Safi Khan – Soul Food For College Students Dear Beloved Son #18
AI: Summary ©
The duelery program will focus on practical advice for practicing Islam, avoiding wasting time, managing their heart, and not arguing with anyone. The importance of practicing Islam is to avoid wasting time, avoid disiding and arguing with others, and to not dispute and argue with others. The speakers also emphasize the importance of protecting oneself from harms and false accusations, avoiding cluttering one's network, and not allowing others to make their own mistakes. They stress the importance of finding one's heart to pursue knowledge and reform, finding the right job to match one's social media followership, and finding the right means to an end.
AI: Summary ©
Okay, alhamdulillah.
Bismillah walhamdulillah.
As-salatu was-salamu ala rasulillah wa ala
alihi wa ashabihi ajma'in.
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
How's everybody doing?
Welcome to Soul Food, a.k.a. Woman's
Halaqah.
Alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah.
It's good to see you guys, masha'Allah,
as always.
And I know that we had a break
last week, but we're back in person and
ready to roll, insha'Allah, until the end
of the year.
We do have a few more Soul Food
sessions left, so I'll tell you guys something
special.
So, we're, insha'Allah, going to be, obviously,
having our session today, our session next Thursday,
and then we'll be having a final session
on that final Thursday, which is, I believe,
like the 19th or something like that of
December, and then Roots officially, for our weekly
classes, will be going on a short hiatus
because myself and Ustadh Abdulrahman will be going
on Umrah, insha'Allah.
My flight is actually the next day after
Soul Food.
So, Soul Food will literally be the last
class that I teach, alhamdulillah, before we leave
for Umrah, for Medina, specifically.
But, insha'Allah, the game plan is to
finish Ayyuhal Walad by that final session.
And what we're actually going to do, which
is really cool, I wanted to kind of
focus that final session obviously concluding the book,
but at the same time, doing a session
called Advices.
And Advices is going to focus on, as
obviously we finish off the semester, we finish
off the year, there's a lot of reflection
going on at this time of the year,
right?
It's the end of a calendar year, people
are kind of like in their feels, right?
Like, was I successful, was I unsuccessful, what
have I done with my life, right?
All these questions are kind of like coming
around at this time of the year, right?
So, alhamdulillah, we'll focus, insha'Allah, our last
Thursday session of the year for that particular
purpose, bithnillahi ta'ala.
So, for now, we'll continue on with the
20-second advice that Imam Ghazali gives.
And this is actually super, super beautiful, and
really, one of the things that I really
enjoy when it comes to these types of
sessions, is I really, and this might be
kind of like the more nerdy part of
me, but it's like I really enjoy the
kind of bullet point advice sessions, right?
Like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and
those of you who were with me during
the du'a series that we were doing,
a lot of the du'a series, week
by week, chapter by chapter, really focused on
the idea of like bullet point advices of
how to make du'a, why your du
'as are beautiful, maybe certain things to improve
on on your du'as, and so those
bullet point advices are really beautiful.
And this chapter is super, super heavy on
those advices from Imam Ghazali that you can
kind of like pinpoint one through eight.
And so, he begins the chapter and he
says that I have eight advices for you
regarding this particular question that you asked me,
and if we kind of tether back to
the original question that his student asked him,
which was now that I'm done, you know,
being in your company, now that I'm done
seeing you day to day and learning from
you day to day, week to week, what
advices do you have for me on practical
Islam?
Right?
Theoretical Islam is one thing, but then how
do I transfer that into practice?
And so Imam Ghazali now gives in this
22nd chapter an incredible breakdown of practical Islamic
advices for a young person.
His student by the way was not old.
His student was like probably young adult, late
teens, early twenties, very similar to you guys
and you guys will Alhamdulillah be able to
see a lot of the beauty behind each
of these pieces of advice.
And he says, accept these advices from me,
lest your knowledge becomes your enemy on Yawmul
Qiyamah, meaning that you never want the Islamic
knowledge that you have gained to be a
witness against you on Yawmul Qiyamah, right?
Because knowledge is not just something that you
memorize.
This is why by the way we're not
a memorizing, you know, ummah.
That's not what we do.
I know there's a lot of emphasis on
like hizb and memorizing Quran and memorizing this
and that, but memorization can never be our
end goal.
Memorization by the way, even the people that
memorize their memorization is there so they can
live by what they memorize right?
When you memorize something, that means that in
any given moment of your life, your memory
will jog itself into that moment and remind
you about what decision to make at that
moment, right?
So for example if you memorize any Quran
in your life right?
Let's say hypothetically you memorize the Surah Wal
Asr Innal Insana Lathee Khusr, right?
Short Surah in the Quran.
You memorize the verse Wal Asr Innal Insana
Lathee Khusr Okay?
That verse, what does it mean?
It means by time verily all of humanity
is at a loss because of it right?
So am I just supposed to memorize that
because you know, Alhamdulillah, it's just a nice
thing to memorize sure, there's virtue in memorizing
Quran but when it comes to wasting time
and spending your time wisely that memorized ayah
is supposed to actually influence you to make
a decision because of it right?
That's what memorization is supposed to do so
he says here, accept these advices from me
lest your knowledge become your enemy on Yawm
Al Qiyamah, on the day of judgment how
can it become your enemy?
Because when you meet Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta
'ala, Allah will ask you, you know, did
you you knew that upholding tithes of kinship
was something that I commanded you to do,
Wasilatul Rahm right?
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam advised you to
do this.
So why time and time again did you
neglect your relationship with your father or your
mother?
When you had a chance to make it
something that was fruitful in your life, then
at that moment you can't blame that, well
I didn't know about it well you did,
right?
You had that knowledge but you didn't allow
that knowledge to translate into an action and
that's when Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, unfortunately
because of this, it will be seen that
your knowledge has now become your enemy, okay?
And so he says here, perform four of
them and avoid four of them, okay?
Perform four and avoid four.
InshaAllah we're gonna go through each of these
together inshaAllah tonight.
The first four that he mentions are four
that you are supposed to avoid.
Four that you're supposed to avoid in your
life.
Okay?
And again, he is giving advice based upon,
and SubhanAllah you think about Ayyuhal Wala, this
entire book is about training the heart.
It's about managing the heart.
And sometimes guys, training the heart is not
always going to be fun.
It's going to make you address things that
really make you uncomfortable.
Things that lie deep within our hearts that
it may be painful for us to admit
that we struggle with.
Right?
And so, his four avoidances, or things that
you should avoid, are not going to be
as simple as oh, avoid neglecting your salah.
Alhamdulillah that's a great piece of advice, but
he's going to really get at you.
His details are going to be really, really
detailed.
Okay?
So the first thing he says is first
and foremost, do not dispute with anyone in
any matter as far as possible.
It's a very interesting advice.
Why would Imam Ghazali say, avoid disputation and
argumentation as far as possibly as you can.
Why?
Because he says for in argumentation, jizal, lies
a lot of harm.
And it's evil is greater than it's benefit.
Alright?
And subhanAllah you think about the student that
he's advising he's advising a student of his
who's obviously mashallah learned, he's charismatic, he's excited
to kind of show his knowledge to people
the first advice that he tells him that
to avoid is, don't argue with people.
Don't get used to arguing with people.
Don't be the one who like sits in
a gathering and you're ready to like stand
up and square up.
Alright?
Everyone's ready with their facts.
Right?
Oh no, no, actually I think that might
be better.
No, no, actually you're wrong about that one.
Let me just go ahead and correct you
real quick.
Imam Ghazali says, avoid that type of behavior.
Because in it, lies great harm.
And the harms, the evils greatly outweigh the
benefits.
Okay?
He says, it is the source of all
reprehensible qualities.
Showing off.
Arya.
Right?
When a person gets into this common common,
you know, custom of argumentation, they get very
used to this kind of like temptation of
shaytan which says, yeah man just like, you
can't leave this argument man we gotta show
everybody what you know.
And at that moment, your intention of arguing
went from the truth to just showing off
what you know.
That's it.
You could care less by the way.
We'll talk a little bit about it about
like how to kind of purify, even if
you do get into conflicts with each other,
how to purify your intention when you do
get into those conflicts.
He says, it involves showing off.
It involves hasad.
Envy.
Right?
People become envious of one another when they
argue with one another.
Right?
I mean, if you don't look any further,
look at these presidential debates that we watch.
Right?
They become like clown shows.
Right?
It's like one after the other.
There's like insults and like mockery and like
this guy's family member said this and this
guy did this when he was 20.
I mean, like the degradation of humanity can
be watched live on CNN.
It's like the most bizarre thing ever.
Right?
And you watch these two people clowning each
other for the position of leading this country.
And then you go home and you drink
like an entire cup of coffee and you
tell yourself four years is not that long.
Right?
Like you're kind of thinking to yourself like
how is this possible?
And subhanAllah, why?
It's because you're no longer talking to somebody
hoping that you come to some sort of
agreement or some sort of settle or some
sort of like solution.
You want that person to fail.
You want that person to slip up so
you can catch them.
Right?
How many of us, subhanAllah, have we been
trapped in this void of shaitan where we
get excited when somebody makes a mistake?
It's like, oh man, this is my time
to shine.
Right?
Like I knew they're gonna slip up eventually.
Imam Ghazali says this is the worst trait
that you can imagine in a person who
wants to learn Islam in their life.
Okay?
And he says it involves enmity and boasting,
etc.
Of course, if there arises a question between
you and an individual or a group and
your intention is that the truth may become
manifest and not lost, debating is 100%
permissible.
But there are two signs of such a
desire.
There are two signs that you know that
any sort of like conflict or discussion or
argument you have in your life is something
that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is pleased
with.
Right?
Because at the end of the day, we
can't avoid every conversation.
It's also not healthy to be like, yeah,
I don't really want to talk about that
right now.
Sometimes you have to have those conversations.
So how do you know that those conversations
are being approved by Allah?
How do you know that they're beloved to
Allah?
He says, number one, that it makes no
difference whether the truth is revealed by your
tongue or the tongue of another person.
What a test of the ego.
What a test of the soul.
You get into a conversation with somebody and
you make the niyah that I want the
truth, whether it comes from me or I
learn it from you.
The ulama would talk about this constantly.
They would talk about this constantly.
That we would debate our adversaries making the
dua that we would find truth upon their
tongues.
Prove me.
Sometimes I want you to prove me wrong
so I can learn from you.
This is the etiquette of a Muslim.
We wish well upon the people that are
in front of us.
Not harm.
I want to find the truth.
Right?
The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam when he
was teaching Islam in the early days of
Mecca, he was never telling himself that I
don't care if I'm right or wrong.
I need them to follow me.
He was saying please tell me if there's
anything you see from me that's incorrect.
What's that famous dua?
At the end of anything that you do,
oh Allah, accept whatever was good for me
and forgive me if anything was said incorrectly.
Why?
Because you admit that you could have said
something that was incorrect.
Right?
And so he says number one is that
the truth is found upon your tongue and
the tongue of the other person.
And number two, that you prefer discussion in
private more than in public.
Somebody give me a reason as to why.
Why is the discussion being preferred in private
more of a beautiful trait Islamically than if
the discussions had in public?
Ali?
Very good.
He hit the nail on the head.
He said because you are putting yourself in
a position where you are less inclined to
fall into the traps of shaitan.
How many of you all have ever had
a disagreement with somebody when there were five
people watching you?
At that moment you're like thinking about eight
different scenarios, right?
You're like, oh my god I could be
voted the MSA president after this, okay?
Like if I play my cards right, you
know?
Like after this is over, I could be
promoted to the head of whatever.
If you do it in private, you're not
worried about saving face.
You're not worried about like your ego.
You are sincerely getting into a one-on
-one conversation.
This is subhanallah, right?
The advice of the scholar here is so
beautiful because it's helping you avoid something that
every human being struggles with.
I don't care how religiously sound you are.
Even if you're a scholar.
Even if you're a scholar, it is so
dangerous to get into public realms of like
people gassing you up.
Wallahi it's a challenge, right?
And we live in a weird time, by
the way.
We live in the internet saga where like
everything is up for viewership, right?
Oh my god, did you see how many
views that series had?
It was nuts!
Right?
Like did you see how many people liked
that one video?
It went wild, right?
Like Sheikh Omar said that marriage is risk?
Forward that joint!
Like that's insane, right?
And as soon as we see stuff like
that, we start just sharing it like wildfire,
right?
We make fun of our moms being like
whatsapp aunties, but we're actually tiktok aunties in
the making.
Like everybody does it, right?
It's just generationally different.
But subhanallah, what is the danger of this?
The danger of this is that a person's
heart which may have been pure.
By the way, subhanallah, it's so interesting to
me.
One time I remember I was speaking to
a very respected elder of mine.
A very very, mashallah, like a very beloved
person in the community.
He's very well spoken.
He was a scholar, mashallah.
And I went up to him one time.
I was like, Sheikh, you have no idea
the benefit that your podcast series had for
the Ummah.
And he goes, which one?
And I'm like, the famous one, right?
If I tell you guys, you guys know
where it is.
I was like, the famous one.
And he's like, that one's famous?
I was like, yeah, dude.
Millions of people have saved it and archived
it.
It's an incredible thing.
And he goes, yeah, I've actually never listened
to one of its episodes.
After I taught that class, I asked Allah
to accept it and then boom, it was
done.
And I'm thinking to myself, subhanAllah, Allah has
protected this person.
Why?
You know those people, they put their little
phone up on the thing and they press
play and they go and they pretend to
pray Fajr Salah, right?
They wake up in the morning, put off
the sheets, and then afterwards they're like, oh
my God, which filter should I put on
this one, right?
And like, which one makes it look more
Fajri and not like Asri?
I gotta figure this one out.
And then after I figure all the filters
out, then I gotta post it.
And then after it's posted, I gotta make
sure that the captions are right, the hashtags
are all neat and proper.
I gotta make sure that I share it
on the right platforms.
I gotta make sure that when I story
it, I also put the right caption on
the story.
Then after that, I gotta check up on
it and see how the viewership is going.
And at that point, you are so far
removed.
You are so far removed from the reason
of why you even decided to do this,
that you've completely lost your way, right?
And so subhanAllah, what Imam Zari is saying
here is that protect yourself by doing these
things privately instead of publicizing all of this
stuff.
Your best deeds, y'all, should be those
that are done in private.
If our deeds are varying so much that
we're seeing this crazy spectrum of a difference
between our public deeds and our private deeds,
then there's something to be worried about.
Because there's a reason why I'm performing so
much better publicly and performing so much less
sincerely and beautifully and in an excellent manner
when I do something in private, right?
So, I'm gonna kind of move forward here.
He says a couple of things after he
mentions the first one.
He says here that the second thing that
a person should avoid in their life, right?
He mentions this right over here.
He goes, the second thing that a person
should avoid in their life is that your
concern in preaching or your concern in preaching
is not that people become wrought up in
your assembly and show excitement and tear clothes
so that it'd be said, what an assembly
that was.
What a bar that person just dropped, right?
Like, don't ever open your mouth with the
intention that you want someone to praise you.
Because if that's the reason you open your
mouth, everything you say will be manufactured.
And this is why subhanAllah, we have people
like proofreading tweets for like three hours before
signing it off.
Right?
And I'm not saying that you shouldn't think
about what you say before you say it.
What I'm saying is, if you have the
intention that, oh, I want this to be
like stamped in like the Twitter Hall of
Fame after I tweet this, then Allah will
put no barakah in anything that you say.
And not only that, but people who use
Islam as a conduit for that type of
behavior.
Oh, I'm going to share this hadith.
Why?
Because I hope that it catches fire and
goes viral.
That's not your words, that's the words of
the Prophet.
The Quran ayah you posted on your TikTok
video, subhanAllah, you know, sometimes when I see
people reciting Quran, I'm thinking to myself, wow,
people are obsessing over this finite voice that
this guy has, but they're actually missing the
complete words that are actually from Allah.
We get caught up in the melody and
the tune, and wow, how the crescendo of
this Qari's like ability to recite, but then
you forget the actual ayah that's being recited
is an ayah that reminds somebody about death.
So, Allah protect us from ever being people
that are obsessed with our own speech.
You know, when you look at the Prophet,
I always think about this sometimes, right?
Like when we think and we're like, man,
that was the best khutbah I've heard in
a long time.
Oh my God, that speech was so amazing,
that episode of that series was so great,
and all this stuff.
I always think to myself, I'm like, do
we treat the hadith of the Prophet in
the same way?
Like the hadith of the Prophet he gave
on Arafah, in his final year of life.
Everyone knows some parts of this famous khutbah
that he gave.
He talked about how no Arab is better
than a non-Arab, and a white person
is not better than a black person, a
black person is not better than a white
person, a man is not better than a
woman, a woman is not better than a
man.
He made all these beautiful points.
But how many times did we ever speak
about that?
Those were coming out of the mouth of
the Prophet.
So subhanAllah, Allah protect us from ever becoming
obsessed with, you know, clout and fame, and
being remembered for the words that we say,
because at the end of the day, anyone
who's ever speaking about anything related to Islam,
guys, were all just repeating things that Allah
and His Messenger already said.
And if you didn't, then that means you're
in danger.
That means you're making things up.
And that's also something that's extremely, extremely dangerous,
right?
So he says here, you must make the
hereafter beloved to them, and make them hate
the world, teach them the science of worship
and renunciation, become their temperaments, lean towards deviation
from the way of Islam, and indulging in
those displeasing to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
and acquiring evil attributes.
So, he goes on for a bit about
this, and he says the third thing to
avoid as a believer, as a devout believer,
is that you should not that he says,
the third thing that you should forsake is
that you should not mingle with princes and
sultans, nor should you see them for seeing
them sitting with them and mixing with them
is a great mischief.
Now, I'll explain a little bit about what
that means, because it's a little bit contextually
accurate to his life.
What he's talking about here particularly is don't
get caught up in status of who you
roll with, right?
Like, don't get caught up with being a
part of that famous friend group.
I'll tell you guys, subhanAllah, I've met people
who have had more than like a hundred
close friends that have been the most lonely
people I've ever met in my life.
And I've met people who had one or
two people that they keep in touch with
on a daily basis, that were always happy
with what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
given them.
Don't worry about rolling with people that have
this, or wear that, and they speak like
this and talk like that.
I know unfortunately nowadays, like in college, and
this has just been kind of the tale
as old as time, which is like oh
yeah, if you're a person who wants to
make it in life, you've got to make
sure your network is up here, and you've
got to do all this stuff properly, and
make sure you make connections and this and
that, all that stuff.
That's fine for dunya.
I'm telling you guys right now, it's fine
for dunya.
You've got to sneak into that IT software
tech circle, because you want to also have
a job at some point after you graduate.
But in Islam, that's not what we do.
That's not what we do.
We don't see a person who dresses to
the nine, and we're like yeah, I want
to pray next to him.
SubhanAllah, I'll tell you guys something.
One time, and I never actually really shared
this before, one of my most sincere salawat
I've ever prayed in my life has been
next to a person who was homeless in
Mecca.
And I prayed it on the street outside
of the haram, because I didn't make it
into the haram for salat in time.
And I was beating myself up.
I was like, man, like, gosh, I should
have woken up like 10 minutes earlier to
pray for her on time and like, I
ended up praying on the street and the
person who lined up next to me was
a person who I can only assume, may
Allah protect me from assuming incorrectly, but I
can only assume that he was impoverished.
But wallahi, in my salat, he was crying
the entire time.
And I thought to myself, Allah, thank you
for putting me next to a person that
prays like this.
Because there are people that are in like
the front saf of the Prophet's masjid and
the masjid in Mecca that don't feel the
same way.
But a guy that's praying out in the
street on the concrete may feel more in
his prayer than a person who prays in
the first line.
So we don't ever look at a situation
and say like, yeah, I want to be
next to that guy because like, that person
dresses like that or looks like that or
smells like that, no, no, no.
We do not, and there's a reason why,
and he mentions this, subhanallah, there's a reason
why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala or the
Prophet, salallahu alayhi wasalam, he says in a
very famous hadith, he goes, he says, He
says, Allah does not look at your physical
appearance, nor does he look at your money.
Rather, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala looks at
what is within your hearts and what you
do with your actions.
There's a reason why we don't judge at
all, but particularly we don't judge in deen
based upon appearance and wealth.
Because that does not indicate anything about a
person.
Anything about a person.
Okay?
And then he says here, the fourth is
to not accept anything of the gifts of
these types of people though you know it's
permissible because coveting what they possess corrupts the
deen of a person.
Now, I'll tell you what this means particularly.
Don't allow your Islam to ever be compromised
by the worldly temptations that you have.
Don't allow people to buy out your faith.
And the greatest example that I can give
you of this is when the Quraysh of
Mecca the ma'shar al-Quraysh, the higher ups
of Mecca they would offer the messenger salallahu
alayhi wa sallam things like money, status, wealth,
you know, homes, women even audhubillah, they used
to tempt him with like the most barbaric
and immoral things.
And all they would say is like yeah
man, just stop preaching this Islam for just
a little bit.
Stop preaching this Islam for a little bit
and you can get all of whatever you
want in this world.
We'll make it for you.
We'll do it for you.
Everything you have.
And the Prophet, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, what
he said is a famous line.
He said, if you put the sun in
one hand and the moon in another hand,
I would never abandon my calling to this
deen.
What does that mean?
Sun in one hand, moon in the other.
Meaning if you bring me the entirety of
the world, I would not stop what I'm
doing right now.
And so you think about this, subhanallah, right?
Never allow your heart to be compromised by
things that are temporary.
Yes.
Guess what?
Sometimes people will offer you, hey man, like,
come out.
Come out to this party that we're going
to after work today.
Or after class.
And you'll be like, yeah, I guess if
I do it for a little bit, it's
not that bad.
I can just go and then I can
come back really quickly.
No, no, no.
You're sacrificing so much in your deen that
you have no idea about.
There are people who instead of going to
like their co-workers after work party, they'll
opt to like go to the masjid and
pray asr because they know that that's actually
what puts barakah in their life.
They'll opt out of like that college hangout
where they know nothing good's gonna happen.
And they'll go to the MSA program which
alhamdulillah, inshallah, has more good.
And they'll benefit from it more.
Why?
Because they made that intention that, ya Allah,
I'm doing this for you.
Right?
So never sacrifice that experience in your life
and tell yourself that by sacrificing Allah, I
expect to move places in my life.
In fact, the opposite will always happen.
Which is that a person who sacrifices things
for the dunya or sacrifices the dunya for
Allah, they will never regret it.
You will never regret it.
How many times, think about it right now
guys, how many times have you ever heard
of a person tell you, yeah, I shouldn't
have done umrah that year.
I should have definitely gone to Mali.
I definitely should have gone to, you know,
I definitely should have gone to Switzerland instead
of Hajj.
How many people have ever said that?
Oh yeah, I should have, I should have
gone to the Caribbean's man.
Definitely shouldn't have gone to Medina that year.
Like, wallahi said no one ever.
Right?
What does that prove?
That proves that, alhamdulillah, anything you do for
Allah, it's worth it.
It's worth it.
Some people in your life that you thought
were great friends of yours and then, unfortunately,
the reality is that they affected your deen
in an adverse way and you had to
kind of you know, make some moves in
your social life and you felt bad about
it.
Allah will never allow that person to go
away from your life without replacing that person
with someone who is leagues better for you.
Guaranteeing it.
Okay?
And so, then he moves on to the
four things that he advises and these are
beautiful, mashaAllah.
Okay?
So he talks about the four things to
avoid and now he moves on to the
four things that will grow you closer to
Allah.
The first thing he says, he says, first,
make your dealings with Allah such that if
your own servant acted in this manner with
you, you would be pleased with him and
you would not think ill of him nor
become angry.
Now this is a little bit of like
a very heavy statement.
He said, your relationship with Allah is that
you're an abd.
You're an abd of Allah.
You are a servant, a slave of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Think about what that relationship is supposed to
be like.
A slave is supposed to be a person
who serves, submits, and throw out the negative
connotations of what western US history has taught
you about slavery.
When it comes to being a slave of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, there is actually
nothing more liberating.
There is nothing more freeing of the shackles
other than becoming a slave of Allah.
You know, what you sign up for when
you become a slave of Allah is that
you free yourself from the shackles of being
a slave of the dunya.
You say, Allah, I want to be your
slave, and automatically the shackles come off of
your wrists because there's no more being a
slave of money.
There's no more of being a slave of
things that you can buy at the store.
There's no more slaves of being of people's
approval in the world around you.
You free yourself of that shackle.
And when you're a slave of Allah, you
benefit from the relationship that you have with
Allah.
You appreciate Him more.
Are there not people in the world that
have everything that you could possibly imagine and
they have no happiness in their life?
The reason why is because they haven't accepted
that relationship with Allah.
And then you have people who have nothing.
You have people who have nothing.
They're barely making ends meet.
But when you look at their contentment, it
is beyond a person who may have millions
of dollars in their bank account.
How is that possible?
Because that person is confident in their relationship.
Y'all know about security in relationships?
How many of y'all have insecure relationships
in your life sometimes?
I'm not going to make an answer to
that.
I'm just kidding.
But like, insecurity in relationships you're like, oh
my god, I gotta text him after this
is over.
I'm just kidding.
Listen.
Insecurity in relationships, wallahil azeem, is bred from
a person not doing haqq to that relationship.
If you do haqq by that relationship, if
you do truth by that relationship, you will
not be insecure in that relationship.
Because you know exactly where you stand with
that person.
When, like literally, subhanallah, I have Aya back
there.
She's wandering the halls eating pizza over there
somewhere.
She's destroying, pounding pizza slices one after the
other.
So, with Aya, subhanallah, you know, people ask
me they're like, you know, I have a
more unorthodox work schedule.
I'll be working during the day time, I'll
come back and teach at night time.
And so all these different things happen, right?
So I'm not really home sometimes in the
evening as much as a person works nine
to five, right?
And so sometimes I ask are you, do
you feel bad that Aya is not seeing
you at night time sometimes?
And of course, like any father would, like
I want to spend more time with her.
But wallahi I'm telling you, like, hamdulillah hamdulillah,
may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect everyone's
family relationships.
Everyone say ameen.
My relationship with her is so hamdulillah, that
I know that girl, the moment she sees
me at like 8.30pm after this class
is over, she is going to forget that
I wasn't even around for the past hour.
Like she's going, like hamdulillah.
Why?
Because I know that I'm trying my best
to be a good father to her.
When it comes to your relationship with Allah,
that insecurity only exists when you know that
you're not doing your part.
Because Allah will never not do His part.
Allah will take care of you regardless if
you acknowledge Him or not.
Allah will provide for you if you're a
person who's grateful or not.
Allah will take care of you if you,
if you pray to Him or not.
Allah will take care of you.
But you will feel some sort of way
because you know that you're not doing your
job properly.
And this is when all those insecure questions
come up of you know, like, why did
Allah do this?
Or why did Allah allow that calamity to
happen?
No, no, no.
Only if you did your part with Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, you would even know
the most difficult of situations that's hard for
your mind to wrap itself around, you would
understand why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala would
allow something like that to happen.
The people right now that are questioning why
things are happening in Palestine right?
Like, how could God allow this to happen?
How could this?
It's because those people have not solidified their
relationship with God yet.
A person who solidified their relationship with God
they see the tragedies going on in Palestine
and they have so much yaqeen that the
people of Gaza are going to be flying
through the skies of heaven.
They know that.
Because I will never doubt that the Allah
that I worship will take care of me.
Just like he's taking care of me.
Right?
That's the first thing.
The second thing that he says is in
all your dealings with people treat them as
you would be pleased to be treated by
them.
Subhanallah.
What does it sound like?
So interesting, right?
Everyone's like, oh my god golden rule, I
learned that in kindergarten, right?
In Mrs. Grace's class, right?
Subhanallah.
You see how sometimes the American school system
is like, yeah, take that hadith and put
it on our wall with stickers and stars
around it, right?
And then you look back and you're like,
it's a hadith in Bukhari.
Literally.
Literally, the Prophet says one time he says
that you should love for your brother, right?
يُحِبُّ لِأَخِيهِ مَا يُحِبُّ لِنَفْسِهِ Love for your
brother what you?
Love for yourself.
Love for your sister what you love for
yourself.
That's literally the second point that Imam Ghazali
is mentioning right here.
He says in all of your dealings with
people, treat them as you would be pleased
to be treated by them.
Make sure that you don't undercut a person
because you love yourself so much more than
you love them.
If you really, really consider a person a
brother or a sister, right?
If there was one more matcha scoop of
powder back there at sohbah and you're a
matcha addict and you like you IV it
within your veins like every day, you will
look at the person behind you and you'll
be like now the matcha is actually all
yours today, right?
Even though like it hurts.
You're like, oh my god, where am I
going to get my matcha from?
Whole Foods is closed at this time.
No, no.
You would want better for the person behind
you.
Why?
One of the scholars, subhanAllah, that talked about
this hadith is so powerful.
He said that when you talk about يُحِبُّ
لِأَخِيهِ مَا يُحِبُّ لِنَفْسِهِ Loving for your brother
or sister what you love for yourself, actually
what you love for yourself is the best.
Is that right?
When you make dua for yourself, you're like,
oh Allah give me like that second tier
job.
Like, oh Allah, like allow me to pass
like college with like a regular grade.
Like forget about like that magna * laude
and the summa * laude.
Like give me like the average * laude,
right?
You're making dua for the best.
رَبَّنَا أَتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً
You ask Allah for the best.
So, check this out.
In light of this teaching right here at
the bottom of the page, if you love
the best for yourself, what are you actually
truly supposed to feel about other people around
you?
You want the best for them.
In fact, those who really train their hearts,
they want better for other people than they
actually want for themselves.
I want for myself this thing, but I
want for my brother or sister even better
than me.
Get used to making dua for people sometimes
even more intensely than you make dua for
yourself.
It's hard.
It's not easy.
Because the soul is egotistical.
We want for ourselves better than anything else.
But the ability to make dua for people
just as intensely and devoutly as you make
dua for your own self, that's when you
know that you've done a little bit of
work within the heart.
And it doesn't have to be everybody.
Pick a few people in your life.
Whether it's like your siblings or your mother
or your father or whoever.
A friend.
Make dua for them as intensely as you
make dua for yourself.
Allah, allow my friend to be even better
than what they do.
Some of my mashayikh, subhanAllah, they say we
want our students to be more influential than
we ever were in our lives.
That's how you know that you're succeeding in
your life.
Because you want people to be better than
you.
How weird would it be to make a
dua where you're like, Ya Allah, رَبَّنَا آتِنَا
فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً But for my friend, وَفِي
الْحَسَنَةً الثَّانِي.
Right?
The second best.
You want them to have the best, if
not better.
Right?
So want for your brother or sister even
better than you want for yourself.
He says, the third, if you read or
pursue knowledge, your knowledge should reform your heart
and purify your soul.
Just as if you discovered that you had
one week to live, subhanAllah.
You would of course not occupy yourself studying
the science of jurisprudence or morality or principles
of jurisprudence, scholastic theology, and the like because
you would know that these disciplines would not
help you.
You would rather engage yourself in moderating the
state of your heart and apprehending the characteristics
of your soul and shunning attachment to the
dunya and purifying your soul from all blameworthy
characteristics.
Occupying yourself with the love and worship of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and adopting the
praiseworthy characteristics.
No day or night passes upon a servant
in which his death may not take place.
Basically, this advice is, live every single day
as though it's your last.
Live every day as though it's your last.
Don't ever convince yourself that like at some
point, like I can expect to live till
like next month.
Oh yeah, I can live until next year.
Like I have big plans for like my
23rd birthday.
I have big plans for my 25th birthday.
I mean, this is something that no human
being in their right state of mind and
heart can ever speak about.
Right?
So, subhanAllah, you know the all-encompassing, you
know icebreaker question, if you had one week
left to live, how would you live it?
If you had one day left to live,
what would you do in that day?
And if you feel very strongly about that
statement, then perhaps everything that you do, your
salawat, your dua, your Quran, even eating and
interacting with your family members, it may be
a little bit different.
Right?
The Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam in his final
week of life, I want you guys to
kind of think about something.
This is a man who lived 63 years
and he was a prophet of Allah, notably
for 23 of those 63.
And in the final week of his life,
you know what the most notable things that
he did were?
He had, alhamdulillah, several family members within the
city of Medina, but he moved to the
home of Sayyidina Aisha radiAllahu anha, who lived
right next to the masjid.
So geographically, physically, he wanted to be close
to Allah.
That's one intention that he made clear.
The second intention he made clear was that
I'm going to try and make it to
salah as much as I possibly can, even
if it means two of my sahaba literally
holding me up and dragging me to prayer.
That's the second thing.
The third thing is that he spent every
day with a person from his family that
he loved, whether it was his wife Aisha,
whether it was his father-in-law Abu
Bakr, whether it was his cousin Ali, whether
it was his daughter Fatima, whether it was
his other family member, Fadhil ibn Abbas, he
spent every single day with a family member
and tried to connect with them until his
final breath.
And one of his final things that he
did, subhanAllah, what a powerful moment.
He asked one of his companions for his
toothbrush that was in his pocket, and he
said, give me the siwak so I can
brush my teeth really quickly.
And somebody would think to themselves, why would
you brush your teeth before you pass away?
Because he was saying, I'm going to meet
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
That's what he did with his final days
of his life.
He viewed Allah as like a real friend
that he was going to go see.
Sometimes we have this kind of like figment
of an imagination of like this idea of
a hereafter.
He was physically brushing his teeth and saying,
oh Allah, I'm excited to see you.
And he would brush his teeth, brush his
teeth, brush his teeth as though he was
a person who was getting ready for an
invitation to a person's house.
And then the fourth and the last advice
that he gave Imam Ghazali in this particular
chapter, he said, do not accumulate of this
world more than what suffices for one year.
As a messenger of Allah never exceeded that
for some of his wives and said, oh
Allah make the provision of my family or
the family of Muhammad sufficient.
And he did not accumulate it for all
his wives.
In fact, he used to prepare only for
her whom he knew had weaknesses in their
heart.
And so he says subhanAllah here that don't
take more than you need from the dunya
around you.
This dunya guys is a means to an
end.
And I'm going to be very real with
everybody here.
If we start treating our degrees like what
our life depends on and the jobs that
we're going to apply for, what my life
depends on and our Instagram followership, what my
life depends on and my friend circle what
my life depends on and even my family
to a certain degree what my life depends
on we have misunderstood the actual objective of
this life which is not to make these
the ends but make them the means to
an end.
Your job that you guys all will have
inshaAllah once you finish your degrees and you
get your careers in place, those jobs will
be a means to an end.
The paychecks that you receive, how many of
you guys already work?
Raise your hands.
Okay, how many of you all are like
seeing money come and money go?
With each paycheck, you're like hmm, cool, reset
every week, huh?
I guess that's my life.
Wallahul Azeem guys, I'm telling you right now
as like a full blown adult, it doesn't
get much different when you're in your 30s.
Expenses continue to come, money comes and money
goes.
If a person obsesses over that money, they
will never be happy about the experiences that
they have in that life with that money.
You make money so that you can provide
for your loved ones.
You make money so you can eat, you
make money so that you can pay rent
or you can pay your bills.
That's what you make money for.
Money's not meant to be hoarded, right?
Friends.
Friends are not meant to be accumulated.
Friends are meant to have, to share beautiful
experiences with.
So what does it matter if you have
3 or 8,000?
What are those 8,000 worth if you
don't actually appreciate them?
Those 3 are worth something because you have
great memories with those people, right?
What is family unless you actually care for
them and love for them, right?
Back in the time of the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam, people used to brag about their
families like they used to brag about their
friends.
Nowadays we're like, yeah man, I got 15
,000 followers on Instagram.
Back in the day, they'd be like, yeah,
I have 80 children.
Whoa, you okay bro?
You impoverished?
No, seriously.
This is what they used to brag to
each other about.
You think to yourself, is life just a
game of numbers to you?
Is that all you care about?
Or do you care about those things leading
you to an end, right?
Do you care about those things leading you
to an end to a certain point in
your life, right?
Because at the end of the day, all
of these things will vanish and the only
thing that will be left for you is
actually you and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
standing on the Day of Judgment facing each
other.
And Allah will ask you, you had a
healthy mother and a healthy father and a
healthy home.
Did you appreciate that home?
You had friends in your life that you
used to pray with.
Did you ever thank me for those friends?
You may not have ever made Mr. Beast
money ever in your life, right?
But guess what?
You made, Alhamdulillah, you made enough.
Did you use that money to pay for
people their meals because maybe you had more
than they did?
Did you give sadaqa every single Friday on
your way to Jummah, on your way back?
Did you do these simple things?
And if you did those simple things, it
doesn't matter how many friends you had or
how much money you had, Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala will tell you to enter His
Jannah.
And that is something, Subhanallah, that I think
from this stage of y'all's life, we
have to start thinking about because there's more
meaning than just what meets the eye, okay?
Inshallah.
So we'll finish with that.
Next week, we're going to kind of go
through a couple of chapters together, Inshallah.
There's a chapter on du'a.
By the way, how many of you guys
ever wanted, oh man, I should have added
some of the du'a that we did
like half a year ago.
But there's an entire session on du'a
about the most beautiful du'as that Imam
Ghazali recommends to his students.
So Inshallah, we're going to go through those
du'as one by one.
And Inshallah, the following week, we're going to
finish off this series.
Alright guys, Jazakum Allah Khairan.
We'll hold Q&A, Inshallah, next Thursday, Inshallah
Ta'ala.
And we will reconvene then.
We have a really cool event, by the
way.
Aya?
Hi, Mama.
What are you up to?
You wanna come?
What are you trying to say, Bubba?
You wanna come sit?
Okay, come.
So Inshallah, next...
So Inshallah, on December 14th, I want you
guys to mark your calendars.
We're going to...
It's fine.
So we have a really cool event, Inshallah,
on December 14th for college students.
It's going to be an end of year
Q&A with myself and Ustadh Mahmood, Inshallah.
We're going to be ordering a bunch of
boba, a bunch of food, Inshallah, for that
night.
So if you belong to a college body,
a campus, an MSA, let everyone know, Inshallah.
So December 14th from 7 to 8 p
.m. at nighttime, Inshallah, we're going to open
up routes for all of our college community,
MSAs, everybody.
We'll do boba, food, and then we'll do
a really awesome end of semester Q&A
with everybody, Inshallah, Ta'ala.
Alright, guys?
Jazakallah.
Are you making dua?
Okay, you love blues because I know that.
Okay.
Alright.
So Alhamdulillah, Jazakallah, everybody.
Thank you for being here.
We'll see you all, Inshallah, next Thursday.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.