The Devil’s Final Ultimatum

Nouman Ali Khan

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Episode Notes

Nouman Ali Khan delves into the final dialogue of Iblees. Shaytan is the ultimate enemy we have and is a relentless and pertinent one we have till the end of time. How is the devil going to come at us and pull us under his wing?

Some of the origins of the word Shukr are illustrated and how some of us have Shukr cultivated within us and is displayed. 

Shaytan is angry at being admonished for being arrogant to Allah and swears that he will make mankind even more arrogant than him and even ungrateful. so, arrogance is a lack of manifestation of gratitude. Shaytan comes from four directions at us and he wants to prove our ingratitude from our hearts and diminish our optimistic relation with Allah. We should fight the temptations and let not greed get the better of us because we should firmly believe that Allah will never abandon us in moments of crises.

 

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Wabi Sabi sorry we are Sidley Emily locata Melissa Lee of Coco Lee Amina Robin, I mean Today's my final Koba on the series of the attacks of the devil and the dialogue that he had with, with Allah azza wa jal against the children of other mothers Salaam, I want to remind myself that, you know, in the last couple of years, as I started reviewing the Quran, again, I've decided to stop at places that I normally don't pay as much attention to, and this is one of those places you pass by it and you you read, that the devil will attack from all sides, and you just keep moving on and you just kind of don't stop and think about that. And so I've decided to pay attention to places in the Quran

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that easily at least for myself get overlooked. And to try to highlight that for my own benefit, and inshallah tada for your benefit as well. I think it's important to note that this is the ultimate battle and the ultimate conflict that humanity will engage in since its birth, all the way to the last day, our ultimate enemy is shaytan. And there is no greater enemy that we have. And every other enemy that we have is only an agent of the shape. And there's only further fueled by a shaytaan. And in these few IOD this, this relentless, permanent enemy of ours laid out his entire strategy, what is he going to do with us? How is he going to do it? You know, how is he going to come at us every

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single one of us until the end of time. And that's a pretty big deal. Now we know the gameplan of the enemy and a lot of recorded it in the Quran. So it's not a small thing to just pass by, it's important to understand how is it that the devil is going to come at us in our lives at any moment of our lives, and try to pull us into His way? Right. So what was my motivation for covering this in some depth, we've come to the last phrase of this if the promise was that he will attend he said it in the home I swear to it, I will absolutely accommodate them. I'll attack them from right in front of them from behind them from the right and from their left and I've given full buzz on each of

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those now. And this is the final comment that he makes. And that comment is when you do a thorough home check in you will find you will not find most of them grateful, you will not find most of them grateful. This is an important phrase and we have to see the guidance Allah azza wa jal has embedded in infused inside of this phrase, and that's what this whole is dedicated to. Where I want to start. First and foremost is the origin of the word I translated chalky Dean is grateful. It comes from the word sugar, which can easily be translated as gratitude, but originally in the Arabic language as Shaku Shaku Mina de wa. And some some animals were called shokuhou. What kind of animal was culture

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called the kind of animal that eats a little bit and gets fat really quickly. Like it has a little bit of grass and it fills up. Similarly, Shukla was used for you know, the other of a cow that immediately fills up with milk. So it gives more milk than expected. And the the idea behind the origin of the word sugar is actually something small, with a little bit of good and that good swells and enhances to the point where it starts coming out, it pours out. And from it, the Arabs developed a notion of gratitude, meaning sugar, particularly their other words for, you know, gratitude in Arabic, but this particular word highlights when you're grateful over something that may seemingly

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be small, but its effects are many. So you don't dismiss something that's done for you. And you're actually appreciative of what's done for you or the good that you have in not just one way in many ways, and it multiplies inside you. Not only does it multiply inside you, you would think gratitude is a feeling. But it's more than a feeling because according to you know, Hassan, Hassan Jamil in his, in his commentary on the origin of the word, he says, what should we do and your labor, not just being happy with what you have? Not just being content with what we have? It's more than that. Now, what's more than that, the man of the hood, meaning just like the milk pours out, or just like

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the sheep shows that it's grown more. The same way. When you're when you have sugar in you. Not only do you appreciate something, it actually results in you doing something, it comes out, your mood has changed, your behavior has changed. You've even verbalized how grateful you are. You've actually said thank you. A lot of times you have family members, and your your father says to you, you know, you never thanked me for anything. You don't appreciate anything you do. I do. And you say, Yeah, I do. I appreciate what you do. Yeah, but you never said it. I have sugar, no sugar doesn't mean you have it in your head. It has to come out it has to be said and stated and displayed. One of the

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names of Allah is actually shocking. One of the names of Allah why he appreciates what little his slaves do, and he does so much for them. So sugar is not just a feeling, it's actually behavior also that comes from that feeling. It's not just a sentiment and an emotion that leaves stays buried inside it manifests itself. So that's the first thing I wanted to get out of the way in this clip by is just some of the origins of the meaning of the word gratitude and appreciation and how it's supposed to be something that overwhelms a person. It's a very powerful thing.

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that grows and grows and grows and swells inside of you. Now, the devil's promise is, you will find most of you will not find most of them with gratitude. They're not going to have sugar, human beings. You know what I want you the first thing I want you to think about in terms of this conversation is a lot told shaytaan, familia kulu locka and Taka Baraka when the devil refused to do such that when she had time refused to do such that a lot told him You have no right you it's not right for you to be arrogant here. The problem of the devil was arrogance. And that's the reason he got kicked out for courage in you know, in the Camino Salahuddin Get out of here, he was expelled

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because he was arrogant now, because he's angry at humanity, you expect that he would turn back to a lie and say, well, you kick me out of here because I'm arrogant. I am going to prove to you that they're arrogant. So they don't deserve this place either. But instead of telling the law, Oh, you think I'm arrogant. Let me show you how arrogant they are. He said, You think I'm arrogant? Once I'm done attacking them. I will prove to you not that they're arrogant, but they're not grateful. That that you two XL Farah homeshare kyren. So it's a switch. The switch is the if the complaint against the devil is that he's arrogant, then he should prove that I'm not that different from these guys.

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Look, they're arrogant too. But no, he says I will prove that they are ungrateful. What Oran has done so strategically, and so wisely here is that's actually showing us something. The opposite of arrogance. We think the opposite of arrogance is humility. In the dictionary, the opposite of arrogance is what humility. But in the Quran, the opposite of arrogance is gratitude. So let's taught us a new opposite, you see. And so what we're learning now is there's it is impossible for a human being to be arrogant, if they are grateful. And if they are grateful, there's no way arrogance will hurt them. And the fact that arrogance occurs, that can only be a manifestation of a lack of

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sugar. If sugar was there, there's no way that would have happened. So that's the first important thing when someone says, hey, at least I'm not arrogant. Well, from the Quran definition don't just think about arrogance as someone who thinks very highly of themselves or is full of themselves or is mean towards others, you and I have to check ourselves how grateful are we because if gratitude is missing, then arrogance is there because these are opposites in the Quran. Now, these are these are put these have been placed against one another, that the next thing that's important here, I kept telling you cheban comes from four directions. And now we're learning if his attack is successful,

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what's the goal? The goal is not for human beings to make a mistake. That's not as glorified enough. Because Allah created to human beings, programmed to make mistakes. khulumani own all children of other keep on making mistakes. That's what we do. Human beings are not made perfect. We're not angels, we have choice. We have we have shortcomings. As a matter of fact, I kept telling you, even when we do good deeds, they have shortcomings. Even when we make slides not perfect. Even when we recite Quran is not perfect. Even when we do Hajj, it's not perfect when we fast. It's not perfect. So we're imperfect, by definition. So the fact that we have mistakes is no surprise. The Devil's

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mission is not to get us to make a mistake. The Devil's mission is clear in this ayah once I attack them from these directions, I will prove to you that they are not grateful. If he can get gratitude out of us as a result of our mistakes, then he's successful. That's actually his goal, to remove the sense of appreciation of Allah and to do things out of the appreciation and the shocker to Allah are optimistic, you know, feeling towards Allah. You know, if you think about our relationship with Allah for so many people, their relationship with allies based on fear, if you don't pray, Allah is gonna burn you. If you don't do this, Allah is gonna punish you. Your first impulse of your

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relationship with the one who made you is that you should be afraid of him. And though fear is a part of my relationship with him, the most powerful force inside me that should make me do something for Allah, like pray, like eat Helen, like do the right thing, like stay away from evil deeds, is actually gratitude. Allah has done so much for me, the least I can do is these few things. If he can get rid of that feeling sugar, if he can get rid of sugar, then even if I'm obeying allow, my heart is missing something. It's not gonna have what it really really needs to be able to carry on. It is out of a sense of gratitude that we are in obedience to Allah, which is why Fatiha that calls us to

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Allah is worship. He aka Naboo begins with gratitude and humbly lies where it begins and then we get to worship because that sense of appreciation of Allah is what drives us more than anything else. But really what I wanted to spend the majority of this clip on is these attacks again, and how each of them we can be protected from those attacks. If we are grateful Now, let me phrase that another way. He said to Allah, I will attack them from forest

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And I'll prove to you that they're not grateful. In other words, if they were grateful these attacks wouldn't have worked.

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If they're actually grateful, then the attacks will fail. If they have sugar, they are not going to they're not going to succeed. So though I've given you long explanations of each of those directions, I'm going to walk you through each of them again, briefly, and describe to you in brief in simple terms, how if we can remember to be grateful to Allah, we can actually protect ourselves from the from the wasp, associaton. When when he comes from the front, he attacks me, you and me from the front. He tempts us from what we can have, you see something in front of you, you're tempted by the greed? And what what comes from the front is also your future, you start thinking

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about your future or worried about your future? Is this going to happen? Is that going to happen and sometimes you start making bad decisions, the decisions that allow won't be happy with because you're concerned about your future. If you and I have sugar inside us deep gratitude of a lie inside us, then we know that if you look back in your past, how many times has a law provided for you? How many times have you been in I've been in a problem and Alas, taken care of us all this time. Why do you think that all of a sudden now alone will not take care of you? In other words, whatever temptation comes to you from the front, if you and I can learn to be grateful for what we have, and

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not go towards something more than what we need. Not let our greed get in the way. Not let our reliance of Allah go away. But be grateful he's taken care of me this far. Why would he leave me now? This is the same thing Allah said to his messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam mount dakara Buccola Allah.

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Allah didn't abandon you, just because you're going through a hard time and you see something in front of you that you might just grab on to and take it because you're desperate know what machaca baldan Fado.

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You know you were in desperate need he provided you before he reminds him your past should remind you how grateful we should be even in times of crisis, which is why this is the this is the key here. If you're tempted by something that comes in front of you, a must be near material because I had this then actually be grateful to Allah by talking about the favor Allah has done for you. This is what you saw today surrounded Yusuf Alayhi Salaam was tempted by that minister's wife, she she tried to seduce him, what was his immediate response mother let him know to be a Sarah Messiah. My master has been really good to me.

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He is you know, first he saw less protection and immediately he said, Allah has been good to me, meaning he was shocked. He was grateful immediately. And that protected him. If you can, you know you can acknowledge the favor of Allah on you than the attacks that come from the front, you'll be able to stay away from them. The attacks from behind are scarier though. The attacks from behind are some like I described to you before. Sometimes people were living in a life of sin. They were doing things they weren't supposed to do, and Allah pulled them out. Maybe it happened last Ramadan, maybe it happened last Juma. Maybe it happened two hours ago, I don't know. But Allah pulled you out of

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sin, and you feel the burden lift from inside you. That's a feeling only you know, nobody else. You can even describe it to anybody else. You can feel the tears rolling down your eyes because Allah has pulled you into light again, and he's pulled removed darkness from you. And the evil that you felt that was weighing on you has been taken away from you. Now you're in a sense of relief that Allah has actually given you this gift that he's able to get you away from a life of evil from a sin. Now that you have that for a while, the devil comes back and says Hey, want to go back. He tries to pull you back again. And when he's about to pull you back at that moment, you and I have to

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remember the moment we felt gratitude that Allah pulled us out. How grateful where we went to level this out the first time, a person has to forget that they have to forget the moment they made Toba, they have to forget when they felt that closeness to Allah, or the relief that Allah gave them, they have to let go of that for the devil to be successful in pulling them back again, in tempting them again. But it is in those moments when he tries to pull you in attack you from behind that you and I have to remind ourselves of how Allah has given us the gift of guidance how Allah has given us the gift of Toba the gift of repentance, so that whenever that same temptation, that same attack,

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because the devil knows it worked last time, let me try it again. They'll probably work again on this guy I tried the last 10 times at work the 11th time it should work too. But if you've made Toba and you've tasted sweetness, that's what you should be grateful for. And that's what you have to remind yourself of. And if you can remind yourself of that that attack won't work. If you can speak of it, actually, you know, not to anybody else. Speak to yourself of it. Your law, you pulled me out of this, I will not let myself fall again. I am grateful for how you pulled me out of this mess. Look at all the evil that came in my life as a result of my mistake. Y'all. I'm not going to fall

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into that again. When you just even have that conversation with a lot. Like I said, sugar isn't just a feeling it has to manifest. And if that's the exercise you have to do, even talk to yourself, do it. Do it. Just don't. Don't do it in front of people. Don't think you're weird. If you're in your car by yourself. Just talk to Allah and acknowledge to him

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That you are not going to be pulled back again, by the call of shaitan. When the devil attacks from the right, that's one of the scariest. When he attacks from the right, he attacks from self righteousness. It's, you know, the attack from the right is when you think you're better than someone else, or you're doing good deeds more than someone else, or you're focused on the bad deeds of someone else. And you, you know, in your mind, you're there to correct everybody else. You're there to fix everybody else. So your focus is never you, your focus is always somebody else. When people think like that, you know what happens in their mind, they own their own good deeds. If I've

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done Hajj, that's a huge accomplishment I accomplished. If I give a whole bunch of accomplishment I have, if I memorize the Quran, it's an accomplishment I have. It's not any good deed You and I have done our gifts Allah has given us we didn't earn them. That was a gift Allah gave us guidance itself is not something I earned, not something I own, not something I take credit for. As a matter of fact, I will never own it, I will always beg Allah for it. This is why the more good deeds we do, the more humble we should become. Allah gave me another chance to serve him another chance to serve him another chance to serve him that's supposed to the good deeds are not supposed to make us feel

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like we're better. It's actually supposed to bury us under LS favor, shift. So hey, I was talking to him this afternoon about these IRAs, and he shared something so beautiful with me, I want to share it with you. And I hope I don't butcher it.

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He said, You know, when someone acknowledges how much Allah has favored them,

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then they become more and more humble and being humble is like being lowered. Right. You're just buried under someone's favor. And we're buried under a less favor. And the distance between me and my robe is infinite, like Ally's supreme Lehigh and I'm supremely low.

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And when you realize how low you are, and how much buried under laws favor, the weight of a less favor on you is so much, then when you look at the person next to you, you will never think how much higher you are than them. Because the distance between you and this other person, if you're an inch higher than them or two inches is nothing compared to the infinite distance between you and Allah, this distance between us of better and worse becomes irrelevant and becomes irrelevant, and you're not even concerned about it. Because you're so overwhelmed by the the overwhelming favor of a law on you. This is what the right does that, you know, good deeds that we do, are supposed to make us more

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humble people come to you when you do a good deed. And they'll praise you and that'll let start getting to your head. Yeah, I am pretty amazing. I am a loves gift to this community. No, you're not you you will be gone. And the dean will go on, and Islam will go on and the Quran will go on. And Allah will use other better more humble slaves were in service. We are not an asset to Allah. We are not, you know, we we are honored to be able to serve him. But we're not any better because we serve Him. As a matter of fact, you can even think about that for yourself as opposed to other you know, even people that are not Muslim that we're better than them. No, they're also Children of Adam

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alayhis salam, we were made of reject meanness, the best nation made the best nation of the people, not less at the best nation for the people, not of the people. We're not the we're not better than everyone else were the were better for everyone else, there's a complete difference. You know, so this idea of, you know, when you do engage in good deeds, then the devil comes in a sneaky kind of way, giving you a sense of lofty, you know, self importance, the way to be grateful to Allah every time you get a chance to do something good, thank Allah, every time and the gratitude, this this litmus test that I have for myself, and I recommend for all of you, when you do something for

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somebody else, when you teach somebody, somebody else, when you give sadaqa to somebody else, when you help somebody else, somebody needed to move from their apartment, you help them move furniture, somebody needs to learn some Quran, you taught them cry, you did whatever service for other people, and they don't appreciate you. They don't remember what you did for them. And it makes you upset. You know what that means? There's still some devil inside left. When you did someone, something for someone, you didn't do it for them. You did it for Allah, Allah recorded it, you should be happy. you're grateful that Allah gave you a chance to help. That's it. There's nothing more from you. You

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have no more expectations, not from people. You didn't do it for people. You did it for someone who's who's recorded it and he knows and that's enough for me. I'm grateful that he recorded this good deed.

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If I said, Oh, man, I got to prepare this football. I hope people show up or give the speech and two people show up. As a hall of 1002 people show up and I'm upset only two people can do this.

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The problem then is with me, because I didn't if I if I'm doing it for a crowd. If I'm doing it for recognition, then I'm no longer grateful to Allah, the fact that I got a chance to serve the fact that I got a chance to share something that Allah gave me

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that opportunity. I'm grateful for that. I can't let anything else get in my head. Everything else comes from Shetland. So what did you do? accela homeshare Killeen and finally from the left, which is obvious, the left is when when shaitan calls you to her on the left is when shotgun calls you to things that are known evil. They are clearly disobedience to Allah. And when he's pulling you in that direction, the only thing that will protect you is when you become grateful for what is Helen.

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When you become grateful for the fact that a lot and not in shutdown will come to you and tell you, I don't know this Islam thing is so hard, everything's wrong. Everything's forbidden man. It's so restrictive. And so many rules. There's so many fences everywhere can't do this. Can't do that can't do this. can't have any fun in life. That's the devil talking to you. And let me tell you, Allah azzawajal in the same surah said, we're janela confy Hama iosh kalila. Mata Quran, Allah said in this world, he put things for you to enjoy how little you're grateful. Just like in Gemini, everything was Hillel except one tree. In this world. All kinds of good things are headed except a

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few things that are filthy unless I'd stay away from them. But the devil tries to come and tell you know, Islam says everything is haram. And the you know, you can't live your life. If you follow Islam. No, no, no, no, no, that's a lie from the devil making you ungrateful for the halal. So what that does is he the devil's job here is to make halaal look ugly, and the Haram look beautiful. That's his job.

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His job is to make I'll say that again. halaal look ugly, and the haraam look beautiful. So what's he going to do? He's going to say, Man, you got to drive all the way there to eat the whole food.

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restaurant right here, just go here. You know, in your head, you're like, Halloween is too hard, too far away. Then you some some young man is thinking about marriage. And his family comes in says, Well, you know, you got to have the girl's family says you have to have this much money, you have to have a house you have to have this you have to have that then we have to invite our cousins from Pakistan and from Afghanistan and from all the stones that are there. And we have to have like, you know, this many dishes and that and he's like, this halaal is really hard. I could just, you know, go on social media and find myself somebody to hang out with so much easier free to, you know, no

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pressure. No, nobody needs to know,

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the door. chatons job is to make the the gateway to haram easy. And the doors to halaal difficult. Don't become an instrument of shavonne by making the halaal difficult.

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Don't become that. Don't make the halaal difficult for yourself. Don't make the halaal difficult for your family. Because if that happens, he's easily able to pull people to the left. I know many young men I know many young women that regret that they're in haram relationships. They regret that. Why are they in that because their family doesn't want to get them married, not old enough, yet old enough to know that I'm old enough to follow shaitaan old enough to do all kinds of sins and ruin your ask Allah but not old enough to get married. This are not wealthy enough to get married. Or your other your other sisters haven't gotten married yet. This is why we can't marry you off who

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came up with these rules. These This is when the door to halaal is closed and the door to Haram is opened. We can't do that to ourselves because then we're just following into his footsteps. This is what it means when when a large origin. Let us know that the devil wants to prove that we will not be grateful we should be grateful for the doors Allah has opened for us with the Holland. We should be grateful that Allah has guided us away from things that are harmful for us. Anything that ultimate haram has to be harmful for us. That's the only reason it's hard on your remote animals. If he only made haram for you, things that are filthy, that are actually hurtful for you. Just like you

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wouldn't eat filth, just like you wouldn't consume filth, just like you wouldn't bathe in filth. You can't engage in filth and not get sick, not get dirty, you know, not get contaminated. That's the purpose of it. And we have to be grateful for that guidance that Allah azza wa jal has given us. I pray that Allah azza wa jal sincerely makes all of us grateful human beings, and that Allah azza wa jal strengthen the bond that we have with him and with his word and give us the strength through through His Word to be able to fight all kinds of whispers of the devil barakallahu li walakum filco Anil Hakeem on a fire anyway he or combine it with him