Straight Talk

Shall we a silly mid October melissani of koko de la Houma, sabitha angle multiball La ilaha illa Allah, Allah homage and Amina Latina, amanu Aminu, Sally has also been happy, whatever. So beloved Manila, but I mean, my intention over the course of the next few holebas is to try to unpack some of the lessons inside a short number of ions that belong to solid elizab sort of like zombies, the 33rd, sort of the Quran, right, one of the most difficult students to study of the Quran. And these are going to be 6970 and 71, maybe even 72, so 69, to 72. And the center of these artists, what I'm going to start with today, and really just get introduced to some of these lessons, which I feel are

very important and shouldn't just be covered in the course of one quarter, but actually dealt with a little bit at a time. So we get time to process and internalize some of these teachings. I remind myself and I remind all of you the Quran is not just information, the Koran is actually something that is supposed to plant itself inside our hearts. So it's lessons and its teachings, just like a plant has a seed has to go into soil, there needs water, it needs sun, it needs nourishment, to be able to grow, the soil needs to be right for it to take life. So it's not just information you and I hear or you and I read and we move along, we have to take time to ponder it, internalize it and

really think about how that's going to take root in our hearts and how it's going to change our thinking, our emotions our behavior even and that's really why it's one should take the time align himself says a failure to the brunette per annum Allahu luminox Aloha. The complaint alarming says don't they then ponder deeply on the Quran? Or are they the hearts have their own locks placed on them? Meaning pondering over the Quran taking the time to think about the Quran and how it applies to you and me. That's part of what unlocks our hearts. And if we just keep passing by the eye out of the Quran Oh, I know this already. I know this, this information. I've heard this subject before.

I've heard this either before or I know this word before or I've heard this read this stuff before etc. And we just think of the Quran as information. Then it's the other way it's actually people who pass by the IRS. Let me actually have someone with me on and around complaints. People who pass by the IOD blind and deaf meaning they heard it but they haven't heard it they they listened to it but they don't really listen to it. You know, the Allah will say for example, the home owner be heard they have they have ears but they don't listen with them. The Home kulu life Kahuna via their hearts they don't think with them. They don't ponder with them. So it's really the Quran demand is to take

something to heart. It's not just to understand something, or to analyze something is really to take it to heart and I pray that Allah azza wa jal gives all of us the ability to do that to take the words of Allah to heart. So in any case, the ayah that I want to start with today is Yeah, you have Latina Armand de la la kulu. Colin sadita. Those of you who have faith Allah addresses us and says, It duck Allah be cautious and aware of Allah and protect yourselves from making Allah unhappy with you that these are some of the meanings of the word taqwa. so be cautious, aware of Allah and protect yourself from making a lead displeased. And then he says, Well, kulu colon sadita, in a very

simple translation of that would be and say, upright speech, talk in a straightforward manner, that would be a very easy translation of that. So let's start with that. You know, in the Quran, Allah azzawajal will tell us commandments and a lot of times he will tell us commandments. Yeah, you have Latina Amano, those of you who believe, and then he'll say, you know lotta cooler in our colon Varna. Or he'll say some commander, the other those of you who believe do this, those of you who believe don't do this, that's a common occurrence in the Quran. And here the the commandment is to speak in a good way speak in a straightforward way. But before Allah told us to speak in a

straightforward way, he added another commandment. And that was Yeah, you handed in Amano takala Waku

Waku Colin sadita he didn't just say yeah, Valentina Amano Hulu Colin said either. He didn't say it like that. And other places in the Koran, you will find Kournikova being Shahada, this, those of you who believe stand up for justice. He doesn't say, yeah, you know, the nominal.

Kournikova mean, he doesn't add the tequila. What does that tell us? It actually tells us that this commandment has to do with the heart before it has to do with the tongue. Because when we speak, that's our tongue. But when someone has taqwa of Allah, where's that? It's in the heart. So a consciousness of Allah and an awareness of Allah. If that's missing, then this commandment will be impossible to follow. It's impossible for us to live by what Allah is saying in this ayah unless taqwa is there first. You see. So there are some commandments that we can fulfill. Even if the choir isn't there. Even if it's fully not there. You can still obey Allah. Allah even says, into to law.

What is hula hula

Coming to MIT CompTIA people who didn't feel faith in their hearts yet elicit if you still obey alliander messenger, Allah won't waste your deeds like for us, for example, we pray five times a day and when we pray, sometimes our heart is in the prayer sometimes our mind is somewhere else. But that doesn't mean that when you prayed and your mind was somewhere else, that your prayer didn't count, you still obey Allah, you still obey the messengers, hello shalom. Allah says he will not let those deeds go to waste. So even if fully conscious awareness wasn't there, and it should be. But even if it wasn't there, that's okay. That's okay. You still do what you're supposed to do, you see,

but in this commandment to speak upright, it is as though Allah made it a constant prerequisite, you have to have Taqwa of Allah. First. You have to have fear and consciousness of Allah first. What that also tells us is that a lot of times when we speak, we think about who we're talking to, it's only natural. As I'm speaking to you right now, I know there are people at very different levels in the audience, people come into Juma, some of them know more than I do, way more than I do. Some of them this is the first time in the masjid, I don't know, some of them are not even Muslim. It's possible. They're sitting here, that's I don't know, some of them are visiting. So there are people

at all different kinds of levels. So I have to choose words, and I have to try to speak in a way that everybody can understand. But if I was speaking to Arabic students, or if I were speaking to people that I know, I've been studying Koran, or studying for many years, and I was only talking to that group, the way I would speak would be different, it wouldn't be the same. If I was talking to a bunch of five year olds, the language I would use would be different. Because there's, that's a different kind of audience. So it's only natural that when you and I speak, if we're speaking to our parents, or children or friends, depends who we're talking to, the our tone changes the words, we

use changes, and it happens, you have to take into consideration who your audience is. But, but if you're talking to someone, and you decide you're going to twist what you're going to say, in order to manipulate them, in order to take advantage of them, or because you want them to think something about you or about something that isn't true. So you want to change your words carefully, to try to alter their thoughts to alter their opinions. That is actually the opposite of colons studied, it's not straightforward speech. It's not direct speech. It's manipulative speech. It's not clear speech. And so this hotbar is actually dedicated to you know, the the axiom in Arabic is started off with a

Shia ob of that the things are known. And in English, they say by opposites, things are known, right? So we're not actually going to talk about straightforward speech in this code. But we're going to talk about the opposite of that. What does it mean to not have straightforward speech? And what does that have to do with the taqwa of Allah, when someone is afraid of Allah truly afraid of Allah? Then they will speak straightforward. Now the thing that the way to analyze that or the analogy that will help you and me understand that is, you know, if your parents like when you were kids, some of you even know your parents catch you, Hey, did you do that? No, no, no, no, I didn't.

I didn't, it was him. Or someone else. I didn't do it, even though you know, you did it. But in your head, it's like, if my parents find out that I've done it, I'm going to be in big trouble. So your first impulse might be to lie. first impulse might be No, I didn't do anything. Because you that's what you want them to hear. Because you're not going to get in more trouble. But if your parents say, hey, by the way, you know, the camera installed, I'm gonna show you this video. And then they show you that they already know what you did. They have the video, and the audio, and they play it. And then they say, you want to tell me what happened. Now you don't, you're not gonna see I didn't

do it. Now you're gonna be now you'll be afraid to lie. Because now if you lie, you get even far more trouble. Now it's time to confess openly, and to be straightforward. The fact that we are aware of a large presence, the one who knows what we really have been doing. The one who knows everything about us, what's going on the outside and what's going on on the inside is always a showerhead. He's always a witness to what we're saying. And he is witness as we speak, and he's watching our words. And when you are aware of that, then the way you speak is going to change. Because the authority that knows everything is watching and so you're aware of and if you're not aware of that, of course

Ally's always there, but he's not always there in our heart. And he's not always there in our mind. So you can we can make him absent and pretend that he's not watching or pretend that he's not listening or forget or neglect that and then we'll be able to twist speech, we will be able to use words that are not clear. That will become easier. So Allah said taqwa of Allah, first, you have Latina Amanita Allah, wa kulu colon sadita. That's why taqwa is their first and awareness and the fear of Allah. And will also that tells us is a lot of times we speak because we are afraid to say what the other might hear and they might become upset with us, or we might get into trouble. So the

fear of a law becomes less and the fear of a less creation becomes more and that affects our speech, and allies telling us

Very clearly, your fear and your consciousness and your desire to protect yourself. First and foremost should be from Allah. And once you are safe with Allah, Allah will keep you safe. Allah will make you safe. No creation of Allah can harm you when you're afraid of Allah. But when you're not afraid of Allah and you're afraid of creation, you've lost a loss protection, you actually lost a loss protection. So first, protect yourself from making a love set. And also by doing so, get a lot of security in your favor. Now speak to someone. Now speak and say your words, you see, you know, I'm again, I always give the same analogies because I'm so inspired by new Saudis. But when

you had to go speak to Fidel and think about that, when you get a chance to speak to a president, when you get a chance to speak to a you know, position in authority, somebody in authority, first to give you an orientation, you know, when you speak to the, when you get to meet the king, or you get to meet the president, you have to walk in a certain way, you have to do this protocol, you have to do that protocol. One time, I was invited to meet the president, not this president Alhamdulillah. The last president, I was invited to meet him. And they gave us a protocol that like, when I went to the White House, here, your cell phones are gonna get taken away. When he walks in. This is how you

greet him, you call him Mr. President, you do this, you get the other like, it was this entire sort of orientation on how you meet him. When I went to meet the Sultan of police, it was the same thing when you go, this is how you greet him, you don't just shake your hand and say, Hey, what's up King? What's going on? You don't do that. You got to have, you know, sort of a protocol. And this these are the things you say these are the things you don't say, You're supposed to be mindful. And you know, people when they meet someone like that, they say, Oh, it's such an honor to meet you. What a great opportunity, can I have a picture with you, etc, etc, you know, that sort of thing. But when

you're going to speak to someone in a position of authority, and you're afraid of Allah more than them more than them, then you're not going to hide behind four melodies and hide from saying something that might upset them. You have an opportunity to speak the truth, you'll speak the truth. Because the fear of Allah overrides it like musante salaam, didn't walk around the most powerful king in history. He didn't walk into his court and say, oh, King, great king, what an honor. Thank you for seeing me what an opportunity, you know, and apologize. I've been away for so long. And you know, as my room still there, none of that stuff you just walked in. And notice a little bit I mean,

we're messengers, we're here on behalf of Allah, you better let the Israelites go. He was straightforward. There's no formalities. And that teaches us fearlessness. If musala Islam, Allah is teaching us through that you don't have to be afraid of someone you have to talk to, you have to let that go. You only have to be afraid of a law and say what needs to be said, that doesn't mean that you hear this hotbar. And you go home and say, You know what, I am no longer afraid. I'm going to let my wife know what's up today, you know,

that's not what I mean. It doesn't mean you take your gloves off, and you're ready to you know, fight. That's not what this is. The way you speak still needs to be kind. The way you speak still needs to be respectful. The way you speak still needs to be merciful. But the words you say need to be clear. Sometimes to not hurt someone's feelings. We don't use clear words. Sometimes we hide the truth because we don't want to be we don't want to make things worse, but actually, we are making things worse, because we're not clear. So kulu Colin sadita. Now let's talk about these few ways in which speech can be twisted. Speech can be turned and I was actually reading something, a

psychological model, and I'll cite it. It's called a Sattar model sh er, for those of you that are interested, it was developed by a lady named Virginia fatter, I was reading something about that recently. And I found it fascinating. She developed this model of how people don't speak straight, literally, why they don't have colon sadita. Right. And she developed these this, this idea that people hide their true intentions and what they really feel they hide them behind four different kinds of walls. So they put up four kinds of poses or four kinds of shells, which means what you have inside is not really what you have outside, what you really say outside and see identified four

of those. And I thought that was very beneficial in understanding this IR also, because it's in line with what a lot of it has to say. And so the first of those poses that she talks about, is placating. In other words, telling someone what you think they want to hear. If you think they want, you know, say you do something wrong, and say, Hey, why'd you do that wrong? And you start saying, sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm even if you're sorry, you're not in your head, you know, they want to hear sorry. So you keep saying it. Even if you're not really sorry, you understand? Or you you want them to feel a certain way. So you'll say what needs to be said just to

please the other but that's not really how you are inside. Or when somebody is telling you something that really hurts your feelings or somebody thinks something wrong. And they say they say to you, hey, what's wrong? You want to say something? You disagree? You look like your face looks like you disagreed you disagree? And in your head, you start doing a calculation. If I say I disagree, this is going to be an argument. And then they're going to question me and they're not gonna like me anymore, and I'm not getting invited next time. So I'm just gonna say no, no, no, I'm fine. In your head, you have a complete response.

But outside you pretend that you're fine because that's what you think they want to hear. That's placating. This is getting away from olan studied, you can speak your mind, you can say what's really on your mind with fearing no one but Allah and you can say it in a merciful way and not have to please others live on Nasi laietana to direct the Arab says, pleasing people is a Kenyan, you will never find its bottom. You can never get to this goal of pleasing people, people, people, you think you're making them happy, let me tell you, they'll even be more unhappy with you. And you'll do even more backwards flipping there to make them happy and they'll still be unhappy with you might

as well be honest with yourself. Might as well what you have inside should be what you what comes out outside. So that's the first kind of you know, mistake we made in making getting away from colon studied. The second is blaming. In other words, if I've done something wrong, then I've done something wrong. And but but you know, human beings. Well, hello, welcome. Avira. Human beings have a good view of themselves. But we love making excuses. So when somebody points out, I did something wrong. We said, Oh, yeah, well, what about what you did? Or you think what you are, you're a saint? You You're so good. Let me tell you what, you've done this, this, this this, who are you to tell me

what I did wrong. In other words, instead of acknowledging what I've done wrong, I shift the blame to someone else. And this there's this is a delicate subject. So let's, let's think about this carefully. It may be that both of you have done something wrong, the person you're arguing with did something wrong, and you did something wrong. What you did wrong, you have to admit, you have to accept. You can't just say well, since you did that what I did is okay, or we're not going to talk about what I did, because I'd rather talk about what you did. No, no, no. Let's just admit, I made a mistake. I was wrong. And here's why I was wrong.

But what my mistake doesn't erase yours. And your mistake doesn't erase mine. We can shift blame. We can shift blame, you have to acknowledge what's wrong is wrong. And part of Poland study this, you admit what you did wrong. But you also don't hurt you don't hide away from you know what? Yes, you're right. I'm entirely wrong. So everything wrong that you've done is okay. Because let them walk all over you. Because that's again, placating, you're telling them what they want to hear. You're not being honest with yourself. In your head, you're giving them really bad answers, but not on your tongue and your head alone. And then like, what? No, nothing I was just doing trust me, you

know.

So the idea of blaming, first of all means you don't take responsibility for yourself. You don't acknowledge your own mistake, and you just shift it to somebody else. But you know, there are people who never want to take responsibility. They'll never want to take responsibility. So even if you take responsibility for your end, they'll never want to accept responsibility for theirs. They just won't. They'll just say Oh, yeah, even though you accept what you did wrong, doesn't doesn't really mean you accept it. Doesn't mean really mean you're sincere. And so now they're looking inside your heart and telling you whether you're sincere or not. You're not there to please people. You're not

there to convince anyone. You are only there to be make sure Allah The taqwa of Allah, which was what the speech started with. That taqwa of Allah makes it known that to Allah knows that you're sincere in what you're saying. Allah knows that you're honest about what you're saying. Allah knows that when you said that you made a mistake, you've actually acknowledged that you made a mistake. A lie knows that when you said, you've changed your ways that you actually mean you've changed your ways. A lie needs to know that nobody else needs to be convinced. You cannot convince humanity. You can't convince anyone else. Musashi Salam was one of the most noble messengers of Allah, the ayah

before this one is about Musa alayhis salam. And Allah says, Allah Allah homie mokulua kana and Allah he was he her previous ayah they cause Musa pain Don't be like people who cause Musab pain, and Allah proved him innocent against all the things that they've said about him.

You know, who said things about him, not just the pharaohs. The Pharaohs weren't the ones making lies of Abu Salah Simone de nuestra he made many lies about him his own people made so many lies about them and they're still there in the in their version of Torah, in their in their writings of Masada Sunder many lies against Musashi Salaam. And Allah says Allah proved him true. Allah proved them innocent, what kind of in the law he was behind, he was always honored with Allah. In other words, people might not give you dignity, the person you're talking to might not show you respect. But that doesn't matter. Ally has given you respect, because you spoke straight, that should be

enough for you. Don't look for respect from

the moment you start looking for it from people, that's when you're starting to lose it from Allah Himself. When it is with Allah, then the people who need to respect you will respect you and let me tell you, there are some people in your life it will always be there, who no matter what you do, no matter what good you do, no matter what right thing you do, they will never have respect for you.

And you'll ever prove yourself to them. And you have to accept that that's okay. That's okay. You're not there to please humanity. You're not there to prove yourself to humanity, so long as the law

is pleased is good enough for you? So what kinda in the law he was behind the previous slide? So this is the second was blaming, and the third is rationalizing. In other words, yes. Yeah, I did this wrong, but here are my lot. Here's my logical explanation for why I did it, you know, like, please. Yeah, sure I didn't do such that. But here's my logical explanation. There's a reason I didn't do it.

There may be reasons, you might have reasons. But at the end of the day, a mistake is a mistake. Those reasons may have contributed. But you can't just say these reasons are the only factor that led me to make a mistake. If at the end, engage in a sin you at the end engage in this and we do something wrong. We can't just say it was the weather, or it was the Trump administration, or it was our life in America so hard, what do you want me to do?

Or, you know, it's, it's social media, it got to me or you can't hide behind things. You can say they had a, they had a role to play. You can say * on us those things. Sure, you can say that. But at the end of the day, you and I have to take responsibility, and not rationalize or justify, you know, blaming the other is one kind of cover that we put up and coming up with logical explanations. And some of us are very much better at coming up with reasons than others. Some of us speak a lot better than others, some of us are more logical than others. And you know, what happens when you become more logical, you're much better at, you know, explaining yourself away from

anything that you do, you can justify anything that you do, because you can come up with an explanation, you can justify it. And that's another kind of an escape from Conan studied, that people come up with. And finally of course, there's deflecting. And deflecting means that when we are confronted this what the Quran calls around, and he speaks about mortality, the people who deflect or walk away. In other words, when you're confronted with the truth, and when you're supposed to be speaking the truth, your way of dealing with it is not dealing with it. You know what, I'm not having this conversation, you walk away.

Or somebody tells you how it wants to speak to you about something very serious that you should be speaking up right about, and you say, you know what, I'd rather not talk about it. Or just stare at them without saying anything.

ask you a question. You're just staring at them.

And now they start wondering, okay, I guess I'm not gonna get an answer. Or you just keep pretending you didn't hear anything. This is the job. Right? This is the idea of just ignoring the facts, ignoring the truth and avoiding clear communication, clear speech. These are the things that we do that take us away from colon Sadie now the I began, yeah, you had Latina hamanako Aloha, mahalo, Colin Sarita listen to the words of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Mangala I mean c'mon current value BIA de la Mia. Family Sani Malaga, Satya, lb botanika Halima, famous Hadith of the Prophet SAW them, if you see an evil change in your hand. And if you can't, at least with your

tongue, at least with your tongue. And if you can't do that, at least feel bad in your heart. At least feel bad, where in your heart. Now what is this ayah telling us this is telling us if the heart was in the right place. If the heart in most circumstances was in the right place, taqwa of Allah was there, then the speech would just come naturally, and would just come out. Our lives are not under threat. Our lives are not in danger. And so speaking, the truth does not put us in danger. saying the right thing doesn't put us in danger. You know, now this, all of what I just shared with you is about interpersonal communication, communication within the family communication within the

business communication within friends. You know, conflicts happen with business partners, conflicts happen within coworkers, conflicts happen within family members, etc, etc. But this is not a conversation about humiliating people publicly. That's something else entirely. You know, people sometimes take the eye out of the Quran and out of Allah, and they misuse them and say, well, Allah says Speak up, right? So let me tell you, this, my best friend told me the secret I'm going to put it on Facebook.

Because Allah says Gulu colon sadita. So I've decided to post it on social media, and humiliate my friend because Allah says you have to speak the truth. Now what you've just done, there is a violation of something else the prophets I should have warned us about, and settled on what means Salah Hola, yo melki ama, and the opposite is also true. Whoever covers the faults of a believer, Allah will cover them on Judgement Day. What is the opposite of that? Whoever uncovers the fault of a believer, a level uncovered them on judgment day. That's the scary part. Yeah. So sometimes people in the name of good and the name of what Allah speaks about in a certain context, put it in a

different context altogether, and use it to humiliate our prophets or shalom warned us that will muslimeen well Etta Bharati him Don't cause Muslims pain don't expose their private lives don't get don't go behind their private lives the prophets on word so Allah Allah you send them

Manitoba Alberta Muslims

whoever becomes obsessed with another Muslims private life alone will become obsessed with theirs.

Ananda tabula rasa mahalo canopy jiofi Beatty, and whoever Allah goes after he will humiliate them openly even if they're hiding deep inside their home.

Don't look to humiliate someone else. This colon sleeve is not about embarrassing anybody. The colon surgery that we're talking about is not about humiliating or degrading somebody. It's about speaking up right for yourself and to have clear, open conversations. This is why you find the examples I didn't just give us theory he gave us examples. He taught us how this works. So when, for example, the most vile human being that the Quran describes in history is Pharaoh. I mean, the guy claims to be God, he kills babies, and you can though he has the entire nations turned into slaves. I mean, the list of crimes against God and against humanity are endless with this with this character. No

wonder he keeps, like coming up over and over again. I often say to my students, Chapin would want his autograph you did a better job than me. That's that's fair. Oh and, and when Allah told Musa and Islam to speak to him, Moosa does not humiliate him.

masayoshi son does not humiliate him. He does not insult him. He does not put him down. He does not call him a criminal or does not call him you know, you know, a degenerate. He doesn't call him I'm, you know, I'm going to embarrass you. He went to the he went to the court and spoke to him directly. He went to the court and spoke to him directly. And when he went outside, when, sadly, someone outside, he didn't go around and tell people you know what happened inside? I got him good.

No, he just preached the message of Allah. He promoted the message of Allah. Why? Because our Deen is not about embarrassing someone, even for our own. Our deal is not about humiliating someone, even if, even though a lot reveal the suit against the association didn't say a word. Not a word. How many enemies of the Prophet isotta some that have not been named by Allah not been named? Who did so many crimes? Why not? Because that is not why our Dean came. Or Dean did not come to humiliate people. Yet at the same time, we have to be clear and open in our speech. We have to say words that are meaningful and rightful. So I today I've talked about the opposite. What isn't direct and clear

speech? In the next quarter? We're actually going to explore the meanings of the word colons studied. What does it mean? Now when it says colon colon says okay, here's what it's not but what is it? Then what is it and so we're going to look at that and actually explore the meanings of this word. And how a lot is that we have talks about that in the Quran. barakallahu li walakum felicitated Hakeem when a funny way er can be it.