Safi Khan – Soul Food for College Students This World and the Next
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So
today,
we'll start off obviously
Bismillah. Starting off with praising Allah, thanking Allah,
sending our prayers upon the prophet
and his blessed family.
We are here joining live. Assata Fatima, alhamdulillah,
took care of us last Thursday, actually,
all by herself because I had to,
last week was my wife's birthday. So I
took,
I took one, session off just due to
the fact that I had to just kind
of take her to this you can't really
do anything right now anyway, but we just
went to a park.
Social distance at a park like Shaykh Abdul
Nasr so lovingly does, you know, whenever he
has free time with his kids.
You know, we're back today,
together for another joint session of soul food,
where we talk about different wisdoms from different
ayaat in the Quran.
Specifically,
this series we're doing is focused in on
the
best
essentially called Surah Al Qasas, which means the
story.
And,
the son of Fatima last week, she ended
with verse 56.
And in verse 56,
just to kind of recap with everybody, Allah
says
And this beautiful verse where I'm sure Usadha
Fatima,
explained it to you guys better than I
can. She,
the the the the incident that was behind
this area was when the uncle of the
prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam had
passed away. And the prophet, you know, may
peace and blessings be upon him, was so
upset that, you know, uh-uh a person, a
family member, let alone was so close to
him and spend so many years with him
that even he was not able to accept,
you know,
before he passed away, and the prophet
kept on begging him. Right? Kalimatan Kalimatan. Just
say it. Just say it so I can
intercede for you on on on the day
of judgment.
And, you know, Abu Talib, when he passed
away, he
he says that I'm on the face of
my my my father, Abu Talib, and the
prophet was, like, completely just really distraught by
this. I mean, if you're
you've been, you know, situations where you have
to almost, like, teach this portion of this,
you know, where the prophet was really distraught
that, you know, his his other uncle wasn't
able
to accept Islam. And then Allah
that you will not always be able to
guide the people
that that are beloved to you. Right?
That Allah, on the other hand, guides the
people who he wants to guide, that he
and he it's an it's a his plan
to guide.
And so
this is a really, really, really powerful lesson
for us to remember here that, you know,
sometimes you just won't get what you want
in life. You know.
And and it's kind of a difficult pill
to swallow because,
you know, once I I at least, you
know, if you're in college, Dre, or or
older, you start to get used to doing
the things that you want to do. Right?
I think when you're, like, younger, you just
follow the rules of, you know, the house
that you live in and, you know you
gotta take out trash on Thursdays and do
laundry on Saturdays, but when you're living by
yourself or you're living in college, you're starting
to get a little bit more independent. You
grow this kind of sense of
II do what III want to do on
my own time, but life throws at you
these situations where that's just not gonna happen.
You you had a plan to graduate in
4 years, you end up graduating in 5.
You know, these things just happen in life
and but so the Fatima, is there any
sort of, you know, any sort of, thoughts
you can share with us in this realm,
about this this ayah, that you can always
do as you want. You can always guide
the people that you love, rather Allah does
what he wants. Right?
I think a big part of the ayah
too is recognizing
that, you know, the prophet was given a
mission. Right? He was given a job. He
was given a mission,
and he has to fulfill that mission.
And part of sometimes we think that it's
our mission. Part of us fulfilling it is
changing people
or changing someone's mind or changing the situation.
And it's really just us doing our part
and then maybe get in the heads of
a lot more.
So for example,
now we can kind of say what's happening
right now at in the in the phone,
well,
Okay. Now I can cancel this happening. And
someone asked a question. They asked a very
interesting question. They said, well, we were talking
about the hadith where the pastor says that,
that whoever claims belief in a law and
the day of judgment
shall be a prostrated on all the Eskimos,
that that person should speak good or remain
quiet. This might ask the question, well, how
do we change people when they're doing something
wrong? Because it it may require for you
to tell them that they're doing something wrong.
They took the haditha. It's like, telling somebody
doing they're doing something wrong is like that.
And I said, well, first, the question is
flawed because
we don't change people.
You know? We advise.
We see a situation. We work through that
situation. We try to figure out a situation
as much as possible,
and then we leave the rest up to.
That our part in this world is to
do the best that we can. Right?
So it may be that we want something,
and we may make the walk with that.
We may put all the little things in
motion that we need to put in motion.
But
know that only and if only Allah will
refer it to happen, it will happen.
And if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not
will it to happen,
it doesn't matter the amount of love. It
doesn't matter the amount of care. It doesn't
matter the amount of nights you spend up
trying to work on this thing. It will
not happen because God did not will it.
It doesn't matter how many people made the
law for you. If a lot of people
does not will it to happen,
then it won't
happen. You know? And so with the prophet,
I felt like this was a a huge
reminder
in which Allah presented to him at a
time where he the prophet not only loved
his uncle, but he loved the entire Ummah.
Like, he would be very that's why
Allah's prophet says that he was he would
be very, like, sad over you all about
the things that you would do because he
wanted agenda for everybody.
You know? He wanted belief for everybody
that he will be sad about what the
Quraysh would say to him not because he
cared about their words, but because he wanted
better for them. And so Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala reminds him constantly that your job
is the mission,
but you don't change the hearts of people.
Like, you don't have that ability. That's the
ability
of that's with Allah. So I think this
this reminding us just to do our part
and not worry about other people. Like, you
can't worry about the part that the other
person is doing or you can't worry about,
you know, you cannot be so fixated on
the outcome because you don't have control over
that outcome.
Mhmm. SubhanAllah. That's really, really powerful actually. It
almost reminds me of the ayah inswatulir Anuram,
that, you know, once you have done whatever
you can,
kinda refers to decision making. Like, once you
have decided upon what you wanted to decide
on, you know,
just,
you
know, put your faith in God after you've
done whatever you can in your human ability.
Because
when a human being starts to think
that
I have
the ultimate say in the outcome in certain
situations,
you're almost setting yourself up for disappointment. Right?
And that's when people actually truly go into
what we call denial
because you cannot believe
that this didn't work out for you. Right?
You cannot believe that after all the hours
you spent studying and turning in applications and
getting your credits in in in line that
you didn't get into the school that you
wanted to.
And it's so so depressing for us because
during that entire time, we're thinking to ourselves,
man, I did everything right. I did everything
right. And you could have done everything right.
You could have done everything right, actually. You
could have made dua. You could have done
your salah properly. You could have done whatever
you could in terms of your human
abilities, but it was just not written for
that to happen. And I think that's almost
like a lesson. And what's another beautiful thing
that I think, you know, father Fatima will
probably
also, you know, agree with this is that
even the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam had to
be
reminded of that by Allah. Right. So don't
think that you know just because he's the
prophet he everything he he understood and knew
right away. Allah even had to educate him
that there as a prophet. That's that's your
life. That's your mission. Your mission is not
to become, you know, a doctor in life.
You know, your mission is not to become
a teacher. Your mission is not to become
a lawyer. Your mission is La ilaha illallah
Muhammad Rasoolallah.
And even though
sometimes people may not listen to you, that's
not your ultimate decision to make. Your job
is to tell people in the most beautiful
way. Your job is to reiterate the message
of Allah in the most beautiful way, and
then leave it to Allah to guide people.
That's it. And so a beautiful reminder, JazakAllah
Khairis,
for sharing that with us. So
we now turn to aya 57.
Aya 57
starts off with a
response that the Quresh have to the prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam
when he's giving them a little bit of
about Islam like Fatima mentioned that the mission
of the prophet was to attract as many
hearts as possible to Islam because that is
what a prophet is supposed to do. It's
supposed to educate, supposed to teach, supposed to
guide, and he was guiding the Quraysh as
well as he possibly could. And the Quraysh,
they come out and they actually say to
the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam, if we were to follow
the guidance with you, if we were to
follow the guidance with you, he
they say we would be swept.
We would be swept from our lands.
That we would be taken away from our
lands, meaning that they were afraid that and
there are some by the way and it's
not you know a lot. There's a big
misunderstanding. There's a big misunderstanding that during the
time of the prophets reign in Mecca that
every single one of the Qureshi, they hated
Islam for the message of Islam. That's not
true.
What their kind of confusion was about Islam
or their almost I I would rather say
the word con their conflict with Islam
was that they were told
to abandon the ways of their forefathers
and turn to this new way of life
and new faith that would be a way
of salvation for them. And so because of
the tradition that was already
just lodged deep within their their their culture.
They were afraid that if they left their
father's tradition that they would be swept away
from their positions of being the right. They
would be swept away from their money, their
their status, their social life style, their their
economy, everything would be taken away from them.
And so this was their worry. And so
then Allah
Allah reminds them, then Allah says, you
know,
You know, Allah says, have we not established
for them a safe sanctuary? Have we not
made them the the the people of Makkah?
Because I know I don't know if anybody
has visited, you know, the the the city
of Makkah, but the city of Mecca is
it's called the Haram. Right? There's an area
in the city of Mecca where the Masjid
is, where the Kaaba is. It's called the
Haram. It's called the the sacred place. There
is nothing that goes on in there that's
that's not sacred. And you know what's really
interesting is that the Haram, there are narrations
that say the Haram will be protected until
the end of time. It will just be
protected because it's literally the home of Allah.
You know if you can you go back
into your your your your past kind of
memories of the Quran
when there was a story of, a tyrant
by the name of Abraha. Right? And Allah
described this in the Quran.
He tried to storm upon the Kaaba with
his his massive army of elephants and people.
And all of a sudden, you
know, we destroyed him. We sent upon him
these birds, Tayron Ababil, with with with these
small tiny birds with clay pebbles in their
beaks and their talons, and fajalahum
qiasfimmaqul,
and they became, like, destroyed like there were
nothing.
And this is, like, a testament to prove
that the the Haram will always be protected.
So your fear, right, your fear of if
I if I accept Islam, I don't really
know if it's gonna protect me. Like, how
how like, you know, Allah tells you, have
I not protected you before?
Have I not taken care of you before?
Have I not given you a life? Have
I not given you sustenance? Have I not
given you a family and people to love
you? And this is a really interesting thing.
I want to get your take on this
Aslada Fatima about how, you know, sometimes we,
in our lives, we fear that if we,
you know,
if we become certain type of people for
example, like, when you're younger, you have this
really, really, you know, difficult
time in your life where you have to
make decisions whether you want to be a
person who
is influenced by your faith or influenced by
other people. And sometimes the decision isn't easy,
and this is why I don't like making
a joke out of it because it's really
not a joke because people do really struggle
with that decision whether I want to be
accepted by my my society
or I want to be a devout worshiper
of Allah and take nobody's, you know,
nobody's hatred or anything like that to heart
because I know Allah got me at the
end of the day. So in this position
of the Quraish, they're worried that if they
accept Islam that they will be essentially kicked
out of their their their positions of power
and status. How do you how do you
reconcile this thought of Sada Fatima when Allah
tells them that have I not taken care
of you before? How how do you in
from this aya, how do you kind of
bring about some sort of reflection from it?
I think that a big part is that
the the concern that they had was misplaced.
Mhmm. You know, a lot of times we
forget about who the creator is and who
Allah and Allah's limitless
ability.
Mhmm. So sometimes we we a lot of
times, in our own brains, even as Muslims,
as believers,
we limit Allah's ability.
And so what happens is that we we
fear that, okay, if I follow
this rule or this command that Allah
has asked me to follow,
then per then it's very possible
that I will lose out on x, y,
and z, but not realizing that you're in
a blessed position in the first place. Mhmm.
You know? So, like, even in this particular
ayah, you know, the Quraish, they attributed the
fact that they have land, the fact that
they had power, the fact that they have
all these things. They attributed that to their
other deities.
Mhmm. So they felt like if that's why
they put those idols inside the Kaaba
because they were like, this is this is
what's keeping us, you know, sustenance. This is
what's giving us this risk. This is what's
giving us all of these things. And so
they
they misplaced
the gratefulness
to some some other being, not to Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so for us too,
sometimes what we do is that we put
a lot of our value. We put a
lot of, how we look at ourselves,
our status, or whatever.
We put it into other people.
So what will happen if so and so
finds out that I started wearing hijab?
You know? What will happen if this job
finds out that I wear that I'm Muslim?
Then I won't get the job anymore, and
I won't be able to pay my bills,
and I won't be able to be independent.
Well, who gives this? The one who I'll
go back. Who is the one who gives
you provision so that you're able to do
those things?
Is the provider, so
will provide for you
especially if you're sacrificing for his sake. You
know? We sacrifice for
Allah. We don't we don't make that level
of commitment for other people. You can compromise
with people, but you do not sacrifice with
people. You sacrifice for Allah.
So a lot of times what we do
is we misplace this. We misplace
this, and we are not we are not,
aware or we don't recognize what God has
given us before. And that's why gratefulness is
so important.
Because if you're if you're on a daily
or even on a weekly basis or on
a monthly basis, going through the different blessings
that you have that are way beyond your
control,
then you'll realize that they're just like those
blessings that you have now are beyond your
control, there are things in the future that
are gonna be way beyond your control. And
Allah
has you set up. You know, Allah
will take care of you
and you do these sacrifices that that may
consider
may feel uncomfortable for the sake of God
though. Because sometimes faith is uncomfortable.
You know?
Sometimes praying in public is not like, who
likes praying in public in Texas? No one.
Yeah. You know? It's uncomfortable.
But what are you doing? You're doing it
for the sake of
because you are placing your trust in him.
And so this is very beautiful in the
sense that
for us to reflect on in the sense
that sometimes when we're talking about it, we're
like, oh, the creationist, the creationist. We forget
that
we have that same mindset.
We just call ourselves believers.
You know, there's a lot of things that
we we are supposed to do for the
sake of the that we don't do because
we've put our trust in people
and not in this one who created people.
SubhanAllah. That's that's really eye opening actually that
I I love what you said at the
at the end where you said that, you
know, we sometimes say, like, the quotation, like,
you know,
the people of Musa. And, you know, they
were there there weren't believers, and they didn't
believe in a lot. But a lot of
the same struggles that they had are actually
found dormant within us. We just we just
believe in that
portion,
you know, but a lot of the the
the the inner struggles that they had, you
find very, very normative and people even today
that call themselves Muslims. You know, it's really
interesting. We were actually talking about
this, in in the the life of Asma
bint Abi Bakr. Asma bint Abi Bakr was
like a really, really generous person, the daughter
of Abu Bakr as Siddeep. And
her and Aisha were were were half sisters.
Right? They had different mothers. But, you know,
they were describing the difference between Aisha and
Asma. And, you know, Aisha was kind of
one of the people who would when it
came to giving, like, generosity,
she would basically save her money until she
had a lot, and then she would give
it. Asma bint Abi Bakr thought differently. She
said that to herself that I'm going to
become wealthy by giving away things. Right? And
and, you know, like, when and when and
this is Asana Fatima kind of, she mentioned
this is that when we think about risk,
we think about provision and blessings. We think
to ourselves that, you know, oh my goodness.
You know, if if I
sacrifice
certain worldly gifts that I have, then I'm
not I'm I'm gonna lose out on it.
I'm gonna be a loser. But real people
who believe true believers
really think to themselves that
I will only get more if I give
more and if I sacrifice more. That's actually
the way that a believer, a Mu'min,
or a person who really believes actually thinks.
And this is really interesting and really beautiful.
In the next Ayah in the next Ayah,
Allah
brings a little bit of a
an example,
to the people of the Qurays. He says,
and he says to them he says to
them, and how many a city have we
destroyed
that was insolent in its way? Right? They
didn't understand. They didn't they they didn't accept
the way of of La ilaha illallah.
And they inhabited you know and and those
are their dwellings, which have not been inhabited
except briefly
and it is we who are the actual
inheritors so when Allah said and now he
brings up in ayah 58. He says, you
know, look at the people that have come
before you, oh, Quresh. Right? Look at the
people who come before you, oh, people who
live in, you know, United States of America
2020.
Look at the people who came before you,
the people who, you know, they've been given
so many signs, so many blessings, so many
provisions. I mean, some of them some of
the most,
you know, destroyed
communities were actually the most wealthy, if you
think about it. Right? Allah talks about the
Thamud and the Ad. Right?
And even Firaun, the the the pharaoh in
Egypt.
So many of these communities were given everything.
Right? They were given everything,
and Allah kept them around for a long
period of time. The people of Noah, the
people of Prophet Nuh alayhi salam,
he was given this long, long life, some
narrators say like 950 years or so of
just, you know, sending the message of telling
people about Islam. And Allah kept on giving
them chance, chance, and chance, and chance, and
chance. And then at the end, when it
was just, you know what, it was done,
that's when the people were destroyed.
But I want everyone to understand one thing,
and we'll we'll get us out of Fatima's
take on this in a second, is
that, you know, when we read stories like
this, we think to ourselves, like, why? Why
do Allah destroy a whole community of people?
Very few times do people look at the
100 of years of chances that they were
given. Yeah. Right? How many chances were you
given? And I always give this example. Right?
When you have a parent when you have
a parent and the child continues to misbehave,
okay,
continues to misbehave, he messes up one time.
The parent is like, hey. Hey. Watch it.
Right? That's you you shouldn't talk to people
like that. The next time the child makes
a mistake, the parents might just, you know,
grab their arm and just kinda, like, shake
them a little bit. Hey. Do I remember
what I told you before?
The 3rd time, the parent might put the
kid in time out. You know, the the
you're you can't come out here like this
because you're misbehaving.
The 10th time, the parent might do something
that really shakes the kid up a little
bit. You know? And
by watching that example,
another sibling watching is like,
yeah. I'm not gonna I don't wanna have
anything to do with this. Right? Like, I
can relate I can relate because I'm a
sibling. Right? Like and usually but I'll I'll
be honest with you. I was the the
the example that was, you know, usually made
out of, for for my siblings to watch.
But I was not. I learned from other
people's mistakes because I didn't believe in in
repeating the mistakes of others. The son of
Fatima also has a bunch of brothers who
were the ones that probably got the heat.
And so she was the one that was
just the the the the the innocent bystander
that just witnessed all of it. The one
peeking from behind the wall. Like, nope. Not
gonna do that. She's the one that that
exist, we call mothers and fathers.
And so, you know,
at the 10th time of of reprimanding from
the parent, the parent might do something drastic.
But sometimes the only thing that we focus
on is the 10th time of of reprimanding.
But you don't see
1 through 9
because Allah does that a lot with us.
Right? And look at this. How many times
in our lives did we think about this?
Right? You know, I remember I didn't used
to pray before. So I remember something happened
to me. Yeah. And then I started to
pray a little bit, but then quickly I
forgot again. I started to to neglect my
prayers again. And Allah, you know, reminded me
with a little bit of, like, a reminder.
And then I forgot again. And then Allah
reminded me with another reminder. And then the
5th time something really, really crazy happened in
my life, and then I never missed prayer
again. Right? And so this is almost the
way
that Allah teaches us. And so he comments
to comments about this in the Quran to
the prophet to tell the Quresh, have you
not seen what happened before you? Right? Have
you not seen what happened to the people
of Noah, the people of Hud, the people
of Prophet Shoaib, and the people of Prophet
Idris, all these different people
were destroyed after giving centuries and centuries and
centuries of chances over and over again. So,
Asadah Fatima, my question here to you now
is
how do we get people to really understand
that Allah truly does not punish and there's
nothing and I I know that we actually
learned this, you know, as students that all
Allah does not gain any pleasure from punishing.
That's that's absurd. Right?
When you think about that, you know, it's
like saying like, oh, and this is when
people kind of draw really, really unfair conclusions
about God, that God enjoys punishment, or God
enjoys reprimanding. Allah takes no sort of joy
in punishing people. Right? But how do we
kind of how do we kind of reconcile
this this this principle that Allah talks about
in in in in verse 58?
I think the one of the biggest things
even in this ayah that we should see
is that was
says, Okay? And he says, and how many
nations have have been destroyed before?
Okay? Means
for someone to be overly like, arrogance is
one thing and then it means to be
overly arrogant and overly
prideful.
Okay?
In
in their like in their just craziness like
they were
overly prideful overly
arrogant
and the thing is that when we talk
about the punishment or we talk about the
way that people were destroyed before
the nations that came before,
they show this level of just arrogance
that led into that bled into their disbelief.
It wasn't just a simple type of arrogance.
It wasn't just like, oh, no. I don't
need that. It was it was extreme.
It was why should we worship your lord
when we've created all of this? Like, the
people of Adam Samud, they had strength and
they will build their homes and carve their
homes on a mountain, and this is really
cool. It's like amazing.
But who gave them that ability? Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. And so when we're talking about
this, imagine you go to someone's house. Okay?
Imagine you go to somebody's house. You're just
helping them out. You know? You put all
their furniture together.
You sweep. You clean their entire house. You
wipe everything down. You know? They need they
need their TV mounted. You go through a
hardship, you mount their TV. You can tell
I just moved because these are all the
things I needed done and I just got
them done. But you get you get the
everything together. They have kids. You take care
of their kids for them. You make sure
you make some lunch so that they don't
have to worry about it. You do all
of these things. All of this. It takes
you, like, 2 weeks to make sure this
is perfect.
You present it to this person. They're like,
wow. This is amazing. This looks beautiful. And
then they turn around, and they say thank
you to your cousin who they never met.
They turn around. They say thank you to
your sister who was never there.
Imagine you give somebody so much without
and you weren't even expecting, like, anything. You're
not you're not expecting them to pay you
Out of the kindness and the mercy in
your heart, you decide to do all of
this. Not only do they not show any
type of gratitude,
but then they turn around and they thank
someone else for for
all the hard work that you did.
Obviously, to Allah, this is not hard work.
This is just easy. He says and it
is. He says be and it just
but how do we
as human beings have the audacity to attribute
the things that God has given us, the
blessings that Allah has given us to other
people,
you know, to put it in the hands
of other people. And so when Allah
is saying this, he's not bringing it in
a in a way to, like, show off.
He's not saying, oh, look at that nation.
I destroyed them, and I destroyed them too,
and I destroyed them. No. He's given us
an example. He's telling you, listen. I don't
want
to punish
you. I don't want you to end up
in a bad situation.
So because I don't want you to end
up in a bad situation, because I love
you with all of my heart,
These are the things that you should do,
and these are the things that you should
stay away from, and here are some examples.
Here are some examples. It's like math. You
know? I don't know if anybody's not that
great at math. You know? Your teacher can
teach you theory all day. You can do
worksheets all day, but if you don't have
examples, how do you comprehend?
You don't. I don't know. And so here,
gives us the theory, which is actually reality.
He gives us life to put into practice,
and he gives us examples so that we
know that this is how we are not
supposed to be. This is what will happen
if you act this way. And so Allah
doesn't bring these these
examples up in a way that is like,
oh, fun and games. He brings it up
for us to really sit down and think
about that. Our job is to not be
arrogant.
Our job is to realize that, you know,
the things that we have so much pride
over that those things belong to us.
The Meccans have so much pride over their
land. They don't realize that you have so
much pride over this land and the reason
why your land is sacred today, the reason
why your land is what it is today,
that people flock to it for Hajj and
things of that nature is because of the
dua that Ibrahim
made to Allah.
Is because the Ibrahim
said what?
Mhmm. Oh, Allah accept from us. And then
what does he say? And he says
that, oh, Allah send them a messenger from
amongst them that will purify their rituals
so that they know and they they're able
to do what they're doing proper. Like, you
you have everything you have for the guide.
Mhmm. Mhmm.
You know? And so here is so important
for us to realize
that we cannot
The struggle is temporary.
Mhmm. The struggle is definitely temporary.
It's not forever. It's temporary.
And you don't let this little bit of
struggle deteriorate you or take you away from
remembering that lost my father is the one
who's in control.
Subhanahu.
That's incredible because in literally in the next
ayah in in verse 59, Allah says,
That that that literally your Lord would never
destroy
towns without first
giving them
that Allah never ever reprimands
ever
until first, he gives everybody a chance right
and this and that's the that's the most
interesting thing about this life is that for
people who think that this life is permanent
that this life is the ending the end.
It is the it is all of my
life. That's it. They will never understand
the true beauty of creation.
Yep. You know, that that Allah says, look.
And it's it's so interesting, you know, like,
my wife and I were actually discussing this
just a few days ago. I remember this
is that, you know, we're like, it's interesting
to just think that and and we were
out of this beautiful lake, and, you know,
it was a nice scenic area. It's very
hard to find in Dallas, Texas. You know?
I I know South Sacramento's struggle is real.
Not many nature response here in Texas that
that allows you to reflect on.
But, but there are few spots. There are
few spots. And there are and It's high.
It's high. It's true. Out to enjoy the
lake, and you're burning. You're cooking. It's true.
You almost wanna, like, jump in because it's,
like, a 115 degrees out of, like, mother
time, and you don't understand why, you know,
I heard the worst. When you wake up
to Fudra, you open the door and it's
84 degrees outside. This is what?
You're confused if it's morning or night because
you're like
wait. Hold on a second. Did I miss
Fudra and skip straight to the hair? Are
you like I remember one time I thought
I was being cute and I was gonna
go to a park to play Fudra so
I wore a hoodie
in the summer. Yeah. Walked out. It was
91 degrees outside
at Frederick time to pray pray in the
park. You know, like, if you go up
north, they get to, like, 60, 70 degree
if you don't say in the summer.
No. Never again. So so all y'all's cute
little fudger stories, just keep it to yourselves.
Okay? Because we don't what it's like. Okay?
We just don't wanna
and go off a fudger. That No. You
can't. It's for baking.
The the yeah. The the concrete is like
a a pizza baking steel that's been preheating
for overnight. So you it's just not possible.
That's why I think everyone in Dallas is
just so indoors. We just don't know what
the outdoors really are because we just No.
Yeah. It doesn't happen.
So so so here, you know, Allah says,
you know, when my when my when my
can that
we don't we haven't destroyed
towns.
Right? That we we don't destroy towns. We
don't reprimand anybody until we've given them a
messenger
to recite the messages to them. And, you
know, nor nor will we destroy towns unless
inhabitants were actually evil people. Right? Like and
and that's the interesting thing you know and
we were talking about this and this is
why is so beautiful is that you know
when people read the story of the pharaoh
and they see his demise in the Red
Sea when he was drowning and they're like,
Oh, but he was you know he he.
He accepted Islam at the end and then
he was begging for you know that that
last bit but Allah this last part is
very important here when when Allah actually says
that we don't we don't destroy anyone
unless they were actually evil. So it's almost
like trust Allah here. Trust Allah. The the
people that Allah had to reprimand, they actually
needed it. They needed it. Right? Because if
Allah let them go, they might have actually
done something worse to the future generations that
came after them. So understand that number 1
Allah is all merciful. I mean think about
it guys if you are and and you
know what this is almost like a blessing.
Actually, it's a blessing and actually it's something
that's sad in reality for us is that
you know, it's almost
a a a a an easy pass that
Allah has given us that the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam isn't in our in our life
right now because if he was, man, your
responsibility
would be terrifying.
Right? Yeah. You you would literally man, if
you were in the in the community of
the sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and you refuse
to pray fajr, that's different than you refusing
to pray fajr right now. I mean, if
you have a guy like the prophet in
your community and he literally was your teacher,
and he literally was your community member, then
there would be no excuses for a lot
of our mistakes that we make nowadays easily.
Right? So it's almost a blessing that Allah
has given us this kind of, you know,
learn, try to be the best that you
can, learn from his examples,
but be very wary that Allah only reprimands
people that he absolutely needs to reprimand. And
all the reprimand that Allah did is like
Usaida Fatima said, he loves you, man. He
loves you and he wants the best for
you just like the the closest relationship that
Allah has ever compared his relationship to us
with is a mother and a child and
that's it. That's the closest thing. And that
doesn't even come within, like, an arms reach
of what the relationship really is. And ask
yourself, what was your mother do for you?
Would your mother take pain for you? She
has already. Would your mother starve while to
make sure that you could eat? Absolutely.
So think about the blessings that Allah would
would would would rather give you rather than
reprimanding you. And so this final ayah,
Allah at the end, he says that whatever
things you have been given for the life
of this world.
Okay? And just understand that whatever things that
you have been given for the for for
the life of this world are merely temporary.
Yep. Everything you go through is temporary in
this, like,
That understand that
there will be moments where you will have
to sacrifice in this life for your religion.
There are moments I mean, how many times
guys let's be real here. How many times
have we had to skip that gathering because
we knew it wasn't okay for our hearts?
How many
how many times have we had to consider?
I may not actually be this job may
actually not be good for me because it's
actually making me do something that's not okay
with me right. Maybe you know, maybe I
have to quit a job My boss didn't
even give me any time to pray during
the daytime and when I asked him, he
said, deal with it right and we have
to quit because it was something that was
bad for our faith. How many times have
we had to make tough decisions because it
was the right decision to make?
Even then with that pain, Allah says, understand.
That this pain that you feel
of sacrifice
is temporary because this life is a life
that's extremely
temporary, and it's adorned with just glorified vanity.
That's what this life really is.
And that which is with Allah is always
gonna be better,
and it's going to be forever.
You know? And so one of the beautiful
things that wanted to end with here inshallah,
end our session today for us is
reflect on the idea that whatever
beauty that you're seeking in this life, it
will be even better in the hereafter.
You want all the money in the world,
whatever you have in this life, it won't
amount to any wealth that you'll have in
the here after. You want you want luxury
and relaxation in this life?
Sacrifice a little bit here, and you'll get
the brunt of it in the hereafter.
You want to have the best family and
the best people around you in this life.
People will slip up in this life, but
guess where you'll have it even better?
And everlasting,
you'll have it on the hereafter. And that's
allah's promise and Allah says.
Only will you will you not use your
reason. Don't you understand right and he's calling
you smart at the end of the day.
I know you understand this. Right? So, Fatima,
if you had to kind of share one
last thought and reflection with us in this
last eye about the temporary nature of this
world, What would it be from your side
do you think?
I would say that, you know,
the biggest thing is to to always remember
that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is always looking
out for your best interest. Mhmm.
That there's anybody that has your back is
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala who has your back.
And so the important thing
is that it's so important
for us to always keep our faith and
our hope in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and
that's what makes those sacrifices a little bit
easier.
That's super powerful, and we wanted to keep
it really, really,
short and and and very, very,
really, really reflective for everybody today. And we
were able to at least,
accomplish a fraction of that. For the people
who are commenting to, save this session,
Oh, you're fine. The people who are commenting
to save the session,
this session actually is live streamed, and, obviously,
Instagram has gone full IGTV mode with everything.
So we always save our sessions
to our our our,
our,
posting feed that's, up on the RoostDFW account
so anybody can benefit after the session's over.
So this session will be, available for everyone
to listen to on Facebook and on Instagram
after, we go off the air. But, Jazakamu
al Haydam, thank you so much, Asadullah Fatima,
for joining us, and really appreciate your time
and also for everyone being, a part of
this discussion with us. And may Allah reward
all of you. May Allah reward your families
and keep your families safe and in good
health and in good iman. And may Allah
accept from all of us.