Safi Khan – Soul Food for College Students 31 July 2020
AI: Summary ©
The radio show discusses the importance of forgiveness and how it can ease anxiety around loss. They emphasize the importance of forgiveness and how it can be reconciled with the idea of forgiveness. The speakers emphasize the need to not limit our understanding of Allah's program and the importance of purifying things to make them 33% clean. They also discuss the benefits of purification of the soul and how it can be purified. They emphasize the importance of understanding the meaning of Islam and how people appreciate ease and luxury, and how they use actions to make themselves empowered and content with their past experiences. They also discuss their experiences with desperation and feeling hurt from walking and doing things, and encourage others to make themselves desperate and let them be vulnerable for a few more minutes.
AI: Summary ©
Assalamu alaikum
wa rakatuhu everyone.
We're live now,
here on
Instagram and on Facebook,
for a very, very, you know, short sweet
edition of soul food with myself
and awaiting
to obviously, hop on at this live stream
on Instagram.
Today,
obviously, is the 9th of
a a a day in which there is
immense blessing, immense,
power,
that that that actually Allah has has given
here where,
we get, the ability, the potential to have
our sins,
erased for the previous year and the year
coming forward. And, we're joined here by Salafakamah.
And,
we are really, really grateful to be, to
be able to be here together
again for the final final session before the
day of Eid, actually. It's kinda feels surreal.
It feels like we just celebrated Eid,
a few weeks ago, but I think that's
the coronavirus pandemic. He I just closed and,
so we we're really happy to be here
with you guys and to share just a
quick little personal session of soul food today.
We didn't really wanna make today too much
of a class. We didn't wanna make too
much of a,
almost like a structured educational, like, you know,
reflection that we usually do, But more of
a personal conversation that we wanted to have
with everybody in relation to the day of
Arafat. I know everyone today has that goal
of having their sins forgiven. We want to
be forgiven today.
There are a couple of days, you know,
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
his wife used to say that there are
a few days that are a few things
that the Prophet
would never ever neglect.
And one of the things was that he
would never neglect the fasting on the day
of Arafah. He will always fast on the
day of Arafah. Because, you know, logically, theoretically,
if you think about it, if a person
passed on the day of for their entire
life,
they and they do it properly and sincerely,
they will have every single year of their
life for you. Right? And, like, if you
really think about it, it's an incredible thing
to think about.
And so
the first thing we wanna kinda talk a
little bit about is, you know, a very
big question that a lot of Muslims have
in their head when it comes to, you
know, being forgiven or the idea of forgiveness.
Is that does Allah really forgive me? Right?
How can I get over my own mental
state of not forgiving myself
and not attributing it to Allah's forgiveness? Right?
So we have waslambhaqsa Muhamdulillah.
And so waslambhaqsa Muhamdulillah. One of the things
I wanted to kind of ask you,
as we go back and forth in this
conversation
is,
how do we reconcile
the idea of Allah being the all forgiving?
Right? We know Allah is Rashidun. He is
the Akhoor. He is Raheem. He's all these
different names. But
what do you do? Right? If I if
I made dua, say, for example, I'm back
with you on the day of and I
reach my hand up to Allah.
So, yeah, Allah forgive me. I've committed so
many mis mistakes. In short, I have so
many shortcomings.
How do I, myself as a person,
feel that Allah has forgiven me after I
ask? Because I know for a fact that
that's on a lot of people's minds that
after they make dua, like, it's almost like
I don't feel any different. Right? Like, I
I should feel different because it's the miraculous
day. So some thoughts on what kind of
I I wonder if you could share some
thoughts on how do you feel like you
have been forgiven or how do you start
to kind of talk, you know, tell yourself
that, Alhamdulillah, I I feel like I'm on
the right track of forgiveness after I ask
Allah for forgiveness on this blessed day? That's
a very good question. You know, a lot
of times what happens is that we kind
of limit a lost and I talk about
this a lot. We limit a lost client's
ability to what we understand,
or what we think. So we think that,
okay. There is no way if I did
this egregious thing to someone
like, say, someone told me don't ever step
on my front lawn, and I decide to
run, you know, and do back flips on
that front lawn yarn
a lawn, we'll be like, I would never
forget forgive that person. Like, I gave you
one thing to stay away from, and you
decided to do that one thing. You know?
You would, you know, you would treat people
a little bit like you should know better.
Why are you confused in making this mistake?
And then say somebody decides to you know,
they say, sorry. My bad. I'll never come
along again.
I'm I'm so sorry. Brings you cookies. Nice.
And then they come back. They do the
same thing. Instead, they bring their, like, whole
tractor this time. You're not asking them. You're
like, man. Okay. I learned my lesson with
this guy. Like, you know, fool me once,
shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on
me. Now the thing that we learn about
Allah
is that Allah is not limited to our
capability.
So we do not limit what Allah is
gonna do. When Allah
tells us that, hey. I will forgive
you for your sins, or I'll forgive you
for doing this, or I give you these
so many opportunities. Like, we have Ramadan. If
Ramadan is not enough, Allah then gives you
the last 10 days. If the last 10
days is not enough, then Allah gives you
the day of labor to cover. If that's
not enough, we only have the 10 days
of.
If that's not enough, we have the day
of. If that's not enough, you have. If
that's not enough, you have your Mondays and
your Thursdays. You know? You have you have
so many opportunities for lost somebody to give
for the business
so that it can ease their anxiety of
us thinking that God is not gonna forgive
us. You know? That what we have to
do is realize that sometimes when we go
through this journey, we're asking the lost one
for forgiveness and all these things, and we
don't necessarily feel like the lost one for
has forgiven us. It may be because we
haven't forgiven
ourselves. Maybe it's something that we did that
we haven't forgiven ourselves about. And, you know,
like, we've been talking about
and, like, Musa Eli Sam's story. And I
feel like one of the biggest parts that
I learned from is actually the part in
Musa Eli Sam's story when he actually accidentally
killed a man. And when he does that,
what does he do? He asked the lost
father for forgiveness immediately.
And the lost father's response is so beautiful.
He says
that Musa asked for forgiveness
and immediately, god gave him that forgiveness.
You know, god forgave him. And so for
us, I think it's so important to not
limit our understanding of Allah
to our understanding of how we deal with
human beings, even how we, like, view ourselves
and deal with ourselves. And so that's, like,
the biggest thing. Like, making sure that within
your process of forgiveness, you take this time
at the time to also forgive yourself of
the the things that you've done that have
crossed your own boundaries.
And a comment, you know, like one of
our viewers right now, they just asked a
really interesting question that I just pinned at
the bottom really quickly is, you know, can
you also share some thoughts on purification of
the soul because of sin?
That's a very, very incredible question.
Like, are there any virtues or any could
because in Islam, you know, Asadullah, you and
I always talk about this in our sessions
that
in Islam, nothing is ever completely black or
white. There's always lessons to take away from
Right? Whether you you commit a mistake
or you do something good, there there there
is benefit to to to both those things
because at the end of the day, those
things were actually Qadr Allah. You know, they
they there were things that you were you
were you were actually,
predicted to have done by
Like, and if you wanna kinda get all
towards us off of here, you know, that,
like, the the mistakes that we made are
already run by Allah. Right? The the the
fact that we're going to miss a friendship
prayer in, like, a week. Allah already knows
about it. But the interesting thing in here,
and I wanna kinda mention this, is that
when it comes to purification of the soul,
how do you purify something?
Something has to be dirty in order for
it to be purified.
You know? And that's something that our teachers
have always taught us is that you can't
purify something that is already at a status
of purity. Right? Like, it's already there. It's
already reached the ultimate status.
It has to have a sense of needing
improvement. And, you know, the the the
companions of the prophet, may peace be upon
him, they used to actually talk about this
how that, you know, we we were such
lost people. It was like lost people in
a desert.
And when we found the messenger of Allah,
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
it was like we we we saw guidance
for the first time in our lives. And
you gotta ask yourselves the question and if
you think about this, and it's something that
I always think about is
that each and every companion of the prophets
of Allahu alaihi wasalam were converts.
Right? They converted to Islam because whether you
talk about, you know, Abu Bakr as Siddiq
or I'm gonna be a Shabbag or Afnan
ibn Afsan or
or or
or the the numbers of other companions that
he had. These people
did not know what Islam really was before
prophet Islam, Muhammad, Muhammad, was okay.
And the only way that they that they
found that light was because the prophet Islam.
And also you have to ask yourself, how
can they appreciated it so much?
And one of the reasons why they appreciated
it, they asked for the question of the
person who asked at the bottom
is
they appreciated it because they saw what it
was like before it. Right? Like, when somebody
goes through a really difficult time, they really
appreciate
ease and luxury later. Right? When somebody goes
through years of not of of hunger. Right,
when somebody goes through years years of hunger,
those people are ultimately going to appreciate food
a lot more than people who had that
food their entire life. People who are been
in the darkness their entire life will appreciate
the light because they know what dark feels
like. And so when it comes to the
purification of the soul, I think it's so
important to understand that sinning right? I'm not
saying that sinning is a good thing that
people should sin. That sinning is just something
that we are naturally
just as human beings, we are we are
disposed with, that we that that that we
are prone to doing. But there is some
silver lining to the mistakes that we make.
That it's only because we miss Fajr prayer.
We we have the memory of missing Fajr
one time that we understand that like, we
don't want to do it again. Right?
It's the memory that we have
of getting into that argument with our parents.
That really shows us that, man, like, I
really don't want to say that to my
mother ever again because it hurt her so
much. And I remember
the face that I saw on her when
I said that thing to her that hurt
her, that really brought me to to this
realization that I never wanna do anything like
that again. You know?
I think that is, you know, one of
the most important things when it comes to
understanding the the status of sin. Right? And
so, Fatima, I don't know if you have
anything to add to that from your own
side. I think I think he really is
helping it all, especially the part that I
I really appreciate is that recognizing that purifying
something is means
has a means that there's something that needs
to be purified.
And so the thing is that, you know,
sin is not something that we glorify. It's
not something that we walk around and we
say, like, yeah. We're all sinners. Let's, like,
hold our hands and sing kumbaya. You get
what I'm saying? You know, it's something that
that you do take seriously. It's something that
you do
have a a,
thing of being bad about. But at the
same time,
it's what it's something it's a proof that
we can turn back to
at all times. Mhmm. It's a a an
opportunity to turn back to God. It's an
opportunity to turn back to and be able
to ask him for for that forgiveness. So,
yeah, I think you covered a lot. Yeah.
That's amazing. And so I wanted to actually,
you know, Sara Fazim, I wanted to really
ask you. And I wanted to end with
this. Today's the day of Arafah. Today's the
day that if we were all, you know,
allowed to do Hajj, we would actually be
at the sight of Arafah raising our hands
and making dua.
I remember the scenes from last year, right?
I remember our the Qalam group that went,
you know, from from from, you know, our
community
that they were all just drenched in rain,
Like making du'a to Allah on the day
of Arafah, 9th day of Dhul Hijjah.
Just such a beautiful, beautiful scene, such a
beautiful vision, such a beautiful view.
Have you ever made a dua, Sada Fatima,
that you felt extremely,
extremely connected to. And I know a lot
of people they ask, like, you know, am
I just making Dua wrong? Am I making
Dua incorrectly?
Am I just not doing it properly? Maybe
I'm just saying something wrong. Maybe I don't
know how to make Dua at all. Right?
My question to you is that, is there
a dua that you have made in your
life? And obviously, we don't have to get
personal because, you know, obviously, duas are very
personal between us and Allah. But is there
a du'a that you made in a certain
time in your life that you felt was
extremely special? And was there anything special that
you did in that du'a that helped you
feel that way about it?
I would say, like, that's a very good
question. And, yeah, it's, like, personal. But the
the duod that I really feel
I don't I don't think there's a specific
duologue. I think it's there's a
theme around that particular duologue. And a lot
of times, it's kind of when
things in my life are just, like, completely
up in the air. And what's very interesting
is that I'm that person that I'm a
huge creature of habit. Like, I like to
do things, the same thing, all the time
just because I know what's coming. Like, I
like to know what's happening. I don't like
the unknown. It's just really scary.
And
the nature of life is that Allah,
you know, he knows everything.
And you may claim to have to uphold,
but then there are gonna be times in
your life when you're gonna be put through
a test or you're gonna be put through
and it may not even be a test
that everybody else views as a test. It
may be an even an in internal,
struggle within yourself.
You know? And so you have no choice
but to, like,
depend on God, and that's, like, a really
it it depends on who you are, but
it can be a very comforting moment, and
it can be a very scary moment
where especially, like, for me, like, I am
someone who again, like, I like to plan
things out, like, to know what's coming up.
I like to, you know, to the point
where I'll finish my sebum certificate because I'm
like, I know what you're gonna say. You
get what I'm saying? And so when things
in life happen
and you just turn to Allah and you're
in a moment where it's not you know,
I do feel something when I do duas
that I've memorized and so on and so
forth, but this type of duet is kinda
where I feel like I'm on my wit's
end, not even in a negative way. It
may be something that I really want. It
may be something that I don't want to
happen. It may be a feeling that I
have. It may be, you know, an event
that's happening in my life or that's happening
in someone else's life that may affect me.
Like, it may be something that I have
no control absolutely zero control over.
And I find that those laws really push
me
to really recognize who's really empowered.
And that's probably one of the most humbling
times for me, and it's when I feel
like my duas manifest the most in the
sense that it's kinda like, okay. Yeah. Allah,
I'm I I'm not giving up on life,
and I'm not giving up on trying. But
I'm giving up on trying to control everything.
And, Ola, you're the one who's in control,
and so
you just make it happen. Whatever is best
make it happen. And I always try to
end up those duas with
two things. The first thing is that, 1,
if everybody in the world was to gather
together and make duas for me to have
this one thing, I will not have it
unless Allah,
you know, wove it, unless it was in
the of Allah.
And then the second thing that I would
say is that, you Allah, make me content
with whatever you make happen. Just make me
comfortable and content with it. No matter how
difficult it is, no matter how much it
was not a decision that I've been making
going for for the past, like, 10 years
or whatever,
make me content with it and make me
comfortable in in the hardship. Like, just made
me if it's hard, make me comfortable in
it. And I find that, you know, a
lot of times, like,
whatever it is I was afraid of, whatever
it is I was nervous about, whatever it
is, whatever journey it was, you know, it'll
come around. And I'm like, well, this is
not as as this is not as bad
as I thought it was gonna be. Like,
you know what I'm saying? Or I'm like,
wait. This was something I was really worried
about a couple of months ago. Mhmm. But
we're chilling, like, smooth sailing. And I have
to say that it's because of those, like,
really sincere moments with god. And and I
and then I questioned my sincerity in those
moments. I'm like, I don't know. I'm being
sincere, god, but, like, you know, it's just,
like, having this, like, raw conversation with the
lost one. Mhmm. And, honestly, I learned that
from my teachers. Like, I learned that from
and where
they will say that, you know, there are
times where you just your back is to
the wall and, like, nobody can help you.
Mhmm. And I found that those moments are
the moments that really count. They're the moments
that you feel it. It's not even about
Allah. It's about you. You know? Sometimes you
making dua and mustard or whatever, and you
don't feel you don't feel anything. You know
what I'm saying? And the law may have
answered that dua, but you don't feel it.
You know? So I feel like that that's
when I really feel it.
I remember I think, you know, I'm not
gonna, you know, disclose what duas I made
for, but there is a moment where I
where I made a dua that it really,
it it it really was like an embodiment
of desperation,
as as, like, a status. I remember this
was in 2018,
when we had just completed our Amra. Okay?
And it was after umrah was over, there's
this moment of almost like there's this because
umrah, by the way, is not as as
difficult as Hajj is by any means. But
when you're in Umrah, like, you're still fatigued
because it does take a little bit out
of you. Right? When you're you do the
offer on the Kaaba 7 times, then you
go pray behind Maqam Ibrahim,
then you go to, you know, you go
to to Sah'i, and you you go between
Safa and Marwa 7 times. And there's a
long distance and you're on bare feet and
your feet are hurting
and
especially for a guy.
The the
marble the the marble between stuff and Marawa
are, like, meant to basically whatever
foot structure that you build through your in
Burton Stocks and your cloud forms is complete
destroyed when you're doing Sahih.
And so and so I remember,
you know,
after I completed my Sahih going back and
forth between Safa and Marwa,
there was a moment I was walking to
go get my haircut. And, you know, I
had to go walk back to the to
the to the place that, you know, outside
of the Haram where they cut cut their
cut your hair. And I remember, you know
and you can't wear your sandals inside of
the Haram. You have to take your sandals
off and you have to walk bare feet.
And I remember my feet were hurting so
badly, and I was tired. And, you know,
for for guys when we were eharam, like,
your eharam is just, like, all over the
place. It's like the only time in our
life where we understand the pain of women,
where, like, you have to constantly fix what
you're wearing and, like, all that stuff. And
so I don't even, like I didn't wanna
start because women have a way worse guys
do. But that's like a moment where we
can sympathize and empathize with women.
I remember at that moment, I made a
dua really sincerely. I was like, You Allah,
man. Like, my my body is like just
aching so badly. You know? Like, it's just
done, you know? Like, it's just completely fatigued.
I'm tired. I can't wait to just go
take a shower, get out of my Ihram,
just take a nap, go to sleep, wake
up in the morning and eat something. I'm
so desperate. Right? And I remember, like, I
was making dua while I was walking to
go get my haircut, and I was on
the verge of tears. Not because of the
dua, but because of the moment of desperation
I was in. I was like, you know,
follow-up, like, you know, so follow-up when you're
just, like, in tears because you're just so
tired. And, like, my god. Like, I'm just,
like, crying because I'm just, like
I care. Like,
yeah. You're, like, I just exactly.
Person from the first? You can't exactly. That's
the funny thing. It's, like, I wasn't even
making, like, coherent sentences while I was making
this dua, but I remember I was asking
for something. I really do specifically remember that.
And I remember that dua that I made
at that moment came true exactly 365 days
later in the same place at the same
time. And,
you know,
from what you were saying, you kind of
brought up your moments of, you know, what
made your dua beautiful.
I think for me, what made my dua
accepted by Allah
was I was just like I was just
like a like a straight up human being
at that moment. You know? There was nothing,
like, there was nothing about me that said
I have, you know, this this amount of
money, or I have this this life, or
I have that car, or I have this
house, or I live in the city. There's
nothing at that moment. At that moment, I
was a human being and I was crying
to Allah as my Lord. And that was
it, you know. And I think that was
like the desperate times
that those are the desperate moments of desperation
that really makes Dua beautiful.
So my piece of advice for everyone who's
listening to this right now
is just make yourself desperate.
You know, just make yourself desperate for a
minute. You know, we try to put up
this barrier that, like, oh, I got this.
Right? Like, I'll pretend I'll pretend to be
desperate for, like, 2 minutes. I'll pretend to
be sad. No. No. No. Just do it,
man. Just do it. Just just make yourself
vulnerable. Allow yourself to be a little bit
vulnerable for like 5 minutes.
And trust me, miracles take place, you know.
And I think that's one of the most
interesting kind of aspects of Dua that we
that we kind of forget about sometimes. So
inshallah, I want to keep this really short.
I know Sadaq Fatima is actually in the
Eastern time zone right now, so she has
to actually break her fast in a few
minutes, so we don't wanna keep her on
too long.
We ask Allah
to bless us on this day of Arafah.
We ask Allah to accept our fasting. We
ask Allah to accept our 'Ilaha. We ask
Allah to accept our deeds. And insha'Allah, insha'Allah,
we ask Allah
that we are able to fast many more
days of Arafah,
in the future, and a very, very,
you know, happy and and joyous Eid Mubarak
to every single one of you guys. Hopefully,
we'll see you guys sometime soon. And,
we'll be able to rejoin ours rejoin our
community in person sooner than later.