Safi Khan – Soul Food For College Students Dear Beloved Son #03
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Okay. We're gonna go ahead and start.
We're continuing on with the,
the third advice of Imam Al Azali So,
just to kind of, you know, jog everyone's
memories,
the past couple of weeks, we went through
the last two advices,
where Imam Al Ghazali
he was talking a little bit about the
idea
of following the,
the Quran and the sunnah of the prophet
to be the main anchors in a person's
life when it comes to decision making.
When his students asked him,
Sheikh, you know, what's the best thing that
I can learn from now that I'm done,
you know, being in your company and in
your mentorship? And then Imam Al Ghazali
he said, you know, if if you've learned
anything from me, then you would follow the
Quran and the Sunnah. And if you haven't
learned from the Quran and the Sunnah, then
what what what what what what have I
actually provided you with? Right? And then last
week, we talked about the advice
in which he was talking about the idea
of avoiding,
things that do not concern somebody.
As Imam Al Ghazali
said that the way that a person turns
themselves away from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is
by concerning themselves with things that do not
matter to them. Right? And then he continued
to talk a little bit about the idea
of if a person reaches a certain age
in their life, and they have not
seen
their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds, then
this person is setting themselves up for failure,
and they haven't truly learned from the experience
in life. Okay? So
today's conversation
is going to thematically,
be
surrounded by the topic
of
knowledge
and action.
Okay? Knowledge and action.
How do these how do these two things
play a role in a believer's life? What
does it mean to be a person of
knowledge
and a person of action, and how do
both of these play a significant role? Can
we have one without the other? Okay?
So, Imam Al Khuzali, he begins, he says,
He says,
He says
that to advise
other people
is a very easy thing to do.
Right? Giving people advice is something that is
simple. Okay? It's easier to do for the
soul. Now know that he doesn't mean sahel
in terms of, like, the actual art of
giving advice because giving good advice is actually
very difficult. Right? I know a lot of
people in here have experienced bad advice or
receiving bad advice.
And
to be a person
who not only gives good advice, but is
even qualified to give good advice is something
that is rather difficult. You have to have
a lot of things you check off your
checklist. Okay? You You have to know what
you're talking about. You have to be a
person who has experienced certain things in your
life. You have to be a person who
can convey that advice in a good way.
In fact, there are so many, you know,
Quranic and sunnah,
you know,
tips and lessons of how to advise somebody.
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he would
repeat over and over again the art of
giving advice. Imam Ashaafi'i rahmullah.
One of the most famous things that he
mentioned about this particular topic is that a
person who gives you advice and privacy
is a true friend of yours, and a
person who gives you advice publicly
so that other people can hear you is
not really a friend of yours. Right? So,
again, Islam throughout its tradition has spoken extensively
about what it means to give good advice.
Okay? But what Imam Ghazali is talking about
here, he says
that advising people is easy
in terms of the nafs. Okay? In terms
of the nafs. Why? Why is giving advice
easy? Because when you're giving somebody advice, you're
you are in a position of authority.
Right? You're not the one who's vulnerable. You're
the one who actually is on the opposite
end. You're on the giving end of it.
Right? And to give that advice, sometimes it
doesn't take that level of humility.
You are telling somebody what you think that
they should do, or you're giving a certain,
you know, tip about how they should handle
certain situations in their life or how they
can improve or how they can cut back
on bad habits. That doesn't take a level
of control of the nafs. What Imam Al
Ghazari mentions is
what is complicated,
the word means, like, difficult or problematic for
the person to do is to take that
advice, to accept that advice.
Okay?
There are a numerous reasons y'all as to
why
accepting advice is hard.
Accepting advice is difficult because to even enter
into a realm of accepting advice means that
you have to admit that you need it.
Right?
I cannot accept
if I think that I'm already I already
have it made in the shade.
I already know what I'm doing. I already
have everything figured out. I have to admit
that there is a problem,
and to admit
that first step is extremely difficult for the
NEFs to do.
The NEFs does not want to admit that
there's anything wrong.
The nafs wants to
that everything's okay. How many times have we
experienced this in our lives? The minute before
we go into a situation where we can
ask somebody for
help, Shaytan comes into the mind and convinces
it or reminds it about the 1,000,000,000 things
that you could do on your own before
you ask this person.
Right?
If you feel like you're heading down a
bad road academically,
and you know the right thing to do
is ask a counselor or an academic adviser
about their advice,
the says, no. No. No. No, man. That's
embarrassing.
Don't do that. You're gonna you're gonna let
that person know that you're failing.
If you're going through a difficult time personally,
socially, emotionally,
mentally, spiritually, and you go up to, like,
a counselor or an imam or whoever it
may be, an older sibling, a mentor figure
in your life,
the nafs right before you go and ask
that advice ask for that advice, the nafs
tries to convince itself. No. No. No. Don't
do that.
Don't do that. You're good on your own.
It's gonna decrease your your dignity and your
honor.
All these jokes, by the way, about, like,
dads not asking for advice or or for
for directions,
it's not out of nowhere. Right? It's not
out of nowhere because the nephews hates
it. The NEFs' greatest
accomplishment
is when it gives itself whatever it wants.
The NEF's greatest goal is to give itself
whatever it desires,
to almost be animalistic,
to almost go off of instinct, and instinct
is not always good.
Instinct is not always good. I can guarantee
you that every single person in here right
now can give me an example in a
time in their life where their instinct actually
steered them wrong.
Right? At that moment, my instinct told me
to react to that person with anger.
And because I reacted with anger, I regret
what I said.
My instinct to that moment was to give
that person
the exact revenge on them.
Do exactly what they did to me. That
was my instinct. But I learned shortly after
that instinct actually led me led me wrong.
So it's not always good to follow your.
There are times in which following your intuition
is good, but your nafs, the Quran mentions
that there are parts of you that are
inclined towards thing that things that will make
your life difficult.
In Surah Yusuf, right,
there's a statement
that was made in the Quran that talks
about this this this phrase,
nafs al amara is the nafs that's a
part of you that inclines towards evil naturally.
Inclines towards evil naturally.
You see a person that you don't like,
and you can imagine 10 different ways that
they can trip over and fall.
You see that one person that you dislike,
and you think to yourself, what would life
be like if they were no longer around?
Right? Like, this is this is the evil
part of your.
What's the goal here? The goal is to
be able to master it
with your better self. You know this idea,
and it's been coined in the past, like,
5 to 6 years, be the best version
of yourself.
Be the best version of yourself. What does
that mean? What does that admit? If there's
a best, that means there's a worst, which
means there's multiple versions of who you are.
So you have to be able to access
the best of you because you are a
complex person.
Sometimes how many of you guys catch yourself
in your intrusive thoughts?
Right? You're laying down in the middle of
the night and you're like,
what would happen if I just,
decided to just
light my school? I'm just you know, like,
would
I still have to go in? I don't
know. Right? Like,
what would happen if my boss just, like,
you
know, just goes away forever? What does that
mean, man? That's, like, super cryptic.
Like, the these these ideas are things that
come around once in a while.
Your job is to be able to be
greater than your worst thoughts.
Your job is to be able to be
much more in control
than the worst part of you, and that
means that you are not a slave to
yourself anymore.
Nobody in in in in Dodonia wants to
ever say that I'm a slave to my
own desires.
If you are a slave to your own
desires, that means that you actually do not
have the dignity of a human being
because an animal does whatever it's instinctual
to them.
Whenever an animal is hungry, they go and
eat.
Whenever a human being is hungry, they understand
that this may not be the best time
for me to eat.
This may not be the most healthy of
foods for me to eat.
This may not be the most appropriate thing
for me to eat.
The human being may want, you know, a
relationship that is unhealthy for them,
although that relationship makes them feel good. It
makes the attention that I receive from that
relationship makes me feel good about myself.
The conversations that I have make me laugh
and giggle and talk until the end of
the night.
But the best part of you, there's a
voice in your head that says,
put the phone down.
Put the phone down. You know this isn't
good.
Put the phone down. You know you shouldn't
be sending
that text message at 2 AM. You know
that this text message would be different if
it was sent at 2 PM.
Right? As much as the nafs wants to
do something bad, there's a part of you
that also wants to steer you in the
right direction. Follow that part of you. So
Imam Al Ghazali, he says,
accepting advice is the hard part. Okay. Why?
He says,
He says,
since
this is a bitter thing for those who
follow their own inclinations and desires. What did
we just talk about?
Accepting good advice becomes bitter for a person
who follows their own desires.
Something that actually should be sweet for the
person
becomes extremely bitter for them.
They no longer like hearing things that are
good for them. In fact, when somebody tells
them to do something that's good, they're like,
ugh. Y'all ever seen those videos, right, where
they they they talk about, like, POV. You're
venting to a friend, and they actually give
you a solution.
And you're like, yeah. I don't like this
person anymore. Right? You just thought they're gonna
listen to you for the the next hour
of your comp your your your complaints and
your venting.
No. Sometimes
hearing good advice is actually really, really fruitful.
But if a person is so trained
to eat things that are not good for
them, even healthy food healthy foods will actually
seem extremely sour.
Healthy foods will seem extremely horrible for you.
And this is why, you know,
there the the the Islam actually draws so
many comparisons about, like, what you consume and
who you are as a person. Right?
What your lifestyle is, you are what you
eat. Right? We talk about that a lot.
We talk about that phrase. You eat unhealthy,
and the reality is your your your lifestyle
becomes generally unhealthy.
Right? And so a person begins to feel
bitter
when they begin to follow their own inclinations
and desires. And so, Imam Al Ghazali, he
says
that
they love the forbidden
from the depths of their hearts.
They love the forbidden
So now they actually
find beloved to them the things that are
bad for them.
That relationship that every one of my friends
is calling toxic,
I, for some reason, like it.
Right? That sleep habit that I know that
is so bad, I should not be going
to sleep at 4 AM.
The people that care about me are telling
me, put the phone down. Go to sleep
at 11.
That's not an early night, by the way.
11 is still fine.
You're like, wow. What happened tonight?
Like, no. 11 is still or it's still
relatively late. You're good.
Go to sleep at 11. Wake up for
Fajr. What happens to a person who goes
to sleep at 3 AM?
It's so difficult for this person to wake
up at 5:45,
at 6 AM. It's almost nearly impossible.
And then you have to start your day
at 8 AM, and then you go into
work, or you go into school, and your
eyes are all puffy.
And you gotta explain.
Right? Bad morning, bad night. Right? No. No.
No. It's by my own habits.
I've made this such a habitual reality in
my life where now I like things that
are super, super bad for me. Right? And
I'll give you an example even. A person
who's grown accustomed to doing things that are
intrinsically haram.
Right? Lying.
Lying is intrinsically a bad moral trait.
Right? But a person who's pathological in their
lying, they no longer differentiate between the lies
and the truth.
Allah
mentions this by the way in the Quran.
He talks about this to the prophet directly.
He says,
This is Surat Al Maroon. Allah mentions You
Rasool Allah have you seen the people?
They deny the day of judgment, but also
that verse means that they lie, they reject
this deen.
They lie and they reject the day of
judgment.
Why does a person reject and lie? Because
they no longer differentiate between truth and falsehood.
They think that falsehood is true, and they
think truth is false.
If we don't establish those differences in our
lives, then
we love things that are horrible, and we
hate things that are good.
People grow up disliking their parents even though
their parents actually wanted the best for them,
and they began liking that friend that was
extremely harmful for them.
And later on in their life they go
back and they say,
I'm
so regretful.
I should have never neglected my own mother.
I should have actually chosen to spend time
with her over this friend that I thought
was my friend.
I should not have, you know, I should
I should not have skipped out on that
one thing that I knew was good for
me. Everybody was telling me about it. But
for some reason, I was almost like, and
and this is why Imam Al Ghazali, he
mentions the idea of being bitter. It's almost
like intoxicating.
When a person's when a person is doing
bad things and they're in bad habits, it's
almost like an intoxicating
situation.
Y'all ever had to talk to a friend
and you're trying to explain to them why
a situation's clearly bad, and you almost wanna
grab them by the shoulders and shake them?
You're like, please wake up.
Wake up. Like, get out of this trance.
What you're doing is not okay.
But for some reason, you're not being able
to snap them out of it. Have you
thought to yourself why this person is so
deep into the situation?
It's because when a person is so deep
into something that they like, they forget about
the good and the bad of it.
They just like the emotional
benefits.
They like the they like the desired benefits
from the situation. Okay? So he says that
this person, they love the forbidden
from the depths of their heart.
Okay. And then Imam Al Ghazali, he says
something very interesting. He says,
this
is more
applicable for a person who is
a person who is a a a being
who pursues knowledge.
Like, you wanna be a person who is
intellectual,
who pursues knowledge,
they take life a little bit seriously,
this is applicable for that person.
And you can be any type of seeker,
by the way.
Means a seeker of Islamic knowledge, but a
person who's trying anything to get closer to
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
How many of us in the past year
have ever, like, opened up a book of,
like, self reflection or self improvement or watch
something that was about self improvement or self
reflection. Like, this is for us. This is
for all of us. If there's any part
of you that wants to get better,
this is for you. But you have to
ask yourself, do I want this?
You know, this idea of, like, therapy. Right?
Like, therapy, rehab. You can't you can't admit
a person into rehab or therapy if if
they don't wanna be there themselves.
You can't. Why? Because that that that change,
that wanting to change has to come from
within.
Allah mentions, he says,
Allah will not change a state of a
person until
they change the
what's within themselves.
They have to want it.
They have to want it. Spiritually, by the
way, guys, this is the greatest equation.
You want guidance?
You want to grow closer to Allah?
There has to be this extreme
yearning.
I need this. I want this.
Miracles do not happen to people who do
not who are not open to Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
And this is why Firaun,
even though he saw miracles in front of
him, was never impacted by it.
Miracles are only miraculous to people who are
open to the one who's giving it to
them.
Firaoun
saw Musa, a h s salam, with his
own eyes. Firaoun
saw the Red Sea parting.
But what did Firaoun say when he saw
their sea splitting in half? He said, look.
The sea is splitting for me.
He was completely negligent of the idea that
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is saving Musa alaihi
salaam. And by doing that, Allah wanted Firaun
himself
to turn towards Allah. But he was a
slave to his own desire.
And because of that, I want you to
think a literal ocean
parting ways in half did not change his
heart.
Can you imagine?
So that proves that miracles don't change people.
That humility
to be guided is what changes people.
This is why sometimes, like, you know, people
talk to me sometimes they're like, yeah, they're
they give the one time this person gave
me an example.
They're like, man, you know, like, something really
bothers me. I was like, what? This is
like a college student, like, years back. He
said, it was so weird that a person
like Stephen Hawking never became a person who
in god because Stephen Hawking was atheist throughout
his entire life and very, very adamantly atheist,
by the way.
And so and and Stephen Hawking is a
person who was extremely paraplegic. He was completely,
you know, handicapped from, like, literally, like, head
down. He had to speak via, like, a
mechanism that he that was on his chair,
etcetera, etcetera. But he was a genius scientist.
Okay? And somebody's like, how is it possible
that even a person like him doesn't appreciate
and acknowledge Allah
Well, the reason is this man was obsessed
with his own arrogance.
Allah gave him a means of communicating, and
Allah even gave him, like, this status as
an intellectual person. But look at what he
uses intellect to do. He uses intellect to
try and refute Allah
So that proves that it's not the miracle
that changes people, it's the openness and the
humility that changes somebody. Okay?
And so,
Imam Khuzali, he continues, and he says,
these people
who are
true seekers,
he says that these are the people,
sorry,
They are trying to improve their souls.
They're trying to be better each and every
day.
They're not they're never they they never say
that I'm good where I am.
Each and every morning they wake up, they
want to become better. And I I don't
know if I remember if I said this
in this particular halakhah, but I did. I
said it even last night at a class
that I was teaching.
In Islam, we believe that a person's either
progressing or regressing, and there's a very particular
element as to why.
You are either progressing
or regressing
because even the next day, if you haven't
improved,
time didn't stop for you.
Time is continuing.
You are getting one day older each and
every day you live.
And if you're not continuing to improve, then
you're actually regressing because time is moving forward.
Right? It's not stopping for you.
So one of the definitions of a a
student, a seeker of knowledge, and a seeker
of growing closer to Allah is that they're
constantly seeking to improve the self. Okay?
And this person also is
understanding
the benefits of this world as well.
They busy themselves in the grace of their
own soul, and they're trying to also improve
themselves by improving the dunya.
A person who understands Islam is a person
who understands that, yes, I do want the
best of the akhirah, but also Allah has
given me this extreme blessing of being alive
here.
Allah has given me the blessing of being
alive in this dunya in order for me
to achieve my hereafter.
You know those people who sometimes misunderstand religion.
They're like, yeah, man. I'm all about,
bro. I don't need the dunya, man.
What's up with, like, these cars and these
houses? How do you where you gonna live?
Like a tent? I don't understand. Like, you
have these people that are, like, overly trying
to be uber religious,
but they forget that this dunya is a
means to get there.
If it wasn't for the dunya, where would
you pray?
If it wasn't for the food in the
dunya, what would you fast from?
If it wasn't for
the the the Kaaba in this dunya, where
would you perform Hajj?
This dunya has elements of allowing you to
reach the akhirah. That's also a part of
this a part a part of this din.
So a true seeker, they understand
that all of these different elements in my
life
Look my family is a part of my
dunya.
Don't people's families get them to the akhirah?
Don't people's families attain help them attain Jannah?
I'll give you an easy example. Look at
Gaza.
Look at Gaza.
Aren't there aren't there people right now literally
in Palestine who are gaining Jannah because of
the way they are being tested with their
families?
This dunya must be something that we excel
in in order for us to go to
the highest levels of the year after.
A person understands that.
And so then he continues and he says
this beautiful line.
He says,
He says that
the people
who get caught up in their own nafs
are people that believe
that mere abstract knowledge
will be enough for them.
They think that if I just sit here
and kind of, like, accumulate knowledge and I'm
a person who basically just kind of, you
know, learns and learns and learns and learns
and learns.
That's enough for me. That's also another danger.
How many of us are on TikTok for
hours?
We're like, yeah. I really like, like, what
she's making. That dish looks really cool.
You've watched, like, 50 recipes this past month,
and you haven't made one of them.
Yeah. I'm gonna get to that.
Right?
You are, like, watching snippets of, like, lectures,
but you've actually never watched the entire thing.
I always joke around sometimes with, like, our
our our our our team at Roots. I
know I know that we have people behind
the scenes who work really hard to put
out those, like, 60 to 2 minute, like,
snippets, those reels on Instagram.
But we always talk about how those things
should actually encourage people to come and attend
the actual session.
Like, we shouldn't just be good with a
60 second video. If all we're doing is
watching 60 second videos and that's it,
that means that that that small thing is
not actually
allowing us to get better
and not allowing us to grow more.
So he says one of the dangers is
that this believing
that me just sitting here and acquiring information
and knowledge is enough for me.
And he says,
but rather,
knowledge
without proper action
is not going to rescue you.
It's not going to help you.
And he says,
He he takes a shot a little bit.
He goes, this is, like, the mentality of
the philosophers.
He doesn't mean philosophers like the good ones.
He means, like, the people that just sit
there and think about how to pray, but
they actually never get up and pray.
He's talking about people who are, like, sitting
there and taking classes and notes about how
to pray my fajr Duhur Asr Mogh Rabisha,
but they actually never get up and pray
themselves.
And this is why, by the way, we'll
talk about this in just a second, knowledge
without action can be an extremely dangerous thing.
Islamically, it can be a very dangerous thing
that a person
begins to grow this obsession
that I wanna, like, just sit in another
class. I wanna sit in another class. I
wanna take those notes. I wanna do this.
I wanna do that. But
they don't allow it to turn into action.
If you look at Islam,
one of the greatest lessons in Islam has
always been
What makes us different than other people y'all?
What makes us different than anyone else? What
makes us different is that when we believe
in something, we follow it up with an
action. Look at the 5 pillars. What's the
first pillar?
And then what's the next one?
Cool. You testified that there's only one God
and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is his
final messenger. Now get up and pray.
That's it.
That's it. Anyone anyone knows?
Of course you do. It's your favorite surah
in the entire Quran, the one you read
every single day.
Right?
Allah is addressing the prophet Muhammad
He's
saying, We've given you something called
can be translated as abundance of blessings And
also means this beautiful kind of river
in the hereafter that is attributed to the
prophet
It's his river. It's his fountain.
And so Allah talks about how Allah has
blessed the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. But
what does he say right after?
So pray to your lord.
The command to do
your actions comes right after the acknowledgement of
faith.
And this is why we don't believe in
just my faith is the only thing that
I need. I can't just say
and just go out and do terrible things
in my life.
No one no one is here to judge
you, but a person who claims that there's
only one god, but they don't actually
back that up with a lifestyle that is
reflecting of that iman,
does that person really believe?
That's between them and Allah. But at the
end of the day, you have to ask
yourself this question.
Am I just performing?
Do I just say that I'm Muslim so
that when someone argues with me about Islam,
I'm, like, the biggest Muslim of all time?
And then after the argument is over, I'm
good. I'm done. I'm gonna go lurk lurk
back into the shadows. No. No. No. No.
He says that this idea of knowledge without
action
is something that will not rescue you.
What will rescue you is your knowledge paired
up with your action.
And so he says here something very beautiful.
He
says,
he glorifies Allah
He says, all praise and glory be to
Allah
He says,
He says, they don't know just this much.
He says,
they do not know this much that when
they acquire knowledge, if they do not work
according to it,
the indictment against them is certain.
The indictment against them is almost certain.
And this is a scary line. Y'all know
why? Check this out.
He says that a person who just acquires
knowledge
and they don't work according to it,
what they're doing is building this extreme proof
against themselves.
They're just building more proof, more proof, more
proof.
On the day of judgment,
the records will say, this person, they knew
that gossiping was wrong,
but they continued to do it.
They knew that stealing and cheating others was
wrong,
but they continued to do it.
They knew
that
missing
obligations were wrong, but they continued to do
it.
This is different than a person who actually
never knew to begin with
because that person can say, I just didn't
know.
This is why children cannot be held accountable
because Allah has not allowed them to reach
an age where they are now responsible for
their knowledge.
But a person who is mature,
they know
they know that I have to have wudu
before I pray, and they don't make wudu
and they know what wudu is. Now you're
gonna be held accountable for that knowledge.
And this is why we hear phrases. You
knew that was wrong, and you still did
it?
It's much different than a person who never
knew that thing was wrong in the first
place.
When you teach kids. Right? We teach Aya
this all the time. We say, Aya, no
hitting. And she was like
right? So looks at her hand, looks at
us,
because she literally doesn't know. I told my
wife this the other day. I said, we
can't get frustrated with her because she literally
does not understand.
She thinks that if something's going wrong, she
has to exert herself in some sort of
physical way.
An adult go comes up to roots, and
they're like, yeah. I don't like that guy.
Like,
you okay, bro? Like, why'd you just do
that? Did you not know that was wrong?
Yeah. I did. Well, why did you do
it?
And you can make excuses. Yeah. You know,
I got it got the better of me.
My anger got the better of me, all
these different things, but at the end of
the day, excuses will run out.
Imam Al Ghazali, he says
that this person knew and so this will
be a Huja against that person.
You knew that reading the Quran was something
that you should have done, then why did
we never touch the Quran?
We knew that there are rights of parents.
Why did we never fulfill the rights of
our parents? We knew that there were rights
to our friends. Why did we never give
our friends their due rights?
So Imam Al Ghazali, he says, this person
who is almost, like, vain,
they're essentially, like, just proud of themselves for
acquiring knowledge. They're they're.
They're so knowledgeable. They know this and they
know that. They watch somebody on TikTok give,
like, a live, like, a, like, a live
stream on this particular topic, so they think
that they know everything.
And god forbid,
this is so scary, and this is a
reminder to myself and anyone else who is
in the position of teaching anyone.
May Allah protect us. Everyone say,
amen. If a person's in a position of
giving advice to somebody,
god
protect them from ever not doing what they
preach.
And this is why, by the way, the
prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
one of his greatest if not his greatest
character trait was that this man was a
person who did exactly whatever he advised other
people to do.
There was not a single person in the
dunya
that could have said, yeah. The prophet
said, don't
get angry.
Don't get angry, but he was always an
angry person. No. No. No. If you read
his descriptions, one of the most calm demeanors
you've ever met in your life.
He used to teach people to be generous.
The prophet
was not tight *.
He used to teach people to be patient,
and the prophet endured some severe hardships in
his right in his life with the greatest
class.
He used to teach people to disengage with
the dunya and connect with Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala so you would never catch him slipping
in that particular regard.
There was no proof against the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. In fact, everything that he
knew was a proof for him.
Why do you think he said these things?
He would say that
none of you believe, truly believe until you
are the best to your families,
and I'm the best of my family. Why
would he say these things? Sometimes you're like,
wow. Like, man, he's, like, pretty like, he's
confident.
No. No. He's confident because everyone around him
could also testify to exactly what he said.
His wife Aisha, his wife Khadija
his daughter Fatima, they would say, no. This
was the he was the greatest husband.
He was the greatest father. I have nothing
to say bad about him.
Subhanallah. I'll I'll give you an even an
an easier example. How many of y'all have
ever heard of the argument of the prophet
marrying Aisha when she was younger? I'm sure
all of us have.
Why? Why? That sounds sad. That's so that's
so strange.
You know, whenever you the the way to
refute that question that anybody asks you,
you tell them,
why don't you why don't you look up
any accounts of Aisha Alaihi Wa Anha?
By the way, she was like a Muhaditha.
She was like a, she used to narrate
hadith after hadith after hadith. Don't you think
if if she was ever ever against that
marriage, don't you think she would have said
something about it?
What are her narrations about the prophet?
We used to race together.
I used to climb on his shoulders and
watch things from being close to him. My
chin used to rest on his shoulder.
He used to drink from the same cup
that I used to drink from. He used
to take bites of food exactly from the
same place that I bit the food from.
These were the things that she would say
about him.
If you wanna ask somebody,
you know, if you wanna ask about what
somebody is really like, you would ask their
family. So if you would ask
Aisha
who the prophet was, she would tell you
exactly who he was.
So his family was a proof for him.
The Quran
was a proof for him.
His Sahaba, his companions were a proof for
him.
Abu Bakr as Siddiq radiaallahu an was so
in love with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
that after the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam died,
some of the scholars they would say that
Abu Bakr Siddiq's death
happened out of the fact that his habib
passed away just recently.
He couldn't stand living in this dunya without
his best friend.
Bilal radiAllahu anhu,
the former slave from Abyssinia.
You know what happened to Bilal after the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam passed away?
He left the city of Madinah. You know
why he left the city of Madinah? Because
he said, I I I do not
have a heart to call the adhan in
the same city that the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam lived in. Every time I reach
Ashadu anna Muhammad rasool Allah in the adhan,
my my voice broke up.
I can't live in Medina without the prophet
sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. These were his proofs.
I want you to ask yourself in your
own life, like, are the things around you,
would they be proofs for you on the
day of judgment?
Will my family come to my defense on
the day of judgment?
Will my teachers come to my defense? Will
my friends come to my defense? Will they
say, you Allah, please have mercy on this
person because they treated me so well?
And sometimes, you know, it's something even more,
you know,
it's even more intense.
On the day of judgment, things that are
inanimate will actually be able to speak for
you or against you.
The walls of your own home
will be able to speak.
The walls of your room will be able
to speak. Yeah. Allah, I witness this person
praying to you all the time.
The shoes that you wear to walk to
places will be able to testify for you.
Your hands and your feet will be able
to testify for you. What would they say?
The trees that the prophet
used to walk by, they used to give
him
Salaam.
Could you imagine what the trees would say
that we're around?
And
this is why, like, you know, you you
hear the story of Sulayman, the prophet of
Allah
that stopped his entire army for one singular
ant.
Why?
Because he knew everything is a proof on
this earth,
even an insect. Next time you see a
spider in your house, you'll think twice. I'm
just kidding. No. But seriously,
this isn't like surface level stuff.
Right?
One time I remember I was,
I was walking
in this, area,
in this,
around the Masjid of this community,
and there were some cats that were around
the Masjid. And I saw this, like, little
kids, like, 6 year old girl. She was,
like, walking around with, like, food
for the cats, and I was like and
and and every day, I would see her.
I was in community maybe for, like, a
week, and I saw her give food to
these cats every day. Every time I saw
her, she would always be walking around with,
like, a bowl and, like, a bowl of
water. She would always put it down for
the cats to eat. 6 years old kid.
And I went up to her. I said,
are these yours? Like, are they like, do
you live nearby? Like, they just follow you
around everywhere? And she goes, no. No. No.
These these these are the Masjid's cats. These
are Allah's cats.
I have to take care of them.
What a beautiful thing, man. Innocent sometimes is
the most wisest type of wisdom. Right?
And so
he continues
and he says, this is according to a
hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And
the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
he said
The prophet,
he said one time, the person most severely
punished
on the day of judgment.
The person who will be punished severely on
the day of judgment.
Is a person of knowledge,
but the knowledge that he had did not
benefit
him.
They knew everything,
but it didn't do them any good.
And this is why there's a
dua.
Allah protect me.
Oh, Allah, I seek your protection.
Allah, I seek your protection from knowledge that
does not benefit me.
I go around, and I know the most
random facts.
I know that Sabrina Carpenter did this.
Why?
Why do I know that?
I know that Bronnie James scored 4.2 points
per game in
USC. Like, great, Habibi. That's awesome.
But, like, I don't even know anything about
the prophet.
I don't know anything about Ibrahim, but
guess what I do know? I know that
Bronnie James shot, like, a live a live
stream on TikTok with him and his brother
and his father. Like, why do I know
these things? And then, yeah, sometimes it's just
like it's just passive knowledge. Like, I just
passively know certain things.
But there are certain people that just obsess
over this arbitrary stuff that they know.
But when it comes to things that actually
matter, we have no idea about it.
So make dua for knowledge that benefits. Okay?
And then to finish,
this is the last
part of this
this lesson for today.
The last part hits really hard.
The last part is about a story about
someone who saw this scholar in his dream.
Okay?
And so, Imam Al Khazadi he says it
has been narrated
that someone saw
al Junaid al Baghdadi. His name was Junaid
al Baghdadi. Okay? He was a great scholar
from from from Iraq.
So someone saw Junaid al Baghdadi
And so this man he saw Junaid Al
Baghdad
in his dream
after he had passed away
And and he said to him
He goes,
tell me,
what's the situation on the other side?
You know these stories about, you know, people
dreaming about those who have passed away
and having conversations with them.
By the way, this happens sometimes, you know,
I've heard people come up to me and
say, like, yeah, I had a family member
pass away and I actually spoke to them
in a dream of mine and asked them
about certain things. And so this person said,
I saw and
I asked him, what's the other side?
What's on the other side after you pass
away? Tell me I'm curious I want to
know what to expect
in the afterlife.
What really matters?
After this dunya is over, what really matters?
Did you guys believe that, like, certain things
you'll only find out on the day of
judgment?
Like, there are certain mysteries to this world,
right, that you'll only find out on the
day of judgment.
Should I have prayed more?
Should I have been good better to my
mother? Right? What's really in area 51?
Alright. We gotta do something about this glass
door, honestly. This is, like, record number 7.
Yeah.
So, you know,
what are the truths
on the other side?
And listen to the response that he receives
in his dream.
It is actually bone
chilling. He says,
gone
gone
are the speeches.
Okay.
Gone are the speeches.
He says,
and perished, vanished are the illusions.
Everything that I thought mattered
didn't matter.
I thought all of, like, the great speeches,
all the tweets that I tweeted,
all of the Instagram
stories that I posted,
all of the reels that I took so
much time to put together,
all of the pages that I followed and
liked,
all of the videos that I continued to
watch on my for you page day after
day and night after night,
all of the things that I tweeted, all
of those things, I thought those mattered. And
Junaid Al Baghdadi, he says none of those
mattered.
He says,
the only thing
that benefited us
were the prostrations that we made in the
middle of the evening.
That's actually what mattered to me.
Nothing else mattered.
Jorneo de Bhardadi, by the way, was an
extremely
beautiful scholar,
a very learned person,
a learned man,
a person who wrote books, gave speeches,
gave halakats,
gave durus, all these different things. And he's
saying, of everything that I did, the only
things that mattered were the 2 raka'as that
I prayed in the middle of the night.
That's what actually mattered.
That's what actually benefited me.
SubhanAllah.
And
this brings me to the final advice that
I have to share with everybody
which is
we have to know
we have to know
when to put the phone down and when
to actually step up onto the prayer mat.
It doesn't matter
if Sheikh Omar's videos, like, hit you really
hard. That's great.
Sheikh Omar is amazing.
It doesn't matter how many, like, podcast episodes
you listen to
of Shadi Al Masri.
It doesn't matter how many, like, YQ videos
you watch from Epic.
Those are all great.
But if those things did not lead you
to put the phone down to pray your
4 rakas of Isha before you go to
bed at night, then those things will actually
not be anything that will be held on
your good deeds. It may actually be a
proof against you.
Because on the day of judgment, Allah will
say, I know Sheikh Hamar would have wanted
you to pray for of before you went
to bed that night.
You watched that series.
I know that after watching that series, you
knew
that reading the Quran was something that you
should have done, but you never did it.
This advice finally also alludes to the idea
of sincerity,
the idea of sincerity.
A lot of the things that you do,
gaining knowledge, this, that, right,
sometimes will be perceived by the public.
But what is private
is when you pray at night.
So what did the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
say?
The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam he said that
he gave a few piece of advice to
his community in Madinah.
He said,
spread peace.
Feed people food.
Keep the ties of kinship strong.
And pray in the evening while
other people are asleep.
Why do you think he ended with that
advice?
He ended with that advice because
a person who does all the other things,
they spread peace there.
Now they're inviting people over for dinner, they're
feeding people food.
Alhamdulillah, they're getting good with their family. That's
all good,
but the last advice is after all of
that, make sure that you're good with Allah
when no one else is watching you.
Because if you can't put those things aside
and spend 10 minutes with Allah, then all
those other things will not matter to you.
They will not benefit you in the least.
Make sure that
we are doing the private deeds.
And on the day of judgment and I
know and, again, look at the top part
of this this this entire advice. The top
part is about the nafs.
The craves attention.
The
wants to be seen.
The wants to be acknowledged.
The wants people to see you praying, to
see you giving charity, to see you reading
books, to see you attend halakat. That's what
the wants you to do. But you know
the most powerful thing is if each one
of us left from roots today after we
prayed Maghrib, and tonight before we went to
bed after our isha, we dropped 2 raka'ats
of tahajjud when no one else is watching.
There's no chance for the phone to be
out. No cameras. Nothing.
If we can drop 2 raka'at of,
the nafs
was mastered for that day.
And then you get up the next morning
and you rinse and repeat. It's a constant
struggle y'all.
And this is a scholar saying this, not
any layman, a scholar of Islam.
So Insha'Allah,
you know we'll we'll we'll end with that
advice for the day.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to make
us of the people who are filled with
sincerity And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to make us of the people who are
constantly focused on our private deeds as much
as we are on deeds that we do
publicly. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
make us of the people that benefit from
the knowledge that we have. That our knowledge
is not a proof against us but it's
actually a proof for us. That every single
time that we learn something for the sake
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, we turn it
into our actions. That we no longer learn
about prayer but that we learn about prayer
and we pray right after we learn about
it. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that
we not only learn about Quran but we
actually read the Quran And we ask Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala to allow all of our
actions to be sincere,
to be fruitful, to be beneficial and to
be something that is accepted by Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
Next Thursday,
we will, inshallah, continue on with a chapter
on the mercy of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
One last thing that I'll do for everybody
here is I want everyone