A snippet from ‘Purification of the Soul’ lecture that was presented at Ra’s Alkhaimah 3 Day Ramadan Retreat in United Arab Emirates.
Sheikh Sajid discusses the different components that we are made of; a heart, a body, a mind, a nafs and a ruh (soul) and elaborates on the difference between the character trait and the personality trait of a person.
In Islam we are taught to look at and give precedence to the character of a person – the implicit, rather than the explicit- personality and perceptions we portray.
The speaker discusses how the physical appearance of the body and the soul is important for understanding how people perceive them. They stress the importance of character traits in determining how people sell themselves and how companies try to make people feel accepted. The speaker also talks about the sherry's appearance and how it is seen as a woman with a spoon and a spoonless body.
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Allah subhanho wa Taala made us a body. And he made us a mind. And he made us a knifes. And he made
us a heart. And he made us a roof, which is a soul. We are entities, we are entities. And what's
amazing when we look at these entities is that the body
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is the physical apparent entity. But when we look at the mind, it's internal. When we look at the
heart, it's internal. When we look at the soul, it's internal.
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Right? When we look at the south, the neffs, it's also internal, it's metaphysical. You can feel the
nerves, but it's something that is a part and parcel of us. And this should teach us how important
your implicit is, as opposed to your explicit how important your internal matters are, as opposed to
your external matters. Many of us today are so absorbed about the external, how we look, number one,
and how people perceive us. Number two, and people's perceptions come about as a result of our
external, how we dress. And the image that we put out. I always tell my students, we have two traits
is the personality trait and the character trait.
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The character trait is your true trait. The personality trait is how people perceive you how you
sell yourself, how the brand that you've created for yourself, right? This world that we live in now
in the century is so fixated on the personality trait, we have what we call fans, fans have the
personality. It's a very strong element that's present in society. And if we're not careful, we
become products of it. We become judgmental of people based on appearance. And today this is true,
we quick to judge people based on the apparent and never ever take time to give them a chance to
explain themselves and try and understand the hidden the implicit. This is a fact today, I mean,
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even in the marketing sense what happens they, you know, companies would take the face of a
celebrity and put the face of the celebrity on a cereal box.
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Why? Because that sells the senior people are so fixated about personalities, that if we see that
this person eats the cereal, you know he's there with his spoon, right? The milk is dripping and the
cereal is on the spoon and he's he's not eating it and Allah knows if he even did but what we know
is he received a few millions for for just doing that. And people said Masha Allah, this person eats
that cereal we have to eat the senior personality, personality. But when we look at our Sherry, our
brothers and sisters, we see the sherea emphasize the character trait, not the personality, not the
personality trait. If you look in the Quran, we're discussing bodies, right? When you look in the
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Quran, Allah subhana wa Taala says we're either or Aidan to the Buddha. He says that when you see
the hypocrites, what amazes you have them is nothing but their bodies, the appearance, the image
which they put out, they show you that they're with you, they show you that they believe they show
you they they excite you and they support your views and your policies and so on and so forth. So
what amazes you is the appearance but nothing else about them
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is worth praising.
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The Sheree tells us that we should be people of character, not personality. And that is why
Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said in the wahala jambu illa
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Allah, Allah He said me when I can younger illa kulu become a medical that Allah doesn't look at
your appearances at your personalities
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or your bodies or not looks at your heart and your deeds
