Nadim Bashir – Do not Let People Control You
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I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that just
as he has gathered us here here today
on this day of jama'ah, May Allah
gather us along with our families in
in the companionship of Rasulullah
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and his Sahaba
Amin. Brothers and sisters,
many of us are struggling
with various things in our life.
But there are some things that are beyond
our control.
There are some things that are beyond our
control.
What we're seeing in ghazah right now, for
the most part, it is beyond our control.
There are a few things that we can
do, of course. And we've talked about that
in many khutbas.
But today, I wanna focus on the problems
and the issues that you and I you
and I, we are facing,
that we do have a solution for.
But we just are not opting for those
solutions. We're not choosing those solutions.
1 of the things that I've seen very
common
in my emails that I receive on a
daily basis,
or the people that I meet very often,
is that people are struggling
when it comes to their emotions.
And when it comes to their emotions,
it's the emotions that have to do with
other people.
There are many people who are struggling with
that, they're struggling with the idea that, what
can I do to please other people?
They're constantly obsessed and focused on impressing other
people.
They feel
They feel rejected.
They feel that they are not accepted.
They feel that there are people who are
demeaning them.
They feel that they are surrounded
by people who are toxic,
and they don't know what to do.
There are people who tell me that people
are judging them for their kids.
People are talking about their kids, or talking
about their job, or talking about their lifestyle.
And they feel that the entire world is
just collapsing upon them.
And they're just so focused on what people
are doing, and what people are saying around
them.
And they're going through literally
I kid you not when I say this.
They're going through anxiety.
They're going through depression.
And not only that, but there are people
who First of all, they say that
that socially,
I don't feel right around everyone else. But
then there are people who will come in
your life, and they will say that Allah
is also not pleased with you. Allah is
angry at you.
And subhanallah, the first thing I have to
ask when people say these kind of things
is, that did you receive an email from
Allah
Did you receive a text message from Allah
That this person is not liked by Allah
Any person who tells you in your life
that Allah is not pleased with you,
the first thing I'm gonna tell you is,
they have absolutely
no means, and they have they have no
right to tell you,
and tell anyone of us that Allah is
not pleased with us.
And number 2 is, you need to ask
them the simple question,
that what How do they know that Allah
is not pleased with them? If they have
knowledge of the unseen, then can you please
share with me more knowledge of the unseen.
Yes. Someone can say that perhaps you're doing
something,
and something is happening in your life. Perhaps
this is a sign that Allah is displeased
with you. That is acceptable.
Or to say to someone
that perhaps you're doing something that is wrong,
Allah may get upset with you. That's a
different thing. But subhanallah, the point is, brothers
and sisters, we're living around people, and we
are so affected by what people are saying
and doing things, and what they think about
us, and we're just totally obsessed with that,
that is causing a lot of difficulty
in our personal lives.
So the question is,
that how do we conduct our own personal
affairs?
We live around people, but how do we
conduct ourselves?
And what do we learn from the sunnah
of Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam?
First of all is, there's 4 things I'm
gonna share with you today, and keep these
4 things in mind. Number 1.
We cannot be worried
about what people are gonna say
and what people are gonna think about us.
How much are we going to run after
people?
You try to please 1 person, the other
person's going to get upset.
There was a story
that there was a husband and a wife.
They were walking with a donkey.
And this story really shows us that there
is no way you can please people and
you can change people's opinion.
So they were walking with a donkey,
and people, they were passing by people, and
some people, they said, that what kind of
a foolish couple they are. They have a
donkey, instead of walking, they can ride the
donkey.
So they both got on the donkey.
After a while, people began to say that
don't you have any mercy on the donkey?
Both of you are sitting on the donkey?
You both should be getting off. So they
both got off.
Then again, some people said, you should not
just be using the donkey, someone should ride
the donkey. Okay. The man put his wife
on the donkey.
After a while, people began to say that
what kind of disrespectful woman she is, that
she's making her husband walk.
She He's the 1 who's supposed to be
on, on the, on the on the donkey,
and she should be on foot. So they
switched places.
After a while, people began to say that
what kind of insensitive husband he is, that
he's he's riding the donkey, and he's making
the wife be on foot.
The moral of the story is, you cannot
please people.
People are always gonna have an opinion about
you. People are always gonna say things about
you. And the more we are We care
about that, the more we're gonna hold ourselves
down.
So the very first thing is that we
cannot worry about what people are gonna say,
and what people are gonna think about us.
And this is something that we have learned
from the sunnah of Rasulullah
alaihi wasallam. The prophet
had a mission.
Just like today, you and I, we have
goals, we have aspirations,
and we should just run towards those aspirations.
And we should try to chase those goals.
But at the same time,
people are always gonna come. They're always gonna
come in our way. They're always gonna try
to deceive and deceive us and distract us.
But the point is that we cannot be
worried about that. Rasulullah
alaihi wa sallam also had a life mission,
and that was to call everyone to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. And there were times when
the Quraysh came,
and they tried to guilt trip rasulullah
They tried to make him feel guilty,
that what he's doing is wrong.
But the prophet
he did not worry about what people are
gonna say. He was literally canceled in the
society.
Besides his own followers, his own sahaba,
amongst the general Maqans,
he was considered as a cancelled person.
But what did the prophet
do? He focused on what task he had
ahead of him, because he realized that if
I try to please them, then I'm going
to displease Allah
So his focus was, let me focus His
focus was, let me please Allah
and people are gonna have their opinion, People
are gonna say whatever they wanna say, but
I will not stop. And it came to
the point that eventually, the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam, he was being asked by the Quraysh
that, what are you looking for? Are you
looking for fame? Are you looking for women?
Are you looking for wealth? We'll give you
everything,
but just stop what you're doing.
And at that time the prophet he said,
that even if you put the sun in
1 hand and the moon on the other
hand, which is absolutely impossible. But even if
you were to do the impossible, it will
not stop me. And it was after that
point, after this statement of Rasulullah
that they sort of backed off. And they
then began to employ other means to stop
rasul asallahu alaihi wa sallam in his mission.
But the point is, brother and sisters,
that people are going to say things about
you.
If it has happened to the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, it's going to happen to
you. It happens to me. It happens to
all of us. People will come and say
very insensitive things.
Things that are extremely derogatory,
and they will just say it and walk
away. That you don't even have a time
and a chance to respond to them. And
it's sitting You go home, or you're driving
your car, and that 1 statement is eating
you away. It's crawling under your skin, and
you feel restless.
You feel hopeless, and you feel like that
I wish I can just come back in
front of that person, and I will speak
my mind and so forth. But brothers and
sisters, let that person go.
Just walk away. These are ignorant people. Allah
is telling you, just walk away. Imam Shafi'i
rahmatullahi a'layhi he says, that whenever I got
into a debate with anyone,
I would floor my opponents. But there was
1 kind of person that I was never
able to defeat in any conversation,
and that person
was the jahil person.
You can't reason with jahil people. You can't
reason with ignorant people. These are their signs
of their ignorance.
And what happens is that, if we keep
on thinking about it, and let it eat
us away,
then they're living As they say, they are
living in your head rent free. You've heard
this statement before. They live in your head
rent free.
They are eating you away while they go
outside, and they are enjoying their life, their
personal life, their family life, but their statement
and their comment is eating you away. Brothers
and sisters, don't put yourself in that kind
of situation.
Just rise higher.
And let me give you another example to
help you understand this.
You know, it's mentioned about eagles, and I'm
sure you've probably seen this example before.
When you look at a bald eagle,
a bald eagle soars very high.
They fly very high.
And there is a certain
bird called the crow.
The crow sits on the head of the
eagle,
and it just sits there and it pecks
at the head of the eagle.
But what does the eagle do?
He knows that this bird is of no
use to me. Even if I try to
let it go or try to make it
go away, it's not gonna go. So what
does the eagle do? The eagle flies high.
He flies really really high. And it gets
to a point in the atmosphere
that the crow can no longer
breathe. It has no oxygen. While the eagle
can go further higher,
the crow eventually comes to a point, and
it leaves.
And the crow and the eagle keeps on
going higher.
The moral of the story is, there's always
gonna be people in your life who are
gonna try to hold you back from your
success,
but just go higher and higher in life,
and these people will eventually just go away
from your life.
So that's the very first thing is we
need to let go of what people are
gonna think about us, what people are gonna
say about us, and just ignore it. And
at that time,
that The second The most important thing to
to
to solve this problem is, try to be
around people who are gonna appreciate you for
who you are.
Because even at that time, if someone shares
their opinion about you, but you know that
they care about you, you're gonna take their
opinion very, very seriously because they care for
you. So that's the first thing. The second
thing is, which is very important
in this subject matter, is that we try
to make sure that we remove
anyone in our life who is considered as
toxic.
What is the definition of being a toxic
person?
A toxic person is always the insecure person.
And what they wanna do is that they
know that they try to prey on you,
and they try to make you feel insecure
so that it gives them support in their
insecurity.
They're not proud of who they are, but
they try They need someone. They need some
kind of companionship.
So they prey on that kind of person.
They try to make that person feel inferior.
Why?
Because they know that they are not good
enough, but I need someone to share the
same insecurity with me also.
And these kind of toxic people need to
be removed from your life. Once again, this
is another kind of jahiliya kind of, you
know, these kind of people, they are jahil
in their nature and so forth. And as
Allah
says,
When he When you hear any kind of
toxic people, they like to spew hate. They
like to spew their insecurity. They might They
like to make you feel that you are
absolutely nothing. When they say this kind of
Allah tells us what to do in that
kind of situation.
I have nothing to do with you. You
on your own way, I'm on my own
way. You live your life, I'm gonna live
my life. I don't need to be around
them.
And by the way, this statement also tells
us that when there are toxic people in
our community,
toxic people in your family, you don't need
to go and socialize with them. The fact
that Allah is saying,
For me, I have my life. For you,
you have your life. Allah is telling us,
don't socialize with these kind of people. Because
the more you socialize with these people,
the more they're gonna
they're gonna project their insecurity and their toxicity
upon you. What are some of those signs
that they are toxic? Number 1 is, they
always try to make you feel jealous. They
always try to give you the sense that
they are possessive.
They always are the ones who are putting
you down. They are the ones who want
to dictate what goes on in your life.
They want you.
They want to be in charge and can
control of your life,
that your emotions are in their hands.
This is a sign of a toxic person.
A narcissistic person is a toxic person. So
when you have these kind of people in
your life, you need to learn how to
just remove them from your life. They are
of no good. Now, a person may ask,
what if
there are people like that in my own
family?
And these are questions that come to me
often. What if my husband is toxic? What
if my wife is toxic? What if my
family members are toxic?
And and what if my mother-in-law is toxic?
You know how many cases I get of
the mother in law's? Okay. My mother-in-law is
toxic. My father-in-law is toxic and so forth.
I hear these stories over and over again.
And that kind of situation, if something is
happening in your immediate family,
then you need to go and seek counseling
immediately.
And if it's happening in your extended family
members,
and they are toxic in their nature, then
you don't need to be around them. Yes.
They come across you, That
is your Islamic right
upon them. Besides that, there is nowhere in
the Quran or nowhere in the sunnah that
says, you need to be around them. Yes,
there is something called being good to your
relatives. But if they are toxic, and every
time you are around them, they make you
feel inferior, and they put you down, and
they put your kids down, and your family
down, and your work down, and your life
down, there's no need to be around them.
Simple as that. And there are times when
people have come to me in my office,
and they have told me that I have
family members who are toxic. And I usually
ask them, because sometimes we don't even know
the definition of toxicity.
So I usually will ask them that, what
are the signs? What do they do? When
they describe to me, then that is usually
when I have also told some people, you
don't need to be around them. You need
to just remove them from your life. And
yes, they come across you, they say, assalamu
alaikum. You say, assalamu alaikum as salam to
them. And you be good to them, but
you don't need to be around them. So
this is something extremely important that we need
to understand is we need to just remove
them in from that kind of situation.
And, you know, there's
an example I can share with you
that when it comes to toxic people, they're
always gonna pull you down. You know, there
was a, I shared this example before.
You may have heard me say this before.
There was
AAA pet, talent show that took place,
and a man,
he brought 2 crabs,
and he said that I'm gonna you know,
he brought his his crabs, and he want
you know, everyone brought their pets to showcase
to everyone else.
So people told him that, you know, you
need to put them in a box, or
you need to put them into, like, a
a, you know, a glass box or something,
or dig up a hole or something, but
you need to just make sure that, you
know, they don't they don't crawl out and
go anywhere else. And he says, no. No.
Don't worry about them. Don't worry about them.
Just look at how they behave. And what
he did was that he dug a small
hole in the ground, and he put both
of the crabs in there. And what people
began to observe is that as 1 crab
was trying to crawl out, the other crab
was pulling him down.
And the other crab was trying to get
out and it will pull him down.
This is the sign. This You know, this
happens a lot in our life. We're trying
to move forward and people are going to
always pull us down. We need to be
away from those kind of people, Because the
only way we can move forward in life
is if we have nothing to do with
them. So this is the second thing. The
third thing, brothers and sisters, listen to me
very carefully when I say
this.
Please stop
trying to impress other people.
Wallahi, we are living in a social media
digital era
where everyone is trying to impress someone else.
Everyone is trying to showcase themselves online.
And the problem is
that we you know, there are people who
are just obsessed with impressing other people, and
when they cannot impress other people
Because these kind of people, they'll put something
on social media, and after every 2 minutes,
they will go back to social media to
see how many likes, how many forwards, how
many shares. They're just obsessed with it. Okay?
And now, when they don't get that attention
that they are looking for,
they will begin to do things
that are uncharacteristic
with their nature.
They will start to do things that are
completely impermissible.
They will start to do things that they
are They usually don't do. Why?
Because they are obsessed with other people's attention.
If there's 1 attention that we need,
and 1 approval that we need, it's only
Allah's approval.
It's only Allah's attention.
That's the only thing we need to be
focused on. And this is the sign, by
the way, of a munafiq also.
A munafiq is always obsessed about making sure
that people are seeing the good that they're
doing.
A munafiq, in the time of the prophet
as we learned, the munafiq For the munafiq,
there were 2 salas that were very very
difficult for them. It was Fajr and Isha.
You know why Fajr and Isha was difficult
for them? Because in the dark They never
had street lamps like we have today.
They would come walking to the masjid,
so people would not recognize that they were
the ones coming for salat.
They were the ones who wanted to let
everyone know that, look at me, I'm going
to the masjid.
So when they would do this, and it
was dark at night in Isha and Fajr,
they would feel like that, you know what?
No 1 will see us going to the
masjid. We will not get the credit for
it. So hence, why do we even go
for fajr and Isha to the masjid? You
understand? This was their mentality.
So this idea By the way, it is
it is also affecting many people that we
are so obsessed, and we are so crazy
about gaining other people's approvals.
Brothers and sisters, let me make this very
clear to all of you here, including myself,
that you might you might please 1 person,
but there's no way you can please the
next person.
You run after people's approval and people's acceptance,
and trust me, you will keep on running
around in circles for the rest of your
life, and you will not be able to
please everyone.
Rather, the focus should be that we need
to impress only 1, and that is Allah
And finally, the 4th thing that we need
to keep in mind is
that we need to make sure, especially, this
is connected to sort of num number 3,
when we talk about social media and so
forth, is that we need to focus
on our good deeds
that
in a way that we do not incur
ria ria and show off within our own
part.
That means that there are some people, in
order to please others,
they always are trying to do good. But
what happens in doing that good, a lot
of times riyyah comes into the picture. So
they start doing good things, actually good things.
They start coming to the masjid. But why
am I coming to the masjid? Because I
want that 1 person to see that I'm
coming to the masjid. Or I'm doing this
something good. I'm going outside. I'm distributing charity
and so forth. And because of that, they're
taking pictures and so forth. Now I do
wanna make this very clear. There are a
lot of organizations
that they do have to take pictures,
and they do have to take, you know,
pictures and document everything that they're doing because
they need to show their donors that their
money is being put in the right place.
Because there are a lot of times, donors,
they feel like that some organizations may take
our money, but they will not use their
money and dispense the money the correct way.
So a lot of times, organizations, they will
take pictures, and a lot of times there
are people who say that this is not
the right thing. Why are they going and
taking pictures, and it's riya and so forth?
That's not riya.
Riya is that there's no 1 around you,
and you're giving someone a dollar. Or you're
putting something in the sadaqa box. Or you're
giving someone something food to eat, and you
sit there and you take a selfie.
This is happening very often today in our
society. Where the small things that we are
doing, because no 1 else is going to
see it. And we're and we want people's
appreciation.
Not realizing, brothers and sisters, that if this
is what's in our mind, then we're not
getting any reward. We're not gaining any reward
or getting any reward for the good that
we are doing. We need to learn how
to apply Ikhlas in our life.
Especially right now, I'm telling you this very
honestly.
In this day and age, 1 of the
greatest fitnas, or 1 of the greatest challenges
in this day and age
for imams and shayuk and du'at and everyone
who's doing any kind of good work.
Listen to me very carefully.
In my in my personal understanding, the greatest
challenge, because of social media, is
ikhlas.
Is ikhlas.
Because so many of us, so many people
are doing good things, but we're doing it
to impress other people. And Allah
will not give us anything for this.
So these are 4 things
that we need to keep in mind, especially
when it comes to other people. And we
in order to ensure
that we are not enslaved to other people,
in order to ensure that people are not
the ones who are controlling us.
Because I read this in a book. It's
a very beautiful example.
In your life, you are like in a
car.
If you are in the driver's seat of
your car, then you can take it wherever
you want. But if you are in the
passenger seat of your car, then you have
absolutely no you cannot dictate wherever you're going
in life. We need to be the driver
of our own car. We cannot be a
passenger in our in our own car and
let other people dictate what we do in
our lives.
Yes. Of course,
I have to say this, that if we're
doing something that is wrong, or if I'm
hurting someone, or I'm displeasing Allah and
someone's giving us advice, of course we take
that advice. But otherwise, we need to be
very careful
making sure that we keep our emotions in
check. And while we are living around everyone,
you're gonna have all sorts of people in
the community.
All sorts of people in your families. Each
1 of us, right now sitting over here,
we all have certain people in our own
personal families who are very challenging. People who
are in our very close friend circle who
are very challenging and so forth. But as
long as we keep these 4 things in
mind,
we will be able to navigate any challenge
in our life. Once again, the first thing
is we cannot be worried about people's opinions
and what people are saying about us. Number
2 is try to remove
toxic people from your life. If they are
within your own family, then you need to
seek counseling immediately. Number 3 is try not
to work so hard or do not try
to impress people. The only 1 that we
need to impress is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And number 4 is making sure that in
impressing people, we don't we don't incur ria,
or we don't do anything
that, in a way, that we are doing
it for other people's pleasure, or to please
other people, or to gain their praises. Otherwise,
this falls into the category of riya, and
we'll get no good. We will not get
any hasanat, no khair, no barakah
for any good that we are doing.
For, any any khair that we are doing,
we will not get anything in this dunya
or in the akhirah. I I ask Allah
to make us amongst those who are emotionally
strong. We ask Allah
to make our hearts strong.
Last thing I will share with all of
you is that there is a view very
beautiful dua of Rasool Allahu alaihi wa sallam
that often he would recite whenever he would
go out.
This is was a very beautiful du'a of
the prophet which meant that, you Allah, I
seek refuge in you from slipping up or
being the victim of someone else or some
or being the victim of slipping up or
someone allowing allowing me to slip up or
me deceiving someone or I am the victim
of someone else's deceit
or I commit against anyone
and or someone commit against me or I
am ignorant towards anyone, or I am the
victim of someone else's ignorance. This is a
du'a that I would strongly recommend that we
all should recite every single day. And every
single day you leave home, memorize this dua,
read this dua because this was the nature
of Rasulullah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. I ask Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to give all of us
the tawfiq. Ameerabaalamin.
Allahumma salaam al musamin
fikulimakan.
Allah
Straight in lines, fill in the gaps. Brothers
in the back, 2 rooms, please make sure
you come inside the main hall. Sisters, please
make sure the rows are straight.
Please make sure the rows are complete, sisters.
Brothers, please make sure the rows are complete.
The rows are straight.
If you're standing in the back 2 rooms,
please make sure the rows are complete. Often,
the rows are incomplete.
Brothers in the back, in the multiple office
hall, please come inside. There's still ample amount
of space in the main hall and the
back 2 rooms.
There should be no 1 in the multi
purpose hall.
The multi purpose hall is for overflow purposes.
There's not an overflow right now. Please come
inside the main hall or come inside the
back 2 rooms.