and sisters. We have
to avoid being overly religious and minimally spiritual.
You know, we want to not just get
into a whole level of religiosity.
Religiosity
is when you treat your faith like a
checkoff,
like a checkoff.
Spirituality or ruhaniyah
is when you are full with the din,
you know, when you try to practice deen
in all aspects of your life. One of
the things Imam Jamil used to tell us
is that
there was no comparable word in English for
deen.
Deen again meant way of life, It means
way of life.
And so in Islam,
we're not just practicing a religion because when
we look at it, we say religion and
spirituality,
2 different things for the most part. Religion
can be like the skeleton in the body,
and spirituality is like the flesh on the
skeleton. It's that which fills you up. That's
what fills you out. And so we want
to not just be religious, we don't just
want to be spiritual,
we want to be of those who have
that, again, that congruency.
Worshipping Allah, as Imam Shafi said, you know,
to worship Allah as if you see him
although you don't see him. You know, so
this is how we want to worship, specifically
for the new Muslims, and I know it's
gonna take time for you to detox from
all of the things and all of the
lifestyle
issues that you may have, but you want
to travel on the path and not just
go zigzag,
not try to bring all of the bad
habits into Islam, but allow the deen to
purify
you of the bad habits. Again, we don't
want to just be Chekhov Muslims. The prophet,
peace be upon him, you know,
he once asked a companion, Is it true
that you fast all day and that you
stand in prayer all night? He asked that
question,
you know, and the companion replied
that the report was indeed true. And what
did the prophet say? The prophet
said, Do not do that.
He said, Observe the fast sometimes,
and also leave it at other times. In
other words, don't just fast all the time.
You know, you want to basically
give your body rights. He says stand up
for prayer at night and also sleep at
night. In other words,
again, just be moderate in your Deen. And
he said also that your body has rights
over you, your eyes have rights over you,
and your wife has rights over you. You
know, and so this is what we have
to look at, being balanced in our deen.
This is again, this is the Sahih Bukhari
Hadith, this is from volume 7, Hadith 127.
So look it up. You know, we have
to be of those to
practice our Islam in such a balanced way.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, you know, peace
be upon him, you know, was a promoter
of what health care professionals call
self care. That's what they call it today,
self care. He taught and displayed this in
how he lived his life.
Again, he wasn't a role model, he was
a real model. He was an actual human
being that Allah gave us to be able
to show
what we are to be about in regards
to
get
the best in this world and the best
in the hereafter.
He asked us to
learn also.
One of the hadiths I love, he
that one learned worshiper is harder on the
devil than a 1000 ignorant worshipers. One learned
worshiper is harder on the devil than a
1000 ignorant worshipers.
You know, just let that sink in.
One learned worshiper is hard on the devil
than 1,000
ignorant worshipers.
So again, the prophet
recognizing
that there will be a level of ignorance
in our community,
and there will be a level of enlightenment
also.
So we have to recognize that scholarship is
something that's admirable in Islam, but all of
us can't be scholars, you know, and so
we have to work to not only attain
as much knowledge as we can, you know,
like they say in Islam, a scholar
is one who has learned 40 hadith.
But again, that doesn't mean that you just
learned 40 hadith and you can call yourself
a great scholar. You know, many people again,
the brothers and sisters have have traveled far
and wide to gain knowledge.
Many people went to Yemen. They went to
Saudi Arabia.
They went to parts of Africa, went to
Malaysia, different parts of the world, all over
the world to gain some knowledge.
And so we have to honor them and
we have to protect them, brothers and sisters.
Let us honor them and protect them. Again,
for those of us who are not scholars,
know, let us listen to Rasulullah
who said, Do good deeds properly. Do good
deeds properly. You know, you want to basically
do good deeds, sincere
and moderately.
Always adopt the middle course.
You know, always adopt the middle course, the
regular course, whereby you reach your target, and
what is the target, brothers and sisters? What
is the target? It is paradise, it is
Jannah, it is the garden.
That's the target. You know, and again, that's
the Sahih Hadid from Bukhari.
Isn't that all of our goals?
Isn't that all of our goals, to be
able to get paradise? Not just fame, not
just fortune, but to get Jannah. I always
say, I'd rather have an efficiency apartment in
Jannah than have a penthouse in the hellfire.
So we have to recognize
that these things are real. This life here
is just an illusion. We're only here for
a minute
in terms of things in regards to eternity.
If you look at when there'll be no
more time when we leave this plane of
life,
you know, when we get to Jannah, there'll
be no more time.
And so
if Allah gives us a 100 years on
the planet,
you know, that is just sort of a
microcosm
of what we're looking forward to in the
hereafter, and that's what we have to be
patient with ourselves,
we have to be patient with each other,
and also we have to be of those,
you know, let us be of those who
seek Jannah
in a sincere manner.
As the prophet Luqman
he advised his son,
and be moderate in your pace and lower
your voice. Indeed, the most disagreeable, the most
disagreeable
of sounds
is the voice of the donkeys or people
who basically sound like the of the donkey.
So we have to be of those who,
you know, are moderate in speech
and just walk the earth in peace, walk
the earth
in such a way
that we are showing
humility,
and humility is not humiliation.
To be humble is not showing signs of
weakness. To be humble is showing deference
to our lord. Deference to our lord, and
that's the bottom line.
To show deference to Allah,
to show deference to
Allah's
creation, because Allah,
he is
in control of all things, and that's what
we have to recognize, brothers and sisters. You
know, if we want to attain Jannah,
we have to basically
take an example from the prophet
because he lived
in a modest way. Again, he had access
to all of the wealth of the Arabian
Peninsula, and
what did he do? He lived modestly.
So always ask the question, how you living?
How you living?
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 who have gone
before us. Our Lord, lay not on us
a burden which we do not have the
power to bear, and overlook our faults and
forgive us and have mercy on us. You
are our protector, so grant us a victory
over the disbelieving people. Assalamu Alaikum.