Riyad Nadwi – 0.1 Imam Ghazali on Ikhlas
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Well,
Yeah. I don't think that Sheikh Ria needs
an intro introduction, but,
as they go, I'll just give a brief
one. But he's been with us. 30 years
now, is it? With ISOC, he's been roughly
Close to it. Yeah. 28 years. 28,
involved with ISOC for so long. Always
a legend with us, giving us so much,
benefit throughout the years. And you see, even
in this call, we have people coming back
to have left years ago. So I think
it goes to how much benefit that we
were going.
But, yeah, so this topic shall be,
on a book by Imam Al Azali.
Yeah. Okay.
Okay. Just give me a feedback if if
you can hear me clearly. Sound is okay.
Farabi, is it okay? Right. Excellent. Okay. Yes.
Perfect.
Brothers and sisters,
first I would like to welcome you all
back to this new series of the Majlis.
Especially
those of you who
have recently arrived in Oxford and who are
joining us for the first time.
We pray that Allah
bless your stay in the city
with success both in your studies
and in your
journey towards spiritual awakening.
For a Muslim,
every new day should mark an improvement in
faith
and an enhancement
in our relationship with Allah
And for young people as yourselves,
the pursuit
of this nature has the potential to place
you among the most fortunate people on the
day of judgment. For we are told
by
Rasulullah
the prophet said that
among the people who would be in a
special shade on the day of judgement
are those who spent their youth in the
pursuit of worship, in in in in true
worship of Allah.
So we pray
that Allah
grant each of you that special reward and
bless you all
with his mercy and favor.
Now
our topic tonight
was advertised is the is lessons
from Imam Ghazali's Ahia.
Ahia is short, of course, for his masterpiece,
Ahia ul
the revival of the Islamic sciences.
This is a book in regard to which
Imam Nawi said that if you were stranded
somewhere and had this book alone, it would
suffice you to find success.
Now, of course,
no human being after Rasulullah
is perfect, and
there are some shortcomings in,
in the form of in hadith status,
which have been studied and highlighted by scholars
like Imam Al Iraqi.
But
the vast majority of the body of this
text is a brilliant and
extraordinary
piece of work. And according to some
estimates,
after the Quran and the Hadith literature,
this book is
the most widely read
by Muslims for nearly for nearly a 1000
years now. So,
there is no comparison when it comes to
the benefit
that you can gain from such a text.
Now for our session tonight, I want to
start
with a reflection
on the story behind the book.
The
story, the events that led to the realization
of the need for such a book.
Because
this story is intricately connected
to the topics we plan to cover this
year, Insha'Allah.
And it's it has relevance to the broader
context in which we find ourselves today.
And in some ways, directly pertinent to the
life of
varsity students like yourselves. It has relevance
to
our post postmodern
society,
this society that has now become addicted to
social media and saturated with celebrity centered culture,
a culture that promotes habitual ostentation and attention
seeking behavior, and all the consequences that are
associated
with these
type of behavior such as
spiraling levels of anxiety, depression, and stress, etcetera.
Repeated studies, as you know, I'm sure many
of you have seen these, that have shown
that
the
most
frequently
diagnosed
condition among university students
are
anxiety, stress, and depression.
And this is even before
you the phenomenon of
the dopamine induced addiction
to likes and to thumbs up, in social
media feedback loops,
in which we find ourselves trapped today,
inadvertently.
Simply by being members of
the society,
we internalize
constructs and memes and practices
less via a deliberation
or and more. We we do not actively
go out and say, oh, well, pick this.
I choose this. I will do this. It's
it's a it's, it's more through a process
of
gradual
osmosis
similar to damp, seeping silently through the walls
of a house.
We gradually fall in line with the flow
in the direction of dominant cultural obsessions.
No one consciously sets out to use
likes to measure the value of their lives
or use thumbs up to determine satisfaction with
life, yet
in this is the stark reality of millions
of our
of human beings today in our world.
So and there are several parallels that can
be drawn between
the context of this story, the story
of the 11th century Baghdad and 24th century
Oxford.
11th century as the Christian era, it was
the 5th century in this in Hijri.
But there is there is a there there
are many parallels that can be drawn between
these two contexts.
The first, of course, is major seats of
learning. Baghdad was then the a major seat
of learning where people traveled from all corners
to study in the institutions of Baghdad.
And and the most prestigious of these, of
course, was the Nizamir Madrasah.
The the Nizamir it was a university to
all intents and purposes. And this this Nizamir
University
was
the
where Imam Ghazali, after rising out of a
life of abject poverty and hardship,
he became famous for his encyclopedic
knowledge of the sciences and his
razor sharp wit.
The story is that his father was a
very poor person,
a poor but pious person who loved the
ulama. He loved the scholars
and would always show kindness to them whatever
he could.
And
his lifelong wish was to have a son
who would be a scholar,
but he fell ill.
And he, when Imam
Imam Abu Hamid al Lazari was around 6
years old,
he died. But before dying, he entrusted him
and his brother to a pious man in
the village
and gave him some money to cover the
cost of care,
but the money soon ran out. And so
the man was forced to put the boys
in madrasa.
Madrasa where shelter and food were easily available
for free.
And the boy, Abuhamid
El Ghazali,
he quickly excelled in his studies, rocketed through
the ranks,
and eventually moved on to study with the
great scholars of his time, ending up studying
with the greatest scholar of the time, Imam
al Juwani.
Now a turning point in his approach to
study, an approach to studying,
and acquiring knowledge happened
when he was attacked by high by highway
robbers. He was traveling, and, and they took
all his belongings, including his bag of notes
and books.
After seeing and then he started to follow
them because he he was distraught about the
fact that his books had been taken, his
his notes that he'd gathered.
And
the robbers saw him following them because he
thought, well, look, they they are soon gonna
discover that that's no use to them, and
they might throw it, and he might pick
it up.
But they when they saw him following them,
they said, well, why are you following us?
Do you want to die?
And he said then he explained that, no.
The the one of the books that you
took has all my knowledge I've gathered for
years.
So could you please give me give that
back to me? It's it's it's of no
use to you.
And the head robber laughed at him
while returning the bag and he said
that how how can you claim that you
have learned all this knowledge?
And we have taken it from you.
That you you have now become void. You
you've lost all your knowledge and you've taken
away or you've become an ignorant person because
we took this from you.
Imam Ghazali took these sentences
to be a message. He said
that this person is being made to talk
that Allah has made him say this because
he wants to guide me. And from then
on,
he committed all his knowledge to memory, everything
he learned.
He mastered the sciences and started teaching and
writing
and had hundreds of students and thousands would
show up to listen to his speeches.
The famous,
Seljuk, Vazir,
Nizam al Mulk took him under his wing,
and then he he he was commissioned to
write the treatises against the corrupting philosophies of
the time by the Khalifa. None other than
the Khalifa himself suggested it. The the Khalifa,
Al Mustasir.
He
suggested to him to write, and he had
contact with his father also, the previous Khalifa.
So he rose through the ranks with lightning
speed
to become a reference point for answers
to difficult questions because he had this everything
was on board. It was he had everything
memorized, and he had an incredibly sharp wit.
Eventually, he was appointed to the most prestigious
professorial position at the time. He became professor
at the Nizamiyah.
And today, that will be the equivalent of
becoming,
Regis professor in Oxford at the age of
34 because that's the age he became. At
34,
this was how meteoric his rise was.
Describes him in the following words. He says,
a sheikhul imam al
Islam
or a jubatism man.
He is the sheikh, the imam,
the ocean of knowledge, the proof of Islam,
the marvel of his time or ajubatisman,
the marvel of his time. He was proof
of Islam because he he challenged it but
whenever the
the discussions got difficult, he would come with
all his proofs and sort it out.
Now a second parallel that we should ponder
here is that is that we can draw
from that time and this time is is
the structure of the society and the aspirational
direction of the society.
Although, Baghdad was brimming with
frenzied academic activity
like no other, In the 5th century, in
the 5th 6th century, which is
the 11th 6th century of Christian era,
Baghdad was was brimming. It it was it
had frenzy like the academic activity. My my
teacher, Sheikh Abdul Hasan Ali and Nabi,
describes
the
the society of that time. And he writes
he says,
He he he's saying that the 5th and
the 6th century
is distinguished by the proliferation of academic and
literary activity.
And many great scholars emerged at the time.
They listened to the and
Abu Wafaa
Abu Wafaa ibn Abdul
and others. And he says that
he's he's saying that these people's influence
lasted for centuries afterwards.
Baghdad.
There was not a city like Baghdad with
with such frenzied activity,
academic and literary activity.
That the the the the the the there
were none none other. They were like this.
It, at the at the turn of the
century, between the 5th 6th century. You had
frenzied activity.
So he's saying, but in in the middle
of all of this, that
the general public,
something happened. They lost direction. Something happened. And
then he he explains what what what how
the society was
transformed. He said,
That the non Arab cultures
had made inroads into Muslim society clawing its
way. He said
that clawing its way into novel traditions and
new customs.
And he's saying that daily life became changed
and the standard of living increased
and the cost of living. And he's saying
that
He's saying that the cost of living in
the societal tax,
the the tax that is imposed by society
on the individual. You know, you have to
be you have to have a certain,
certain level of clothes to wear. He's saying
that that this tax, the social tax that
was placed was even more.
That it was more than than the taxes
that the government placed on you. Because
in those days,
that you had people of the court,
people that that the the privileged
people among among the princes and,
That you had the special interest people people
who were looking be people who who had
who were looking for
special specific interest in
in satisfying
their needs. But these this
became
the super rich, the the upper class.
And he said,
And the middle class looked up to the
upper class, to the to the princely class
and those around them, the privileged class, the
this privileged class. And because they saw snippets
of their lives, you know, they saw their
Instagram posts,
and they saw their Facebook posts,
But they didn't have Facebook. What they saw
was these snippets of their lives in the
marketplace and on in on the Friday prayers,
in the mar in the celebrations, in the
festivals. They had these snippets and their their
minds all focused on those things.
That that Facebook, that Instagram post that you
see of someone else's very scripted life, and
you start to think that my life should
end up there. Why is my life so
horrible?
So the same thing. The same thing. So
he's
saying
that And he said the the peasant class,
the labor class, the lower class, they were
also
in this
surge in in this,
urge
in this lurch towards
following the middle class. So they they looked
at bits of snippets of the life of
the middle class and wanted to and wanted
to emulate them.
What what
what that that they they saw honor only
in following the lifestyles of those people, of
the people in the middle class. And the
middle class saw that there was only in
the middle that they had to follow the
celebrities of the day.
That those who had the means,
you used to use it. They they used
to flaunt their wealth and use it to
show how they are satisfying, you know, in
the hunting trips and in in various ways
to show
how they use their wealth
towards satisfying their desires.
And as for those who were denied, those
who were not as privileged,
you know, they were having,
Instagram envy. They were having the kind of
things that we suffer from today. The the
lower class, the people who did not get
those things, they were
they were suffering from this
envy
and the hassle. They they had this melancholy
and and and regret of not having this.
And they consider themselves
They consider themselves irrespective of what
they might had
in favors of their noble lineage and their
good conduct, their their beautiful
character.
Whatever they gave, they had of knowledge
were was belittled
in in light of what they looked up
to, what they were looking upwards to to
the to the to the to the
middle class and those above them.
And just as we have this strong, this
watertight,
this this watertight
distinction in our society today where we have
gated communities for the super rich and people.
People hardly people do not spend their wealth
on on the poor. There's
800,000,000
people are sleeping
hungry every night in our world today. And
that that kind of division was there. They
did not they did not bother about,
anything.
They did not use it to to to
help others.
And as for the ones who were
the labor class, the lower class, they also
did not know anything about patience and about
dealing and about living simple lives and about
having fraternity and, and sense of brotherhood. They
they didn't know anything of that.
And like this,
this process,
life lost its balance.
And I want you to remember this sentence.
That life lost its balance.
People, the
the the the tranquility of life that used
to be went out of sync.
And then it was it was attacked. It
was it suffered
a a a nervous,
attack, a nervous attack, a severe nervous attack.
And and and the result of that was
But they the people began to to to
see that that picture, those snippets of other
people's lives was the direction of aspiration that
needs to be cultivated.
They see that as the only thing to
to to turn to.
That they did not recognize except those
who had earned, who had
gathered lots, who had gathered enormous wealth.
That he
who acquired vast amounts of wealth and then
used it then
then then spent
it
in in
fulfilling desire, in fulfilling
all the wishes of all the fancy things
that you can get. And and I will
jahu, I will jahi, when the fuzi. And
I want you to learn this word is
the is the
deep sense
of wanting
to be known, of wanting recognition, of seeking
position
in to become celebrity,
seeking celebrities.
So seeking celebrity
and influence.
Exactly as we have today, influences and celebrity.
These are the two things that
desires
fun, having fun, having lots of,
luxurious
fun,
and seeking position, seeking celebrity and influence. Like,
we have the Instagram and all the other,
Snapchat influences.
And these these people these people were
made
the rest of the society looked like if
their lives were worthless.
Now so life satisfaction in the direction of
travel for aspiration had become
distorted
towards
acquiring wealth and the pursuit of celebrity and
status
exactly as it is in our social media
driven culture today,
where we spend so much time looking at
snippets of people. I don't have to tell
you this. And that
we look at the snippets of other people's
lives,
which are highly crafted, and and we lose
a sense of value for our own lives.
Researchers
have found it. This has been
found every day now with such as finding
the satisfaction with life decreases dramatically, and that
there's
a a a a correlation
that you have inverse correlation with between the
the rise that when,
satisfaction with with life,
when people do not drops, when they do
not receive a certain number of positive feedback.
I if you if your likes for your
post dwindles, it can lead to loss of
self worth, stress, anxiety, loneliness, and depression.
Now to be raised out of
abject poverty, as Imam Ghazali was,
in such a society
and to reach a position where he's lecturing
to mass crowds that include 500.
This is what the the history says.
That among his gathering of 1,000, they had
500.
One of them would be sufficient to to
guide countries.
That kind of gathering would the audience would
come to listen to his lectures.
So for someone to come from our abject
poverty
and be lecturing to people like this and
when you're rubbing shoulders with the princely class
and having access to palatial buildings, you know,
the the palaces or and palatial dwellings and
luxurious dining,
one can easily see this as
a great success story.
1,
a a destitute
orphan
rising to pit to the pinnacle of
excellence.
This is a destitute orphan rising to the
pinnacle of excellence and
and celebrity
in a society.
This is the ultimate success story, isn't it?
But for Imam Ghazali, this was not the
case.
He recognized that there was a problem.
There was something crucial missing.
It was not the success story because of
palatial dwelling and fine dining and rubbing shoulders
with the princes
because
these kinds of things
being having
palaces for dwelling and fine dining and rubbing
shoulders with princes were not the signs of
success in the eyes of Allah.
In fact,
these
were points of such to be suspect
for which this is suspect.
You know, the ulama
always kept away from the palaces and from
the from from these palatial dwellings and from
princes
unless it was absolutely necessary.
They they kept a healthy distance.
So Imam Ghazali wrestled with himself. Now, but
this in this age, this happened.
And he began to wrestle with himself and
eventually a crisis developed in his heart as
he began to question his own sincerity, his
motivation,
and questioning the direction of travel of his
aspiration.
What would happen? He
could thought, you know, what what what would
happen if it was revealed on the day
of judgment that I did all of this
simply to become recognized and simply to find
position and celebrity status.
And this kept bothering him. And after several
months of agonizing,
he started thinking about quite a lot of
issues, but at the core of it, it
was this. After several months
of organizing,
of agonizing sorry. Several months of agonizing over
the this situation, becoming overwhelmed
with concern over his intentions,
he fell ill.
And now and after a while, he decided
that, look, it was enough.
He decided to resign from his position in
the Nizamia,
and he embarks on a journey,
a life changing journey,
a journey of anonymity
instead of search for celebrity,
a journey of self discipline
in place of expertise
display,
and the journey of seeking spiritual awakening,
seeking the pleasure of Allah alone for all
his actions.
He
travels to
Mecca and Medina and Al Quds, Jerusalem
and Damascus,
and where he eventually hid himself from public
by becoming a janitor in the mosque without
anyone knowing who he was. And there are
stories about him being discovered. You know, he
was 2 years. He was he acted as
janitor, and then there were some scholars and
people,
asking questions no one could answer. And when
he answered it, they the scholars immediately said,
no. This is because no one else can
know this answer can give this answer. But
he tried his best. He kept. But it
was during these this extraordinary
10 year journey
that he wrote this text that is before
us today,
which
deals with a great body of subjects in
40 books divided into 4 compilations. But
the the work is centered around treating
the diseases of the heart and
reconstructing your deen.
Eventually,
Imam Ghazali
returned to Nisapur and began to teach again.
And he was asked, you know, why did
you return to teaching if you thought it
was good?
If you thought it was bad, why did
you return to teaching if you thought it
was bad? And if you thought it was
good, why do you leave it in the
first place? You know, a trick question. And
his answer is very
revealing.
His his this is a candid and honest
response,
which he records in his biography.
He he he and and this answer
summarizes the story.
He says, that
a return would be to return to that
which it was,
but it's not.
Me meaning that it will to what I
was doing I will return to what I
was doing
and he said that I in that time
uh-uh at that time with which you are
saying that I returned to
in I was spreading
the knowledge through which I was earning position,
the same word. Please remember this word. This
word is very important for not in understanding
this and it's also part of the, of
the curricula of the topics that we are
going to be covering inshallah.
So he's saying that it's
it's
that this was the
knowledge through which I earned position in celebrity.
It was my Instagram post, you know. He
said
that everything I said was a post. Everything
he said was instant was was like Instagram,
you know. Oh, look at me. Look at
me. Look at me.
I I I did I called towards this
with with every action I did and everything
I said. He said my my my my
speech and my actions was cool, invited towards
this
the position seeking celebrity, seeking recognition, seeking vindication.
And this is
the honesty unit. He said that
that was the extent of my motivation.
That was my intention.
Clearly saying it, but then he, an alim,
a scholar,
in which the pinnacle and he's saying this.
And then he explained, he says, as as
for now,
that as for now, I'm calling towards the
knowledge
through which
the the the search for celebrity and for
position and for status
is abandoned. I'm searching. I'm I'm teaching. I'm
looking. My knowledge is for is is to
teach, but I'm, the knowledge alleviate, that knowledge
that will lead that will lead to the
abandoning of this of this pursuit this pursuit
of celebrity, this pursuit of this pursuit of
recognition.
And through it, it will it will
the
lowly status,
the destructive status of this pursuit
will be recognized.
You will learn how dangerous, how how lowly,
how dead, how how
blameworthy
this
pursuit is, the pursuit of doing this.
This is my intention and my motivation now.
And my wish.
And and he's calling Allah to witness that
Allah knows that this is why I'm doing
this now. Allah knows. I bear witness to
you.
Allah knows that this is what I'm doing
now.
I wish that and and my what I'm
doing now is that I want to rectify
myself, and others.
And and I believe firmly in my heart
with all certainty
and and conviction in my heart
that there is no strength and no movement
and no change and no power except with
Allah
the magnificent.
And I did not move
but Allah was the one who moved me.
And I did not do what he did,
but he used me
for us and so I ask him that
he may rectify me first.
And then he may, through me, guide others.
He may rectify others
and he guides me
and then he will
guide with me.
And that he should show me guidance. He
should show me the truth as it is,
as truth,
and give me the willpower and the opportunity
to follow it. And he should show me
he should show me
falsehood
as it as it is, and he should
give me he should grant me the power
and the opportunity
to avoid it.
So in essence,
the story behind this book is a story
of Ikhlas,
a grouping story about
sincerity.
It's a story about the struggle
against the dominant cultural trends.
It's a story about blinding deception
of self righteousness.
It's a story
about the trickery of the lower self in
the pursuit of recognition,
in the pursuit of position, status, and celebrity.
It's a story of rediscovering
the need
to repair our relationship with Allah
and to focus our hearts
on the one who will never disappoint and
abandon us. The focus on Allah, our creator,
the one who accepts us with all our
human frailty and deficiencies and sins.
Whenever we make the intention to turn our
hearts towards Allah,
no one is no one with sincerity is
ever turned away.
Now the lessons that we can draw from
this story are many, but for our purposes
tonight
and for the rest of this course, Insha'Allah,
I I think that we should that it'll
be useful
to keep 3
lessons in mind.
The first
is
the osmosis
effect of cultural influences.
Individuals
in a society do not have to be
signed up, card carrying members of a club
to be influenced by social trends.
Here, we have a scholar
at the pinnacle of his career admitting unreservedly
that he was drawn into the look at
me, here I am culture, seeking celebrity and
seeking position. This is a scholar of
of
the greatest
caliber
admitting this.
So what about me and you? The prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said
that the one who
says things so that people can hear and
so you can feed, then Allah will also
make people hear. But that day, it will
be on the day of judgment when he
will make people hear why you did it.
And the one who shows
for others other than Allah, you we are
doing good.
We we want to earn
value for our life for for for this
this
the standard of our life by showing others
then Allah will show you on the day
of judgement, you know.
And this we will not get away who
with it. That Imanuray who shows then Allah
will also show. On the day of judgment,
he will show. He will show who who
is where.
Now the second lesson is that mere academic
activity is not sufficient. You can have high
academic activity and literary
pursuits and everything, learning intricate
details about differences in the opinion of scholars.
We can go into
exquisite detail,
about particular issues in hadith and tafsir and
find it interesting and stimulating,
but that should never
allow us to assume that it is a
substitute for the need
to actively pursue the disciplining of your soul.
There needs to be a that the soul
that needs training
to recognize the lower self, to recognize the
trickery of the lower self, the need for
cleansing of the heart of the diseases
that grow surreptitiously,
These diseases that grow secretly like weeds in
the night.
We need to
if we ignore this if we ignore this
need,
then we could be fooling ourselves into thinking
that we are progressing indeed and because we
we have a lot of we we have
a lot we we know a lot of
intricacies. We know a lot of details about,
you know, multiple opinions and and theories about
x, y, and zed about Islam.
But knowing,
you know,
a 100 opinions about the dis about the
direction
to London from Oxford
will not help you unless you know one
that is solid.
That's that's the one that's really going to
help you. It's it's direction. You have to
know the one. And the one and this
one is more valuable. It's it's
the it it has the potential to undermine
everything else that you do. You know, Rasuulullah
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said
that
that that
this ability this
urge to show, this
propensity to show, to be this this is
the shirk of this.
The shirk of the it's called the riya.
Riya, which is ostentation,
showing off.
I said riya, which is the opposite to
Ikhlas,
the is this inclination to show is more
subtle than a black ant crawling on a
black stone
in a pitch night dark in in a
pitch black night, dark night. In other words,
this is not something that you can learn
to avoid without
a bright lamp and very good eyes
with help.
The urgency
of this cannot be overemphasized.
We know
the hadith that most book starts with the
foundation
of action. The actions will be judged according
to their intentions. But we also know
that
the danger of
the coming of Dajjal. We all heard the
stories about Dajjal coming and the prophet
saying that, you know, every prophet that came
on the face of this earth warn their
followers
about the coming of the antichrist, coming of
Dajjal who will cause havoc on the world,
who will destroy the world.
And once he saw
the Sahaba, prophet
saw the companion his companions discussing Dajjal,
and he said to them, shall I tell
you what is more worrying for me than
Dajjal?
He said,
He said,
what is more worrying to me? He said,
what I concern, he said, a shirk.
The hidden shirk. And this is this is
the shirk. The shirk where you ascribe. You
you ostensibly are doing it for Allah you're
you're doing good deeds you're studying Quran you're
studying hadith you're studying books and you're doing
all this good stuff and you're moving up
in in the academic life but
deep down inside is to
it's gratification of
the self
and this will be laid bare on the
day of judgment. Allah knows which direction the
heart is pointing and not only the direction
but he knows the the deep from the
deepest recesses
what you're hiding inside.
The Sahaba when they reported the the hadith
where the prophet described the opening scene on
the day of judgement they used to faint.
The opening scene on the day of judgement
is that Allah will call a scholar, a
martyr and a philanthropist.
A philanthropist will they will well, the the
the scholar will first be asked, why did
you study? Why did you do or indulge
in all this activity? And he'll be told
he will try to say he will say
that, look, I did it for you, and
Allah will say you lied and this the
angels will also say you lied.
And then that
person will be told there's nothing here for
you. You wanted x y and zed to
happen in the dunya and it did. There's
nothing here for you. Likewise,
the martyr and also the philanthropist,
the one who gave lots of wealth and
did all of this. So
the
the need to recognize the danger of this
cannot be overemphasized.
Now the 3rd lesson to bear in mind
here is
the parallels between the context of Imam Ghazali's
story and the context of our own situation.
Reflecting on how social media is affecting us,
How our time we're spending 2 hours if
we are spending 2 this is the average
of 2 hours a day on seeking, going
back and looking at how many ticks we
have had in lights.
And and this is how the osmosis
of internalizing
this problem develops
searching for vindication constantly looking for acceptance from
others instead of Allah. If we do this,
this can lead not only to mental health
problems
like anxiety depression and stress in this world
but it can also become
a tragedy in waiting beyond this world
when even our efforts for deen can be
rendered useless
because deep down in the depths of our
hearts,
we sought to show it to mortal beings
instead of seeking
the pleasure of our ever living Allah, the
one who created us.
Now,
finally, I
want to come back to the idea of
balance.
As I said earlier,
when
in in the piece that I read for
you from you from my teacher, Sheikh Abdul
Hassan, he said that
that the society lost its balance. So,
this balance,
that that went out of sync in the
5th 6th century,
where there was an abundance of intense academic
activity and literary activity,
but the focus was lost.
And the students who are now embarking on
a journey of discovery of faith,
you're also in danger of falling into this
trap of lopsided focus.
And so I want to give you a
formula
to assist you in maintaining your balance in
in in the pursuit of Islam, the pursuit
of your practice, the pursuit of your
your your spiritual awakenings,
pursuit of building your relationship with Allah.
Naturally, there are countless
curricula and syllabi that have been produced over
the 14th centuries of Islam, and they all
carry their merits and drawbacks. But there is
one curriculum. There's one curriculum
alone
that I think that every Muslim should keep
in mind
and keep
it in front of them whenever they are
doing this. So that whenever you're told, oh,
brother or oh, sister, you need to do
this and forget about all the other stuff.
Do a check to see if it's if
it has these 4 components.
And these are the 4 components with equal
focus you need to not if you focus
on 1 and and forget the other, then
it it will not work. This is this
is a, a comprehensive curriculum, and it's the
curriculum
that was taught to the Sahaba.
It was taught to the Sahaba by
Jibril alaihis salam. The angel Gabriel taught this
in an indirect lesson
and this curriculum has 4 subjects.
The subject is
ilmulIslam,
ilmuliman,
ilmul ihsan
and ilmul fitanizaman.
Ilmul fitanizamanika.
The knowledge of
Islam, which is what you do with your
body. You pronounce
the the knowledge of your the the the
practice which you do with the body. And
then iman, which you do with the with
the mind and the heart, which you
have to the the kind of cognitive
decisions you have to make about what to
believe and what not to believe.
And there's a whole list of that. InshaAllah
next week, on Monday, the class is shifting
from Thursday to Monday. Next week, we we
will go through this, this hadith, and
internalize this formula
that
so you have
the first part of the curriculum is
related to the body. The second is related
to to the mind and the heart, and
the third is related to the heart. But
the heart
the experiences of the heart and the and,
and and the stations of the where the
heart needs to be. That.
And then finally,
You need to know you need to know
what kind of corrupting
context you're in and how to protect yourself
from it. You have if you're not aware
of dangers, if you're not aware of poisons,
if you're not aware of influences that are
corrupting,
then
you will not seek the correctives. You will
not seek corrective action towards to to to
rectify your time, to to balance that you
you will not see that you need,
time to
recover recovery time that if you spend so
much time in here you need at least
balance it with
a positive pursuit something that will help you
something that will help you to clear your
heart something that will bring you close to
Allah something that will that that will wipe
those
false sense of judgment that you have made
about the blessings that Allah has given you
in your life something that will make you
know that will make you focus on what
is necessary now in your time so that
you can become
you can become the person of the of
the time instead of worrying about what you
lost, you know, suffering from FOMO, fear of
missing out and fear of what you have
lost and fear of what you will gain,
what you will miss out. Tomorrow is to
think about now, think about what you are.
All of this is in this curriculum.
Inshallah, next week we will do this and
then read from Imam Ghazali's 2 chapters. To
study Ikhlas, you have to study both the
the book of
intention and sincerity, and also the book of
the the book of condemnation
of jah, of the search for celebrity
and ostentation.
Both of these, we are we're going to
look at both of them and we're going
to draw from them in developing
our
prescriptions for dealing with our current problems.
That's all for tonight, Insha'Allah.
We will let's make a dua
and and finish off inshallah.
Oh, Allah. Oh, Allah. Forgive us.
Oh, Allah. Forgive us. Oh, Allah. Forgive us
for spending our lives so far
in the search for vindication from people,
some of whom we do not even know.
We did this repeatedly while ignoring you, oh,
Allah.
You know us more than we know ourselves.
You know our secret intentions in the darkest
recesses of our heart.
When You when You know
what we did when we pretended to be
serving You while seeking the gaze of others,
O Allah forgive us. Oh Allah, help us
to turn a new page today.
Oh Allah, help us to turn a new
page today. Cleanse our hearts today and allow
us to move in the direction
towards you and towards your mercy
with sincere intentions
with sincere and solid intentions.
For your beloved prophet
has conveyed to us your promise.
Your promise that if we take one step
towards you,
you will take 10 step towards us.
And if you come walking towards us,
you, if we come walking towards you, you
will come running towards us.
Oh, bring our hearts closer to you and
make us seek
pleasure,
make us seek your pleasure
over and above all others
in all that we do, oh Allah, we
are your servants,
we are your creatures,
we have nowhere else to turn but towards
you.
O Allah a portion for us
of fear of you that will come between
us
and your obedience to you.
And of your obedience that should take us
that should make us obtain paradise.
And give us certainty in our faith which
will make the afflictions of this world easy
for us.
And give us the joys of our hearing
and our seeing. Do not take us to
task for our hearing and our seeing and
our showing on the day of judgement to
Allah. Give us joy of this and of
our strengths.
And, oh, Allah,
let our vengeance be upon those who have
wronged us and who
aid who aid us
and and aid us against those who show
enmity towards us.
Oh Allah, do not
make this world
do not make our deen a
do not make our deen an affliction in
this world, you Allah.
Do not make our affliction in our religion.
And do not make this world our greatest
concern.
Do not make this world
our greatest concern.
The limit our knowledge
and do not give us power. Do not
give power over those who will not have
mercy upon us.
Alhamdulillah.
Yes. So, yeah, inshallah,
we will meet again on Monday
at,
what time is it?
Farabi, can you tell us, Yeah. Monday,
what time?
7 PM again.
It's 7. 7, 7 PM again. Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. It's 7. 7.
InshaAllah. Yeah. So we will continue next week
InshaAllah.
Lovely
to see you all.
Those of you who have left Taksat for
so many years, mashallah you're all here and
get the others as well. Inshallah.
The recording will be made available towards the
end of the term inshallah.
But for now,
yeah. If you've made notes then revise them
for for Monday inshallah.