Safi Khan – Soul Food 15 December 2023
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of acceptance and reenergizing oneself in Islam, emphasizing the need for acceptance and reenergization of oneself in one's life. They stress the importance of not feeling secure and reenergizing oneself, avoiding promises and criticizing negative behavior, and not giving up on difficult situations. The speaker provides guidance on deeds and advises against simplifying statements and not harming people. They also provide advice on managing difficult situations and avoiding giving up.
AI: Summary ©
Alrighty.
We'll go ahead and get started.
How's everyone doing?
Everyone had a pretty good week, productive week.
Let's be honest. No one's no one's doing
anything. It's December. It's mid December. Oh, finals.
That's true. Okay. That's true.
You know, it always,
as a college student, it always kind of
dawned on me how ridiculously
long college breaks are
versus, like, when you're younger. So I remember,
like, being in school, like, middle school, high
school, and I used to see my sibling
or my older sister. She would have, like,
college break,
like, a winter break. And I'm, like, over
here sleeping away in, like, 2 weeks barely
10 days. And she's, like, off from school
from, like, December 16th to, like, January 20th.
I'm, like, man, this is some sort of
this is crazy.
But you guys you guys deserve it.
So
we are
Inshallah concluding
our
series tonight,
the journey to Allah.
The series based off of the book by
the famous Hanbali scholar, Ibn Raja
He
wrote this book about the idea of deeds
not being the only thing that gets a
person to paradise,
rather the mercy of Allah
is necessary. And so now we're basically
at the very tail end of our conversation,
and it's perfect because the year is pretty
much almost over.
We're gonna take a little bit of a
hiatus from roots programming because myself and Astad,
Abdul Rahman. We're both gonna be going to
Umrah
next week.
So it's a great time to end the
series and then
begin fresh,
in January,
with something that is going to get us,
leading up to the month of Ramadan.
Today is gonna comprise of a couple things.
So, ibn Rajab, he ends with basically,
I would say,
around 2 to 3 pieces of advice
to share at the very end of this
amazing book. And then what we're gonna do
at the very end, Inshallah, the second half
of tonight's session is we're gonna talk about
the overall
bullet points
of how to get closer to Allah. So
this is gonna be a great session for
everyone to kinda, like, jot things down on
their phones because at the last half of
class, I'm just gonna be kind of, like,
going through, like, boom, boom, boom. And you're
gonna be almost, like, thinking if you were
here for the past, like, 3 months, it's
gonna take you back to, like, all the
chapters that we did, and we're gonna make
it all make sense,
on, you know, in in in terms of,
like, the the effort of getting closer to
Allah.
So
he begins this final chapter
and he says that,
you know, there was a devout worshiper of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
who said that if the hereafter
of the believer
does not bring happiness, then two matters have
been
made true for him. So if a person
is not
happy with the idea of Jannah
or if a person
is not convinced
by the idea of Jannah, then 2 things
are basically written in stone for him.
1 is that
he will
be sad in this world.
He will have a sad reality to this
dunya. Right? I mean, imagine
when you're looking at things that are going
on in Philistine, things that are going on
in Gaza, things that are going on around
the world, and all the terrible crimes that
are being committed against the Muslims around the
world.
One thing that unites the ummah together
is the idea of Jannah.
I mean, how many times have we
justified not justified, but, like, we have consoled
and we have found
a lot of, you know, just contentment
and solace
in the idea of Jannah being a resting
place for anyone who was wronged
for
no reason whatsoever.
Right? That Jannah is waiting for them. So
he says that a person who
Jannah is not enough for them,
Like, you tell somebody, you know, yes. This
world is difficult.
There's trials and tribulations and challenges and tests
that Allah throws at you. But guess what?
Jannah is greater than any trial that you
can go through. And a person doesn't believe
that,
then he says that this person has robbed
themselves of sa'ada, of happiness in this dunya.
Because a lot of times, the happiness in
this dunya
is made from that hopefulness of Jannah. Right?
The idea that I know that there's a
place where there is no pain.
There is no sadness. There is no hardship.
There is no anger. There is no trial
or tribulation.
It is such a contrast and and it's
so antithetical to what I experienced in the
dunya
that that's enough for me to be excited
for something in the hereafter.
So he says that this is a person
who has truly robbed themselves of all happiness
in the dunya. And what he means by
happiness in the dunya is, yeah, you might
feel, like, temporary moments of happiness in this
world. Like, yeah, you're gonna get, like, a
you know, you're gonna get a job. You
know, you might, you know, experience a moment
of happiness in your personal life or whatever
it may be,
but the keyword is a moment.
Right? There will be moments of happiness. There
will be moments
of elation that you experience in the dunya,
but you will never truly be content,
Because true contentment
can only come from something that's everlasting.
True contentment can only come from something that
is forever.
Right? A person gets a job and they're
happy for, like, a week, and then sooner
rather than later, they're gonna find another job
that pays higher. Right? A person graduates from
college and they're excited to kinda finish school.
Sooner rather than later, there'll be another challenge
at the doorstep.
A person even check this out. A person
even gets married. Right? They're going through, like,
those butterflies in their stomach and going on,
like, these amazing, like, romantic honeymoons and whatnot.
And then 2, 3 years later, I mean,
this is the nature of dunya. Not saying
that it's gone. I mean, husband and wife
should love each other for eternity, but, you
know, that initial feeling of, like, elation is
no longer there, and that's the reality of
dunya.
And to expect
long term
happiness or
long term kind of stability in terms of
your happiness at at that climax,
it's unreasonable for the for the dunya. And
that's why people end up becoming very upset
because this dunya, they're expecting something from it
that it's not made to provide. Right? And
then the second thing he says is that
they will also go through misery in the
hereafter.
They'll go through misery in the hereafter because
they never hope for the best of the
hereafter. What's a dua that you guys know
that can kinda, like, jog your memory of
that?
Right? You're asking Allah for the best of
the dunya, and you're also asking Allah for
the best of the akhira.
A person who doesn't hope for the best
of the they're not going to attain it.
They have no hope in it. They don't
care about it. So why would Allah
give somebody
who doesn't really care?
They have no aspiration for the akhirah. Why
would Allah give them akhirah or something beautiful
in the akhirah when there's another person who,
subhanallah, they're
grinding through their life, through all the trials
and challenges, but they are so hopeful in
paradise.
They're so optimistic about paradise.
They know it's there.
And Allah
will be so happy, will be so,
merciful
towards the servant of his that he will
give that person paradise because he hoped in
it. Okay?
And so
he continues,
and he says
that one of the benefits or wisdoms of
trials is for the believer to believe in
the hereafter.
And this gives meaning to the trials. Right?
That trials are not for nothing. In fact,
the prophet
in a very famous narration, he said that
there is no fatigue,
no disease.
Okay. He says,
He says that there is no disease, no
fatigue, no sorrow, no sadness, nor no hurt,
nor distress
that befalls a Muslim
except that
it relieves them or expiates them from sins
for that,
that it takes away sins from them. And
then he mentions that there's not even the
prick of a thorn.
The prick of a thorn that
bugs you, that irritates you, except that which
it will take away sins from a person's
soul. Right? So I want you guys to
think. How many times even just this past
week have there been moments in which you
found yourself to go through an inconvenience? Right?
You're on your way to, you know, the
refrigerator and you stub your toe.
Right? Or, you know, you wake up on
a random weekday and you're about to head
out for the day and all of a
sudden you experience, like, Dallas allergies. Right? Like,
you're you're I mean, your your nose is
not cooperating with you for that day, and
you're coughing and all these things. You have
a headache. You have a migraine. And you're
telling yourself, like, oh, man. Why?
Why did this happen to me? Like, now
I gotta pop, like, another headache relief medicine.
Like, I basically take this, like, candy at
this point. Like, what what why me? Why
is this happening to me? And then you
go back to this narration and you think
to yourself, well, the prophet
he says that none of this stuff happens
except that Allah is
relieving from my soul
sins that I've committed in my life.
So that headache no longer is an irritant
for you.
That allergy,
yeah. Sure. It's annoying dunya. It's annoying the
dunya, but you know that there's a reason
why you're going through that inconvenience.
There's a reason why you're going through this
difficulty.
And this is the same thing when, you
know, there's a companion who asked the prophet,
they said,
who who were the most tested
of all humans, of all people, of all
creation? Who are the most tested?
And the prophet he says, it was the
prophets.
It was the prophets.
That they were all tested beyond the means
of any other creation that was ever created.
The prophet think about his challenges that he
went through. Musa alayhis salam, Yusuf alayhis salam,
Ibrahim alayhis salam, all these different people. Do
you think they just they just went through
difficulty for nothing?
Oh, no. They went through difficulty because Allah
was trying to
pull them closer to him.
And he says that a person is put
to difficulty or trial according to their level
of faith.
So now a person turns the narrative and
they say, oh, wait a second.
So trials and tribulations doesn't mean that Allah
is punishing you.
Rather, the prophet says that if a person's
tried,
they're tried to the level of their.
So the higher the that you have, the
more that you're tested by Allah. That means
the more beloved you are to god.
And he says that
the the servants of Allah will continue
to be put through trial
until they are left walking upon the earth
without any sort of sin upon their body.
And this completely
turns
the entire narrative for a person.
That any difficulty that you go through
is no longer something that you dread. In
fact,
I'm sure, you know, on Monday nights, if
anybody goes to Monday night heart work,
there's been a session that talks about how
one of the characteristics of people who actually
go through trials that are believers
are a time in which they actually find
a little bit of, like,
contentment in their trial. And I'll tell you
what I mean by that. Not contentment mean
like, oh, I'm happy that this bad thing's
happening to me. But contentment meaning
that I know that because of this,
Allah has a greater plan for me.
And he compares it to the idea of,
a person
who is taking medicine,
and they're, like, cursing the medicine. Oh, it's
so bitter. It's so foul tasting. But they
don't know that once that that medicine is
taken,
they are heading towards a healing process.
Right? And you think about it, like, in
your life. Right? Go back to, like, when
you were a kid. Think about how you
reacted to medicine. I just took my daughter,
Aya, today to, you know,
a doctor, her pediatrician,
and she has a little bit of, like,
that croupy cough. Y'all know what that is.
Like, it's it's like sounds like you're like
it's I don't know. It sounds like you've
been smoking for, like, 80 years, but she's,
like, one and a half, so it doesn't
make sense.
So we took her to the doctor, and
she had that cough. And one of the
only things that kind of helps you, kind
of alleviate that inflammation in your in your
in your in your airway is this, like,
shot that you take,
and, basically, it just kind of, like, loosens
up lot of the nerves and the muscles
over there. And when she and she's at
1 and a half years old now. So
now she kinda, like, cognitively understands where we're
at. So now she, like, clings on to
her parents when we're, like, at the door
of the doctor's office. Now she's clever now.
And so when we get there and when
the doctor, like, kind of and the doctor
is, like, a super, super,
like, wise. You know, he's super, you know,
tenured now. And so he, like, had the
hid the shot behind his back.
And then he slowly came up to Aya,
and he was like, hey, Aya. How's it
going? And she was like like, her lips
are quivering. Right? She knew right away. She's
like, I know you're a bad man. And,
it just shows you that kids, right,
when they look at, like, a, like, a
needle or, like, a shot or a vaccine
or even, like, you know, liquid medication,
they wanna avoid it like the plague. Like,
it's terrible. I hate it. It makes my
life horrible.
But you as an adult now, think about
how many times you've gone to Walgreens at
3 AM.
You're like, oh my god. I'm so sick.
I need to go. Which one's open 24
hours
so I can chug that cherry flavored nastiness?
Think about a normal person, a child, would
never wanna do that. But you, at that
mature state of your life now realize the
benefits of it because the temporary dissatisfaction that's
there,
it's going to be replaced with this healing
that you experienced shortly after.
And you crave that medicine now.
You are actually looking forward to it. In
fact, adults now complain about how expensive medicine
is. Right? I wish it was cheaper. I
wish it was free. I wish we were
Canadian. Never.
So, you know, this is the reality, and
he compares that to the reality of trials.
Okay?
And then he mentions here
he says
that it is because of this
that there was a very, very wise person
by the name of Ahmed Abdul Qais
and others who would be greatly apprehensive of
the verse.
Allah accepts only from those who ward off
evil or people who are, people who are
god conscious. Right? Now we're talking about something
called acceptance.
Acceptance
of the good that you do, which is
a part of what this book was about,
that you're trying to do your best to
do good, but it's not always about just
doing the action.
It's about having that action accepted from you.
And so the scholars, they mentioned
that
one of the key components of this is
not to assume that whatever you do is
automatically accepted by god. Like a person who's
like, yeah. I already prayed, so I'm good.
No. No. No. The the the believer
graduates to a level where they think even
though they prayed,
how was my prayer?
Right?
Even though I fasted,
how was my fast?
Even though I gave
charity,
how was my giving of that charity? Right?
Not in a means of, like, anxiety because
that's another extreme. Right? Like, everyone's like, yeah.
I think I prayed the Lord today, but
I did I really pray? Like,
Allah doesn't want you to go through that.
Allah doesn't want you to go through that.
But Allah wants a person to think that
the action
does not always necessarily mean that there's a
of that action. There's an acceptance of that
action.
A person should go back and ask themselves,
did I do this the way that Allah
would
have wanted me to do it? And the
greatest example that I can think of that
I can share with you guys is the
example of the prophet Ibrahim alaihis salam. He
built quite literally the greatest structure
that this world will ever see, which is
the Kaaba and the Haram in Makkah. Right?
He he he he built it from a
command of Allah.
And at the end of this building of
the Kaaba, he made a dua and he
says,
After he's done doing that. Oh, Allah.
Accept this from us, him and his son.
Indeed, you are the one who is all
hearing and all knowing. Why? Because I could
have built this Kaaba,
but you know what's truly in my heart.
Although I don't say it out loud, Allah
being
Allah hears your thoughts even if the people
around you don't hear.
Them. So I gave charity
and, you know, seemingly, it was good.
But deep down, I know that I gave
it because I like the feeling of public
shows
of piety or righteousness.
The person around me can't tell.
But Allah being
all hearing and all knowing,
Allah now knows,
and he's always known what's within the heart
of a person.
So he mentions the idea of acceptance.
Think about the acceptance of your deed. Don't
just think about the just the mere action
of it.
Yeah. You came to roots. With what quality
did you come to roots tonight?
You spent time with your mother. With what
quality did you spend time with your mother
today?
You, you know, dropped something off for a
family member earlier this week. Well, how was
the quality of how you dropped it off
earlier this week?
The how is so important.
The how is so important.
That's why in Islam, you'll see a lot
of times people are doing things that seem
to be fulfilling, like, the checklist on what
they're doing, but how they're doing it is
completely off.
You know? Oh, I gave you know, I
I I gave feedback.
I gave advice. Well, how'd you give that
advice, though? Why is that person so hurt
by what you said?
Right? It depends on how you do it,
and the prophet was the greatest example of
this.
He was so concerned about the how.
He was so concerned about the manner through
which he he did what he did
that he would meticulously,
like, ask himself, like, well, was that the
best? Was that the best? Did I give
it my all? Did I give it my
all? You're only in this dunya temporarily.
There will come a time where every moment
will pass.
Even that fatigue,
that tiredness that you feel, oh, it'll pass.
How many times have you guys, like, in
Ramadan, experienced, like, tarawih, and you're, like,
on the 19th rak'ah and your feet are,
like, basically turning into stone? Right? You can
feel it. You're basically becoming 1 with the
prayer rug underneath you.
Your your your your your your maqam in
the masjid is basically set. You the imam
cannot move you now. You stood there for
so long.
But the next day, you wake up and,
like, that pain is gone.
That's how Allah made you.
Allah made you to go through certain experiences,
and you will think to yourself that time
that, oh my god. This is it. I
can't do anymore.
But when you go back and you think
to yourself, man, like, I feel super reenergized
now.
Allah says in the Quran that we've made
sleep for you a form of rest that
you can reenergize yourself and go back and
try again the next day. Right?
And then he mentions
something really incredible here.
He says,
a great, you know, pious, righteous man,
he said, do not feel
because of a great number of deeds.
For what you do know for your work
sorry. For what you do not know
if they have been accepted or not.
Do not feel secure about your sins
for you do not know if they have
been expiated or not. Okay?
And so he says, do not feel secure
about your sins. Why? The wisdom behind this
particular statement is so that you keep asking
Allah for forgiveness. I want you guys to
think about that. Why does he say do
not feel secure
about your sins because you do not know
if they have been expiated for or not?
Have you guys ever thought of that? Like,
you ask Allah for. I mean, a lot
of questions, by the way, like, in roots
specifically. Right? Asad Murphy,
Asadullah Fatima,
the teachers here, People come up and they
ask, well, you know, I've asked Allah. I've
stood up, you know, in in the middle
of the night and asking Allah, I made
Tawba. How do I know if, like, Allah
has accepted?
How do I know if Allah is going
to forgive me? Well, the real answer is
you'll like like, quite literally, you actually will
never know.
And but there's wisdom behind that. Because if
Allah told you that, hey. You know what?
You're forgiven. Continue on.
A person may now take their foot off
the gas pedal.
They may say, oh, yeah. You know what?
It takes, like, one time, two times to
ask Allah for forgiveness, and after you ask
them the the second time, now you're good.
You can move on with your life.
But the benefit
mentioned is that
if a person
already knew that their sins were forgiven,
they would approach this as a task just
to merely check off their list,
and they would never come back to Allah
again.
I want you guys to know one thing
from this series that we went over is
the goal of the journey to Allah is
always going back to Allah,
to never think that the journey is finished.
Never allow yourself to say that, oh, my
journey to Allah is now complete.
As long as you're here in this dunya,
your journey to Allah will always continue.
There is never a Muslim that is on
this earth that should think of themselves as
a finished product. Oh, I've done everything there
is to do.
The prophet
the most perfect human being that's ever been
created,
stood up in the middle of the night
and cried in dua to the point until
his beard was drenched with his own tears
and said,
now his own wife, she would ask him,
why? What what are you doing? Why are
you doing this? His companions would ask him,
why are you doing this? Haven't you already
been forgiven by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala?
And he says, should I not be a
grateful servant?
Should I not be a person of gratitude?
There is no stopping a believer from continuing
to turn back to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And he says, there's a very beautiful, beautiful
Hadith
where it's a hadith qudsi, so meaning that
the prophet narrated that Allah himself said, oh
my servants,
oh my servants,
if the first of you and the last
of you, the humans and the jinns
were all to stand together in one place
and ask of me,
and I were to give everyone what they
requested. Imagine. I want you guys to imagine
what the world's duas would be
if all 8 +1000000000
people on the planet
were standing into Hajjood at night and asked
Allah for the deepest desires that they could
ever think about.
Allah he mentions in this hadith that if
I were to give them everything that they
requested,
that would not decrease me in what I
possess,
except what is decreased of the ocean when
a needle is dipped into it.
So a lot of people, they're like, oh,
you know what? Like, how much can I
ask of a god? How can I how
much can I ask of Allah? Well, Allah
says that the entire world can come together
and ask for everything that their wildest imagination
would want, and it would still not take
away from me anything.
I would continue to give more and more
and more and more.
And this is why it's so important
to and I know I said this a
few weeks ago perhaps, but I wanna highlight
it, which is
never
allow yourself to translate
human relationships to the relationship that you have
with Allah.
Because a person can fall into the trap
of saying,
oh, I have friends that I ask things
from.
Oh, I ask them for certain favors, and
I need them sometimes, and they get tired
of me talking to them, or they get
tired of me reaching out to them. Don't
equate that to Allah.
Don't equate somebody's lack of being able to
forgive you
or
your own lack of ability to forgive yourself
to Allah's ability to forgive you.
Don't rob yourself like that.
Don't think that the people that you experience
here or the dunya elements that you experience
here are reflective of the way that Allah
functions
because Allah is limited limitless and this dunya
is very limit limited.
And then he says
that the supplication of a slave
continues to be granted
as long as he does not supplicate for
something that's sinful
or for something that would cut off the
ties of kinship,
and he does not grow impatient.
So never grow impatient of calling Allah.
When you make, don't grow impatient.
Don't be like, oh, man. Like, when's this
gonna happen?
When's what I asked for gonna happen? When's
this gonna finally come into fruition?
And it was said,
and it was said by a companion, Yarsulullah.
What does growing impatient mean? So they have
the same question that we all do. What
does it mean to grow impatient when calling
to Allah?
And he the prophet, salallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he said,
it is when someone says, I made dua
again and again, but I do not think
that my prayer will be answered.
Then he becomes frustrated
and gives up on Dua
altogether. The prophet warns against that.
Don't ever be a person who gets tired
of calling.
Y'all ever heard, you know, that famous English
maxim that says that it's not about the
it's about the journey, not the destination.
Dua is like that.
A lot of times people think that dua
is all about the end result. Oh, yeah.
You know, I asked Allah for, you know,
this career path and once I get that
career path, alhamdulillah, I'm good.
I asked Allah Ta'ala for, you know, like
the this person that I wanna marry and
once, hamdulillah, I get married to them, it's
all good. I ask Allah for, you know,
this type of, you know, family and once
I receive this type of family, hamdulillah, it's
all good.
The journey is actually what's more important than
the actual destination in that regard.
You asking Allah is more important than what
you're receiving.
You have no idea the quality of the
conversation that happens between a believer and Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. The quality of that compared
to once Allah gives you what you want.
Because what you want may be good in
your eyes. Right? Oh, yeah. I want I
want that career. It's such an amazing career.
I've always wanted to be x, y, and
z when I, you know, when once I
graduate.
And, sure, Allah might give it to you.
Allah may very well give you what you
exactly what you asked for.
But
once a person gets that, do we just
abandon?
It's like always reaching out to a friend
when we need them. And once our friend
has fulfilled every time we reached out to
them, we don't really need them anymore. We
completely just abandon post.
We leave. We don't have any interest in
calling or texting. We have no interest in
reaching out and asking how they're doing.
And Allah doesn't need you to ask him
how he's doing. This is Allah. All Allah
wants from a creation of his
is just to keep tabs,
touch base.
Yeah. Allah, it's me again.
You ever use that phrase before in your
dua? Allah, it's me.
I know you're probably sick of me. Right?
Like,
this is me. I've made a lot of
mistakes in my life, but here I am
again.
Here I am again. Here I am again.
Yeah. There may be a person in your
life that would get tired of that phrase.
Here I am again. And that person's like,
oh, God,
Here we go.
Never think that Allah will ever get tired
of hearing you say, here I am again.
That's what keeps us connected.
That's what keeps us close to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
And so
I wanted to now share
I put together I was going through all
of my my my reading and my notes
from the past 3 months,
and I put together 10
points
that I would like everyone to kind of,
like, start jotting down
as a conclusion
of this series, a journey to Allah.
And I titled it I titled it, how
to grow closer to Allah through your journey.
Okay? How to grow closer to Allah through
your journey.
And it comprises of 10 beautiful steps.
Number 1,
the first step
in growing close to Allah on your journey
is to lower the self and do not
think too highly of who you are.
A person who comes in with the mentality
that,
oh, Allah, I need you.
That person has begun their journey on the
right foot as they say.
They started acknowledging they started by acknowledging that
without Allah, I'm nothing.
As Allah mentions in the Quran,
Oh believer never put yourself ahead of Allah
and his messenger.
And be mindful of God.
Be mindful of Allah's role in your life.
How has Allah been there for you when
no one else has?
And when you
left your responsibilities
and you neglected Allah,
how did your life end up
being affected by that decision that you made?
The first step is always knowing that we
need Him.
Right? The famous dua of Prophet Musa alaihis
salam where he
says
Oh Allah, I'm in true desperate need for
any good that you can give me.
I have nothing. I don't have anything. I
need I'm in desperate need for whatever good
that you you you've given me, that you
will give me, that you that you are
giving me. I'm in need for I'm in
desperate need for it. So humbling oneself and
lowering oneself in front of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is step number 1.
A person who has their nose up in
the air will always always miss
what Allah
can do for them in their life
because they already think they have it all
made. I don't need anything. I don't need
anyone.
Y'all ever met people like that? Like, I
don't need anything in my life. I don't
need anyone. And this is not like that
sense of, like, contentment. You know what I'm
this is like the sense of, like, oh,
no. I don't need to ask ever.
I'm good.
I never need to stay up at night
and make dua. I'm good.
Until that person will be brought in front
of Allah on the day of judgment and
Allah will bring forward in front of them
their entire record and Allah will say, well,
you never thought any of these were worth
asking about.
You never thought any of these moments of
weakness were worth
making
for?
So the first step is lowering the self
from Allah.
Number 2,
accepting the role
of
one who submits to god.
Accepting the role
of one who submits to god. Meaning,
absolve yourself from the burden
of thinking
that you have to control
every little element of your life.
People who think that they have to have
control over everything that they do,
they rob over everything that they do, they
rob themselves of the blessing
of
knowing that Allah can
take care of them better than you'll ever
be able to take care of yourself.
I have to know everything.
And if one thing doesn't go according to
plan, then what's this all been about?
Sometimes, you know, there's, like, a point where
a Muslim reaches a time in their life
where certain things that they plan don't go
their way, and they're like, man,
Allah, I trust you. Here we go. Right?
Like, even though, like
yeah. I didn't apply for that school.
I didn't I didn't think I wanted to
live in that city. But you know what,
Allah? I trust you, Allah.
I trust you.
How many times have we had to hold
on to the rope of trust
with Allah
and that rope brought us so much closer
to him?
You know, I it's somehow, I'll share a
personal story. When I first moved to Dallas,
this is, like, late 2018, early 2019.
I I I didn't know how I felt
about Dallas.
All you Dallas natives are, like, gonna hate
me. I don't know how I felt about
Dallas, man. When I first moved here, I
was like, yeah, this place is weird.
Lot of concrete,
lot of weird highways,
lot of
subpar Halal restaurants getting this really mean. No.
I'm glad we're getting somewhere.
A plethora of hot chicken places. Right? I
mean, like, we got a lot of those.
So, you know, I I don't know how
I felt about this. Right? I mean, everyone
seems like they're in a rush. It's a
bigger city.
I don't know. I don't know if I'm
I don't know if I like this.
And so, you know, 6 almost 6 years
in now,
I thought to myself something,
that this is the place that Allah chose
for us to
have our baby girl, our daughter, Aya.
There's a reason why Allah chose for that.
There's a reason why Allah chose that for
us. It's it was meant for us.
And I realized
because Allah choosing for us a city like
this,
I got to meet
a lot of you. I got to meet
a lot of people that I call now
extremely close companions of mine.
And I would never ever go back and
choose something else other than Dallas now. And
you think that was just 6 years ago.
Think about how many things that we think
are so true.
And because
we trusted Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, Allah amazed
us with what his plan actually was.
Allah says in the Quran, once you have
made your decision, meaning, like, tie your rope.
Right? Tie your rope first. Don't just be
like, y'all lied and study for that exam,
but I'm gonna pray fajr and let's see
how this goes. Right? No. No. No. No.
Study for the exam. Study for the exam.
Prepare for your interview. Right? Do what you
have to do.
But
once you have done what you can announce
out of your control, how many of you
guys have ever experienced a situation that was
completely out of your control? Raise your hand.
Out of your control. Like, literally, you could
not do anything more.
That is the moment where you trust Allah.
Because you physically, mentally, emotionally can do nothing
about it anymore.
So you have a decision to make.
Do I just sit here and sulk and
mope?
Or do I just say, Allah,
I did what you could with the faculty
that you gave me, and now I trust
you to take me the rest of the
way.
Okay?
Number 3
is
be overly hopeful and optimistic
about the mercy of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Be overly hopeful.
What do I mean by overly hopeful?
If a person
ever limits
what their idea of Allah's Rahmah
is, you have actually robbed yourself of understanding
who Allah really is.
And I'll share a small narration that illustrates
this. Did the prophet one time he said
that Allah has split
his Rahmah
into 100
parts,
and he retained
99
parts with him
for the hereafter.
And he sent down one of those to
the dunya. One part. So 1 percent of
his Rahma, he sent to the dunya.
And he says,
through this one part
creatures, his creation, deal with one another with
compassion,
with love.
So much so that an animal lifts its
hoof over its young
and worry that they wanna protect it and
not harm it.
So the the the worry, the concern that
a parent has over their their children,
that's the 1% of Rahmah that Allah has
allowed to penetrate this dunya.
And think about what a what a mother
would do for her child.
Today, we were sitting in the waiting room
with Aya, and,
like, she was coughing.
And I thought to myself, yeah, Allah, please,
like, whatever she has, give it to me.
I would do anything.
Take away whatever
small moments of pain she goes through. Just
give it to me. I'd take it for
her.
And then I read this hadith, and I
said, this is from a fraction of 1%
of the rahmah that Allah has given to
this dunya. And the rest of the 99
Allah has kept for his
judgment in the hereafter.
So whatever your idea of Allah's mercy is,
multiply that by
a1000,
a1000000, whatever number you will,
multiply it.
And he says,
earn his mercy
by thinking about him
through 3 elements. Number 1 is through gratitude.
This is still a part of point number
3.
Earn his mercy through your.
Oh, be grateful for the things that you
have.
Never ever
overlook a blessing that you have in your
life.
You know, I was reading something that fascinated
me the other day. Somebody said
they said, thank
Allah
for being
thank Allah
for the ability
to do dishes because that proves that you've
actually had a meal that evening.
Thank Allah for the ability to wash your
clothes because that proves that Allah gave you
clothes to wash.
Thank Allah for the moments of being able
to even, like, have
small disagreements with your parents because Allah gave
you parents to disagree with.
When you remove, like, that
very apparent irritant in your life, you discover
that underneath that irritant is actually a deep,
profound blessing.
You have belongs in your in your life
to clean.
You have belongs in your in your life
to clean.
Oh, I have to stay up and make
sure that the the the the sink is,
you know, empty and everything's put in the
dishwasher
that you have had food that you have
to clean off of plates.
Ever getting into an argument with your friends
Alhamdulillah
Allah has blessed you with companionship in your
life.
It's through Shukr.
And then through Hamd praising him
because you can never give Allah the praise
that he truly deserves.
Saying Alhamdulillah is the closest thing that you'll
ever get to praising Allah the way that
he deserves to be played to be praised.
Just Alhamdulillah
And Tasbeeh
SubhanAllah because he is far better than what
you can ever imagine of him.
Tasbeeh SubhanAllah Allah is free from any imperfection.
Number 4.
Number 4. The 4th way to grow closer
all to Allah through your journey is
to
conduct deeds
consistently in your life.
Conduct deeds consistently in your life. Don't go
for that one
big
deed for the year. That's not what we're
made up of as Muslims.
Muslims don't believe in, like, a jackpot.
We don't believe in, like, a, like, a
we don't believe in, like, a one hit
wonder that just kind of knocks it out
of the ballpark, and we're good to go
for the rest of the 364 days of
the year.
As Muslims, we believe in doing something small
every single day that will help us get
closer to Allah.
And I gave you guys the example of
salah. If Allah wanted to, you could have
easily prayed all 17 of your raka'at
fajr time.
But Allah
decided to disperse those 17
through Fajr, Dhuhr, Asr, Maghrib, Isha. What does
that mean? Consistency.
Do it throughout the day.
You're supposed to remember Allah throughout your day.
Not just the morning, not just the evening,
but also at noon, also the afternoon, also
at sunset.
Do deeds that may seem trivial, that may
seem small,
but do them well.
And this is why there's a famous narration
that says that shaitan
starts to grow hope for a person
when
they
do something, like, they start a good deed,
and then Shaitan tries to dissuade them. And
the minute they do it again,
consistently,
Shaitan goes like, man, this this this person
can't be, like, messed with.
But then when a person leaves it, they
do, like, one really grand deed, and then,
like, they forget about it. They never do
it again. Shaitan says, I have hope in
this person.
Because this person, they just lied doing that
one thing,
and they don't really, like, follow-up on it.
They don't do it consistently. They just do
it, like, once. That's it.
No. No. Do the deeds consistently
even if they're small.
Number 5,
be steadfast
in what you do.
Be steadfast. Don't abandon post when things get
hard.
Don't abandon ship when things get a little
bit choppy.
Don't just say, oh, yeah, man. Like, yeah,
this do our thing, man. Like, I don't
know if it works anymore. My life's kinda,
like, gone south, and I'm not really too
sure if I'm made for this. No. No.
No.
No. When things go sour
is in fact
when Muslims
grow stronger in their faith.
Look at how Allah has united the Ummah
through the Palestinian cause.
And it's sad that it's taken this
for us
to
go back to Allah,
But it proves
that through difficulty,
iman is strengthened.
Don't abandon post when things get tough. You
don't wanna be a person on the day
of judgment who says to Allah, oh, Allah,
the moment you tested me, I abandoned you.
Rather, you wanna be a person who tells
Allah, oh, oh, Allah, when you tested me,
I ran to you.
I ran to you. There was nobody else
I could go to. I ran to you,
You Allah.
Number 6
is finding private time for worship
when nobody else sees.
The idea of sincerity.
The idea of doing things for the sake
of Allah and Allah alone when no other
eyes are watching me.
That we have moments in the day where
we're around people. We're around people right now.
But there will be moments when cameras are
off.
No one's watching.
People may be asleep.
And at those moments,
can you be even more beautiful in your
privacy than you are in your public?
Can our prayers that we pray in the
middle of the night behind closed doors be
even more quality than the prayers that we
pray in?
Can we pull ourselves up to that standard?
Because at that time, when a person's able
to do that, they truly, truly I'll tell
you this. In Jemaah,
yes. They're praying with people,
but they don't even notice that there's anybody
next to them because you would pray the
same if you were at home.
You're the hurt in between classes.
Oh, it's one of your best prayers of
the day. It's not the one that you
rushed.
That's what it means to be sincere with
Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Number 7,
draw closer to Allah
by continuing to ask
from him.
If you ask,
ask from him.
Ask from him before you ask from anybody
else.
When you're in a tough spot
before and I know, by the way, when
anyone's in a tough spot, they have those
immediate resources that they can go to. But
before you go to that resource, before you
text that person,
oh, Allah, allow me to find
good from this person that I'm I'm I'm
about to ask. Because you even understand from
you being able to reach out to that
person is from the many blessings of Allah.
You ever thought about that? Like, when a
kid cries for their mother?
Yeah. The mother's there to help them, but
the mother is just a mere facilitator of
Allah's blessing, which is Allah gave that kid
a mom in the first place.
Right? So ask of Allah before you ask
from anybody else. Number 8 of 10 is
have or
excellence
in everything that you do,
quality over quantity.
Quality over quantity.
It does not matter
if
you or another person deem what you're doing
to be trivial.
Oh, I only read, like,
I only read, like, one line of Quran
a day.
Oh, but you, that one line of Quran,
influences you to be such a beautiful Muslim
that day.
Focus on that quality.
Ihsan, again, means to worship Allah as though
you can see him. That's what
means. To worship Allah as though you can
see him.
Everything that you do, it doesn't matter if
it's giving $1
and or it doesn't matter if it's giving
$1,000.
You treat that $1,000 with the same level
of sincerity as you would with that $1,000.
That's what is.
Okay?
Number 9.
This is big.
Avoid being people
who
waste their deeds.
Avoid being people who waste their deeds, and
you can write underneath this the the sub
points,
a,
avoid trivializing
our sins.
Remember the narration that I shared with you
guys last Thursday, which was that a believer,
when they look at their sins, they see
their sins as though they are taller than
a mountain.
But a person who does not care for
Allah, they look at their sins as though
they're just mere flies that they can swipe
away from their face.
Avoid trivializing
our sins.
Don't just say, oh, it's not a big
deal, man. Like, it's all good. It's okay.
Because a person who truly wants to journey
towards
Allah will never ever see a roadblock and
say, no. That's not a big deal.
No. No. I I wanna get over this
roadblock. I don't I don't wanna turn around.
Have you guys ever, like, driven, you know,
towards a destination,
and there may have been some inconvenience on
the road.
But if you really wanna get there, oh,
you'll stop by that gas station and stay
there until that storm passes.
You're
you're you are you are intent on getting
to your destination. Nothing will stop you.
Don't trivialize sins.
Don't show off.
Avoid.
Avoid
loving the feeling
of others watching you.
Avoid the
and and and it's not always outward.
It's not always our sometimes it's internal. We
have to catch ourselves internally. How many times
have y'all ever had to catch yourself internally?
Like, woah. Woah. Woah. Why do I feel
like this?
Right?
Like, you saw, like, the number of likes
go up on, like, an Instagram post and
you're like,
I enjoy this.
And a part of you are like, I'm
just gonna refresh it and see if it
goes up again. Right? Like,
why do I feel like that? I wanna
I wanna avoid that.
I wanna avoid that. Imagine, like, you posted,
like, a ayah from the Quran.
Like, 3 people liked it versus a 1000000
people. You think that have the Quran diminishes
in quality just because 3 people liked it?
What if those 3 people were the likes
of Abu Bakr as Siddiq and Umar and
Uthman radiAllahu ta'ala.
When the prophet SAWSAWHAN began his mission in
in Mecca the only people who believed in
him were his wife Khadija radiAllahu anha and
a handful of people that were his family
members.
If you were sitting in the halakha of
the prophet
early in Makkah, you would see Zayd ibn
Hadithah, you would see Khadija
you would see Abu Bakr as Siddiq, and
you would see, like, you would see, like,
Ali ibn Abi thought of, like, 5 people
and there is family members. You're like, woah.
That halakha is, like, not lit at all.
Five people.
Have you been to Hartwork? It's crazy. Right?
No.
No. No. What if those 5 people were,
like, Jannah guarantees?
You would never look at those 5 people
the same ever again.
So don't do things for the sake of
showing off.
And the last subpoint
of number 9 is don't harm people and
have your deeds destroyed.
That narration I shared that was so scary
last week about a person who harmed people
in their time in their dunya, but they
did everything right Islamically. So on the day
of judgment, Allah
will slowly ask a line to form in
front of that person, and the people that
they harmed will begin to take the good
deeds away from them
because of how much they harm those people
in the dunya.
Don't allow your prayers to be diminished because
you were rude to your parents.
Don't allow your sadaqah to be,
like, no value because of the way that
you treated your friends.
Don't allow your fasting to be obsolete because
of the backbiting that we engaged in.
These things are related. Don't think that they're
completely, like,
stand alone. Oh, yeah. That's backbiting. That's all
the way over there. My fasting's in Ramadan.
That's all the way over here. No. No.
No. Allah will connect the 2.
This person fasted in the hopes that I
forgive them for what they did, but at
the same time, they continue to talk so
poorly about the people that trusted them.
It lessens the quality of something that is
supposed to be beautiful.
And the last one, number 10,
Ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for his Jannah.
Ask Allah for his Jannah.
Don't be shy of asking Allah for Jannah.
Oh Allah I ask you for your Jannah
You Allah.
A person of Jannah is a person who
feels that I I I insha Allah with
the help of Allah, I can get there.
Yeah. I may be sinful. Yeah. I may
have a lot of mistakes in my reputation.
I may have done a lot of things
wrong in my life, but I know
I know that it's not just about my
deeds. I know that it's however
many times I reach out to god
that will ultimately decide my Jannah.
There's a narration inshallah we'll end with this.
There's a narration that actually mentions subhanAllah is
powerful.
Allah
will
ask
the people of Jannah.
Are you happy?
Are you pleased?
Are you satisfied with what Jannah was supposed
to be?
And the people of Jannah will say Allah.
They can't say anything besides Allah. Yeah. Allah.
This is everything and more than we could
have ever imagined, you Allah.
And Allah will say to them, oh, people
of Jannah,
can I give you something that's even better?
And the people will say, Allah, what could
possibly be better than this?
I'm getting everything I want. I have a
palace.
I have all the friends that I could
want in my life. I have beautiful family
now. I have I have everything that I
was missing in Dunya, You Allah. Everything you
promised you gave to should I give you
something better? And he said, what could that
possibly be? And he
says, my.
And this is why, by the way, Radia
means my my my pleasure, my happiness with
you.
If Allah is pleased with you, the rest
of the world can become so small.
And that's why my favorite in the entire
Quran is the final
and they are happy with Allah. What a
mutual relationship that is. A person who is
so happy with Allah, Allah is happy with
them.
If that relationship is solid,
oh, you could go through
* on earth and you would be just
fine coming out the other side.
And so as we conclude this
amazing,
amazing
book that Ibn Raja,
he wrote for us,
we want to be people who appreciate the
journey,
and we want to be people who appreciate
the process
of what it means to be a creation
of Allah,
a servant of Allah, a submitter to Allah
That we enjoy the process of getting to
Jannah
just as much as we enjoy Jannah itself.
And when you look around and now you
see the people of
you see people in Gaza.
You make dua that oh Allah
allow me to reach the levels of iman
that they have, you Allah.
Because these are the people who they believe
so strongly in your paradise, you Allah, that
they can be
going through air strikes day after day, losing
limb after limb. But they know that these
elements of dunya, their limbs,
you know, their their houses.
Oh, this is just a molecule,
a minuscule example of what awaits them in
paradise. So
inshallah, we'll end with a dua. We ask
Allah
to allow us to
appreciate and value our journey to him. We
ask
to allow us to be people who enjoy
the journey to him. We ask Allah
to allow the journey to end in the
highest levels of paradise.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to never
ever dis allow us to never despair in
him. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
never allow us to lose hope in him.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow
us to grow stronger in our faith during
times of weakness.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow
our trials to always have wisdoms and benefits
behind them.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow
our dates our our deeds to be heavy
with quality.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow
us to be people of consistency.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow
us to be people of sincerity.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow
us to be people of true belief in
iman. And we ask Allah
that we never ever lose hope in the
reward that he has waiting for us in
the akhirah.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that whatever
small trials and tribulations that we go through
in this dunya, they are just mere means
of us getting closer to him in the
akhirah.
And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for
the past 3 months we've been trying to
get closer to him. We ask Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala to accept our efforts. And we
ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to to
delete and
absolve us of all of the mistakes that
we know that we're capable of making. And
we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to continue
to forgive us until the day that he
calls us back to him. Ameen
everybody.
Thank you so much
for being here
week after week on Thursday nights.
It's a really amazing part of my week.
I really honestly, it's a weird it's a
weird feeling.
Like, Thursdays are, like, you know, those days
where you're, like, some people go back to
school on Friday, but a lot of people
don't. But, like, Thursday for me, Wallahi, it's
the highlight of my week.
I love being here on Thursday nights with
you guys.
We are going to
pause
next Thursday,
for a couple weeks, Inshallah, because, again, like
I said,
the Kalam team, we're gonna be going to
Umrah inshallah. I'm literally actually, at this time,
I'll be probably on a flight to Turkey.
So, inshallah,
we will continue,
in a few weeks after, we we come
back from the holy cities,
with a brand new series, inshallah,
that will help us gear up and get
ready for the holy month of Ramadan, and
we can all regather for that, inshallah,
And everybody, thank you so much. I've already
taken up enough of your time. So, we'll
walk over to the to the prayer hall
for Isha, and I'll see you guys.