Riyad Nadwi – 0.4 Imam Ghazali on Ikhlas
AI: Summary ©
The importance of pursuing a balanced approach to learning Islam is emphasized, as it is crucial to develop a strong understanding of deen and its effects. The use of "has been" in various fields of scientific research, including cognitive science of religion, can lead to material benefits, including desire for perfection and material fruits. The danger of negative emotions on social media, coupled with the need for caution and precision, can lead to sadness and depression. The importance of understanding one's CV and working for one's day-to-day life is emphasized, and the need to create a sheet to assess one's experience with social media and create a deception to make it seem like a deception.
AI: Summary ©
I hope you can all hear me.
Let me get a feedback
about the sound.
Is the sound okay for everyone?
Let's
see. Yes. Okay.
And Allah
said that they were not commanded except to
worship Allah
while being in full sincerity to him, to
the religion,
including inclining to truth
and to establish prayer and to give zakah
and that is the correct faith. That is
the correct religion.
And whosoever
desires the life of this world alone and
its adornment,
we will repay them for their deeds in
it
and then they will not be deprived of
anything of it.
Those who those are the ones for whom
there is nothing in the hereafter
but fire
and lust is what they used to do
and worthless is what they did.
Brothers and sisters,
welcome to our 4th session on lessons of
imam Ghazali
and these lessons from his book Al Ahia.
And in our last session we returned to
the hadith of Jibril alaihis salam
and to reemphasize
the need for a balanced
approach to our study of Islam,
a balance between
all four areas of study, the Islam,
and
Balance
is necessary between
these
4 subjects
to protect oneself from
falling into a false sense of
confidence, a false sense of security.
We should remember that
the scholars
and this
saying which is often
attributed to Imam Malik but it's not. He
is saying it's from a later scholar,
that
we should
The one who pursues the which
is
in the most in the broadest
sense of the term
that pursue
the matters of the heart, but ignores
that he will end up becoming a farsak,
a in other words, a detestable sinner. And
why is that? Because you will think that
you have,
you have esoteric knowledge, you would have you
have special knowledge
and then you will lose value for
the things that you need to do in
fiqh with
the and
the rules of the Sharia. You will ignore
it. You will lose value for it. And
so he's saying that the the the the
saying is that is to warn us of
the
danger that if you pursue this kind of
spirituality
without
a study or without someone to guide you
in in how to be a proper Muslim,
then you will end up making. There's,
a few years ago, I came across someone
who went to a conference,
at the Sufi conference in in America, and
he came back and said to me there
were 300 people there, and there were only
2 of us who were Muslims,
Muslims in in in the traditional sense. So
you've got to be careful is that, yes,
we're not saying that, one should not work
on
developing your heart and working to,
increase your attachment to Allah, but it has
to be a balanced in a balanced
curriculum.
The one who goes deep into
the knowledge of fit and all the rules
and laws and all the details about deen
and study like Imam Ghazali did he was
at the pinnacle of his career but yet
he didn't look at this aspect of things
so they say that a person like this
will end up being hypocritical in the sense
that he will say and do things for
reasons other than Allah
and that is why it is really it
is
crucially important that we keep a balanced view
in our approach to the study of deen.
And this third subject the
study of Ihsaan of course is
of that curriculum is is the one that
we are studying in this course.
We
reflected on ihsan, the need to be conscious
of Allah to worship Allah as if we
see him.
And in answer to the question,
how can one know Allah?
Do we know Allah? Can we know Allah?
I gave you modern examples of indications to
the knowledge and and the consciousness of Allah
that is found in the hearts of all
young children.
It's it's a it's an ever present
thing that is there and it gets suppressed.
It gets,
concealed, it gets suppressed in in the way
and and it reflects the word of the
the word,
is is reflected in that. And so,
and we also saw that even when people
deny the existence of Allah, even when they
claim not to believe they they
declare atheism,
their bodies, their skin
testify to the contrary
and when we put electrodes on their hands
the sweat glands and in that galvanic skin
test, we can tell that you're being that
you're you're
this
just the mention of the word god
has an an effect on you.
And it was on the basis of
this sort of research
with young children in particular that led to
the well, to a whole new field of
research
opening,
in which
wait. Someone's saying something.
What's Yuna saying? Okay.
Yeah. So it was on the basis of
this research on children
that a whole new field of
research,
began,
a new field of scientific inquiry,
under the label of cognitive science of religion
where,
was created. And they and there's it's now
evolved, morphed into
multiple streams of research,
which I wouldn't advise you going into start
looking into all of this because our our
source of our guidance is for is from
Quran, is from is from Allah. But these
we mentioned these things so that there are
bits it may learn bite size if you
like that, as Ibrahim alaihis salam said to
Allah, show me how you how you bring
life back to how you bring people how
you bring the dead back to life and
he Allah says
have you not believed and he said of
course I believe but it's to bring some
peace to my heart is to bring is
to bring comfort bring more
more more certainty in my heart So it's
that that that peace.
For those reason, we mentioned these things. So
in the in the cognitive science of religion,
the basic idea was that
human beings are born
with specific
natural
tendencies.
We're not just blank slates as we used
to think, you know, this this all changed
when we,
in the study of language,
where we we're we're we're not fashioned only
by the environment.
For example, for a child, if a little
child sees a snake, it it will pick
that child will pick the stake up and
play with it. It will try to play
with it, but
it
it needs in order for that child to
become afraid of it of a snake,
all it needs is one instance of
seeing mother,
seeing the mother
startled or frightened
by the presence of a snake or in
in a picture or in a book,
then for the rest of the of that
child's life, they'll be afraid of snakes.
But that is not so for
flowers.
The mother can scream at the flower and
tests have been done with this the mother
can scream when she sees the flower in
the or in the presence of a flower
and point to the flower in fact they
they sometimes smack
smack the flower, take the flower and hit
the child even. And yet,
they never develop a
a
a fear for flowers.
So
the same for natural
capacity for for language, for language acquisition.
Children learn their first language
at an extraordinary
rate, fast rate.
And in fact, there's a negative correlation between
the availability of stimuli, the availability of exposure
to the language, and the acquired competence. You
would find that the
the level of competence they have does not
match the exposure to the language.
And so the logic here is that
just as we have certain natural propensities for
language
we also have a natural tendency to believe
in God. We are born with it as
rasoolallahu
alaihi wasallam told us
that every
newborn every newborn child is born on the
fitra and by fitra here it means that
covenant that
that that event that memory of the of
being in the presence of Allah and Allah
saying
and we are responding to Allah that conversation
that that is there of a memory of
our creator,
of all powerful,
omniscient,
omnipotent creator is there in the memory deep
within ourselves
and
radiating all the way out to our skins
as we saw in those 8 in the
reactions of the atheists. In another hadith, it
says
that there is no
baby that is born except that he is
in the that she is in the the
of believer of believers believing in Allah in
Islam.
So
we also looked at Imam Ghazali's
insight
into some of the mechanisms
of
this disease that we can that we now
hopefully recognize as habulja.
Habulja as in seeking positions, seeking prestige, and
pursuing
celebrity and status.
And we looked at the prescient nature of
his insights
by reflecting on the behavior of people on
social media in today's world,
in explaining these mental mechanisms, which are
deep. They run deep. They happen. They they
function deep below our conscious cognitions.
We were we're not aware. We're not often
aware of,
of the machinations that is going on, the
the motivations that are driving us.
So he drew our attention to 8 points.
The first was
like wealth,
prestige is also a pillar through which people
seek benefits
in the world. Yeah. It's like a wealth,
so you seek position in people's hearts, so
you get benefits through it.
And similar to the ownership of wealth, it's
which is this prestige
and majesty is the is the ownership of
hearts. That's number 2. Number 3,
just as money is not useful in themselves.
You know, we don't eat money. If you
have loads of cash in your house and
you're out of food, you couldn't eat the
money. It's what but it is
so so it's not useful in themselves, but
it's what it it brings,
and so is position in people's heart. Just
having position is not enough. It's the,
ensuing benefits that are attached to it.
Hearts are inclined towards
admiration. That's number 4. Hearts are inclined towards
admiring perfection. That's you you're always things that
claim completeness, complete knowledge. So perfect knowledge is
complete knowledge. We tend to,
that's something that hearts are inclined to. Number
5 was that we tend to
subconsciously
create schemes
to project our perfections. We we we are
project we we project
perfect knowledge, perfect,
holidays,
perfect pictures, perfect
pose.
Number 6 was that the ultimate aim of
seeking position is to have control over the
hearts. Number 7 is that admiration and loyalty
in the heart
leads to material
fruits, the material benefit.
Following and mentioning
these are all fruits. You you you your
your followers are increased, your mention is increased,
Your likes are increased. This is the subconscious
logic with which this thing the the the
the the process of Jah works.
And finally, number 8 was
actual perfection is not necessary
because it's
assumptions
and imaginary illusionary perfection
are equally effective for captivating the hearts. All
you need is for people to believe that
you have perfection,
and this is why it is, usually,
constructed.
It's, and and not accurate when we do
it. So this is a multilayered problem.
For example, we project perfection with pictures of
perfect holidays, perfect moments, perfect dishes, perfect clothes,
perfect bodies.
We do this with posts on social media,
Facebook, Instagram, etcetera,
while knowing the truth.
What is the truth?
The truth is that your life is not
perfect.
And those people who are projecting pictures of
perfect lives also know that their lives are
far from perfect.
In fact, that perfect picture
is but a moment in their life.
It is a fraction of a second of
their lives.
Yet when we see it, it causes us
to lose value of our own lives. And
sometimes we can become so affected
that these upward comparisons with snippets of the
of people's perfect lives that we become ungrateful
for the countless favors and blessings we have
in our own lives.
In each day Allah
gives us
86,400
seconds
each every day.
And do you know what is the speed
of
an average
shutter on a camera? Like, it is the
camera shutter, which is the thing that takes
the picture, the speed of it.
It is an average
on average, it's 1 60th of a second.
So what this means is that when that
picture is taken and sent off,
if you if you look at 60 pictures
of someone else's
perfect life
and that makes you devalue your own life
and diminish your satisfaction with all that you
have,
then it is useful to remember
that those
perfect 60 pictures
that are causing you to become depressed
are they account that those 60 pictures account
for only one second
of that person's life.
And you have no view of the remaining
86,399
seconds of their day. It's all blank.
You're unaware of the ups and downs, the
worries, the problems, the disappointments, the trials, the
tribulations, the heartache, the suffering that they might
have suffered during the day but you have
no view of that.
You see the problem is that
our brains
tend to fill in the blanks. That's naturally
what we do. We simulate.
If we see a perfect picture of someone's
life on Monday
and then another perfect picture on Friday,
our brains automatically simulate an entire week of
of perfect life, of perfection.
So seeking
attention and prestige from others
through the gifts you have received from Allah
while forgetting Allah
is truly
unfortunate and dangerous.
So these are the layers of how dangerous
this thing is. There's another danger,
which we will touch on later on about
historic danger, historic
catastrophes that have the that the Muslim Ummah
has suffered because of because of station where
people offer positions
of a
the chair of leadership and what that one
and the kinds of,
treachery that has led to which we will
touch on later if we find time. The
prophet
warned us about this 1400 years ago. He
said in hadith
That if you are if you are comparing,
if you are indulging in these sorts of
comparisons
with those who have been given
beauty and wealth, which are the 2 areas
where we find a lot of exchange on
social media. If you're being given if if
if this is what you are feeling that
you need to do, this sort of comparison,
then be sure to compare with
Be sure to make comparison with those who
are less fortunate than you are.
And in another this is the the
same hadith but it's important in Muslim with
with an addition
that look at those look at those who
are below you, who are less fortunate than
you and don't look at those who who
are who have more than you or who
are better than you or who are higher
than you.
That it is better for you not to
belittle
the favors of Allah
on you, the favors that Allah has given
you. And this is what happens. This is
the words of Rasulullah salallahu alaihi wasallam.
Every time, every time we tend to, you
know, everything that we tend to put on
display
are gifts from Allah.
If we have knowledge it is from Allah,
if we have beautiful face it is a
gift from Allah, if we have happiness in
life that is also from Allah, if you
have lovely children there are gifts from Allah.
This issue
of as I said has multiple dangers, multiple
catastrophes attached to it and it is only
it is not only harmful for those as
you can see it's not only harmful for
those who
project
perfection,
in seeking prestige, but it's also in seeking
Jah. It is also harmful to those who
consume these these projections
as we see in today's
social media obsessed world. And
point to note here is that these platforms
that I that we use for these sorts
of things are are designed specifically to exploit
this tendency to seek attention
because they're in the business
this this attention economy. They are in the
business of selling, of of getting you to
acquire, to gather the attention, and when your
attention reached to a certain when you're
following, which they can sell your attention to
other people who wants to use it for
other means, for other things.
So the first thing on the list of
perfections that Imam Ghazali mentioned
in the text we read last week was
knowledge.
That this is this is one of the
things that we project. We tend to seek
status in the minds of people through projection.
We project perfect and completeness in our knowledge.
Now living as we do in today's world
of that is saturated with information with information
technology
and the world of mesmerizing
scientific
and technological advancement.
We tend to live in awe, and
we are so mesmerized,
and we live in awe of the experts,
in awe of the scientists, and
and we also often find people projecting
perfection and complete and completeness
in scientific knowledge.
And for the purposes,
they do this, of course, for the purposes
of Jah because there is genuine scientific research
and then there is the projection of science
as a
worldview, as a religion, as something to believe
in rather than a method of inquiry
for the purpose of control, for the using
science, as a purpose for for mind control,
a purpose for control of heart, a purpose
for Jah.
And so for today's it may learn bite
size,
this your I I want you to consider
this question. This is your
bite size for today.
I I will give this from time to
time so that and this is to bring
peace to your heart, to understand, to give
clarity to your thinking in regard to these
things.
I want you to consider this question.
If we were to put 100 Nobel Prize
winning scientists in a room
and ask them to give us an estimate
in percentage or ratio
of how much do we as
the human
race, the human,
the human civilization.
So thus far,
a humans human beings collectively, how much do
we understand
of the known world in which we live?
How much how much of it do we
understand? How much how much do we of
it do do we know about it in
in sufficient in in sufficiently?
They will usually
say, well, what we know is very little
considering the fact that we have
black holes, which we don't know anything hardly
anything about it, dark matter,
dark flow, dark energy, and so many more
unknowns.
The human knowledge is very little. And but
if you force them to put a percentage
on it and to put a ratio and
to say, well, perhaps they will say, oh,
well, it's maybe 2 to 4%.
And I've asked this question to many senior
scientists, and none of them ever said anything
beyond 5%
of 5%
in relation to the known universe. What we
know might be 5%, and that is a
might.
Or it might not be in fact. In
fact, the last scientist I asked,
he he had an interesting answer, Marcus de
Soto. You probably know him. He's the one
who took over from Dawkins in in the
chair at Oxford.
He said that when I asked him this
question, he he said that, if you that
what we know is nothing compared to the
universe to what's out there to be known.
And if
if you first, if you if I had
to put a ratio on it, it would
be like and being a mathematician, he,
he he saw 0 as has some some
value. He said it it would be between
the ratio would be 0 to infinity.
So
scientists
are aware of these limitations,
But here's the problem.
Knowledge
of this
of these kinds of limitation
does not stop
the science correspondence and the popular science writers
for making extraordinary
bold claims
far beyond the reach of science,
especially when it comes to attacking people of
faith and
projecting
this projecting scientific findings
as completeness of knowledge, as perfection, as perfect
knowledge.
And
so to put this into perspective, I want
you to consider something
that is analogous to the situation in which
we find ourselves today.
And, of course, the the the purpose here
is to give some clarity to our thinking
in regard to this because we can become
overwhelmed
with,
the flow, the flood in, of
this kind
of projection, we we we tend to get,
driven driven down to depression, thinking about things.
When people come and ask you about, oh,
do you believe in x theory and this
theory and that theory?
As if science is a is a religion
to be believed in rather than
a method of of studying and,
inquiry.
Now before I go further, I want to
make it clear that this is a,
I want it to be clear in everyone's
minds that I'm not trying here to be
dismissive of science.
I'm myself a trained scientist, and I've I'm
fully aware of the utilitarian value of the
scientific method and the tremendous strides this has
made in the last 2 centuries.
The analogy that I want to give you
to ponder here is that,
imagine if I were to bring a
person, a man from,
from an untouched Amazonian tribe in South America.
And I brought him to Britain, take took
him to Silverstone
and teach him to drive a car, and
he trains hard and, you know, work hard
and become an expert driver so he can
use the car. He knows how to use
the car. He wins many races,
but he learns nothing about
how the car is propelled and about the
origin of the car.
He has no concept of car factories. He
knows nothing about engines and how they work.
But then one day, his curiosity drives him
to find out what it is. What what
is what is it that propels this car?
So he notices that whenever he starts the
car, something
makes a noise under the bonnet. There's screaming
going on over there.
And not knowing how to open it, he
decides to bore a hole on the bonnet
to see if he can spot the animal
that is propelling the car.
But instead of seeing an animal, his eyes
lands on the fan belt.
Something made of rubber and twine.
He makes several observations of the fan belt
while switching the engine on and off.
Does this repeatedly,
conducts,
notes the
the
the noises
in correlation with the switching of the key
and the pressing of the pedal and
comes to a conclusion. He draws his conclusion
and he says that the car is
this car is propelled
by that rubber thing that I'm seeing there,
which is,
of course, about 1% of the engine.
Now someone comes along and says there is
a lot more to the story that you
do not know. That fan belt is only
a part of the engine.
There are pipes. There are pistons. There are
fuel. There's combustion. There's there's so much more
that you don't know. You haven't seen. You
have you have only seen only about 1%
of the engine.
But his response is I can only go
on the basis of what I can observe
and study, and that's all I can see.
Now up till here, you can forgive him
for an accepted logic and forgive him for
for the short sighted his short sightedness in
what he's doing.
But
if this person then decides to announce that
because
he now knows he now understand
something about the car and he understands he
has an he has an idea of about
something about the car,
and in reality, it's only 1%,
suppose he's then on the basis of that
1, 2% of whatever he understood,
he decides he decides to declare that because
of this knowledge of this 2% that I
have, I now have the authority to declare
that the car
created itself.
Would that make sense? That would be quite
a leap, would it not?
It would be a leap on the basis
of 1% of claim of perfection,
a claim of complete knowledge about the car
and its origin.
Now what would we say
of such a person?
We would say
perhaps deluded, misguided, confused
but we
are making claims
This person that we will say, okay. You're
you're making claims far beyond the limitations of
your knowledge. 1 or 2% of familiarity
with the engine of the car does not
give you the authority to make claims
of perfect knowledge about the origin of the
car.
Now this is the analogy. This is the
analogy of what
what some this is analogous to what some
scientists and many
science correspondents
like to do to bamboozle
people, you know, to
to to to make you feel that what
what to believe in God and to and
to follow and and and to want to,
practice a faith
is
completely irrational. This is this is the kind
of thing that they they do. That they're
making claims of perfect knowledge about the origin
of life and the origin of the universe
based on this 2% of knowledge about the
universe, about the known universe. What we know
is very little.
From this perspective, they're not
so different from
our Amazonian
tribes.
Of course, we're not allowed to make scientific
we're not allowed to to to criticize it
as a method,
but we are allowed to make when when
when we see
this kind
of claim for perfection, claims for completeness,
then just as we are we shouldn't be
affected by these projections of perfection
on social media. This here also is another
area of knowledge where that we need to
be careful and not and not get affected
so that it weakens our imaan, weakens our
yakeem.
We are allowed to make scientific guesses
but the problem starts when those guesses
are projected as perfect and complete
knowledge.
This is
a source through which people
practice,
the projection of complete and perfect knowledge with
the intention of taking control of minds and
the hearts.
Now let us read
the chapter on perfection of knowledge.
And it's this is this is a chapter
that's within the
the book, the same book of Hambull Jah.
That the exposition
of
true perfection
and illusory perfection
of which there is no reality.
He says
that perfection of knowledge is for Allah alone.
It's a perfection of knowledge is for Allah
and from three perspectives, perfection of knowledge is
for Allah.
It says
the first is that from the perspective
of the abundance
and
the the abundance
and the the extensive nature
of the knowledge that Allah has.
That Allah encompasses
all
things to be known. Everything.
There's nothing that that is
hidden from him.
And as as a person gets closer to
his to his knowledge
of the, then he gets closer to Allah.
Gets closer in knowledge, he gets higher in
knowledge, he gets closer to Allah.
That is in that's in status.
Now the second perspective is
that from the perspective
of knowledge
of the known things
in their true
nature what the the true nature of what
they are.
And
that and that the known thing is completely
visible uncovered to him.
He knows it inside out. There's no hidden
aspects of of everything.
But the the things, the knowledge is is
always open is,
avail
is avails itself that Allah that knowledge is
known and uncovered for Allah
be the most open and the the most
the the to the furthest extent with the
most complete way.
What it is?
So if someone moves in this direction of
knowing things, then you will get closer to
Allah.
And
the third
perspective is that
It is the
from the perspective
of
knowledge
remaining
knowledge, the eternal nature of Allah's now knowledge.
That whatever Allah knows will not change
with changing of things. Allah will know it
through and through and know if it's changed
or if it's not. So his knowledge does
not change. He gives examples later on you
will see.
That his knowledge will not be undermined by
changes
that Allah's knowledge
and it is unimaginable
that Allah's knowledge will come to an end.
That Allah's knowledge does not come from things.
We when we learn about things, our knowledge
is dependent
on the thing but Allah's knowledge is not
dependent on things.
And here again that if you learn if
if your knowledge gets
if you get correct knowledge then you will
get closer to Allah
and there are 2 types of knowledge there
is
you have knowledge that changes
and knowledge that is that are eternal.
So he's giving you an example here. He's
saying that look as for knowledge
that can change and
people are human knowledge is that that that
you know your knowledge
is
truthful it is a solid piece of knowledge
of some of Zayd is in the house
if you know that Zayd is in the
house then and Zayd is actually in the
house then that is knowledge
that this is knowledge of something that that
that exists.
But it is possible.
You can imagine that Zayd may leave the
house.
And
Zayd may leave the house
and the belief that Zayd is in the
house will continue may continue
so that knowledge will then change now to
ignorance
So then in that case, it it is
then it is then a deficiency, not knowledge,
not not perfection.
So he said everything you know that may
change
and then render your knowledge which you are
projecting as which you are holding as perfect
knowledge about some about things.
All everything
has this
has
this possibility of changing and rendering your perfect
knowledge into ignorance.
That that your knowledge will be
rendered into ignorance
and it
this,
chain this this example
is relevant
to all the
changing aspects of the world.
And he said like and he's giving example.
He said like your knowledge,
for example,
with the
height of mountains. Now this is extraordinarily prescient
is that because we only discovered,
tectonic plates moving and raising mountains that, the
the change of
mountains are not when you know that the
mountain is a certain
height.
If you know the the height of the
mountain, the Everest is, is rising and dropping
because of the tectonic plates moving. Now that
is something that we didn't know until recently,
but
Imam Zalai is saying
that your knowledge of the height of mountains
and the surface area of the, of the
earth that changes.
And the number of cities or or whatever
and the and the changing of and the
distances between them. The changing of the tectonic
plates as it changes.
And also your knowledge of language and then
terminology that changes from time to time,
among people.
It the this knowledge is the
the the information that you have for these
that we have as p
as as human beings, it's it's like mercury.
It's it's it's always in flux.
It changes from one state to another.
It has no perfection except at the time
when when when when it corresponds
to what's happening.
And but it doesn't leave. It it it
it it it doesn't remain perfection
in in the test of the change when
things change. You know, even even the constant,
the big constants that we have in our
world today, even that
is
subject to change and we take them for
granted. You know, the big like the,
big g and,
the speed of light. Speed of light is
seen as as the most,
highly recognized constant. That that that is that
is the speed limit of the of the
universe.
We get that. But then this,
people don't usually talk about this, but there
was this Cambridge,
scholar who went looking
through the records of all,
of the the records of of the speed
of light in the physics books. And when
he went through history,
he noticed the publications that between 1928
and 1948, the speed of light had dropped.
So he went to ask the,
head of metrology
in, in Teddington, the the National Physics Laboratory
there about,
why is this? Why it seems like
the records that show that the speed of
light had dropped something like 20 kilometers
in between 1928 and 1948?
And he said, yes. Yes. This,
had happened. It was because because people take
when we take
measurements,
they
fluctuate, and so
they sort of agree on a number. And
because they're they're working in different areas,
we sort of put it together. So he
said to him, oh, so so you mean
they fudge it? And he said, no. We
don't like to use the word fudge.
We call it, intellectual
phase locking.
So
and then eventually,
he said, well, could that be happening now
about the speed of light? And he said
to him that look, no. No. No. No.
That cannot happen anymore because, we solved the
problem in 1972.
What did you do? He said, oh, we
fixed it. We we we we have decided
now that this will be it. So if
there's any fluctuation, then we were we're we're
not interested.
We fixed it in 1972.
So this is just one example. There are
loads of examples that human knowledge yes. Though
we take it for granted and and it
works. It works for experiments and the things
that we do. But there is
the when it comes to perfection
and completeness of knowledge that is with Allah
atul.
Now if you remember,
the metaphor
in the first lesson I gave when when
Imam al Zali quoted that hadith
this sort of behavior
is so subtle
that it's like a crawling ant on a
black stone in a pitch dark night.
Now with what we have covered so far,
we are halfway through the course
of this term, not the course the course
in I don't know how long it will
last, but, we're halfway through this term. This
is our 4th lesson. So I'm hoping that
by now you're beginning to shine
light
in
into the darkness, into dark night.
The light on you you you'll begin you're
beginning to see the stone, but,
because it's,
it's
you you can see that there's a problem
here. Perhaps you you you wouldn't be able
to see the ant yet. There's much more
to for us to cover.
To see the ant,
we we have to learn about
a few other things. We have to learn
about,
which is obscurity. We have to learn about
the riya. We have to learn about what
intention is and all the other stuff that
is attached to it.
But
at this stage,
I want to
deal with a worry,
that usually surfaces in the mind of students
at this juncture in the course. And that
is,
what about my CV?
Am I indulging in
when I prepare my CV?
And,
here again,
Imam Musali is way ahead. He has a
chapter on it. So I'm gonna read not
CV, but dealing with the with the same
issue.
Find it.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. The the name of this chapter, it's
in the same book. It's it's in the
same,
series,
That the exposition of the of the praiseworthy
of and the blameworthy.
That there are some aspects, and he's saying
that
as long as you know the control of
the heart and you know that, Jah, this,
seeking of prestige,
that this
tendency to do this and and and and
the need to do this is control of
hearts and having power over people having some
control.
It is like controlling wealth.
But
in the
mundane
structure of
society, of social structures,
there is a level of need for this
sort of thing.
For a,
for a teacher
for a teacher to have the value of
a student, for the student to have a
value
of the teacher in the heart. So you're
allowed to do this,
but how do you go about doing it?
And he's so he he lists,
a few people. He he he says,
that the Sikh position, Sikh status, the Sikh
position, waljaah status in the heart
in in the heart of your
teacher
and your servant
and your your slave and
and your ruler
that it is that to seek this is
is allowed and
it
it's allowed it's allowed for a
up to a certain degree.
It's
for Akul
that you
see you can seek that
on 3
that that that this is usually sought. This
kind of position is usually sought for three
reasons. So he said,
2
of these reasons are you're allowed to for
for 2 of these reasons, you're allowed to
do it. And for 1, you're you're prohibited.
As for the prohibited
reason,
that is for you to seek position
through using through seeking to to implant in
them a belief
that you possess a quality
that you are devoid of having. That you
do not have this quality, but you are
projecting it. So
you're you're you're projecting
knowledge of the kind that you do not
have or water or
you're projecting
piety that you do not have or you're
projecting
the lineage for so he he uses
So he
a person then,
projects,
pretends, and projects to be to be a
of the descendant of
Sayidna Ali radiAllahu and in other words Sayid
of Hassan al Hussain radiAllahu or
that you are an alim that you're a
scholar or you are you are a very
pious person
and and you are not this
this is not allowed it is haram
it is lie
and deception
as either through speech
or through
or or or through your behavior through projecting
it in in your actions.
As for the 2
as for as for one of the
one of the committed
reasons
that you you ask you you see you
seek a position
for which you are
for for a quality that is in you.
You're saying, look, I that I have this
and you and you and for the purposes
of your day to day life, not for,
gratification of your heart, but for your day
to day functioning of life, functioning of the
mundane life in our in this world, he
says. And that is a CV falls in
this category
is that you will say what what you
need to say, what you have done, and
not embellish it with things beyond what you
have done. So that that that's the answer
to the question.
And he gives the example of Yusuf alaihis
salam who said
that make
me responsible
that I'm that that I will protect it
and I and and I I I have
knowledge. That
he that he had these qualities. So that
is the reason he did.
The second
reason that is allowed and that is
that
he frames it such to hide a deficiency
that he has or a sin that he
commits.
He does not because
we are not required
to publicize our sins.
And if a person is committing a sin,
then
teacher, you go and,
tell your teacher that you you are committing
x and y. If this if you're in
a
relationship, then it's a different thing. But if
this is your job
and you're working, but then you do not
say that, then
have the because Allah
loves loves us to
to cover our sins, you know, because one
of the
one of the gross
great condemnations is for a person who sins
in the night. This hadith comes in hadith
that he sins in the night and Allah
hides it, it covers it, and he goes
out and tells people. He uncovers his sins.
So we're we we shouldn't do that.
Well, the who
are who are
it is it is it is not. And
this is not. This is not it what
you're doing here is that you're telling you're
you're telling what you are you are restricting
some knowledge, some things that is of no
benefit here,
in that particular instance.
For in the
who
we talk we give the example of drinking
wine and said,
okay.
The point is that
you're allowed
to fill your CV
with
genuine
items with child with items that you have
done, and you should not be,
you should not feel reluctance
on the basis of
the points we are studying in this course
because that is for your job, that is
for your day to day,
living for your living and living in this
world. The reason we
this world is,
a a planting ground. It's a farm for
the. So we we we have to live
and we have to sort of satisfy our
basic needs in this world. And for those
reasons, as long as we are not deceiving,
we are not indulging in in in,
trickery.
And the trickery here is by telling the
wrong thing, then we we will end up
in
it will be haram. We'll be indulging in
haram.
So
now,
oh, okay.
So okay. We got 4 minutes there. I
think,
to conclude,
what I'd want you to
focus now on is to make make an
effort. Use
the knowledge that you have that you have
now and to assess
your
day to day
involvement
with social media
and
create a a a sheet to
look at how it makes you feel by
being on social media for for a on
an average. I know young young people today
is the the average is about 2 hours
you spend on social media.
And and the kinds of things that it
had that it that it does to your
to how to how you feel, how what
what does it make you feel?
And,
eventually,
you you should aim to reduce it
so that
when you when when you think about these
things, when you think about,
when you look back, when you you spend
2 hours a day and
tomorrow you spend hour and a half, and
look at this
condition of your heart.
Have you looked at what people were doing
on social media?
Their their projections of their perfect life. And
is that is that affecting me? These are
questions you need to ask and note them
down.
And if it is, if these things are
happening,
then you have to start avoiding it. We
will come to the subject of
how to deal with it, how to deal
with and how to cure it. But for
now, I think you need to start start
making an effort
to
engage with
a repair.
And the repair
is to concentrate on the fact that Allah
is seeing me. This is how you do.
You you your main focus here is to
look at
the fact that Allah I'm in the presence
of Allah
But Allah is with me, Allah is hearing
me when I say SubhanAllah,
Allah just heard that. What I do what
I did this morning Allah saw it what
I'm going to do tomorrow Allah will see
it and try to bring Allah in your
thoughts
as many times as possible during the day
and thinking about Allah in these terms that
Allah is seeing me and
with that inshallah
you will start
Allah will help you to start,
channeling your focus in the right direction inshallah.
And inshallah we'll make a dua now let's
pray.
Allah,
guide us to your mercy
and protect our hearts and our minds from
neglect
and save us from seeking
vindication of others
when your approval and your vindication
is what we need most.
O Allah
forgive us and help us
to turn our hearts towards you in all
situations,
cleanse us, cleanse our hearts
and allow us to move in a direction
towards your love, in a direction towards your
mercy. For your beloved prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam has conveyed to us your promise
that
that you will be a call you will
be for us according to
our expectations
and our hopes in you.
Our hope and yearning is for your love,
oh Allah, it's for your mercy,
it's
for you to be pleased with us in
all that we do. Oh Allah, give us
the strength, give us the tawfiq,
give us the strength to do so, give
us the strength to walk and to work
towards that, O Allah.
O Allah bring our hearts closer to You.
O Allah
we are Your servants,
we are Your creatures, we have no other
to turn to but You.
Accept us and give us your mercy. Grant
us forgiveness
O Allah.