Rania Awaad – Emotional Blocks & Learning To Let Your Guard Down Through GodS Divine Names
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AI: Transcript ©
Mashallah, salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
So wonderful to have all of you here.
Mashallah, I didn't think we were going to
have another Friday night in person.
And then, mashallah, we learned Ustadh Jinnan was
going to be with us in California.
So we said we must meet in person,
inshallah ta'ala.
I'm so excited.
What an incredible honor for all of us.
Tabarakallah, because as all of you who have
been following the Friday Night Halkas know, this
entire year, the theme of our halka has
been based on Ustadh Jinnan's book, which is
called Reflecting on the Names of Allah.
It's the book I've been carrying with me
every Friday night, mashallah.
And she's here herself in person.
I can't believe it's final.
We had no idea that this would necessarily
happen.
And so we're very, very honored and pleased,
inshallah, my section today will be short, so
that you could have time to hear her
directly.
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, wa sallallahu ala
sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa
sallim ajma'in.
Before I begin, though, I just wanted to
say about the book.
Some of you have noticed that I always
had my little bow on the book.
It's actually a gift from Ustadh Jinnan, and
I just kept the book.
It came with this beautiful box with the
bow, and I just kept it on, mashallah.
And I showed it to her today, which
is so fun, because subhanallah, she's coming from
all the way across the world, from the
Emirates, tabarakallah.
And it's really wonderful that she's here with
us, alhamdulillah.
Tabarakallah.
Also really wonderful to have Ustadh Shamira and
Ustadh Hussai here.
As you know, when I'm traveling, they often
are the ones teaching actually the book, when
I'm somewhere across the world, alhamdulillah.
So very excited to have all the group
that's been teaching this book.
And then of course, the author herself, tabarakallah.
May Allah bless you and increase you, alhamdulillah.
And we couldn't do any of this without
Ustadh Fadwa, so many thanks to her as
well, alhamdulillah.
With that, my dear sisters, today, the topic
that I was assigned is related to so
much of what you've already heard from Ustadh
Shamira and Ustadh Hussai, which is on emotional
blocks.
And for me, I'm talking about emotional blocks,
specifically in accessing the names of Allah Azawajal.
I should say they were talking about the
names of Allah Azawajal, and I'm going to
talk on the emotional blocks of accessing the
names of Allah Azawajal.
And so often, I meet sisters, and I'll
say, and you may have heard this in
my before, I'll say, how is your connection
with Allah Azawajal?
And so many times people feel, the answer
is they feel very distant.
They don't feel very connected necessarily.
They'll say, I pray.
I fast.
I give my zakah or charity.
You know, I do this and I do
this.
I eat halal and I wear my hijab,
you know, like kind of the basic blueprint
of what a Muslim does.
But in terms of a direct connection with
Allah Azawajal, where you feel like you're very
much connected, where you're actually talking to Allah,
many people feel that that is something a
little bit distant to them.
I shared with some of you that in
January, a group of people, myself, went to
Umrah.
And on the Umrah trip, so many people
had with them, not just us, but really
everybody there, had these little dua books.
And the little dua books are helpful.
In fact, I myself found myself very attached
to my dua book.
Like I wanted to read everything in the
dua book, every single page as we were
going around the Ka'bah.
And then there's the sections where it says,
you know, when you're here, say this.
And when you're here, say this.
You guys know what I'm talking about?
Yeah.
When you're here, say this.
And then I realized, wait a second.
So often my advice to so many sisters
and myself is that you have to actually
talk directly from your heart to Allah Azawajal.
The words that are written in books, and
we're going to go through some of my
favorite duas today, calling Allah Subh'anaHu Wa
Ta-A'la by his different names.
Beautiful.
And they must be used.
But there also is a time and space
to talk directly to Allah Azawajal.
Does anyone remember what I call this kind
of dua?
Yes, who said it?
I said, somebody's going to remember.
I haven't heard anyone else call it this,
but I hope many people start using this.
You know, I always say to people, part
of really getting over that emotional block and
talking directly to Allah Azawajal is being able
to freestyle your dua.
You following me?
What freestyle means?
Just you saying it directly.
It's unscripted.
It's not written anywhere.
You're not reading it from anything.
You're literally talking to Allah directly.
And whatever comes from your heart flows.
And many people feel that Allah Azawajal is
so magnanimous.
It's like, how do I even begin talking
to him?
I would have trouble talking to somebody who
is like, you know, the big CEO of
a company or the big boss of something
or, you know, an elder, elder, very important
elder of a family or community or a
big, big, you know, scholar or something.
And so I'm anxious even to talking to
that person.
And I guess stumble, I don't know what
to say exactly.
Well, how do I talk to Allah, the
creator of all these people?
SubhanAllah.
Right.
However, Allah Azawajal, as we know, and we've
studied in the names in this last year
now, we realize that he actually wants us
to call upon his names and the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and the prophets in the
Quran and also the woman of the Quran
are often calling Allah Azawajal usually by a
specific name.
Does anyone remember from our class?
Think of some of the duas that you
know from the prophets and from the great
people.
What is it?
Yes.
It starts with Rabbi, my Lord, my Lord.
And then they'll say the dua very often.
And then there are also times in which
different names of Allah Azawajal show up in
these adhariya.
Now, what I want to do together with
you today, inshallah, is really talk about a
few different types of blocks that people have,
emotional blocks, psychological blocks that we get stuck
on and look at some of the names,
some of which we've already done together, but
it's always good to review and think about
what are those names that you call Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la with?
Because if you hope to freestyle your dua
and be really proficient at this, then you
have to think about what are the various
names.
There are so many and more than just
99.
So let's start with one that many people
feel that they're often stuck at.
We start so many things with Ar-Rahman,
Ar-Rahim, right?
Including our Basmala, right?
Bismillah, Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim.
One of the things that we talked about
for the word Rahim, if you remember as
a review, is that whenever you're struggling with
something, there's a habit that you're trying to
break.
I'll give you an example.
It's summertime.
What time is Fajr?
The fact that everyone is giggling is telling,
inshallah.
No, I'm very serious.
I said this last week too.
I don't know about you.
Yes, inshallah.
I don't know about you, but in my
household, it's summertime.
And so, you know, it's like the schedule
is very hard to keep in the summertime
the way we have it regimented during the
year.
So before you know it, it's literally 11
p.m., midnight.
Oh my goodness.
And by the time you realize and put
your head down to sleep, it's only a
few hours and suddenly it's Fajr.
And the struggle of getting up and getting
everybody else up for Fajr.
But subhanAllah, it's a real struggle.
So if you have a habit that's developed
this summer of not catching your Fajr on
time, then call Allah by his name, Ar
-Rahim.
And maybe it's some other struggle.
Maybe it's some other issue that you're dealing
with.
Call Allah by the names that you call,
that they're meant to be called when you're
struggling with something, right?
We learn, رَبَّنَا آمَنَّا فَغْفِرْ لَنَا وَارْحَمْنَا وَأَنتَ
خَيْرُ الرَّاحِمِينَ Feel free to take pictures of
this, to have this.
We're recording this, inshallah ta'ala.
But there's so many du'as that are
beautiful that capture the different names of Allah.
This is one that we're taught, because it
comes directly in the Qur'an.
Oh our Lord, we have believed, so forgive
us.
Have mercy on us.
You are the best of those who are
merciful.
When you call Allah by his names, it
doesn't matter how sinful you feel.
It doesn't matter how many times you feel
like you've messed up and you have this
issue that just does not seem to be
getting better.
He's capable of changing everything and anything.
One time I shared with you a woman's
conference that I had been attending for many
years in a row.
And every time I share about du'a,
I feel like compelled to tell the story
because it's so incredible, inshallah.
And this woman's conference, local, inshallah, for years
and years and years, year after year after
year after year.
And there's a sister that I would meet
year after year after year after year.
And her story was always very similar.
It was always pretty much the same thing.
Please, Dr. Hadi, make du'a for me.
I'm trying to raise my children Muslim and
to pray, but I don't have any support
from my husband.
He doesn't pray and he's not interested in
trying.
And on top of it all, it seemed
like every year was getting worse and worse.
He was kind of spiraling into difficult habits.
And in this case, it was literally alcoholism.
And she said to me, how do you
convince children to pray and to keep up
that fard that Allah has asked us to
when there's literally not just someone not praying,
but openly sinning in front of us?
Hard.
It was very hard.
You could see the struggle, the struggle.
And I kept giving her advice and saying
the thing I would hear my teacher say
very often, never, ever, ever downplay the power
of du'a.
Do everything you possibly can.
And we go through things.
One, two, three.
These are things you can do.
But never downplay the power of du'a
when you think you've tried everything you can
possibly try.
Then one year in one of the conferences,
a sister came up and she said, Dr.
Rania, yeah.
As-salamu alaykum.
And you don't recognize me?
And I do this very often.
I'm like, and she's like, I'm so-and
-so.
And I'm like, so-and-so?
I truly, truly could not recognize her.
It's as though someone, I don't know, Rania.
She didn't do any cosmetic surgery or anything
like that.
But it was like her face was completely
different.
And she said, oh, I have to tell
you, I need du'a.
And I thought I'm going to hear the
same story that I've been hearing for many
years.
And she said, but this time it had
to do with her daughter.
And I said, khair.
And she said, she got in a terrible
car wreck.
Oh, subhanAllah.
And she said, oh, no, no, no.
She's okay now.
I said, okay, alhamdulillah.
But you have to understand that is a
good thing.
And I said, how could a car wreck
possibly be a good thing?
And then she said, when that happened, the
person who had hit her was a drunk
driver.
And for whatever reason, it snapped.
Her husband, who'd been in this alcoholic stupor
for so long, snapped him out of it.
And when you know somebody who's been drinking
for a long time, you can't just sort
of cold turkey very easily.
You cannot.
SubhanAllah, it takes time.
But this man, cold turkey.
And then she points over there where the
message was.
And she goes, he's there.
And I was like, he's there?
This man who like refused to pray, who
refused to refuse like everything.
And we would say counseling, refused counseling.
Imam, talk to an imam, refused imam.
Wouldn't even step foot in the masjid, was
literally in the muslimah.
And she said, he cold turkey, stopped the
alcohol, got clean, got better, started praying.
And he was now fully involved in this
family.
After years and years and years and years
of her complaints.
And she said, you always said the power
of dua.
And I thought, la ilaha illallah.
I mean, not always do you hear the
full ending of a story necessarily.
But this was amazing.
Truly amazing.
And something you don't necessarily always expect to
hear.
And so even when you feel like a
person, you're going to give up on them,
don't.
Because Allah doesn't give up on us.
Even if you've given up on yourself about
something, don't.
Because has not given up on you.
Right?
And even if you feel like your sins
are mountains, there is nothing mountainous to Allah.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Calling him by his names, helps remove these
blocks that we sometimes impose onto ourselves that
he hasn't imposed onto us.
He didn't put that.
We put it on ourselves.
Right?
Another one.
The next one, I want to tell you
is Al-Mujib, the one who responds.
So often when I talk with sisters, I'll
say that they're talking to me about something.
My field is mental health and counseling.
So we're talking about something.
And I'll say, have you thought about that
Allah is listening to what you're saying?
He's listening to your cries and he sees
your tears.
No, I don't know.
Like it's almost like it's a, I don't
want to say fairy tale, but it's almost
like it feels really distant that the person
doesn't feel that it's really, that Allah is
really listening.
Or they'll say, I've made this dua for
so long.
If he was listening, he would have already
by now answered me.
How come my duas don't get answered?
You have to remember that Allah is Al
-Mujib and he has his own way of
answering the duas.
Look at the story of this sister.
You know what she said to me?
She said, I'm making dua that my husband
would finally come back to Islam and stop
the sin that he was doing.
I didn't expect that the Al-Mujib, the
one who responds, would respond with a wreck,
car wreck for my daughter.
She didn't expect that was going to be
the circle of response.
Do you see what I'm saying?
But Allah chooses to do things the way
he chooses.
Do you see what I'm saying?
It's on us to believe in the first
session, to understand who he is, that he
can and will, but in his time and
in his way.
SubhanAllah.
And so we say, and the Hadith of
the Prophet is beautiful.
Allah is conscientious and generous, and he is
shy to return the outstretched hands of his
servant empty and disappointed.
So keep on stretching out your hands, keep
on calling, keep on asking Allah.
And as he wishes and when we he
wishes, it'll come to pass.
The next one, Al-Wali.
The Wali is a protecting friend.
Now, many of us have friends of different
stripes.
Some from childhood, some in adulthood, some who
are family and some who feel like family
because they've been around for so long in
our life.
Allah too can and should be a Wali
to us.
A protecting friend.
In Surah Al-A'raf, the verse says,
You are our protector, so forgive us, have
mercy upon us.
You are the best of those who forgive.
Look, humans can forgive you.
You mess up, you say something out of
line, you do an eye roll, something happens,
and then you realize that you're wrong and
you go and you ask that person forgiveness,
you say, I'm sorry.
They may accept or they may say, nope.
You should have known better.
That was rude.
But Allah is literally there to forgive always
anyone who reaches out with forgiveness.
And it is on us to understand that
we do not put our human limitations onto
him.
We as humans, there are things, there are
people in my life today, I could tell
you, there are certain circumstances and people that
have said things or done things, where even
till now when I think about them, there's
a little bit of a rub, like a
little bit of a, you know, hush Allah,
could it hurt?
It hurt.
It did, I'm a human, it hurt.
And you work on it, you work on
it, you work on it.
But you don't put that human limitation onto
Allah.
It doesn't hurt him to forgive you.
He doesn't think twice and he doesn't need
full, long, lengthy explanations from you.
Literally, you say, Allahumma ghafirli.
And it is on us in our aqidah
to believe that that is real and true.
Sometimes people truly believe that they are not
worthy, they're not good enough, they're not worthy
of forgiveness, but why?
That is simply not accurate creed, proper aqidah.
And so we ask Allah to be our
protecting friend.
Ya Allah, I'm traveling.
Ya Allah, I'm going alone.
I'm heading out to do this thing.
I'm embarking on this new journey.
I'm having, you know, this isn't first time
to do something.
Ya Allah, please protect me and be my
protecting friend, literally my wali, the one who
looks out for me.
And also we pray that people in our
life be upright and upstanding as well, subhanAllah.
Another emotional block that I see many people
have, subhanAllah, is rizq, sustenance.
What Allah has written for us.
Usada Hussain, in her session, was mentioning how
this, in this world that we currently live
in, there's so much of this, I shouldn't
use the term, but I'll use keeping up
with the Joneses, right?
You're constantly comparing yourself, and she talked at
great length about social media, looking into the
lives of other people, because literally it's right
there, scrolling in front of you, right?
Right in front of you.
Their marriages and their food and their dress
and their clothes and their renovations and their
vacations, all kinds of stuff, literally like an
open book in front of you.
And it is hard not to compare yourself.
But subhanAllah, when we talk about ar-razaq,
one who provides, you realize, subhanAllah, when you
are struggling to make ends meet, or maybe
it's not necessarily in dollars and cents, but
maybe it's in other ways.
Maybe you're at rizq, you have the money
in the pocket, but the people in your
life are not trustworthy.
They don't show up for you, right?
Maybe there's a lot of tensions and issues.
Maybe you're at rizq, the issue isn't wealth,
but it's in people.
For other people, they have good people in
their life, but they can't make the rent.
Everyone has their own struggles, right?
Ar-razaq gives of all things.
He gives the wealth, the dollars, but he
also gives the people in one's life.
He gives friends.
I was talking to somebody literally just this
morning, and they said to me, I don't
have friends.
I'm very lonely.
That is a form of rizq that one
should ask for, and literally stretch out your
hands and ask for this.
That Allah put, even sometimes, even just one
good friend sometimes is better than 10 people
who don't really show up for you.
Do you know what I mean?
But that's a form of rizq.
It's a form of sustenance and provision.
So when you're struggling, you ask Allah, Allahumma
inni as'aluka ilman naafi'an wa rizqan
tayyiban wa amalan mutaqabbalan.
Right?
Oh Allah, I ask you for beneficial knowledge
and wholesome sustenance and deeds which are accepted.
A beautiful dua.
Add it to your list if you haven't
already.
And if you forget these words or can't
find your slides or your pictures one day
as you're trying to, what was that dua?
Understand the essence of it and just freestyle
it.
Do you see?
Just freestyle it.
There is something about provision.
Let me ask Allah, the provider, for this.
All right, next.
Salaam.
In this world and in the time that
we're living in, subhanAllah, with very little peace
anywhere, subhanAllah, calling upon the source of peace,
as-salaam, is very important.
When I was in Syria, our teachers took
this dua to heart and literally after every
single prayer, they would say this dua.
Every single prayer.
And so now after every single prayer that
I finish, I say it too.
It's become a habit.
And it's a beautiful dua.
Allahumma anta as-salaam wa minka as-salaam.
Tabarakta yaadhal jalali wal-ikram.
Oh Allah, you are peace and peace comes
from you.
Blessed are you, oh possessor of glory and
honor.
Call out to salaam.
You feel that the world is topsy-turvy.
You feel that there's no peace in your
life or in the globe, in the world.
Call out to as-salaam.
Because even if peace isn't going to come
immediately, and we do pray for this, ya
Rabbi, we do pray for this.
Ask Allah to put peace in your heart,
in your family, in your home, right?
In yourself.
Some of the emotional blocks that I feel
that I've seen in counseling and kind of
talking with our sisters often is a lack
of peace.
It's a lot of turbulence.
Interpersonal dynamics and relationships, whether it's husband and
wife, whether it's in-laws and family, whether
it's children and parents, whether it's the grandparents
on up or the elders, whether it's co
-workers, whether it's neighbors, there's always people.
And that's how Allah created us.
He created us not to live by ourselves
in little bubbles.
He created us with people around us.
And that means there's always going to be
some level of turbulence.
So ask for salaam.
So ask for salaam.
There's a story one of my teachers would
tell, and it's actually a story that she
took.
She told us she took it from the
book by Scott M.
Peck, where he was talking about the road
less traveled and was talking about a very
interesting story.
I don't know if it's a true story,
but a very interesting story.
And it was a story about a new
wife and her mother-in-law and this
tension that happens every so often, right?
Where now the husband finds himself in the
middle because there's a new person in his
life and wants to give his attention and
love to her.
But also there was a mother who also
sometimes is vying for this attention and love
as well.
And so immediately there's a clash between the
mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law.
And so in the book, the story goes
that she runs to an herbalist and she
says to him, give me some sort of
concoction that I can little by little by
little by little put in her tea so
that she disappears from my life and that
nobody would know.
He says, are you sure my daughter?
Are you sure you want to do this?
Are you sure?
And she says, yes, I'm sure.
He says, okay.
So he prepares, he goes back and he
prepares all this stuff and comes back with
a little concoction.
He says, listen, people are going to suspect
you.
The first one they're going to suspect is
you.
So when you put this drop in her
tea every day, you have to also be
very kind and very nice and go out
of your way to really like win her
over so that nobody suspects you.
Okay, okay.
She runs off with the concoction.
And sure enough, over the span of the
next few weeks, she does this.
She puts a little, and she's so nice
and she's so kind.
And then the mother-in-law starts to
shift.
And she too is like, oh, well, you're
really nice.
You're different than when I first met you.
And so she starts being nice back and
they start having a pretty good relationship.
So the girl panics and she runs back
to the herbalist and she says, I got
to give me the antidote.
Give me the opposite.
Give me the opposite.
I'm going to kill her and I don't
mean to kill her.
She's actually very nice.
And so he smiles and he says, I
never gave you anything in the first place.
It was just nothing.
It was actually your good actions towards her
that caused her to have good kindness towards
you.
And this is where the relationship changed.
Now, some of you are like, that's not
my mother-in-law.
Just saying.
But in reality, even the harshest personality, even
the most difficult person, even the person who
truly gives you a hard time can be
won over.
And if you can't win them over, know
that you've done your duty in the eyes
of Allah subhana wa ta'ala.
Because if they don't want to change, that's
on them.
But you have done what you can in
front of God.
Does that make sense?
So some of you may like the story.
Some of you may not.
But looking for peace and asking for peace
in all of your relationships is a beautiful
and wonderful thing.
And also both things.
Now, a couple more.
Another one that goes with something I said
earlier about sin and people feeling very often
like they have these mountains of sin is
to say, for example, to call upon Allah's
name as satir.
Now, the one who is the concealer of
sins, and sometimes it's not even your heavy
sins, like the fact like missing fajr or
not doing something that you're supposed to be
doing.
But rather, it could even just be somebody
coming up to me like, oh, mashallah, you're
so this and this so great, and this
is so wonderful.
And they're praising you.
They're praising you.
They're praising you.
As soon as that praise comes to you,
I know many of us go mashallah, mashallah,
mashallah.
Please say mashallah.
Please say mashallah.
And so maybe you're embarrassed to say that.
But even if you can't get yourself to
say anything, as soon as this happens, go
back and call Allah by his name as
satir.
Why?
Because you're asking literally to conceal your sins.
Alhamdulillah, you should feel gratefulness that Allah has
allowed people to see you in a state
that is good.
When in reality, we all know we all
have demons inside of us.
The reality is, right?
And had they seen everything, they probably would
have gone running.
Subhanallah.
But Allah only allowed them to see this
good.
So ask Allah to protect and conceal your
faults from others.
Right?
So yes, inshallah, they say mashallah.
But even if they don't, ask Allah to
protect you and conceal your sins.
My favorite.
Everyone has a favorite name of Allah Azawajal.
And sometimes this has to do with their
own discipline or study or something that really
speaks to them.
Find your name.
After some period of time, I think I
have many, many favorite names, but after some
time, I realized it's a Shafi.
And part of it is because I find
myself calling upon this name so often.
Maybe it's my line of work.
My line of work is a healing profession.
And this is what I pray.
And I literally pray for my patients, like
literally, like, please, Ya Rabbi, allow me to
be a vehicle of shifa for them and
allow Ya Rabbi that shifa comes on my
hands to them.
It is amazing to know that you can
have somebody who can be so ill, whether
physical illness or mental illness or any other
form of illness, and a Shafi can, in
his ability and might, treat and cure if
he wishes.
And if he doesn't, then you know that
this is also a source of forgiveness for
them.
It's an expiation of their sins.
Subhanallah.
And so part of this is to always
ask Allah and to realize that even when
you go to doctors and even when you
take medicine and even when you do all
these herbal concoction and remedies and all these
great things that people are doing and that
you exercise and you get all the vitamin
D that you need and all the rest
of it, ultimately, it's a Shafi who gives
you healing.
Because explain to me why you have two
people, one who, siblings even, same genetics, okay?
Same genes, just about.
And one ends up with cancer and one
doesn't.
And yet they both exercise and they both
are healthy and they both do this.
It's Qadr at the end of the day.
May Allah protect all of us.
Ameen, Ya Rabb.
Call by a Shafi.
And we have seen people's illnesses completely overturned
or at least go under control.
And so pray.
Pray.
Allahumma Rabb al-Nas.
Idh hab al-baas.
Ishfi anta al-Shafi.
La shifa illa shifauk.
Shifaun la yughadir saqama.
It is so beautiful to understand the words
of this.
Please look at it with me.
Oh Allah, Lord of the people, remove the
trouble, heal the patient, for you are the
healer and there is no healer but you.
Give him a healing which leaves no disease
behind.
Please make this dua for your family members,
for your children, for yourselves, even if it's
a little headache or a little ache.
And please know that the Prophet ﷺ did
not leave even a headache without doing something
about it.
That when he had a headache ﷺ, he
would take a rag and tie it over
his blessed head.
He did something about it.
He didn't just pray about it.
So there's a two-path, two-way in
this, in calling out to Allah's name and
in doing something.
And so often one of the blocks I
find in terms of health, emotional blocks that
I find about people's health, is that either
you have the extreme of, well I prayed
and if this is my qadr, it's my
qadr and taking no actual measures to get
help, or the other extreme where they're doing
all the medical procedures and all things, maybe
too many things, right, and not actually calling
on Allah's help.
You find this dichotomy and yet the Muslim
is a balanced person who does both, right,
and you see that in the example of
the Prophet ﷺ.
And lastly, we ask Allah by his name,
the guide, al-Hadi.
This too is a block that I find
so often, particularly in the mothers, right, our
halaqa on Friday nights is so many women
who are mothers, mashaAllah, but so many women
in general and everyone is welcomed, but so
many of the women here are mothers of
the daughters who are in the programs on
Friday nights, the rahmah programs.
And so often, I probably, every few weeks
I have a mother who comes up to
me and says, please my kid is going
off the path of Islam, please my kid
is not, you know, please my kid is
following Islam.
I'm worried about their faith, they're leaving the
faith, they're going away from it, something like
this.
And so I'll say, how have you been,
you know, maybe we'll go through some steps,
but I'll also say, how have you been
making dua to Allah?
And sometimes I get this block, I feel
this block with a person where they're saying,
no, no, no, they're too far gone.
Nobody's too far gone.
Nobody's, but their day, but they're this with
this person, they're doing this and they're doing,
no one is too far gone with Allah.
And then I'll remind them, what did you
do for this child?
I taught them, I swear I taught them
and I taught them to pray and I
gave them Quran and I tried and I
tried.
Our teachers say that the lub, the lub,
which is that inner core that you have
given and poured into that child, when they
start to go this way, you must believe
that with your dua to Al Hadi, the
guide, that Allah will guide them back.
Sometimes it's a very roundabout path back, but
even people we have seen, subhanAllah, we have
seen, I've seen some of the most ajib,
literally strangest stories where somebody has become literally
a mother who's poured her heart, there's one
example, poured her heart into these children and
actually was one of the only Muslim families
in that whole, not just city, the whole
state that they were living in.
And this child, all of her children became
hufadh of the Quran from her hifth.
That's at the feet, there wasn't like a
Quran school over here or an imam to
go to, this is her doing this.
And then when the kid got to high
school, they messed with his brain.
Muslims are this and Muslims are that and
Muslims are other thing.
As soon as he got to college, he
bounced and she was devastated because she was
somebody who had studied Islam and somebody who
was a hafidh of the Quran and gave
her kids Islam and gave her kids the
Quran and how could this happen?
And everybody tried to know, this shaykh talked
to him and this shaykh talked to him
and this shaykh talked to him, not interested.
And we kept telling her, you gave him
so much.
If he veers that way, know that Allah
one day will come back and we don't
know how and where, just keep on making
dua.
The story goes, and I was sort of
involved in this, I got called into the
story too, so I know it very closely.
And it took a very long time, but
I'll end with this story because it's so
powerful, subhanAllah.
SubhanAllah in a way that you don't even
expect.
He started to party and to go off
and it's just so different than someone who
was literally a hafidh of the Quran.
And one day it was Ramadan, he was
not fasting, he's not interested, he's not doing
any of this stuff, but he meets some
other students on campus who are practicing Muslims
and they're fasting and so on.
And so he's just eating with them and
then it's time for them to pray.
And they realize that none of those kids
have any Quran really.
So they start Aisha and he's not interested,
and then they have Tarawih.
And the ruling in the Hanafi school is
you can't read from a mushaf, you have
to recite from memory, from your heart.
They look at each other, they look at
each other, they don't have enough Quran amongst
themselves.
So they say, does anybody here have any
Quran memorized?
And out of nowhere, they don't know anything
about his history.
And so out of nowhere he goes, I'm
a hafidh.
They're like, the party kid is the hafidh?
And they literally push him up.
This is a true story.
I'm making this up, Allah, it's a true
story.
They push him up and he's like, I
haven't prayed in forever.
Go take a shower, come back.
They're in a dorm.
And so literally, he tells the story later,
he says it was like riding a bike.
If you haven't ridden it for a long
time, you feel like you can't get on
it.
But once you start, and suddenly you're soaring.
As soon as he stood up there, he
said the whole mushaf, it came back to
him.
SubhanAllah.
He took his tilba, he made his tilba
and he came back at the hands of
these other kids in college.
Allah guides whom he wills, how he wills,
when he wills.
It is our job to teach and do
our best that we can do and then
keep calling.
Please sisters, don't give up.
Please don't have these blocks and say, I'm
too far gone.
My kids are too far gone.
This is too far away.
I'm not good enough.
None of this is with Allah.
In fact, if anything, and I'll end with
this, he literally says in the Quran, he
teaches us, and Allah's names are the best
names.
So call on him and leave those who
violate the sanctity of his names.
They shall be recompensed for what they did.
Call upon the names of Allah.
And with that, I hope there's some here
inspiration for us to take back some of
these names that you've been hearing today, and
please just freestyle them into your du'as.
Find your favorite names and use them.