Safi Khan – Soul Food A Journey to Allah 11
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Alright.
We'll go ahead and get started.
Alright.
Everybody.
Everyone is doing well, trying to stay
in good spirits and good hopes inshallah.
At the end of the day, right, this
is what makes Muslims who we are is
that we
are constantly hopeful in the face of adversity,
in the face of sometimes what other people
would define as hopelessness.
Muslims are always people who show their true
colors in the times of adversity and trials
and tribulations. And so,
we continue to,
be people of hope,
people of,
Tawakkul, people of taqwa.
And this is how we find our solace
in this dunya, Right? Until obviously Allah
gives us the akhirah.
Insha'Allah, as we always have for the past
few weeks,
we will end
our session with a short dua for Philistine,
just because this is you know,
I I I had to clarify a couple
of things that I said the past few
weeks in terms of, you know,
some of the feelings that people have been
having these past 3, 4 weeks of guilt.
You know, we live in, like, a very
comfortable,
a very, you know, some could say easy.
Right? You know, life and, you know, just
the general circumstances of our lives.
And I know a lot of people may
feel super guilty because of it. I feel
guilty. I feel bad that, you know, this
is, you know, something that I'm in a
state of while people overseas in Gaza and
Palestine are going through so many difficulties in
their lives.
But I tried to turn the perspective a
little bit for people who feel that way
because
it's not about us feeling guilty because we
live,
a life here in America where, you know,
Alhamdulillah,
Allah has given us
a somewhat easier life. Right? People who live
with
food and basic necessities and, you know, peace
and tranquility
overall.
But because of that reality, we need to
understand that Allah has put us in a
position where we can peacefully
pray and make dua and give in other
ways. Right?
So, yes, shaitan can make a person feel
extremely guilty for, you know, living in America
and going through the eases that they go
through. But at the end of the day,
you know, our job as Muslims is to
make sure that we turn whatever state that
we are in towards something that Allah
will be pleased with. And that's how we
do it. Right? We live in America. And,
yes, there are eases. There are luxuries. But
at the end of the day, we use
those eases and those luxuries to do things
that perhaps Allah has put other people in
positions not not not to do. They may
not be able to do it like we
do.
And so our jobs are not just, you
know,
easy. It's it's Allah will hold us more
accountable for things that, you know, he gave
us the opportunity to do, with ease, in
our lives. So,
inshallah, we're gonna go ahead and continue on.
Today's
section
is all about
traveling
and journeying
the path to Allah. Okay?
And I say that very, very specifically because
journeying and traveling
is a very interesting
kind of, you know, situation, a very interesting
state as a Muslim.
Journeying is not easy.
Journeying always, you know, tells you a lot
about who you are. How many of y'all
have ever traveled with a a person or
a group of people and you really find
out who they are?
Sharing a room with them or sharing a
car with them or sharing a plane with
them, you realize, you know, this person's true
nature because
journeying, there's always adversity. There's always discomfort. Right?
There's actually a hadith of the prophet where
he said that,
there is a portion of punishment in journeying.
Right? That journeying or traveling is a portion
of punishment, meaning that people are away from
their comfort. People are away from things that
they consider very, very,
you know, normal for them. They are put
in a situation
where they are not necessarily the most comfortable.
They're vulnerable. Right? So journeying is something that's
interesting,
but the path of journeying to Allah
is
something that really tells a person about who
they are and their relationship with God.
You know, when a person's stationary
and they are expecting everything to come to
them,
it's one conversation.
But when a person is actively searching for
Allah in their life, it's a whole different
conversation. You're constantly out, you are journeying, you
are traveling to Allah. What does that look
like for a person? Right? So we're gonna
talk a little bit about that today inshallah.
So, ibn Rajab Rahmahullah,
he begins by quoting
a famous
pious person by the name of Khudayd al
Asari.
He said that every person who loves
desires to meet his or her beloved.
So love your Allah and travel to him
with a most beautiful journey,
neither
arduous nor lax. Okay. I'll define what arduous
means because everyone's over here like, what?
So arduous means, like, something that's extraneous, something
that's difficult. Right?
So he says that every person who has
ever loved someone
has desired to meet that beloved of theirs.
Right? Anyone who ever loved anything in their
life that always want to get closer to
that love, and this is why love is
such a
strong emotion that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has
given us. And anything that is a strong
emotion, it could either be good or it
could be terribly bad. Right? Something that is
a strong emotion could actually benefit you, and
something that's a strong emotion can terribly harm
you. Right? Extreme happiness can be very foolish
at times. Right? But happiness can lead to
some beautiful moments in life.
Extreme grief
or extreme anxiety
can harm a person greatly,
but being cautious sometimes actually can be good
for a person. Right? The opposite of, you
know, being reckless. Right? And so he says
that every person who's experienced love,
they yearn to meet their beloved. Right? And
when you look at you know, the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was always excited
to meet Allah.
And this is why, you know, when the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam died, I'm not sure
how many people know this, but when the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam died, Allah actually gave
him a choice.
Allah gave the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam a
choice whether
he
would,
want to continue living on
to, like, a great old age
or whether
he would choose
to meet Allah in the age that he
was at at that time, which was 63
when he passed away.
And the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he actually
chose to pass away that year. He chose
to meet Allah.
So any person of piety,
they've never shied away from meeting Allah. They
never shied away from journeying to Allah.
And so he says, so love your Allah,
love your Lord and travel to him with
the most beautiful journey.
A journey that is neither difficult,
it's not burdensome on you,
nor is it just chill and laid back.
Because a person who wants to meet someone
that they love,
they're not just gonna take forever. I want
you guys to think about this. I want
you to think about a moment in your
life where you
have been very excited to meet somebody that
you care about very deeply. Right? A friend,
a family member, they were coming into town
or, you know, you were going out of
town to visit them. Most likely, you,
were not just kind of, like, chilling and
laying back. Right? You wanted to meet them
as soon as you could.
Especially if you have a friend that may
live, you know, elsewhere and they're coming in
to visit you and you wanna go pick
them up from the airport and the minute
that they land, you wanna be there. You're
not gonna wait till they text you that
they landed. You're gonna watch that that that
that airline, you know, number,
that flight number, and you're gonna gonna track
it, and you wanna go and meet them
there. So you're not lax about it. You're
excited about it. You're doing things to get
ready for it without having to be asked.
It's always the case that people who wait
around for that person to text them that
they landed, most likely you're not excited to
pick that person up from the airport. You
just have to do it. Right? But a
person who you're extremely excited to meet, you're
already gonna be there. You're gonna be there
ready for them before they even walk out.
It's like Muslim family members who say bye
to their families at the airport. They don't
leave until you're past TSA. Right? You're, like,
at the gate. You're chilling. Your mom's still
there just waving at you. Like, how am
I gonna stay here? The the plane is
still 40 minutes away. So, you know, this
is the behavior of a person
who is excited to meet their beloved,
nor are is it is it arduous. It's
not difficult.
And by the way, the word difficult,
it is actually a subjective word. Why do
I say that? Anyone know why? Why is
difficult something that is defined by the individual
and not by a general
definition?
Why?
Anyone having a thought about this? Yes?
Beautiful.
What's hard for me may not be hard
for you. Right?
Because a person decides whether something is difficult
for them or not. Right? And I'll use
the same example. If you're going to meet
someone that you love
and you have to take time away from
work,
you have to pump gas in your car,
the airport's not close by, You have to
make sure that, like, you know, you go
through that crazy, turbulent, you know,
airports, you know, traffic and park your car,
get yelled up by that traffic that that
that traffic, you know, officer that's always telling
you to move your car. I mean, it's
not easy,
but it's not difficult for you because the
love for the one that you love
is greater than any sort of inconvenience that
you can go through. So it's not burdensome
for you. It's not something that you would
consider an inconvenience.
It's only an inconvenience
when a person
is doing something
for somebody that they don't truly love.
Right? Like if I'm doing somebody a favor
that I don't really care about, yes, I
can find every sort of inconvenience about it.
But if I'm doing a favor for a
person that I truly care about,
never will I ever define that as a
difficulty for me.
Today, when I went home,
in between tonight's class and from work earlier,
my daughter woke up from her nap around
5 o'clock
and I was reading through my text for
soul food tonight.
I was also answering some phone calls.
I was answering some emails,
and my daughter woke up. My wife was
taking a shower
and I decided to make her milk bottle,
warm up, get it ready, but I was
also, like, on my iPad just reading through.
And
because of my excitement to see my child,
I had no issue with it. I had
no problem with it. If I was making
a bottle for some random person,
like, having to wake them up from a
nap and like, feeding them and be like,
oh my God. Like, can't they tell that
I'm busy? I'm doing so many things right
now. I'm multitasking, etcetera.
So it proves that when you love somebody,
when you have a beloved in your life,
the things that the generic
human would find difficult
is no longer difficult for you. Right? And
that's what he's saying the journey to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is.
And so he says,
this journey will take the believer to his
Lord and whoever does not know the path
to his Lord
will not traverse it. And there is no
difference between such a person and an animal.
And so the second thing he brings up
is knowing the path to get to your
Allah.
How do you get to Allah? And he
says a person who doesn't know that path
to get to Allah
will
be lost almost like an animal. And one
of the scholars of this,
particular, you know, this text that he gives
a commentary about it. He says, that even
animals have a purpose.
But a person who doesn't know the pathway
nor do they care about the pathway to
Allah, they're even lesser than animals. Because animals
don't do just do anything randomly. Animals are
actually very purposeful.
So this person's reduced to even lower than
an animal.
So one must know the path to Allah
and in fact,
I'll even share this with you guys.
If a person cares and loves about a
person so much,
but they do not know how to get
to them, It is actually painful for that
person.
Right? And I want you guys I mean,
subhanAllah. Let's talk about just pure context right
now.
There are family members in Gaza
who have been cut off from
connection of the internet,
from phone lines,
from any form of communication.
And their family members who live around the
world, some in America,
they are dying
to get any update from their beloved.
They want an update.
They want something. They want some sort of
statement, some sort of message that you're still
there.
But not knowing how to get to them,
having those lines of communication cut off from
you, it's one of the greatest forms of
torture that one can think about.
Because I know there's a possibility of you
being there. You're there. I know you're there.
I know you're there.
I know that if I reached you,
me and you would have this amazing conversation.
You and I would be speaking right now,
but I don't know how to get to
you.
I don't know how to reach you.
I don't know how to communicate with you.
And that is something the example of Gaza
is something that's being forced upon people. Now
imagine a person who does that to themselves.
You would ask yourself the question, do you
even love that person really?
If you love them so much that you
wanna reach out to them, how could you
not know how to reach out to them?
That tells you a little bit about the
love itself.
And so he says
that there was a famous
scholar,
a pious man by the name of Vol
Nun.
He said that the lowly, the people who
are the lowest
are those who do not know the path
to their lord
nor do they seek to know it
nor do they care about it. And so
he gives us like a hierarchy. If you
wanna know where you fall with Allah,
check out this chart right here. And the
chart is the highest, the person who is
the closest to Allah
is the person
who knows the path to Allah
and they're willing to travel that path.
They know how to get there. They know
the path to Allah is through the things
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala loves. Their salah,
their dua, their zikr. They know these things.
And so
they know these things.
And so they know them, they have the
knowledge of it, and they're also willing to
act by that knowledge. You guys understand that?
There's a difference of just knowing something
versus acting on that knowledge. In fact, Imam
Al Ghazali
he says that
knowledge
without action. Right? Having one without the other.
Knowledge without action
is
insanity.
That a person who has the knowledge but
they don't act by that knowledge, they're insane.
And
a person who acts
without knowledge,
that person,
he says, it's vanity.
It's vain. That person thinks that they can
just act and do whatever they want, but
they had they don't know anything that they're
actually doing. They're just doing things. It's like
the joker. Right? When you look at the
movies and you look at, you know, the
the that character,
he just says, like, I never have a
plan. I just do things.
So a person who just does things without
a plan, without knowledge,
that person's vain.
They're just doing things because they think that
they can.
So the highest level of a believer is
a person
who knows Allah
and they know how to reach him, and
they are willing to act by it.
The second layer, the second level, there are
4 levels. The second level is a person
who
they
travel,
but
they
don't know the path.
They want to travel, but they don't know
the path.
They want Allah, they know Allah is there,
but they don't necessarily know the path to
get to him yet. Think about like a
new Muslim. Right? You all ever seen new
Muslims in your life? I mean, it is
one of the most inspirational things.
I mean, they talk about God as though
they've been waiting for him their entire life.
Subhan Allah. Right? When people accept Islam, they
say like, I feel like I've always been
Muslim.
I feel like I've always felt this in
my heart. I just didn't know how to
get there. I just didn't know how to
reach Allah.
So if a person has that desire, they
have that Iradah,
they know they want to get to Allah,
what's gonna happen in due time?
What are they gonna find out? They're gonna
find out the way to get to Allah.
Think about it guys. A person who truly
loves somebody, you know, that that statement, if
there's a will, there's a way. Do you
guys believe in that statement?
Oh, I 100% believe in that statement. I've
seen some people do some incredible things because
they have, like, that desire in their heart.
Right? No. I can't. I can't. I can't
do this. I can't do that. The minute
they really want to, all of a sudden
they're able to find the means of doing
it.
I talked to somebody,
like, in my life one time where they
were like, yeah. I know. I just can't
I just can't pass this. I can't I
can't get a higher GPA than this. I
just can't do it. Half of y'all feel
this person's qualms. Right? You're like, yes. Who
is this person? May Allah
give them in their life. Right? Right? No.
This person was talking to me that I
just can't. I just I I don't have
the ability to do it. Then I said,
no. No. I don't believe that. I just
don't believe that you found your your your
true desire for it. You have to find
the reason why. I'm gonna make a little
joke here. It's not a joke because this
is his life so I can't make a
joke about his life. But
sooner,
after that conversation,
got engaged.
And he was graduating in about, like, a
year and a half,
and his parents told him that we don't
want you to get married right now in
college because this is gonna distract you from
your studies. Welcome to Desi 101. Okay?
This is gonna distract you from your studies,
and this guy,
he turned on the burners.
Oh, this guy grinded through all his classes,
nailed every exam.
He graduated with a 4 point o GPA.
You know what he had two and a
half years before? He had a 2.7.
And so when I looked at him and
I actually went to his graduation, by the
way. I went to his graduation, his college
graduation, and I said, what happened to you?
And he goes,
Allah gave me inspiration.
His his wife and his fiancee was sitting
in the crowd. I'm not sure how they
got married, like, soon after he graduated. I
said, look how Allah turned people's hearts.
You think you can't do it. You think
you can't do it. You think you can't
do it and all of a sudden Allah
gives you a little motivation and you find
that you have potential that you never thought
was there in the first place.
Right? So they travel, but they don't know
the path.
The 3rd level
of a of a believer
is a person
who
they know the path,
but they do not travel.
They know the path, but they do not
travel.
They know the path to Allah.
They know how to get to him.
They know what salah is. They know what
dhikr is. They know what dua is,
But they just they're just too lazy to
travel to Allah.
They want Allah to do all the work.
They want Allah to come to them. They
don't wanna go to Allah.
And this is the example of a person
who claims to love somebody
but
And they know how to pick up the
phone and call them. They have their number.
They have their lines of communication,
but they refuse to pick up and call.
They know, you know, if if they moved
out of their parents' home,
they know their mother's numbers. They know their
father's number.
They claim to love their parents, but they
never ever pick up the phone and call.
And so this is the 3rd.
This is the second to lowest
and there's only one lower than this and
he says,
the 4th and the final level, the lowest
and the furthest away from Allah is a
person who does not know the path
nor does he travel and nor does he
care.
They have completely cut themselves off from Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Even a person who somewhat
knows the path to Allah, but they're too
lazy to travel it, insha'Allah insha'Allah when Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gives them guidance, they will
know the pathway to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And so now,
he continues
and he says
that the path to Allah is to journey
through his straight path
with which he sent his messenger and for
which he revealed his Quran.
It is the path that he commanded the
whole of creation to traverse upon,
and he gives a famous statement of Abdullah
ibn Mas'ud
where he said
that the path that the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam left us on,
one end of it is where he left
us and the other end of it was
Jannah.
So the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he began
our journey to paradise. I want you guys
to think about that. That's a heavy statement.
The prophet, sallallahu alaihi
wasallam,
he gave you
a path in life where one side of
it is on one end and the other
side is Jannah. All you have to do
is walk.
All you have to do is walk. It's
not like the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he
left you on one highway in the middle
of nowhere and the path to Jannah is
a highway across the country.
It's like the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, he
left you on one side of the highway
and if you just continue to go down
that highway without making any turns away from
it, you would end up in paradise, Abdullah
ibn Mas'ud says.
So he says to its right and left
are paths branching off and withstand people summoning
those who pass by them. Whoever takes to
those paths will end up in a punishment,
but the one who remains on that path
will end up in paradise.
There's a very amazing, I want you guys
to follow this hadith. It's so incredible. You
guys look this up inshallah later in your
own time and read through it. It's a
hadith in Timothy,
where the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam he says,
Allah he gives us a example of the
journey to him through a very beautiful parable.
A parable is an example.
He says,
there is a road that leads straight to
the destination.
Okay?
A road that leads straight. I want you
guys to almost be able to close your
eyes and picture this hadith in your head.
Because the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, by
the way, used to teach in such a
way that people used to almost be able
to close their eyes and imagine the teaching
coming to life right in front of them.
So he says that Allah has set forth
the following as a parable as an example,
that there is a road that leads straight
to the destination. It's a straight road. It
doesn't it doesn't have any curves. It doesn't
have any, you know you know, drop offs,
or it doesn't have anything too difficult. It's
just a straight road.
But he says on either side of the
road,
there is a wall
in which there are open doors with curtains
hanging on them. So is everyone being able
to picture this? So an empty road,
and on each side,
there are open doors,
but there are curtains over those doors. So
you can't really see straight through those doors
on the side because there's curtains veiling what's
through those doors, but you know that there's
something there.
And he says, from the end of the
road, a voice calls to a believer.
The voice says,
proceed straight
and don't turn to your left and to
your right.
And he says that whenever someone intends to
lift a curtain from the door,
another voice calls from above,
and it says,
oh, believer, be wary.
Do not lift that curtain. Otherwise, you will
be lured inside.
You're going to walk through, so don't even
lift that curtain up.
And the prophet he said to his companions,
do you want to know what this example
is?
He said
that the straight path
that straight path that I was talking about,
that road, that is your deen.
That's your faith.
You're walking on it. You are living your
faith. You're living your deen.
That's why, by the way, if anyone's ever
read certain parts of the Quran where Allah
says, you know, the word deen,
the word deen is not just your religion.
It's a way of life. It's a lens
through which you see your life. Right?
And everything you do in your life, a
person, a true Muslim is always conscious of
what their religion says about it, whether it's
a job or a friend,
a family member, whatever it may be, an
issue, a conflict in their life, they always
look at Islam to see what Islam says
about it.
And so he says that that road is
Islam.
The walls
on each side
are the limits that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
places upon a believer.
You don't go past that wall.
As a believer, Allah put those walls there
to protect you. Y'all ever went bowling before?
Y'all know those people that bowl with the
safety light let the the safety guards on?
They ruin your entire hangout. I'm just kidding.
We had a lot of rewards, you guys.
Go go bowling with the safety guards on.
You know? And think about it. How much
harder is it to bowl without those guards
up?
Right? You're with your friends. You're like, yes.
The score is at the end of 12
rounds,
2
to 6. Right? Like, no one's going anywhere.
Right? Because every time you try to bowl,
the ball goes into the gutter. The ball
goes into the gutter. The ball goes into
the gutter.
Allah has put in front of everyone
these
barriers
just because Allah does not want to see
you go straight off the edge.
He puts, like, a safety guard up for
you,
and those safety guards are
you knowing that certain things in this life
are just not supposed to be done.
There are certain harms that Allah has taught
you about, the messengers taught you about that
you don't wanna go near.
And so he says that those are the
limits
beyond which you do not go.
And he says those open doors
are the things that Allah
has prohibited for you.
Like, those open doors Allah has prohibited for
you.
Why are those the the why why are
those doors there? Because a person may ask,
well, if Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala doesn't want
me to traverse those boundaries,
why would he put open doors there for
me?
He put those open doors there because he
has
he has conviction
in you as a believer that you he
your love for him will actually disallow you
from going near them.
He knows it.
Because if everything in this life was perfect,
like, you don't have any temptations, then what
would be the point? What would be the
point of this dunya? You know, people ask
all the time by the way. People who
don't believe in Allah, they ask like, if
there truly is a god and god is
good,
why does god put so much
evil in this world? Well, if there was
no evil in this world, wouldn't we already
be in Jannah?
Have you guys ever thought about that? Wouldn't
you already be in paradise?
If there was no evil in this world,
there was nothing for you to stay away
from, wouldn't you already be in Jannah? What
would there be to look forward to?
If there was no poverty,
if there was no hunger, if there was
no tyranny, if there was none of that
in this dunya,
you would already be in Jannah, and it
would never give a true good doer the
opportunity to do good.
Think about it. Even crises I want you
guys to think about it. Even crises in
life
give people the opportunity
to show their goodness,
to show what they're made of.
And I want you to think about it
in your own personal life. If Allah had
not allowed you to go through some of
your most lowest moments, would you have made
some of your most beautiful dua?
If Allah did not put you through some
of the most difficult trials in your life,
would you have made some of the most
beautiful duas in your life?
Perhaps those trials were the opening of the
doors of your dua.
Perhaps if Allah gave you ease the entire
time, you would have never reached out to
him.
If Allah gave you that easy, luxurious
path that is so smooth and no trouble
upon it, you would have never ever spoken
to Allah, but it's because of those difficulties
you spoke to Allah.
Think about how many people are earning their
agenda right now in Gaza.
It's a great prime example.
We hate what's going on over there. We're
just we're sickened by it, but think about
how much
you know, somebody posted something earlier this week
that was really inspired by The pathway to
Jannah right now is crowded. The pathway to
Jannah right now is so crowded, SubhanAllah.
There are so many people bumping into each
other right now trying to get to the
gates of paradise right now
because Allah put people through trials and tribulations
that are earning these people their Jannah right
now. And he says,
the voice which calls from the end of
the road,
that voice is the Quran and the Sunnah
of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. What voice
is that? The voice that said
proceed straight and do not turn left or
right.
That voice is the Quran and the the
sunnah of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Every time you wanna take a left turn
or a right turn,
you go back to what the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam did and you say, no.
No. No. Okay. The prophet didn't turn left
or right. He kept straight.
He kept going.
And then he says
that the voice which calls from above
is Allah's
monitor in the heart of every believer.
So when a person
gets too close to a curtain
and they wanna lift that curtain to see
what's through that door,
he says that the voice that talks to
you is your actually your own voice. It's
the voice that Allah
gave within you.
The voice within you that always tries to
tell you stay up on the right path.
This is your nafs.
The nafs within you that feels bad every
time it goes away from Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. Y'all ever, you know, misfajor one day
and you woke up and you felt extremely
bad?
That's good. That's a good feeling.
We need to rewrite that narrative about how
people
automatically
define guilt as a horrible feeling.
Guilt is not a horrible feeling. Guilt is
only bad when it actually causes more harm.
If guilt causes good, that guilt was actually
not innately bad.
What if the guilt of you missing Fajr
was actually what caused you to pray the
other 4 prayers of that day?
What if that guilt allowed you to pray
those 4 prayers?
So guilt is not always bad. Okay?
And then he gives you this beautiful ayah.
I want you guys to really really this
is man subhanAllah this is so deep when
I was reading it. So Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala he says in Surat An Aram he
says
Allah says
verily
this is my straight path
This is my straight path Allah talks about.
He says, this is my path. You're walking
on my path. You're walking on the path
of Allah. I want you guys to really
think about that statement.
Every Muslim
that tries their best to stay close to
Allah, you're traversing a path that Allah
has made for you. That's special.
And he says,
so travel on it.
Allah gave you this route.
It's like a person who built you a
road so that you wouldn't have to drive
on gravel.
And imagine the person who is so naive
and so ignorant that they say, I see
that smooth route, but you know what? I'm
just gonna go ahead and kill my wheels
real quick.
So Allah says, I made you this road.
It's my road.
It's my road.
So travel
on
it.
He says,
and don't go any other way
lest you be parted from
my way.
Don't go any other way because you don't
wanna go away from me.
Allah is asking you to stay with him,
and
I want you guys to think about something
really incredible.
I wrote down here, how many of y'all
have ever how many of you guys are
like GPS Reliance?
Y'all have no idea how to get from
point a to point b. This is.
This generation I'm just kidding. This is also,
you know,
Right? Like, my wife also said the same
thing. My wife, I'm like, you know, we
live 5 minutes from a Kroger and even
though that even with that, she turns her
GPS on. I love her.
But I'm like I told her. I'm like
I'm like, you know, you can just you've
gone to that Kroger, like, 80 times so
far. You surely, you know how to get
there. And she's like, just don't do this
to me right now. Okay? I just need
my GPS. Okay? You're like it's like almost
like she just just wanna, like, just entertain
the conversation.
So I want you guys to think about
this aya this way,
where
when a person puts in that
kind of end
goal on their GPS, on their maps,
they have their destination that they try to
reach.
And that road that they're traveling upon is
the Sirat of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And
during that time, sometimes you'll miss a turn.
Right? And these are the mistakes that you
make in life, your regular mistakes you make.
You'll make a mistake and because of that,
you'll divert away from the path of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, but guess what that map
does for you?
It reroutes you right back. You all ever
seen that? It reroutes you right back. You
know, when you when you mess up once,
you mess up twice,
your app will automatically just tell you to
make that u-turn right back to that original
road that you were on. Right? And you
just gotta get back onto that main road.
But a person
who diverts so much, right, and this is
where Allah says,
But when a person diverts so much,
they're not just like making small mistakes anymore
just like every other human being does. They
are now making mistakes so great
that now their map thinks that the new
route that they constantly take is actually their
original route.
And so that person no longer remembers the
route of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala anymore.
They're so far away from
it. They're so used to leaving it.
They have
traversed away from it so often that they
forgot what their original route even was. They
forgot where they were going.
In the beginning, I thought I was supposed
to go to that grocery store, but I
kept on getting distracted so often that 10
minutes down the line, I actually don't even
remember what what I left the house for
anymore.
So don't allow your hearts
to ever deviate so much to the point
where now your internal map thinks that the
route that you always take is the route
that's supposed to be normal.
Rather, the route that Allah laid out for
you is a route that and it's almost
like, you know, I always give this analogy.
It's almost like a rubber band.
Right? A person who truly loves Allah, no
matter how much you stretch that rubber band,
it will always go right back to its
shape.
But a person who has lost the memory
of Allah
in their heart, it's like that rubber band
that snaps.
Once that rubber band snaps, it will no
longer go back in place ever again. And
this is why, by the way, there's a
very famous dua.
A very famous dua. I want you guys
to all just kinda think about this dua.
This dua,
Allah in the Quran, he says,
You ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala he says
he
tells the believers to say, oh, our lord,
Do not allow our hearts to
to,
like,
bend, curve away
After you have guided us.
You know? And and it's incredible. You also
wanna say, like, a really interesting fact here.
The word zara. Right? That word that's used
in that dua. They used to call Azair
back in the day like in olden times.
Azair was a person who used to actually
dig graves.
I want you guys to think about before
technology, a lot of people, like, dig graves
the way that we do nowadays. A person
back in the day when they would dig
graves, like, they would basically go into that
grave and dig far in, and they would
come out. And what what do they see?
It's not like a it's not like a
solid it's like super, like, messed up because
they were in it. They couldn't see it
from the top down. They were actually in
it digging. So they used to call Umza'il.
So when you make this dua,
you're basically asking Allah to never allow your
heart to, like, move away from him gradually.
Because people don't lose Allah overnight, guys. I
don't I just I fundamentally
do not believe that this can happen. I
do not believe that overnight a person from
knowing Allah
the night before the next night, they've completely
forget Allah.
Like, our hearts are not built to do
stuff like that.
What does happen though is that a person
who loses Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, they lose
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala little by little, day
by day, hour by hour.
They a person they pray 5 times a
day, and then they start missing some of
their salawat.
They miss their Isha.
And then after a while, that Isha does
not seem that big of a deal to
them, so now their Maghrib is a little
bit kind of like in question.
Then after a while, they lose their maghrib
and then they're yearning to go to the
masjid once every couple of days has completely
left their heart. They don't wanna do it
anymore.
And I want you guys to think about
your own personal life and I and I
I reflect back in my own life about
this Allah by the way. I think to
myself, like, the the moments in my life
where I used to, like,
slowly lose
the will and the desire to go to
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, whether it was like
the masjid or my own personal
my own personal worship.
I remember by the end of that week,
I I didn't feel like doing anything.
I didn't feel like doing anything.
But the weeks where I was good with
Allah,
I felt like
everything else in my life clicked.
Like, my studies clicked. My relationship with my
family clicked.
My my my friend circles were all like,
like, we were good.
It was always those times where I started
to stray away from Allah, where I felt
like the rest of my life began to
crumble as well.
So this dua,
it's so important. Why? Because
you understand that your heart does not just
go away from Allah
overnight.
Shaitan tries to tell you that it's not
a big deal.
Oh, yeah. Who cares, man? Like, it's just
Isha. It's just one Isha. Who cares?
But that one Isha turns into
another Maghrib.
That other turns into another.
The other the other turns into 1.
And all of a sudden, like,
a person who used to pray so often,
a person who used to talk to Allah
so often, they don't even care anymore. Go
back to what we talked about.
They not only
they knew the path at one point,
but they didn't want a journey and now
that person doesn't even know the path anymore.
May
Allah protect us. I mean
so this last part here, Insha'Allah, I'll share
this with you guys.
This last part here is a very very
powerful reminder from Ibn Qayyim Rahimullah.
So Ibn Qayyim here he says
that we will expound upon the straight path
in a succinct manner for the people
have explained it in various ways, all of
them revolving around this one essential truth.
The salat
and the path to Allah,
which he has put in place to lead
mankind to him, there's no path to him
other than this one which he appointed upon
the tongues of his messengers.
It is a single is single it
is to single him out alone for worship
and to single out his messengers alone for
obedience.
Therefore, none should commit shirk in his worship
just as none should commit shirk in following
the messenger sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
One should purify their tawhid, their oneness of
Allah, and purify his falling of the messenger.
One thing I wanna say say here, by
the way, this is so important here.
A person cannot have La ilaha illallah without
having Muhammad Rasoolallah.
This is not possible.
You know, we live in a very dangerous
time
where people speak these lofty words,
and they don't realize the heaviness of what
they're saying.
We're all the same.
Oh, we all believe in the same God.
And the reality is that that is actually
a very dangerous statement to make.
We do not all believe in the same
thing. Absolutely not. Because a person who claims
that we're all the same, they're saying that
you also testify to Ashadu Anand Muhammad Rasoolallahu.
Because anytime a person loses what their deen
is, all they have to do is go
back to the prophet and remind themselves, hey,
this is what this person did.
This was the closest person to Allah.
So when the closest person to Allah does
something some way, I know if I try
to just remotely
remotely
emulate what that was, I will be somewhere
in the ballpark. Y'all ever tried to follow
the sunnah of the prophet had no idea
what you were doing?
You're just doing it? But I can guarantee
you one thing though. I can guarantee you
after you did it, you felt good though.
You're like,
hey. No idea what that dua just meant,
but I nailed it. Right?
I had no idea what fast I just
fasted, but I know the prophet used to
do it, so
I'm good.
It's like knowing that a person who just,
like, did it so well, if you just
copy them I'm gonna give you a horrible
example here, but please follow me. It's all
I don't condone I don't condone cheating. If
but if a person, like, cheats off of
a person in a classroom
and they know that that person
is, like, the smartest person ever,
They do everything right, and I have no
idea what I'm doing. If I just follow
what that person does, I know that I'll
get somewhere in the ballpark.
This is the example of a person who
decides to follow the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam.
You know what? I may not be a
great Muslim. I may not even be a
good Muslim.
I may just be Muslim.
But I try my hardest at every given
point
to copy what the prophet did.
You know the companions by the way, radiAllahu
anhu? They used to say this. Sometimes people
would come up to them they would be
like, you Umar, you Abu Bakr,
Yeah, Ali. Why do you do that?
Why are you doing it this way? And
they'd be like, man, I just saw the
prophet do it one time. That's it. And
they're like, don't you wanna know why he
did it like that? And they're like, we
just knew that man was close to Allah.
So if we do this, we're alright.
How incredible.
How incredible of a mentality.
And he says
that
this is the full import of the
that All of the various explanations give to
the straight path fall under these two principles.
You must love him with all your heart,
and you must try to please him to
the utmost of your ability.
There should not be any area of your
heart except that is overflowing with love of
and you should have no desire except to
please him. The first point is to realize
through actual actualizing,
none has the right of worship to be
to be worship other than Allah. And the
second point is realized through the actualization of
Muhammad is a Messenger of Allah. This guidance
is and the real this guidance is is
is this is guidance and the religion of
truth and this is knowing the truth and
acting upon it. This in turn is knowing
what he sent his messenger with living by
its all definitions revolve around this essential concept.
Sahil ibn Abdullah said, right here at the
very bottom, he says that Sahil ibn Abdullah
said, stick to the narrations and the sunnah
for I fear that a time will come
on the prophet
and the importance of following him in every
and and everything is mentioned,
the people would censure the person who says
this
cause and cause others to flee from him,
disassociate themselves from him, humiliate him, and disgrace
him.
Basically, what he's talking about here is that
there will come a time where people will
actually ridicule those who try to follow the
prophet, sallallahu alaihi, sallam.
There will come a time where people will
start being like, oh, you're just doing that
because he did it and you have no
idea why he did it. He said that
there will come a time where people ridicule
that, But know that those who are closest
to Allah, they follow the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam because they know that the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam was close to Allah. And if
you have if you have any desire in
your heart to be close to Allah, you
wanna be close to the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
And this is why we'll end with this
inshallah, this ayah right here.
Allah he says in a very particular ayah,
I want you guys to kind of maybe
look this up in your free time. In
Surat Al Ahab,
Allah he says
He says that in the life of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, we've given you
a tremendous
example.
A tremendous example,
a beautiful pattern.
And, obviously, the person who wants to know
who this example is for, they read the
next part of it.
For anyone whose hopes are in Allah and
in the hereafter.
And those who remember Allah often. And I
want you guys to think about this one
point here today to end today's session
That those who want to grow close to
Allah,
all they have to ask themselves is,
are my hopes with him?
Are my hopes with Allah and in the
hereafter?
Because people whose hopes are ultimately in this
dunya will never be satisfied with Allah Subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
They will never be satisfied with what Allah
can do for their life
because their end is right here.
And when you look at people in Palestine
right now who are being
harmed
and abused,
why do you think that Allah will never
ever ultimately allow them to lose?
Because their hopes are not here.
How do you destroy a people
who literally
when you threaten them, they say,
You all seen those videos this past couple
weeks?
These people
moments before they are
harmed, moments before they are killed
they say La ilaha illallah Muhammad Rasoolallah
they say
They say Alhamdulillah.
How is that possible?
Because a normal human being, when they are
going through such tremendous harm, they are not
thinking anything close to gratitude of God.
They're in fact thinking the other, the opposite.
Why me?
How could this happen to me? I pray.
I give charity.
I fast in Ramadan. Why would Allah allow
me to go through with
it? Why would Allah allow me to go
through this?
But you look at the people of Palestine,
and I'll tell you
why. Because
Their hopes are with Allah and the hereafter.
They're not afraid of it, man.
They will not be broken by people's threats
of this dunya. You take away my home
in this dunya, Allah will give me a
palace next life.
You take away, like, my sanity, my peace
in this dunya, Allah will give me eternal
tranquility in the hereafter.
Go ahead. Try your worst.
How do you destroy people like that?
The people that are
easily harmed
are the people who think that this dunya
is their end all be all.
And when you destroy their world,
the rest of them is also destroyed.
But when you destroy
the the the world of people that actually
believe in the afterlife,
they know that you just kind of like
ruined some of it. That's not all of
it though.
That's not all of it. And that's why
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he says in the
Quran
that never ever say that the people who
were destroyed
or harmed or killed in the path of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, the martyrs,
never ever say
that they're dead.
Rather they are alive.
They're alive y'all.
They're flying.
They're soaring.
The ones who are actually
dead inside, Allah he describes them.
These people,
they have physical hearts that are beating.
They have physical ears that hear.
They have physical eyes that see, but they
are absolutely
dead inside.
They're not human beings.
So Islam gives you this incredible
ability
to rewrite what perspective actually is.
What you see is not always what the
end is.
That those who are close to Allah and
their hopes and dreams are with Allah, they
will never ever be destroyed ever.
Because you can take away a person's house
in this dunya, but you will never be
able to take away their house in the
hereafter next to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
And that is what our ultimate hopes are,
is that we ultimately want to be with
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in the hereafter.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to make
us of the people of Iman.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to make
us of the people who
our hopes are with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and in the hereafter.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to make
us of the people
who are not destroyed. We are not distraught
by the trials and tribulations of this life.
We ask
Allah to give the people of Gaza relief.
We ask Allah
to give the people of Gaza
freedom from this occupation. We ask
Allah to give them the highest levels of
Jannah for their
sacrifices. We ask Allah
to give them relief from their trials. We
ask
Allah to reward every parent who has lost
their child with ultimate rewards in paradise with
those same children. And we ask Allah
that he grants us the same iman that
he has given the people of Gaza. And
we ask Allah
to allow us to be united with those
inspirational Muslims in the hereafter.
Everybody. Thank you so much for being here
tonight. Inshallah, we'll continue on our,
series next,
Thursday.
And next Thursday's
topic, by the way, if anyone's curious,
is
how a person oh, this is gonna hit
deep.
Next Thursday session is going to be how
a person's end
will ultimately decide their fate in the hereafter
inshallah. So we all hear about
there's also a hadith that says
that a person's,
deeds are depending upon their ending inshallah. So
we'll talk about that next Thursday.
Everybody. Thank you so much.