Omar Suleiman – How to Protect Your Heart From Numbness – 2018
AI: Summary ©
The importance of achieving
the spiritual high, pursuing a career, and not rushing to accomplish is emphasized in Islam. The Prophet sall Mazdaal alayhi wa sallam advises against sharing a dream with a Prophet and instead pray Qiyush layl. The importance of regularity in achieving healthy deeds is emphasized, and the need to engage one's values in different ways for effective learning and maintaining a healthy body is emphasized.
the spiritual high, pursuing a career, and not rushing to accomplish is emphasized in Islam. The Prophet sall Mazdaal alayhi wa sallam advises against sharing a dream with a Prophet and instead pray Qiyush layl. The importance of regularity in achieving healthy deeds is emphasized, and the need to engage one's values in different ways for effective learning and maintaining a healthy body is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem.
Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen.
Wala adwana illa ala al-Dhalimeen.
Wa ala al-Aqibatil al-Muttaqeen.
Allahumma salli wa sallim wa baraka al-abdika
wa rasulika Muhammadin sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wa
ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallim tasliman kathiran.
Everyone can hear me inshallah?
In the back, up top, no?
I'm getting the no, so.
This is the dilemma of discrimination against taller
people.
It's a universal problem.
So I'm going to try to talk into
the mic inshallah ta'ala.
I want to first and foremost extend just
my gratitude to the brothers and sisters here,
al-Bin Zaid, for having me here.
Subhanallah, I've driven by this place so many
times and always just admired the architecture and
seen some of the great work that's come
out of this center but never had the
blessing to actually come here and attend.
And subhanallah, this is an extremely short visit
for me to Qatar.
It's one of the shortest.
It's more like a layover in Qatar.
And so to have the opportunity to meet
so many of you is truly a blessing
from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I've been sort of in a whirlwind.
So last week, alhamdulillah, I completed my hajj
and then I went to the United States
and attended an Islamic convention there in Houston.
And then I jumped back on a plane
back to this side of the world, so
I don't really know where I am.
So if I accidentally say another country name
then please forgive me because that's just sort
of what the schedule has been like over
the last few weeks.
But I will say this, that one of
the things that I always just take from
that experience of hajj, Allah has blessed me
to go on a regular basis, is how
profound and powerful that experience of reigniting faith
can be in a person's life.
And I want to take a few steps
back and sort of introduce the subject.
This subject is something that I actually spoke
about this subject in Isna, the Islamic Society
of North America convention in the United States
and I was thinking a lot about it,
so when the brothers asked me what subject
do you want to talk about, I thought
this would be a good subject to talk
about.
This subject is one that's particularly pertinent to
those who were born and raised as Muslims,
those who never really had to fight for
the ability to be Muslim or to practice
Islam in its most comprehensive and holistic sense,
and those who have been Muslim, even if
you weren't raised Muslim, those who have been
Muslim long enough to where they found now
that the spirituality, that the practice has started
to lose some of its flavor, some of
its sweetness in their lives, and are wondering
how to recapture that fresh moment of faith
with Allah SWT again.
And to give you some context into how
that plays out in hajj, may Allah SWT
first and foremost allow all of us to
be called to his house over and over
again.
Everyone please say ameen.
Every one of us in Umrah or hajj,
the opportunity to visit Baytullah al-Haram, the
sacred house.
As someone who has the opportunity to go
multiple times, I had to ask myself this
question a few years ago, well how do
I still capture the beauty of looking at
the Kaaba for the first time?
Or entering into Madinatun Nabi SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam,
and recognizing as Abdullah ibn Umar radiAllahu Anhu
used to say لَعَلَى خُفٍ يَقَعُ عَلَى خُفٍ
it might be that my footstep will fall
in his, and recognizing the sweetness of the
spirit of the city of the Prophet SallAllahu
Alaihi Wasallam.
And what I started doing a few years
ago, essentially, is as I would get to
the Haram, in particular I take my group
to the Kaaba, I would just stop for
a moment and I'd look at the faces
of the first time hajjis, and see the
way that this was affecting them.
And subhanAllah it's so different for that person
that feasts their eyes for the very first
time on the Kaaba, and the immediate emotional
intense experience that they have.
And it's really special because all of your
troubles and everything that you brought to that
moment sort of melts away.
And you're sitting there and you're looking at
them, and you're reliving your own first time
through them.
Because you're recognizing that once upon a time,
that was me.
I remember the first time looking at the
Kaaba.
I remember the first time feeling what that
person is feeling.
And again, for everyone in here that has
never had the opportunity to do umrah or
hajj, may Allah write it down for you.
And for those who have, may Allah subhanAllah
allow us to go back over and over
again.
But that moment, subhanAllah, I recognized that I
wish I still felt that way myself.
Because it can become routine.
It can become mechanical.
Back in December, I had the chance to
take the very first special needs umrah group
from the United States.
I had people in my group that were
in their 60s that were deaf.
A couple, for example, both in their 60s,
and both of them were deaf, and one
of them was a revert to Islam.
And the way that they looked when they
looked at the Kaaba for the very first
time, the way that a child with autism,
whose experiences are dismissed as being irrelevant, who's
diminished by society around them, and the way
that that child looks for the very first
time, it's special.
Because you recognize the intensity of an experience.
And there was one brother this year in
particular with hajj, and I'm going to start
my entire talk off through the lens of
this particular brother.
This brother's name is Jaleel.
How many of you have heard of a
group called Islam in Spanish?
Anybody?
Alright, one, two, like three, maybe a few
sisters as well.
Islam in Spanish is a very special group
that's based out of Houston, right around the
corner from Dallas, run by a brother, a
beautiful brother by the name of Mujahid Fletcher.
They do a lot of da'wah in
Spanish.
And there's a brother there that reverted to
Islam a few years ago named Jaleel.
And Jaleel, as he reverted to Islam, had
the experience that many people as they first
revert to Islam have, which is that he
had to conceal his faith for some time.
And in fact, he had to do his
salat in the restroom.
He would have to pray in the bathroom,
and of course that's not an appropriate place
to pray, but sometimes necessities give way to
things that are ordinarily prohibited, and make those
concessions.
So he had to fulfill his salat in
that situation.
That was the only place that he could
safely do his salat.
And this is a man that every time
you see him, you enjoy looking at the
nur in his face.
He has that freshness to him.
That light in his face.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless him
and bless all of those brothers and sisters.
And subhanAllah, he got sponsored to come to
hajj this year.
Someone wanted to send some people from Islam
and Spanish maybe to hajj this year.
Somehow he made his way to hajj.
My group got to Mecca a few days
before him, and if any of you have
ever been to Mecca in the times of
hajj, most of the time when it comes
to the five salawat, you don't actually pray
inside the haram, you just pray where the
rows reach you.
So if you're staying in a hotel with
a shopping mall there, the rows reach into
the mall.
Most of the hotels surrounding the haram actually
have these musallahs that follow the salah in
the haram, but you really, most of the
time, don't go to the haram itself.
You don't actually go there and try to
pray inside the haram, except for a few
people from the groups that will do that.
For the most part, it's very easy to
become complacent.
The rows reach you, so you just pray
where the rows and you ask Allah for
acceptance.
Most of us did that.
I met our brother in Mina, and we
were talking about the experience that he had,
and he starts showing me these pictures, and
he told me that he made this promise
to Allah that when he comes to hajj,
that when he gets to Mecca, he's going
to pray every salah in the first row.
I've never heard of that in hajj time.
It's crazy, right?
Even if he wanted to, most likely you're
going to get pushed out.
So as soon as he got to Mecca,
from the very first salah, he decided he's
going to go to the haram, and he's
going to find a way to pray every
single salah in the first row.
And what he would do is, if any
of you know the strategy, you do tawaf,
and keep getting closer and closer and closer,
and you kind of measure that with the
adhan and iqamah time, and subhanAllah, he did
it.
He found a way to be in the
first row, every single one of the salawat
in the haram started kicking up conversations with
the guards, and they started recognizing him, and
he wanted to kiss the black stone.
The guards actually started treating him like VIP,
and were taking him to the black stone
as if he was some foreign leader or
something like that, and subhanAllah, this started happening
on a daily basis for him.
And I thought to myself, first of all,
I felt a great deal of shame, and
I thought to myself, what makes him different
from myself, and different from so many of
us that went there?
He had what the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa
sallam referred to as aloo al-himmah, that
high ambition, that ihsan, that excellence, where the
Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam said that ihsan,
excellence, is that you worship Allah as if
you can see him, and if you can't
see him, then you know that he sees
you.
And that's the ultimate driving force.
It's not just guarding the technicalities or the
obligations of the act, it's how do I
make this act the most beloved act to
Allah subhanAllah ta'ala, possible, because the standard
that I set for myself is not one
that other people around me abide by, the
standard is one that is set by He
whom you can never fully praise, and He
whom you can never fully thank, and He
whom no matter how much you exert yourself
in the pursuit of His pleasure, you would
have never fully repaid Him for even the
small blessings that He bestows upon you every
single day and every single moment of your
life.
Ihsan drives you to a different level.
There was a freshness, there was a sweetness,
and for many of us who experienced at
some point in life, even if not a
reversion to Islam in the sense of taking
shahada for the first time, but reverting at
some point in life where you decided to
become more practicing, where you decided, where something
happened in life that turned you to Allah
subhanAllah ta'ala in a way that you
were not turned before, often you look back
on those moments and you say, how do
I get back to that?
That at some point in my life I
felt closer to Allah subhanAllah ta'ala.
It was fresher, it was newer.
If you think about relationships that you establish,
many times relationships don't fall apart between two
people.
Don't fall apart because of something catastrophic happening
or because of some sort of wrongdoing on
the part of either one of the parties.
But sometimes things become too routine.
And there is a loss of communication even
if it's subconscious.
Two people don't know how to talk to
each other anymore.
And suddenly the luster goes away.
And then you wake up too late.
In our relationship with Allah subhanAllah ta'ala
it is very likely to happen that at
some point things become very mechanical.
Things become very routine.
Things become so ritual oriented that your entire
Islam becomes a halal and haram diet.
Or obligations, fulfilling the farad and doing my
part and simply moving at the standard that
society moves at.
Especially when you live in a Muslim country
or a Muslim community.
Especially when everyone around you in your circle
is doing the exact same thing.
Not only can that render you complacent, it
can render you bored.
To where your faith doesn't really give you
much in terms of that personal connection with
Allah subhanAllah ta'ala.
Now I must say here that we don't
look for the spiritual high as the means
of our Iman and our Islam and our
Yaqeen or our Ihsan or Taqwa.
It's not about the spiritual high.
Because that's another extreme where spirituality is actually
even bypassing the sunnah of the Prophet salAllahu
alayhi wa sallam sometimes.
And it's all about attaining some sort of
a temporary spiritual high.
And that's also dangerous.
Because in Islam the goal is realized in
the means.
If you are following the sunnah of the
Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam to the best
of your ability.
If you are trying to aspire to be
what the companions of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi
wa sallam were.
Though you will never reach their station with
Allah subhanAllah ta'ala.
The goal of Tazkiyah is being realized anyway.
Even in the moments that you are not
feeling the spiritual high.
The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam said in
an authentic hadith in Ibn Hibban, He
said salAllahu alayhi wa sallam that everything has
its peak.
And then everything eventually runs its course.
And in this particular narration the Prophet salAllahu
alayhi wa sallam emphasized the course, the low
point.
The high point and the low point.
The Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam chose to
emphasize the low point.
Whoever has their fatrah, their low point in
accordance with my sunnah, then he has succeeded.
And whoever has it in accordance with other
than that, then he has failed.
What that means and the way that the
ulama describe this hadith and explain this hadith
is that it is very common for people
to go to extremes in their religion to
a point that their religion depends so much
on their emotional state that when they're on
an emotional high, not only do they do
the obligations, they go far beyond with a
sense of even zealotry.
But when they're in a low point, they
get to a point where they don't even
maintain their obligations.
Right?
So in my high point, suddenly I'm in
the masjid for fajr, I'm talking about qiyam
al-layl, I'm doing all these amazing things,
I'm pushing myself.
Right?
And a lot of times in the feeling
like I need to overcompensate my tawbah because
I've been away from Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala for so long, I exert myself, I
overexert myself, but I set for myself in
that process a standard that is so unsustainable
that I am going to be disappointed.
Because I won't be able to maintain it.
And so when I crash, I crash hard.
Because I said, I'm going to make this
change, I'm going to do all these great
things and attain these high things, and then
when I crash, forget about coming to the
masjid for fajr, I'm not even praying fajr
on time anymore.
Forget about doing qiyam al-layl, I'm not
even praying anymore.
Right?
Forget about nawafil, extra good deeds, now I'm
doing major sins, for example.
So the fatrah, al-Hafidh ibn Rajab rahim
Allah ta'ala has a very beautiful book
called Al-Mahajatu Fi Sayyidil Dulja.
In English, it's The Journey to Allah.
It's a very poor translation, as is the
case with many of our classical texts.
It's not a big text, but he talks
about a methodology for change and a methodology
for salvation, Al-Mahajatu Fi Sayyidil Dulja.
And he talks about this shirra and fatrah,
the peak and the low point.
And he said the low point is when
a person forsakes obligations and indulges major sins
or minor sins on a consistent and unapologetic
basis.
Meaning it doesn't even bother you anymore.
So the fatrah that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam was talking about, the healthy low point
because you cannot maintain your same level, your
same output all the time.
The healthy low point the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam was talking about was that even when
you're in your low point, you don't give
up your obligations.
And you don't indulge major sin or consistent
minor sin.
That's the healthy low point.
Think about it this way.
If it was a dunya-y thing, if
it was a worldly thing, imagine if you
only went to work when you felt like
it.
I know some people do that, but they
don't really succeed in life usually, unless they
got someone else to catch them.
But for the most part, imagine if you
only went to work when you felt like
it.
Imagine if you only, when you were, you
know, if you're pursuing your studies, maybe you
are, or when you were, if you only
went to school when you felt like it.
That's suicide.
Right?
That's how you know you're going to sink
your career.
It doesn't make sense.
Because a motivated student recognizes that even at
times I might not be fully motivated, but
I'll still do what I have to do
to get by.
And then that way when I regain some
motivation or when I'm in my most motivated
spirit, I would have maintained enough to where
it's still attainable.
Someone who's successful in a dunya-y sense,
in a worldly sense, they're not the people
that move forward and power through when they
had a fully supportive environment, and when career
doors opened in front of their eyes, as
if they were just being presented without any
merit.
But they're the people that actually power through
and attained when other people doubted them.
People that pushed themselves when other people gave
up.
People that surpassed others.
That kept on moving.
Even on the days when they didn't particularly
feel like waking up or working.
They did it anyway.
They studied anyway.
The relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
has to be at that bare minimum first.
Even on those days, when I'm at my
lowest point, I still have to do my
obligations.
You know what?
Today, I don't feel like doing these extra
acts.
That's okay.
I'm not going to do sins instead.
And I'm not going to forsake my obligations.
However, the shirra still has to be there.
That movement towards change and feeling something special
in your iman, in your faith.
And that spiritual potential being sought out by
you has to still happen.
It just can't be unreasonable.
The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told Abdullah
ibn Amr ibn al-As, may Allah be
pleased with him and his father, something very
special.
Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As, may Allah
be pleased with them both.
This was an overzealous young man.
When he first took on the religion as
a young man, he tried to get it
all in within only the couple of years
that he had with the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam.
This was the case of many of the
youth around the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Particularly those whose fathers embraced Islam around Fatah,
Mecca, around the conquest of Mecca to where
they only had three years with the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.
It was let me get it all in.
And Abdullah ibn Amr, may Allah be pleased
with him, he tried so hard to do
everything at the same time and to go
beyond.
Right?
So for example the wife of Abdullah complained
to Amr ibn al-As to his father
or I'm sorry, Amr ibn al-As complained
to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam on
behalf of the wife of Abdullah that he
prays too much.
That he fasts too much.
That he reads too much.
I know many of us would love to
be able to complain about our kids like
that.
It's like that would be the dream of
taking your child to the Shaykh.
What's wrong with your son?
He just keeps praying.
Keeps reading.
Keeps fasting.
I don't know what's wrong with him.
Talk to him.
Tell him to tone down his Ibadah a
bit.
That would be the dream of every parent.
May Allah give us righteous offspring and let
us be righteous as well.
Allahumma ameen.
This is a really interesting complaint.
He basically was so overzealous in his Ibadah
that he was neglectful in his household.
And so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
asked Abdullah's wife how he was as a
husband and she responded He's a very good
worshipper.
She didn't say he's a bad husband.
Mashallah she's noble and generous.
She said he's a good worshipper Ya Rasulullah.
She wanted to speak nice of him but
still get the point across.
How great of a worshipper was this man
on his wedding night.
There's a sunnah of praying two rak'ahs
together on your wedding night.
On his wedding night when he prayed the
two rak'ahs his two rak'ahs carried
them all the way until Fajr.
That's not normal.
That's a very prolonged...
That's not what the essence of the sunnah
was supposed to be.
So he's a great worshipper but at the
same time there was an imbalance.
And it's not just the imbalance in that
the Ibadah made him neglectful of other areas
of his life.
It's that number one it was functioning on
a faulty premise that this is what is
needed to attain salvation.
Not recognizing that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam said that no one exaggerates in the
deen illa ghalaba except the deen will wear
him out.
And that's the context of the hadith where
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam mentioned everyone
enters jannah by the mercy of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala not by their actions.
Not to say that you should be complacent
with the mercy of Allah and not push
yourself but to say that when you push
yourself realize that it is not your actions
that will attain your ultimate salvation but your
actions qualifying for the mercy of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
Therefore, you should act within that spirit.
So, there's a faulty premise but the second
thing is that Abdullah ibn Amr was setting
himself up for disappointment.
And that's why one of the advices that
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told him
that he wished he would have heeded later
on in life he reflected on.
He said, لا تكن كرجل كان يقوم الليل
فترك He said, don't be that person who
used to pray qiyam al-layl and then
he just left it all together.
So, you go from praying a lot of
qiyam al-layl to not praying any at
all because it was an unreasonable expectation.
Now, how do we maintain however that spiritual
pursuit of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala?
That acting within ihsan to where I want
to get as close to Allah as possible
and push myself to my furthest potential but
at the same time do it with a
reasonable course and not lose the sweetness of
faith.
The believer always acts with a sense of
urgency and going back to the example of
what differentiates a jaleel from a umar or
from a person who is surrounded by an
environment of practice and a person who has
to push themselves.
Just as is in the case of ni'mah,
of blessing in the worldly sense, a person
who has too much of it, loses appreciation
for it.
Or a person for whom it has been
easily facilitated does not recognize how precious it
is.
They say that you're much more likely to
spend money recklessly that you didn't earn.
If you think about if you were a
kid and you had an allowance, the money
that you hard earned, you're much more careful
about how you spend it.
Money that you inherit or money that is
given to you without work, you're much more
likely to dispense of it without thinking too
much about it because you haven't recognized that
someone sweated for that money, someone went through
hardship to get that money, it just wasn't
you in this case.
So a lot of times when it wasn't
your own pursuit, then you don't recognize how
special it is.
And the Prophet SAW taught us what?
How do we recognize the blessing of our
ni'mah in the worldly sense?
He taught us two things.
Number one, the Prophet SAW taught us that
sometimes to healthily disconnect in a healthy way
from your ni'mah is a means of gaining
an appreciation for it.
I'm only talking about in the worldly sense
now.
So please pay attention to that.
Meaning what?
Fasting in the month of Ramadan, by fasting
from food, drink and some of those blessings,
you gain a greater appreciation for those blessings.
So a temporary disconnect.
There's the hadith of or I'm sorry, the
narration of Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu walking
by Jabir ibn Abdullah radiyaAllahu anhu and he
had meat, just bags of meat that he
purchased.
So he said to him what is that?
He said it's meat.
He said, did you buy meat?
And he said, yeah.
Now I'm not about to give a vegetarian
khutbah or say that you can't eat meat.
Eating meat is fine.
Everything within its proper quantity and things of
that sort.
But Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, well
why did you purchase meat?
He said ijtahaytu.
He said, well I just felt like it.
I desired it.
And Umar radiyaAllahu anhu says, is it that
every time you desire something, you buy it?
وَكُلِّمَ اجْتَهَيْتُ شَيْءٍ اجْتَرَيْتُ Is it just you
feel like it so you just buy it?
There wasn't anything about the meat.
Umar was trying to instill a lesson of
tarbiyah in him that don't just consume because
you can all the time blessings.
It's not just about your capability or you
have the ability to buy whatever you want
or do whatever you want.
Don't be reckless because you can buy something.
Instead, you know, sometimes a little bit of
deprivation is good.
Anyone that has raised kids knows that the
worst thing that you can do to your
child is spoil them so rotten that they
become entitled because that's not something they can
shake off as adults.
They just become narcissistic monsters because everything was
handed to them growing up and they expect
the world now to play the role of
parent and just give them whatever they want
all the time.
And when they don't get what they want,
right, they throw tantrums as adults because they
didn't get over the tantrums as children when
a good parent held something back so that
they could recognize that not everything in life
comes that way to you.
So their tantrums are delayed until adulthood because
we all threw tantrums at some point in
life and it's better that you get those
tantrums out of the way as a child
and recognize the world doesn't just come to
you that way.
So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam taught, again,
sometimes a temporary disconnect from something that you
can have in the worldly sense is a
means of gaining a greater appreciation of that
ni'mah, a means of gaining a greater appreciation
of that blessing.
The second thing, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
taught us to engage those that have less
than us of that blessing.
Not just to give charity, no, to actually
encounter those that have less than us in
terms of dunya.
Giving charity in the 21st century, well actually
in particular in 2018, it's very easy to
do it over a phone or to just
swipe or to just do something online and
you don't ever actually have to go and
deliver.
And that's a blessing because it's opened the
ways, it's facilitated ways for us to give
charity.
We should do that.
SubhanAllah, I always just think about, imagine on
the Day of Judgment meeting someone that you've
never met in person and you just swipe
something or, well you don't swipe on a
computer but you put in your credit card
information and you built a well somewhere or
you fed someone, some orphan that you'll never
meet, and that person comes and takes you
by the hand and enters you into Jannah.
And you've never seen that person before.
That's a blessing, so it has its own
unique form of blessing.
But that does not absolve you, that does
not absolve you from encountering and engaging those
who are needy.
The Hadith in Muslim, Imam Ahmed from Abu
Huraira radiAllahu ta'ala, a man came to
the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam and complained his
heart was hard.
This is spiritual numbness.
My life is mechanical, I'm doing everything right
but I don't feel anymore.
...
The Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam told him you
should caress the hair of an orphan.
Share your food with an orphan.
Sit with that orphan.
And that will soften your heart.
It will give you a renewed sense of
meaning.
You can't duplicate that through an online transaction.
There has to be an encounter.
And the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam taught that
a person should look to those that have
less than them in dunya and it will
make what they seem have plentiful.
Okay?
Or it will make what they have seem
plentiful.
I mixed up the two.
It will make what they have seem plentiful.
If you're constantly looking to those who have
less than you in dunya.
Right?
So you will know the value of what
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has given to
you.
It will do away with that entitlement.
Now let's transfer this question of financial poverty
to spiritual poverty.
There's something special about the person that rediscovers
Islam.
There's something special about that new convert.
There's something special.
As the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam mentioned that
one of the signs of the sweetness of
Iman is that a person would hate to
resort to the days of ignorance like a
person would hate to be thrown into fire.
Profound saying of Umar radiAllahu Anhu.
Don't you think Umar's rough past facilitated the
way for his pristine future?
Umar reflecting radiAllahu Anhu on how far away
he was from Allah.
That's part of what made him who he
was.
And what did Umar radiAllahu Anhu say?
He said, I fear for the day if
nasha'a fil Islam, man la ya'riful
jahiliyya.
I fear for the day that generations will
grow in Islam and they don't know what
it's like to be away from it.
They don't know the days of jahiliyya.
They have not tasted the days of ignorance.
So how do you capture that spirit?
And is it then good for you to
break away from faith for a little bit
so you can feel like a convert again?
No.
You don't have that luxury to say, well
just like in the dunya we sense, I'm
going to disconnect from iman for a little
bit so I can feel great about it
again.
Or I'll go do some jahiliyya stuff so
I can taste the sweetness of iman again.
Please don't do that.
And that's not the recommendation here at all,
nor is it the methodology of the Prophet
radiAllahu Anhu, because as in financial poverty, you
don't say, I want to appreciate the blessing
of what I have so I'm going to
go put myself in poverty.
No.
Encountering those in the form of a caretaker,
encountering those who have less than you in
a way of giving to them.
Now, in the sense of our spirituality, how
can I make the equivalent of that?
First and foremost, when it comes to our
akhira, when it comes to pursuits of deen,
we have to do the exact opposite of
what we do with this material world.
Which is, with material ni'mah, with material blessing,
you focus on those who have less than
you.
It's interesting, when Allah mentions the gaze being
lowered in the Qur'an, that a person
lowers their gaze, it's not just from the
opposite gender.
It's from the allures of this world.
And that's not a physical walking down like
this when you see something, though it can
be that.
Especially when you go to the mall or
instead of window shopping, it's a good idea
sometimes to put your head down.
You'll come out better in terms of your
wallet.
If you lower your gaze when you walk
through the mall or you walk through the
suq, it's good for you.
But Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala was talking
about it in another way.
Do not extend your eyesight to that which
we have busied them with.
Instead, keep your focus on Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
The exact opposite in the material sense, Allah
teaches us, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam
taught us, to look to those who have
less than us and in the deen sense,
in the sense of religious pursuit, to only
look to those who have more than us.
This is a very important point and it's
really a simple methodology that has profound consequences
in your life.
If you think about our deen, we become
complacent with the blessing of our deen when
we think we're okay because that's where complacency
comes from.
By looking to those around us who quote
have less than us, even though Allah, I'm
talking about in the deeni sense, even though
they might be doing something else that we
don't do that's unseen to us, but seen
by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that gains
them the favor of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
So, though they are deficient in one way
of their iman, or in their practice, they're
doing something that you don't see, but you're
focusing on the deficiency that's visible to you
and you tell yourself, alhamdulillah, I don't do
that.
Even if you don't say it, and sound
it out, still, there's a sense of, well,
I'm not like those people.
And subhanallah, if you think about the world
of social media, you literally encounter everyone's best
dunya, because people portray happiness, and that's one
of the greatest signs of sadness, is going
out of your way to portray happiness, so
you see everyone else's best dunya and your
own worst dunya, right?
And when people hold hands and smile at
each other in a cover photo, they don't
always look like that.
It could feel that way, but that's an
image at the end of the day.
But we see their best dunya and our
own worst, and we see their worst sins
and our own best deeds, because there's a
sense of decency that's been removed from the
online world where people portray their worst sense
of deen.
So that complacency even becomes more dangerous, so
I say, well, alhamdulillah, I'm not like those
people.
Alhamdulillah, I'm not like that person.
And when you speak of those who, quote,
have less than you, you speak of them
in a scornful way.
Subhanallah, the methodology of the Prophet salallahu alayhi
wa sallam, and this is probably one of
the things that we don't pay attention to
sometimes, how remarkable it is.
Everything about the sunnah is so remarkable.
But you know, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa
sallam prayed qiyam al-layl until his feet
swelled, right?
He loved his ibadah, his secret ibadah, like
no one else, right?
And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam excelled
so much that even Aisha radiallahu anha was
shocked by his excelling in his ibadah and
said, you know, hasn't Allah forgiven you for
all of your previous sins?
Do you really have to do this?
And he said, aflaakuna abdan shakoora, should I
not be a grateful servant, right?
A person who does that sometimes, let's say
a person who prays qiyam al-layl all
the time encounters someone who doesn't pray qiyam
at all.
They'd be like, what's wrong with you?
Are you off?
Right?
It's unconsciousable.
How could you not be praying qiyam al
-layl?
Right?
It's very easy to become self-righteous because
if shaytan can't get you with your sins,
he'll pollute your good deeds.
If he can't poison you with sins, he'll
poison your good deeds and let them poison
you.
Right?
I mean, he's going to find his way
to try to mess you up.
Self-righteousness is more dangerous because pride is
more dangerous than desire.
Kibr is worse than shahl, right?
Pride can be more dangerous than uncontrolled or
unrestrained desire because at least the person that's
unrestrained desire and sinning knows something is wrong.
The person in pride doesn't even recognize something
is off, right?
But subhanAllah, look at Abdullah ibn Umar radiyaAllahu
ta'ala when he wanted to have a
dream so he could share it with the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and instead he
had this dream of himself being taken to
hellfire.
And then as the angels took him to
hellfire, they didn't put him in there.
Instead, he was told this is not your
place and eventually he was taken to Jannah
in his dream and he was so embarrassed
about sharing that dream with the Prophet salallahu
alayhi wa sallam so instead he goes through
a detour with his sister Hafsa radiyaAllahu ta
'ala and asks Hafsa to tell the Prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam instead and to get
the interpretation.
And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam knowing
that the interpretation is going to reach him
says, نعم الرجل عبدالله What a great young
man Abdullah is.
لو كان يقوم الليل but if only he'd
start praying a little bit of Qiyamul Layl.
Like he didn't say what's wrong with Abdullah
ibn Umar, go tell that young man to
pray Qiyamul Layl, he's off.
Instead, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said
نعم الرجل What an incredible young man he
is, he has a trajectory, he has potential,
he has beautiful qualities, he would be even
more beautiful if he would pray Qiyamul Layl.
The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam's own indulgence
of Qiyamul Layl did not cause him to
belittle a man who wasn't praying Qiyamul Layl.
You understand?
Like at the عبادة level, I'm talking about
the good deeds.
Obviously at the sin level the Prophet salallahu
alayhi wa sallam not belittling the companion who
had an alcohol addiction.
Right?
And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said
he loves Allah and his messenger and he's
beloved to Allah and his messenger but that
was a means of encouraging him to move
beyond that addiction.
I'm talking about even at the good deeds
that you look to people and you think
well I'm doing this I don't see other
people around me doing that.
You don't have to look to the Sahaba
to find people to inspire you to move
forward, to do better in your deen.
There are living examples amongst us, in fact
you might even find them in your family
that are excelling even if they're not as
a package to the naked eye excelling in
every aspect but there's something they're excelling in
that I can take from, that I can
do better.
Some sort of quality some sort of khuluq,
some sort of characteristics some sort of act
of worship and if you're sitting there thinking
like I can't relate, I've pretty much maxed
out in all of that.
You are the problem.
You're exactly the person that I'm talking to.
But on a serious note someone in your
capacity is doing better than you in something
that you can aspire to, and you can
look to, and that should put you not
to shame but to be motivated in a
different way.
How many of you have heard of Umar
bin Abdulaziz rahimahullah ta'ala?
No one in Qatar has heard of Umar
bin Abdulaziz?
Or you guys just don't like raising your
hands here?
Umar bin Abdulaziz rahimahullah is a very famous
man in our tradition, rightfully so who excelled
to a point that he is the fifth
of khulafa ar-rashideen though he did not
live immediately after Ali ibn Abi Talib radiyaAllahu
anhu or al-Hasan radiyaAllahu anhu, there's a
disconnect but he's considered to be from khulafa
ar-rashideen Imam al-Shafi'i rahimahullah beautifully
describes it, he said that Umar bin Abdulaziz
to khulafa ar-rashideen is like Rajab to
all of the other sacred months the other
three come together and then Rajab comes later
on in the year all by itself, he
said that's Umar bin Abdulaziz rahimahullah, so he
truly was a man of a century, the
first mujadid of the religion by the first
reviver of the religion by consensus, between Umar
bin Abdulaziz and Isa alayhi salam being the
last mujadid, there's a lot of disagreement in
almost every century but the first century after
the companions there is consensus it was Umar
bin Abdulaziz rahimahullah ta'ala the man excelled
in every way but you know what he
goes out one day to find his time
to reflect to do tadabbur and tafakkur contemplation
and he sees Mujahid rahimahullah ta'ala the
great scholar of tafsir sitting at the riverbank
remembering Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and he
starts to cry and he says waylakh ya
mujahid, woe to you ya mujahid kayfa alqa
rabbi fee yawmin anta feehi mulaqi how am
I supposed to meet Allah on a day
that you too will meet Allah meaning subhanAllah
he felt ashamed of himself because he saw
Mujahid in one act notice that Umar is
being praised by everyone around him for his
generosity for his nobility, for his reforms for
his ibadah, all of these types of things
but he found one thing, one man around
him doing something that preceded him and he
was afraid of meeting Allah on the day
that Mujahid meets Allah, meaning my good deeds
will be insufficient compared to your good deeds
so look for examples around you, even if
they excel only in one area, a good
characteristic, a good quality, a good trait, this
is part of muhasabah, this is part of
taking account of yourself, it's not just taking
account of your sins it's also taking account
of the good deeds that you could be
doing but you're not that will keep you
motivated to attain something higher the second thing
that I'll mention here the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wasallam said إِنَّ الْإِمَانَ لَيَخْلَقُ فِي جَوْفِ أَحْدِكُمْ
كَمَا يَخْلَقُ الثَوْبُ he said sallallahu alayhi wasallam
that faith wears out in the heart the
way that a thawb, the way that a
garment would wear out, so if you wash
your garment over and over again, it starts
to lose its color, it starts to lose
its fit, it starts to lack that special
quality so how do you keep it exciting
on one hand أَحَبُّ الْأَعْمَالِ إِلَى اللَّهِ أَدْوَمُهَا
وَإِنْ قَلْتُ the most beloved of actions to
Allah are the ones that are consistent even
if they're small on the other hand you
need to engage your iman in different ways
visiting a sick person engages the iman in
a certain way that going to salah through
a janazah or following a janazah doesn't, giving
charity engages the iman in a certain way
that fasting doesn't reading quran engages the iman
in a certain way that listening to a
lecture doesn't, listening to ilm engages the iman
in a certain way that reading quran doesn't
diversifying that portfolio to make sure that your
iman is engaged in different directions so that
you don't become single track and bored of
a particular ibadah is essential subhanallah I remember
when I was doing hif there was one
one student who made this comment and it
really got me thinking it was cautionary, he
said I feel like because I'm doing hif
the only ibadah I do is read quran
and I used to love reading quran but
now because all I do is read quran
I'm losing everything else right and our sheikh
said you need to engage your iman in
different ways you've got to find other ways
to engage your iman for those of you
that do islamic work ok, particularly if it's
in a professional capacity you better be doing
something else as well as a form of
islamic work don't get one tracked in what
you're doing switch it up all within the
avenues of the sunnah of the prophet salallahu
alayhi wasalam as a way of keeping your
iman constantly engaged Allah gives us seasons right
seasons of mercy so that you don't get
to one track, that's the point of ramadan
in the first ten days of dhul hijjah
ashura and ayam al biyad the three middle
days of the month and mondays and thursdays
all of these times, yawm al juma in
the week, in the day the hour after
fajr is not like two hours after fajr
and the hour before maghrib is not like
three hours before maghrib right, Allah gives you
those different timings so that you're not moving
in a stationary way and the last thing
I'm going to mention inshallah ta'ala then
I'll sit down now if you feel bad
when you commit a sin Ibn al-Jawzi
said something very powerful about the sick heart
versus the dead heart he said that if
you feel bad when you commit a sin
then know that that's a sign that your
heart is still alive because you wouldn't feel
anything if your heart was dead part of
our fitrah is that when we commit that
sin backbiting shouldn't taste right you know a
person who's not used to backbiting when they
backbite, it tastes bad literally tastes that dead
filthy meat it tastes rotten it just doesn't
have a good taste and you don't feel
right about it and that's good, you have
to capitalize on that a person who's not
used to watching haram right, when they see
something, because it's inevitable in today's world that
things pop up in front of their eyes
it doesn't look right, it doesn't feel right
it felt off that's a sign that your
heart is alive right, because if it was
dead you wouldn't feel it when you committed
that sin so that's the first thing when
it comes to the sin it's important that
you don't lose your fitrah and don't let
sins become so normalized in your life just
because they become normalized in other people's lives
don't let it become normalized in your life
because it's become normalized in everybody else's life
around you and the second thing here about
a sick heart so that's how you know
that you're dead heart to sick heart sick
heart to healthy heart Ibn al-Jawzi said
the sick heart cannot taste the sweetness of
its ibadah just like when a person is
sick, they don't taste the flavor of their
food they know they have to eat to
nourish themselves and to sustain themselves but the
sweetness the taste of the food is gone
by the illness, likewise when it comes to
the heart if the heart is sick, the
ibadah cannot be enjoyed, so I have to
ask myself كَلَّا بَلْ رَانَ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ مَا
كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونَ أَفَلَ يَتَّدَبُّرُونَ الْقُرْآنَ أَمَا عَلَىٰ قُلُوبٍ
أَقْفَالُهَا what are the stains and locks on
my heart that are not allowing my heart
to enjoy these ibadahs to enjoy these acts
of worship so part of it is the
training yourself on the new good deeds and
aspiring to another level in your good deeds
and producing that output and part of it
is asking yourself, you know, what is it
that's really holding me back because if I'm
not tasting the sweetness of it, something's wrong
and I need to, that's not something that
a shaykh can tell you by the way
you don't have a priest that you can
go to or a shaykh that you can
go to to diagnose you you have to
have moments of introspection ask yourself, you know,
what is it that's really holding me back
from enjoying and tasting the sweetness of what
I have and then the third thing in
regards to that the healthy heart, when the
heart feels a sense of health as we
know there are times that you regress when
you reach a point of physical health, when
it comes to your spiritual health this is
where regularity regularity allows you to enjoy your
good deeds I'll put it to you this
way if a person starts to play basketball
after a very long time or starts to
play a sport that they might enjoy, they
enjoy the mechanics of it, they enjoy the
game, they enjoy the way that it is
but it's your first time playing that sport
in a very long time you might enjoy
it the first day but you're gonna feel
it you're gonna feel the pain and it's
gonna be a serious reality check about how
out of shape you are and how unhealthy
you are now what you could choose to
do with that is say I'm not doing
this, I'm too old for this now or
I'm too out of shape for this or
you can say, you know what I'm gonna
play so frequently I'm gonna start playing regularly
to the point that the pain will no
longer be there and the only thing that
remains is the enjoyment back to Hajj cause
that's all I can think about since last
week we were talking about these elderly people
people with one leg people that are bent
over and 85, 90 years old somehow finding
a way to walk miles and miles and
miles a day while us youngins in their
30s are collapsing or feel like we're about
to pass out even though we're staying in
the most comfortable accommodations and there's this one
man who was doing Sa'i and I'm
always amazed by these people he was doing
Sa'i and he had a cane he
literally he had one leg and he had
a cane and he's doing Sa'i just
imagine the sight with me, old men and
when he gets to the part where you
have the green light, you know what he
does he picks his cane off the ground
and he starts hopping on his one leg
with just this beautiful contentment on his face
right what is it about that if a
person engages their Ibadat regularly enough Allah will
remove the pain and the enjoyment remains but
you have to work yourself out to where
that pain is no longer a factor and
just like when you're physically out of shape
being spiritually out of shape hurts when you
realize it and you start to shake it
off but the difference between physically being out
of shape and spiritually being out of shape
is that if you're spiritually out of shape,
no one else notices and so you have
to find internal motivation to push yourself to
be spiritually healthy if you think about being
physically out of shape the entire notion you
know, subhanAllah, when it comes to physical health
in Islam, the idea of diet and exercise
and fitness in Islam the emphasis is that
you should be healthy enough to be able
to serve your Lord better, right if you
think about it now all of the emphasis
on physical health is so that you can
look great on the beach and so that
other people will look at you it's all
about body image and so it's playing to
our insecurities the mu'min finds internal motivation in
the most unmotivating environments I ask Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala to make us amongst those
that always seek his pleasure and desire his
pleasure, that excel beyond the standards that are
set to us and do not succumb to
the sins that have been normalized in our
environment so I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala to make us from as-sabiqoon, those
who are forerunners in this life and those
who will be amongst those who precede others
to the throne of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala on the day of judgment, may Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala make us amongst those
who are shaded in his glory on the
day of judgment, Allahumma ameen JazakumAllahu khayran, wa
salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh