Safi Khan – Soul Food for College Students The Du’a Series Class 5
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AI: Transcript ©
Alright.
Everybody.
How's everyone doing?
I had a joke. I,
I made a joke last night. My wife
and I were like she goes, it seems
like every Thursday that you teach, there's, like,
this, like, torrential threat for, like, some tornadoes.
And I have no idea why.
It's so true. It's an observation that I
just kind of, like, came up on yesterday
because because my wife is always kind of
looking to, like, you know, hey. Let me
let let's take our daughter. Let's take Aya
to the park or whatever it is. And
she's like, yeah. I wonder what tomorrow looks
like. I'm like, yeah. What's tomorrow? Thursday. Okay.
It's soul food night. I'm like, alright. Cool.
The weather should be nice right in Charlotte.
She looks and she's like, tornadoes, flood watch.
I'm like, what is happening on Thursdays in
Dallas, Texas?
But hamdulillah hamdulillah. You know, but, you know,
something really ironic also though, even though it,
like, it storms in the morning, it looks
really gloomy all day. During halakat time, it
always clears up, which is, masha'Allah, it's such
a it's such a blessing. So you get
the best of both worlds. The earth gets
cold. Alhamdulillah. Everyone's safe to drive to roots
at night. So
no complaints.
Alright. So
we're gonna continue,
with our etiquettes of Dua. So this is
gonna be our last session on the etiquettes
of Dua.
And then next Thursday and then the Thursdays
moving forward,
we're gonna be talking about some more specific
things like, for example, you know, what is
the best time to make dua according to
the Quran and the hadith?
What are certain things that one should avoid
while making dua? All these different things Insha'Allah
we'll be talking about,
in the weeks coming forward. I also, by
the way, had a really awesome, opportunity
to speak to Sheikh Yasser Alkali himself actually
yesterday.
So myself and Sheikh Yasser, we spoke and
I told him, I said, Sheikh, you know,
we're going through some of your book,
during this this series and, we would love
to have you,
on our last episode. And so
graciously accepted. So keep an eye out We're
gonna have Sheikh Yasser here sometime,
towards
the middle end of summer when we're wrapping
up our series,
and he's gonna be, sharing some gems with
us because, again, at the end of the
day, he's the one that actually wrote this
book that's up on the screen right here.
So it'll be a really amazing opportunity to
actually hear from the author himself, Hamdulillah. Sheikh
Yasser, by the way, is an amazing, amazing
writer.
I know a lot of people know him
as, like, an a good speaker, a good
orator,
but he's actually even a better writer,
and you can tell by the way that
he structures a lot of his writing.
It's, it's it's it's pretty impressive stuff.
So
we'll
continue on with our 7th etiquette of du'a.
So just to reflect with everybody, the first
six etiquettes that we spoke about, right, in
the in the the series of etiquettes of
dua.
The first etiquette that we spoke about was
to mention and praise Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and praise the prophet
before,
actually stating what we want and what we
need. Okay? The second one was
to raise one's hands. Right? There are so
many narrations. Remember, we talked about the narration
of,
the companions of the prophet saying that there
are so many times that the prophet raised
his hands during his dua. It was almost
like not not even it's not even countable.
The amount of times he did it, so
it's just an authentic sunnah of his to
raise your hands when making dua.
The third was to face the.
Remember, we talked about that a little bit
to face the during your dua.
The 4th was to perform your wudu. Although
it's something that's not required of you, you
know, dua is something that's very very
easy to to to engage in. Allah did
not put rules upon dua like he did
upon prayer, but to increase the etiquettes of
something, you sometimes go above and beyond. I
mean, anybody who in here who has engaged
in any sort of,
you know, effort where they went above and
beyond for something. They don't just do the
bare necessity. They don't do the bare minimum.
They try a little bit harder to make
sure that they beautify whatever they're doing, and
so making wudu is a part of this.
And then we talked about to be emotionally
vulnerable.
Right? To be emotionally vulnerable in your dua.
Do not reserve yourselves in your dua. Don't
hold back in your dua. It's not something
that du du'a was not made to be
something in which a person actually kind of,
like, you know, reserves themselves. In fact, it's
a call.
Right? It's a it's a it's a call
to Allah
And when you desperately call, you are so
so focused on you, the one who you're
making the call to, and what you need
from the one that you're making a call
to, that your emotions kind of sometimes overwhelm
you. And that's fine. That's a part of
who you are. Dua is quite literally like
the the the the the bare human being
that you are. You know, you become almost
like a child in front of Allah Subhanahu
wa ta'ala. And we talked about being emotionally
vulnerable in that state. And then
number 6, we talked about this last week
to end to expect the best from Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And we talked about that
famous
that Allah
responds to the call of the caller whenever
they call upon him. And this is a
promise from Allah
and we know something for sure, which is
right? That the that the the the promise
of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is always true.
Right? Whatever Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala promises is
something that we can surefire know is truth.
Alright? So number 7, we're gonna continue on
with number 7 today.
Number 7,
the scholars, they say, is to pray with
2 characteristics.
To make dua
with 2 characteristics.
1 is humility
and the other is fear. Okay?
Anyone wanna take a shot as to why
one is supposed to pray with fear?
The humility is already there. Right? We talked
about this. We understood this already. You pray
with humility.
You cannot be arrogant stepping into a dua
because if a person's arrogant in their dua,
then that Dua is not really something that's
coming from a mode of desperation.
But why from a state of fear? What
is the fear about? Anybody wanna share? What
do they think? Why is fear apart? Yeah.
The fear for Allah.
The fear for Allah? Okay.
Expand a little bit. Why? Why why should
you fear Allah?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. He thought he thought he got
off quick. Alright. Go ahead.
Okay. Well, somebody help him out. Expand.
What what what's the concept of fearing Allah?
Right? And and by the way, a lot
of people have been traumatized by that phrase.
Fear God. Right? It's like growing up at
Sunday school.
But there is this concept of fearing Allah,
but why is that fear important? Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Remember we yeah. You're right. So remember
we spoke about this kind of briefly. I'm
not sure if it was in this series,
but it might have been the series before
on Thursday.
But there's a difference between fearing Allah and,
like, fearing creation. Right? When you're fearing of
creation,
there's, like, something that's harming you. Right? Like,
if a person has a phobia, if a
person's afraid of something, they don't wanna go
near that thing. Right? Like, I'm afraid of
spiders. Right? I'm afraid of the dark. I'm
afraid of, you know, certain concepts. Right? I'm
afraid of deep water. I'm afraid of heights
or whatever it may be. Right? These are
phobias. People try to avoid it. Right? But
the fear of Allah
actually helps enhance when you're close to him.
Okay? The fear of Allah should not take
you away from him. The fear of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala should actually beautify whenever you
are close to him. And I actually rather
translate the fear of Allah,
Right? This idea of being fearful of Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala as a fear that comes
from fearing the disappointment of God rather than
fearing him alone.
Right? Because a person who fears someone because
they disappoint because they don't wanna disappoint them,
that fear is actually bred from love.
Right? Like, if I'm if if my worst
nightmare is to make you upset,
right, then clearly, I'm not afraid of, like,
your essence.
I'm afraid I'm I I love you so
much, so my deepest fear is to upset
you and to displease you. So I will
do everything in my power possible to go
away from displeasing you. And that's what it
means to fear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And
so
this idea of humility and fear. Right? It's
stated in the Quran
that in in the story of Zakaria alaihis
salam. Right? Zakaria alaihis salam was a prophet
of Allah who could not have a child
when he was a young man and his
wife was a young woman. And they continued
to try, but they they they they were
not able to. Allah
did not put it in their decree to
have children at an earlier age. And so
Zakariya alaihi wasalam, when he got older, he
became so desperate
in his dua for a child
that he broke down in front of Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala, and he made dua to
Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. And it says here,
verily, they used to hasten to good deeds.
They used to try their hardest to do
good. And we'll talk about this in a
little bit, by the way. What's the connection
of doing good deeds to your duas? Is
is is it completely mutually exclusive, or is
there something to does it have to do
with one another? And then he says that
they would call to Allah
They would call to Allah
with hope
and with fear, and they used to humble
themselves in front of Allah.
They would humble themselves in front of God.
So whenever they used to call to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, they would actually couple
their dua
in humility
with fear of disappointing him. And the reason
why that fear of disappointing him is so
key here, look at the first part of
the verse that Allah
mentions that.
They used to hasten towards good deeds.
They used to try to please Allah before
they made du'a.
They wouldn't just go and ask Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala for what they wanted, but they
used to do the things prior to that
dua that they knew that Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala would be happy with.
So when you go and give sadaqa,
when you go and pray,
when you go do some acts of charity,
some acts of kindness before you ask Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, it does nothing but beautify
your actual asking.
Right? You're not just calling up to Allah
because you want something. You're actually considering what
makes Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala pleased.
And by the way, whatever pleases Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala does actually it doesn't affect him.
It's actually for your own
good. That's the entire irony of it all.
That Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not just
made happy
because of the things that you do, but
what makes Allah pleased is that what actually
benefits you, which is incredible because Allah does
not benefit from your salah, Allah does not
benefit from your charity. Allah does not benefit
from your zakah. Allah does not benefit from
your Hajj. None of these things benefit Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. In fact, they benefit you.
So think about
who Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is to you.
What pleases Allah is what benefits you.
And now you start to understand
why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and all of
the examples
available to mankind.
The only thing that Allah says is somewhat
somewhat and not even, like, all, just somewhat
relatable to the relationship that Allah has with
you is a relationship that a mother has
to a child,
and it's not even close.
It's not even close. There's no doubt that
a mother would take a bullet for her
child.
There's no doubt that a mother would take
the sickness away from the child and take
it upon her so the child can be
free of any sort of health issues.
Your mother would do so much for you,
and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says that that
is a fraction
of our relationship.
Right?
And so to fear Allah, but also at
the same time to have hope in him.
Okay? And we covered this number 8, we
covered this, but Insha'Allah, if anybody wants to
read it through, to complain to
Allah only. Right? Part of completeness of a
person's tawhid is that he does not complain
to anyone else in order to gain their
sympathy and pity. Rather, the true Muslim submits
all of his or her affairs to Allah
The prophets of Allah, whenever they were in
severe situations and extenuating circumstances,
would turn to Allah and show their need
of Allah's help alone. And one of the
examples I'll share with you guys about this
is the example of Yaqub alaihis salam,
tried to continue to push Yusuf alaihis salam
away from the family. They even went as
far as to, like, throw him into a
well, and they took his shirt and smeared
it with, like, fake blood.
And they came back to their father, Yaqub,
and said, well, it seems like a wolf
ate him. You know, like, nothing we couldn't
do anything about it. And,
he says, rather,
your souls have enticed you to do something
extremely evil.
Your souls have, like, gotten to the best
of you. But he says at the end
of all that, he says, but I will
observe
You guys have all heard this phrase before.
Means something beautiful and is patience or perseverance.
So when you tie those 2 together, what
is beautifully
appearing
patience?
Beautifully appearing pay patience is when a person
they're not only patient with with with with
just people, but they're patient with Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
They're patient with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
They they they understand that the one who
they can complain to about everything is Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
I don't wanna show people my my my
displeasure or my annoyance. You know, when you
go around and you can tell somebody's annoyed,
you can look at them and they're like,
hey, salaam alaikum. And the way they say
back to you is like, woah.
Brother. Like, what are you going through? What
happened to you today? Right?
When a person observes Saburun Jamil, they don't
even show
a person that's speaking to them that they're
going through something.
And I'm not saying that this is like
a recipe. I'm you actually should you know,
if if a person's in a very dire
need for help and, you know you know,
support or, you know, mental stability and and
and and support and help and whatever they
they want you wanna call it, you should
tell people that you're in need of help.
Islam, by the way, does not does not
actually encourage people to hide their emotions from
people. But what Islam teaches us to do
is when you are a person who's going
through something,
don't fully rely on people at the end
of the day.
Don't fully rely on people. How many of
us have been disappointed by people at some
point in our lives? Of course. We all
have. And why does that disappointment happen? It's
because we actually put so much on another
person, and when they were just being human
beings, they made mistakes, we got disappointed.
And we never actually looked to Allah.
We hid things from Allah and sought all
of our sustenance and all of our sympathy
in people.
And when we do that, we're always gonna
end up being disappointed. So in in Islam,
I'm gonna reiterate it for you. Islam does
not say to shy away from asking for
help from people, but what Islam does is
it discourages people from completely
and only relying on human beings.
Rely upon Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala before anything
else and then through Allah, reach out to
people for help. Okay?
Then we have a really beautiful advice,
to pray quietly.
Now this is interesting. This is gonna kind
of, you know, perk a few years.
To pray or make dua quietly. Now why
is this something that the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam used to advise?
In fact,
it says here
that
that is why Allah of Zakariyah
when he described it as
That Zakariyah alaihis salam,
he made dua to his lord,
nida and hafiyyah,
in privacy.
He did not make a show of it.
He did not, you know,
like, put up the camera on his TikTok,
make himself cry,
and then press record,
and then started making dua
on on video.
I mean this is such an interesting advice
of the of the scholars and specifically
even above all the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam that one of the qualifiers of a
beautiful dua is a dua that is done
in secrecy.
Nida and kafiyyah. Why?
This principle is also mentioned in hadith. The
prophet
he said, oh people,
be gentle on yourselves for you are not
calling someone who is deaf or absent, rather
you're calling on the one who is
hearing of everything. What a powerful statement.
What a powerful statement. This actually specifically comes
from a story of the prophet, salsam, life
one time where he saw somebody, like, yelling
in their dua, and the prophet, salsam, goes,
why are you yelling?
Allah can hear
you. Allah doesn't need you to go on
a microphone and yell at the top of
your lungs. Allah can hear you even if
you're silently making your dua. Think about the
one who you're making dua
to. When you think about the one you're
making dua to, Wallahi, I'm telling you guys,
a lot of these etiquettes actually fall into
place.
When you think about the one you're making
dua to, you're like, oh, yeah. I have
to be a little fearful. I also have
to be humble.
When I think about the one I'm making
dua to, I automatically begin to get emotionally
vulnerable.
When I when I remember the one I'm
making dua to, I all of a sudden
know that I don't have to yell my
duas. Allah can hear me regardless.
SubhanAllah. You know, it's so fun it's so
so interesting. One of my one of my
teachers, we were talking about this earlier
this month
that, you know, there are so many things
back in the day that would be considered,
like, impossible, but are possible now. Right? Like,
for example, right, you can now through technology,
you can
hear,
like, waves, like, sound waves.
Right? Like, before, there are certain things that,
like, you just couldn't hear from, like, the
human agent from the human ability.
You had limitations. Right? We can only hear
things that are
possible for our human ears to hear. But
now you have, like,
radio waves,
sound waves. Anybody know how Bluetooth works? I
don't.
Right? Like, those videos of, like, how do
we get Bluetooth from this? It's like a
random, like, desert.
No. It's it's true. Like, how did this
happen?
Through the the the the the the boom
in, like, technology and advancement of humankind,
we've been able to realize that, subhanallah,
every creation of Allah, every creature of Allah,
they
communicate in their own unique ways. You know,
there's actually an ayah in the Quran that
talks about how every creation of Allah prays
to Allah in a different way.
Every creation of Allah placed prays to Allah
in a different way, and it goes beyond,
like, your cat stepping on your prayer rug
at at Maghrib time.
And, like, it could be like the the
the the the the whales or the fish
in the ocean
making certain sounds
that are praising Allah. It could be birds
singing their songs in the morning that are
praising Allah.
It could be like the animals who burrow
themselves under the ground tens of hundreds of
feet underneath the ground that are praising Allah.
Allah says this in the Quran that they
all worship me in their own unique
ways. The way that you worship me is
Allahu Akbar Alhamdulillahi
rabbilalamin.
Right? You recite how you make dua. That's
the way the human beings worship me, but
everything else worships me in different ways. You
don't think that I am aware of their
worship?
All these animals, subhanallah, think about it. It's
powerful stuff. Right? And so the prophet says,
don't don't don't feel like you have to
be loud in your duas. Why? Because Allah
knows so many different forms of communication. The
number one question that a lot of people
ask, they say, well, do I have to
make my duas in Arabic?
Right? Like, do I have to make my
Dua's in Arabic? Do I have to memorize
and know Arabic in order for my Dua's
to be effective? And the answer actually is
no.
The answer is no.
The reason why Arabic was given as the
as the language of the Quran is because
it was given to the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
At the time, it was the people of
of Mecca that needed to hear it the
most, the people of Medina that needed to
hear it the most. And of course, the
Arabic language is deeply profound,
but that doesn't mean that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala will not
understand a dua that is made in a
different language.
Think about the duas that you've made in
English.
Make duas to Allah in the language that
you feel the most capable of expressing yourself
in.
And language, by the way, is not just
like codified language. Sometimes your language will actually
just be like you sitting there in silence
with Allah.
Sometimes language can actually even be thought.
Your thoughts are a form of language.
Like, sometimes, you know, like, you you you
try to explain something to somebody and they
they they try to get you to explain
it to me. Yeah. Come on. Come on.
Explain it to me. I'll get it. You're
like, you won't get it. You won't understand
what I'm thinking right now. You won't get
what I'm feeling right now. You know, there's
certain emotions that are not translatable into words.
You guys agree with me? Like, how do
you translate a rough week?
Your tire pressure was low. You failed an
exam.
You went home and you got into an
argument with your parents. There's no food all
week. Right?
You have to, like you you you your
your boss got mad at you. Right? Your
friends got mad at you. A bunch of
friend plans fell through. I mean, rough week,
man. You you're witnessing all the difficulties around
the world. It's a very difficult week. How
can you sometimes translate these things out into
words? Sometimes you just sit in front of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and you just let
your heart speak.
Right?
And so
he says that there was a couple of
beautiful benefits of, you know, making dua in
a very
quiet,
a very, very collected manner, and he gives
us a couple of these examples. He says,
firstly,
it's a sign of strong iman.
The person demonstrates that he or she firmly
believes that Allah can hear even the quietest
of prayers and thoughts.
It's a sign of your iman,
to believe that Allah can hear everything.
I don't believe and and if and if
you don't believe me, how would you explain
the duas of a person who may be
mute?
How can you explain the duas of a
person who may be deaf or blind?
They may not be able to do everything
as you do,
but you're saying that Allah will
lower the quality of their du'a because they
are not able to speak.
In fact, a person who may be mute
is even more beautiful in communicating with Allah
than a person who is fully capable of
speaking.
Think about the amount of people in this
world that can speak to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, but they refuse to do so.
And a person who Allah ta'ala has given
the challenge of not being able to speak,
but they're able to connect with Allah
That just teaches us that, like, faculty is
not everything.
Faculty is not everything.
I had a subhanAllah. I had a family
member of mine who is on the autism
spectrum,
and, you know, I knew him growing up.
And, you know, very very, you know, severely
autistic not like mildly autistic but he's very
very severely affected.
And subhanAllah, you know one thing that you
know 2 things that he did?
Memorize Quran
and the first person to wake his family
up for Frederick every school morning.
How do you explain that?
How do you explain that? And there are
hadith that prove that
Allah will not judge him the same as
he judges us.
Allah may have already forgiven him,
and his parents, Jannah, will be dependent upon
literally, like,
him. He just wants to grab his parents
and take them into paradise with him.
But still a person like that memorize Quran.
You can't explain these things. Right?
And so he says, the firstly, it's a
sign of strong iman.
Secondly,
it's a sign of respect and manners in
front of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for just
as it is considered improper for the servant
to raise his voice in front of his
master or the peasant in front of the
king. Even so, it is improper that a
slave raise his voice loudly in front of
his creator, and to Allah belongs the highest
parable and the highest example. And you'll see
this a lot of times in a lot
of books of scholars, they'll say that the
the the the etiquette that you would display
in front of a king, the etiquette that
you would display in from, like, a like,
a really high up person in your life,
think about how you would treat them and
not think about how you treat Allah.
Right?
Be gentle with your words.
Be gentle and humble with your words. Thirdly,
it is a means of achieving humility,
which is the essence of worship. The one
who is humble does not ask except meekly,
whereas the one who is arrogant asks loudly.
So softening the voice aids 1 in achieving
this desired humility in Dua.
Fourthly, it is a means of achieving sincerity
since others will not notice them.
That's powerful.
It's a sincerity check.
I wanna make dua
loudly because I want people to know
that I'm like a.
I like making dua.
But a person
who's mastered Ikhlas,
who's mastered sincerity,
some of their best duas will be made
in privacy.
Some of their most sincere duas will be
made in the confines of their own home,
where nobody will be able to see.
Because anything that is done in public, by
the way, requires
another level of sincerity checks.
Right? I'm praying that's why, by the way,
praying in Jannah
is so rewarded in Islam,
but praying in Jannah also requires that we
are very cognitively
aware of our sincerity.
Like, yeah, when I'm praying next to like
a 100 people, when I'm sitting in a
room with, like, 60 people,
like, you know, I I I feel good.
I feel good. I'm like one of the
I'm I'm like a heart work person.
I'm a soul food person. I'm like a
Sheik Mikael's Wednesday person.
Like, you, like, affiliate with, like, that group
of people.
But what if only one person went to
shaymikael's Wednesdays?
You know, one time I went to a
halakkah by a very, very,
well known scholar,
very well known. You'd be shocked if I
told you his name. And it was me
and 3 other people, and one uncle was
falling asleep.
It was just us 3. I'm like, I
don't even know if this is, like, a
jam out right here. Like, I'm confused.
And and I went up to him and
I said, Sheikh, like,
there is no way there is no way
that 3 people at your halakha, man.
And he said, wallahi, these 3 people have
been with me for the entire year. I
wouldn't trade them for the world.
You think about the way that the prophet
was right in the beginning of his prophethood
hood. When he was teaching Khadija about Allah,
when he was teaching Abu Bakr about Allah,
when he was teaching Adi about Allah, when
he was teaching, you know,
you know, the the the the younger Sahabi,
Abdul Levin Mas'ud, about about Allah. I mean,
there there were, like, 5, 6 Muslims. Could
you guys imagine our
if, like, our TikTok generation was introduced to,
like, Mecca 1400 years ago?
We'd be, like, alarmed. Oh my gosh.
What's wrong with this thing?
Why isn't it catching followers? Like, why isn't
it on my for you page? Like, why
why don't I see this more? Right?
Perhaps Islam was protected
with the sincerity
of, like, 5 people so that 2,000,000,000 people
can benefit from that sincerity 1500 years later.
Maybe Allah protected it earlier on.
Allahu Adam. Right?
6thly
or sorry. 5thly, it aids the heart in
concentrating on dua on the dua since raising
one's voice loudly distracts one's distracts one from
their own thoughts.
How powerful.
Y'all ever and and and, you know, it's,
wow. This is
there was a poem that was written. I'm
not sure if this was by, like, a
classical scholar, but I remember this poem that
was very beautiful.
You You know, when a person raises their
voice
when a person raises their voice in front
of another person, I read this beautiful piece.
There was a person, the poet that said
that the reason why voices are raised is
because the hearts are so far apart.
You have to speak louder in front of
a person just because even even though they're
right in front of you, because your hearts
are actually in 2 different places.
So you're physically with each other, but your
hearts are completely separate.
We don't wanna be separate from Allah
We want our hearts to be close to
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
We don't wanna yell.
Yelling is like a form of of of
of of of being unable to
convey our feelings and thoughts.
Yelling is just it's not of, of the
manners of a Muslim. Right? So, 6thly, it
shows the closeness that a true believer feels
towards creator. Literally what we just talked about.
Right? And then he goes on to 7th.
It aids a person continuing their dua and
not breaking this off. This is because it's
easier on the tongue and the body. Right?
Sustainability. Think about it. Right? What did the
prophet he advises? He said that the deeds
that are most beloved to Allah are the
ones that are done most consistently
even if they're small.
Don't burn yourself out in your duas. You
know, like, people ask all the time, like,
how do I and, man, I I wanna
read more Quran. I wanna make more dua.
I wanna pray more salah. I wanna give
more charity. I wanna do this. I wanna
do this. I wanna do this. Relax.
Breathe.
Breathe for a minute.
Allow yourself to ask, what will my duas
look like in a week?
I wanna be consistent.
I wanna be consistent. You know, I had
a friend one time tell me that
each
day of the week, for every one of
the 7 days, he makes dua for a
different category in his life.
What a beautiful sustain sustainable
method.
He goes, on Mondays, I make dua for
myself.
On Tuesdays, I make dua for my parents.
On Wednesdays, I make dua for my siblings.
On Thursdays,
I make dua for, like, the rest of
my relatives and my family. On Fridays, I
make dua for kulimakan.
All the Muslims everywhere because Friday is a
day of Jum'ah. I wanna reserve Fridays for
every Muslim that I know, every Muslim that
I can think of. What a beautiful way
to think about it. Right? And your own
categorization can be done in your own way.
Monday can be, like, for your own forgiveness.
Tuesdays can be for things that you would
like. The Wednesdays can be for, you know,
mistakes that you've made in the past. Thursdays
can be for something else. I mean, these
are sustainable measures. Right?
Islam is always about sustainability. Okay?
And the 8th point, he says it causes
less distraction. We already talked about this. And
then lastly, it prevents a person from being
the target of envy and jealousy. This is
a little bit more of, like, a nuance
thing, but inshallah, we can move on to
the next one. What I wanted to focus
today on, and this is gonna be a
huge one,
is
acknowledging
one's sins.
Now this is extremely powerful. Okay?
So here,
the author, he begins he says, part of
the etiquette of Dua is to acknowledge one's
shortcomings and the sins in front of their
creator.
This is also a means of properly worshiping
Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Abu Harira said that the best dua is
for a person to say, oh, Allah, you
are my lord, and I am your servants.
I have wronged myself, and I acknowledge my
sins. Oh, Allah, You Rabbi, forgive me for
my sins, for you and only you are
my lord, and none forgives except you. Okay?
And this is beautiful because it's, you know,
narrated by Adi ibn Abi Taib that the
prophet said something similar where he said, verily
the Allah likes a worshiper who says, there
is no one worthy of worship except you.
I have wronged myself.
I have wronged myself.
I have made mistakes and I've wronged myself,
so forgive my sins for none forgives except
you.
And this is something that he highlights in
this particular part as well, and he calls
this the prophet he called this, Sayed Al
Istaghfar,
the master of all
of
asking for forgiveness.
And a great example of this by the
way is exemplified by the story of prophet
Yunus alaihis salam.
Everyone knows generally the story of prophet Yunus
alaihis salam. Prophet Yunus was the one who
was swallowed by a whale.
Okay? Anyone know why he was swallowed by
a whale?
Anyone know why like the scholars say that
he was being tested by Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala. There was something very specific to his
prophethood
that Allah wanted to teach him about. There's
something very unique about him. Anybody wanna know?
Yeah. Anybody know?
Very good. It's because prophets do not have
the they they can only act from permission
of Allah
when it comes to their message. Right?
Like, Allah doesn't have to tell them what
to eat, but Allah
only Allah tells them if they can and
cannot do something regarding their message. So prophet
Yunus alaihi salam became so frustrated.
He became so frustrated
that he left his people. He left his
people, he boarded a ship, and that ship
set sail. And, subhanallah, look at the look
at the intuition of prophet Yunus alaihi sallam.
When he set sail on this ship,
immediately, he began to notice that there were,
like, storms that were hitting this ship, this
vessel.
And the people at that time were, by
the way, like, very spiritual people. They were
spiritual people. The people that were on that
boat were very spiritual people. So they said
to themselves, they're like, yeah. This ain't happening
for no reason.
Everything happens for a reason. Even storms happen
for a reason. This is why, by the
way, the prophet he said, never curse the
weather.
You guys know that? It's a hadith. Literally,
he says, don't curse the weather. So start
practicing now for July August. Okay? All you
Dallas people. Right? Like, oh my god. A
120 degrees outside. I hate the summer. Right?
Like,
you know, maybe if you're in Antarctica, you
would think otherwise. Right? Like, it's just because
you're you're you're you're, you know, exposed to
one extreme that you feel so strongly about
it, but the prophet said never curse the
weather because one person's curse is like another
person's dream.
Right? One person's curse is another person's dream.
A person who lives in the middle of
the desert would love the cold.
Now take a person from Boston. Right?
They're going through, like, feet and feet of
snow. They're cursing how much snow they get.
But think about us in Dallas, we're like,
subhanallah. We shut down the schools for, like,
that slight chance. I think I saw, like,
15% chance of inclement weather tonight. Let's go
ahead and cancel. Right? Y'all feel me?
I mean, like, this is like a joke
in Dallas. Right? Like, one one drop of
water hits the hits the floor, hits the
highways, and everyone's, like, alright. Time to go
home.
And SubhanAllah, you think about it. So prophet
Yunus alaihis salam, he
boarded the ship, the the storm hit the
hit hit hit the ship, and all the
people upon the ship on board were like,
no. No. Allah is is trying to tell
us something.
Why? Because there's something on this ship that
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is upset with. And
so what they used to do, and this
is a part of their ajahlia ways, they
used to draw
Draw lots basically means, like, picking, like, picking
cards out of a deck, right, to see
who's it.
And so they would pick and they would
draw the name of Yunus alaihis salam every
single time.
The first time they're like, no, no, no.
We know him to be a pious man.
There's no way that Allah could be mad
at him.
So they put his name back in. Well,
let's draw it again. Alright. It's Eunice alaihis
salam again. What's going on? The 3rd time
they drew Eunice's name, they're like, alright man.
Sorry, you gotta go.
And Eunice is so pious, alayhis salaam, he's
so pious that he's like, you know what?
I don't even wanna like push back on
this, I'll take it.
Just give me, like, a small boat or,
like, a small vessel, like, a small little,
like, side, you know, you know, a small
little boat that's, like, on the side of
a ship, and I'll just go on my
way. I don't wanna bother you all. And
so Yunus goes and all of a sudden
the whale swallows him.
And Ibn Kathir Raheemullah he says that Yunus
alaihi sallam when he was swallowed by this
whale
was actually encompassed by 3 different types of
darkness. He was encompassed by the darkness of
the belly of the whale, first and foremost,
so he couldn't see anything.
He was encompassed by the darkness of the
night.
It happened in the evening.
And he was encompassed by the darkness of
the depths of the ocean.
So when the whale swallowed him, it not
only swallowed him, but it actually swallowed him
and literally dived to the bottom of the
ocean.
And so his situation was, like,
desperately,
desperately
dire.
Okay?
And in this moment,
he made the dua that was heard in
the heavens.
He said,
He said,
oh Allah, there is no one worthy of
worship except you.
Subhanakkah,
you are
free of all imperfections.
I'm not I'm not going to put my
blame on anything,
especially you, Allah, because you're perfect.
I am the one who made a mistake.
Can you imagine?
Of course, nobody in here was swallowed by
a whale, but
think to yourself, in a very, very
dire moment in which your back was against
the wall,
did you think of the mistakes that you
made that week?
Did you think about the mistakes that you
made that day? Did you think about the
sins that you committed that month?
Or did we just point the finger outwards
at everybody
and had the hardest time reorienting
it back to ourselves?
Because I can't be the one. I can
be the reason why things are happening.
No. No. No. I'm good. I'm a good
guy.
I'm a good person. It can't be because
of me.
Yunus, alayhis salam, was a prophet and he
had the heart to say,
I am the one that messed up.
Yeah, Allah, I abandoned my post. I shouldn't
have left.
And the miraculous nature of that story is
as soon as Yunus admitted it, the whale
actually
spat him out.
The narration mentions that the whale basically just
completely
tossed him out of his of of his
stomach, meaning that the the the the iman
that was within the heart of Eunice could
not be
captured
by that whale.
As soon as he found a hint of
the iman of Yunus, alaihis salam, the whale
basically spat Yunus, alaihis salam, out.
Think about that story. How powerful
how powerful
Allah
says in the Quran, he says that I
will not change the state of a people
until
they change
what is within themselves.
We want this. We want that. We need
this. We need that.
But how many times before we ask for
what we want and ask for what we
need, do we ever say to Allah, oh,
Allah, I am so sorry
for falling short of all of the things
that I should have done.
Allah, I should have prayed Fajr.
Allah, I should have
given some of my wealth.
Allah, I should not have spoken back to
my my my family like that. Allah, I
should not have been rude to my friend
like that. Allah, I should not have back
bitten
my companions like that.
Allah forgive me. Allah forgive me.
1 of my teachers said that when a
person makes dua
without acknowledging their own sins, it's like asking
for something when your plate is still filled
with rotten food.
You gotta get that stuff away off your
plate
before you can ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
for things that are clean and good and
halal and tayid.
So we have to get it to this
the state where we raise our hands and
ask Allah
to forgive us for things that will actually
enhance the cleanliness of our duas when we
ask them. Okay? So inshallah, we'll pause there.
And what we'll do now is as we
do every single Thursday is that we will
do our live q and a bidin Allahi
Ta'ala. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to
forgive us. We ask Allah Allah to bless
our duas and we ask Allah
to make us of the people who never
cut ourselves off from the power and the
worship of dua. And we ask
Allah to accept from our duas and give
us whatever is best.
Alright. So,
we'll say
to our online community to their dismay.
And what we'll do is
we will,
engage in a little bit of a q
q and a, a live q and a.
So I'm just going to,
just maximize
this right here for you guy.