Shadee Elmasry – Isolation & Alone Time – NBF 410
AI: Summary ©
The host of a video discusses various topics related to martial arts, including the use of a talent stack and the Halal MMA League. They emphasize the importance of healthy deeds and live a social life. The segment discusses the concept of sh matter and how it can be from various sources, but reiterates the need for sh mattered knowledge to protect animals and avoid dangerous behavior. The segment also touches on the concept of living a social life and how it can be from various sources.
AI: Summary ©
Welcome everybody to the Nothing But Facts live
stream on a gorgeous sunny day.
It's a Thursday, it's the last stream of
the week.
We head off today, Thursday is always a
very packed day.
We got stream, we got a youth class,
we got Risalat al Mustarshideen class, we got
Aisha, we got the dhikr that we do,
which is the short mullah of Habib Omar
bin Salim bin Hafidh, all at the masjid.
We get home pretty late on Thursday nights
and then it's Jummah next day, Jummah lunch.
You guys will be in Allentown, Pennsylvania, right,
when we have Jummah lunch.
We got a short break and this and
today or this week the youth are going
out to New York City, which is always
a fun trip.
Today's subject matter is Al-Khalwa wa l
-Uzla, reading from Risalat al-Khushiriyya and before
that a couple quick announcements.
We are brought to you by GRT, we
have one sponsor, that's our charity.
Now a lot of people have been messaging
us and saying, can we be a sponsor
with our charity?
The thing is, we're only going to be
with one charity because that's more effective for
everybody.
It's more effective if you're with one charity,
so we're only sponsorship will be one charity.
Now if someone has a bookstore, a business,
anything else that they want to be a
sponsor, if it aligns with us, something we
believe in, that then we'll accept it, right,
because sponsorships is it's a good way it's
we want to grow stuff that people are
doing out there.
We want to support different endeavors.
They could be for-profit endeavors and non
-profit.
We're big promoters of tijara here, huge promoters.
Last time I talked about Shaykh Hussain Abdus
Sattar because he's a promoter of people, his
Shaykh was a promoter of people being financially
independent.
He said that actually is probably, he said
almost the protection of a Muslim in this
day and age.
The protection of a Muslim is to be
financially independent.
Then he doesn't have to take loans that
are unlawful.
He doesn't have to take jobs that are
unlawful, things like that.
His children's eyes won't be, but there I
have to tell you something else about the
rich kids.
Without fail, they're worse.
Their manners are just, they're spoiled.
They're entitled.
I don't know what happens.
Without fail, if I had 10 of the
rich kids, and I'm just talking about let's
say high school, 10 rich kids and 10
not rich kids.
It's like without fail, the 10 not rich
kids are more polite.
I don't get what's going on here.
Is there a different correlation maybe?
I don't know what the correlation is, but
the not rich kids just tend to be
so deferential and polite.
Whereas the rich kids tend to be entitled
punks that need a smack.
You don't know an entitled punk until you
tell him no.
Everyone's nice and polite when there's nothing going
on.
But the moment you have to say, nah,
you can't do that.
All of a sudden, you see a different
attitude.
They're not used to being told no.
Why would their parents say no?
If you're making 100,000 a month, which
by the way is not a lot of
money, right?
But for some people it is.
And usually for most people, that will be
enough to swipe without thinking.
What do you want?
$200 easy piece of plastic, right?
Piece of plastic.
That's really what it is.
You know those, it's not even a shoe.
It's a ship ship basically.
It's a flip flop.
It's a, it's a, I don't even know
how to describe it.
What are the nurses wear?
Crocs.
It's a croc, isn't it?
It's like an alien croc and it's 200
bucks.
It's 300 bucks.
It's an alien shaped croc.
That's the material.
The material, I doubt it costs more than
15 cents to make.
And the kid wants that easy.
The $300 probably if you divided up $100
,000 a month salary or earning income by
30 days, 300 bucks is like in two
seconds, in two minutes he makes that.
Like why would you think twice to not
swipe?
You just swipe, tap.
That's it.
And that's the problem because you measure stuff
according to your income.
That's not the right way.
You have to actually measure it according almost
to the peers, to the orf.
Like that is a ridiculous number to pay
for crocs.
You can't do this.
It's a stupid number to pay for crocs.
Almost you could say maybe it's Israf.
So that's why they never get told no.
They're not accustomed to being told no.
And that's why I think, you guys ever
heard of a talent stack?
A talent stack is more valuable than excelling
in one field.
A talent stack is like you have a
diverse range of things in life and you're
good at them.
Like imagine some guy's a handyman.
He can fix stuff in his house up
to a certain point, but he's also knowledgeable
about the law.
He's also physically fit.
He's also involved in local politics, things that
are unrelated completely.
So that's a talent stack.
Well, the biggest talent stack for the rich
to really benefit from your wealth is actually
to be an ascetic as well.
Because there is no value in being very
wealthy, but then just increasing all your liabilities
such that now you're spoiled, your kids are
spoiled, but also you actually have a headache.
I've got five houses.
I've got to pay bills on five houses.
Let me just hire an accountant.
Let me make sure the accountant's not cheating
me.
So you just increase your wealth, but you
also increased your headache.
Like that's not smart.
Now, the really intelligent person is going to
be someone who can increase his income, but
not increase his liabilities.
Steve Jobs was actually all about that.
He had a very sparse household.
Now, I don't know what happened if he
kept that up after marriage and kids, but
if you read his biography, he got that.
He got the idea.
There's no value in wealth if you're just
also increasing all your headaches.
You're increasing all your liabilities.
There's a bunch of spoiled brats in the
house.
That doesn't make anyone happy.
A bunch of properties, a bunch of cars,
a bunch of things I got to pay
Zakat on.
I don't even know how to start or
finish.
So to decrease your liabilities and to be
an ascetic is a skill, a talent, an
effort that has to be put in.
And when you have a great amount of
wealth and you have that, like now you're
really powerful.
You can do a lot with your wealth,
a lot more.
All right, let's talk about another subject here.
There is now a Halal MMA League.
For everyone who's into the UFC, there's now
UMMA, U-M-M-A, like mixed martial
arts, but for the UMMA.
So I guess, can someone look that up?
I guess UMMA is all about no punching
MMA, I guess, or no facial hitting MMA.
No facial hitting, because that's what's unlawful.
And guess who's up?
Next Saturday, this Saturday, how are we going
to watch this?
Do you guys know who's up?
Mohamed Hijab.
Yes.
Weighing in at 114, he's facing Abu Tattoo's
Dan here, who's got a tattoo turtleneck, weighing
in at 112 kgs.
But Mohamed Hijab has a longer arm span.
Because he's seven inches taller.
This R, it says R here.
The guy's name is R here.
There's no first name.
It's R dot here is what's on the
ad.
And his height is six feet.
And his weight is 112 kgs.
And then, and by the way, it says
main event.
That means there may be flyweight, lightweight, featherweight.
Okay.
So what is 115 kgs in pounds?
So that's heavyweight, because in 200 pounds and
up is heavyweight.
155 is lightweight.
So there's probably something maybe in the middle.
And then there's the lesser stuff.
But Hijab has seven inches on the guy.
Okay.
He's got seven inches on the guy.
Now, if anything, bro, it's the grappling is
the most important part.
Right?
I think the grappling, because if you've seen
how Khabib wins his fights, like he, it's
just yesterday I was flipping through and I
saw Khabib versus Michael Johnson, full fight.
So I'm like, completely knackered.
I click on it.
And Johnson's got a longer wingspan.
Right.
And he's throwing punches.
And I'm wondering, how's, what's, how's Khabib gonna
do this?
So he goes in, down, gets the legs.
Once he gets the legs, Khabib's nickname is
the Eagle.
But when you watch this, he really should
be the Python, because he uses his legs
to wrap up the guy so tightly wound
up.
The guy is like a mummy.
And maybe he has an arm free.
So sometimes he gets one arm within with
his knee under his knee.
The guy's defending himself with one arm, and
he's just pounding away, pounds in a way,
right at the guy who's almost defenseless.
And he did that for probably two minutes,
the first round, second round, right away.
Right away.
He did that to the guy.
Again, the guy tried to swing a couple
times can't swing once you go down.
I think he stuffed him twice.
But once you go down, it's over.
Like these guys cannot get out of his
Python twist with his legs.
He twists up his legs in such a
way the guy can't move his knees, can't
move his legs.
He's completely stuck.
And he did that to Connor to when
he come the second round.
You know that when I'm upset, I just
watch that, right?
It just me gives me happiness.
The second round, third round, Khabib did nothing.
He was tired.
He did.
He literally did nothing, just ran around the
cage doing nothing.
Fourth round, easy.
Now, now Conor's tired, right?
And he just tied him up like a
Python again.
First round was just like taking sucking the
whole momentum out of the stadium out of
the opponent by just sitting on literally he
wound him up and did nothing.
wound him up like a Python took the
air out.
Now you can't breathe.
And you feel tired.
Like you're just imagine how 150 55 pounds
squeezing you not just the weight on you.
He's squeezing.
You can't breathe.
So you come out of that having done
nothing.
Got no momentum, but you're tired to on
top of that, like it's very bad.
Now the second round.
That's where that is grounds and pounds was
vicious, man.
It was just like completely pummeled.
And all that is, I think that what's
the website for you MMA?
Yeah, you MMA, I think they want to
do UFC.
But no, no hitting the face.
Oh, my martial arts.
Oh, click on that.
Omar, let's read that.
I mean, at least it's how that you
watch Khabib fight.
I'm rooting him as a Muslim, but I'm
like, this is not how that I mean,
pounding Michael Johnson's face the way he got
literally just defenseless.
The guy had like one arm up.
Maybe push his arm pound, push his arm
pound.
And I'm like, I'm sort of rooting for
Habib.
So I'm like, there's limits, right?
They say that the it's a * for
the Dagestanis.
Because they were so poor, and there's no
other income.
After the counterfeit, you're not poor, right?
You're not poor anymore.
And Islam Makachev is the next one.
And then he's not from his team.
There's Hamza Shemaev is not from his team.
Not from his style at all.
Like the Dagestani guys.
They're disciplined.
They're like raised, right?
You know, like someone who's raised.
He's disciplined.
He doesn't talk trash doesn't do that stupid
stuff.
Hamza Shemaev is a different beast.
He's Chechen.
But he's a different beast.
He likes showboats.
I think that when you do that kind
of stuff, you're asking to get defeated.
Right?
Habib, they really can't get annoyed with him.
He doesn't trash talk in the same way
that like that annoys people.
In any event, if you want a halal
outlet, there you go.
We just gave them free advertisement.
And it would did it say the on
the about page?
Let's read the about page for this.
I'm curious.
That's why.
I'm just curious what the about page says.
On halal mixed martial arts fighting.
Imagine if they become a sponsor.
Okay, Oma martial arts.
Let's see the click on the about page
here.
There is there is no about page.
Virtual clap.
Where on the Okay, here's the homepage.
It's been specialized martial arts in 1980s.
We grown to be one of the largest
organism, Muslim martial arts organizations.
And it's based out of Canada.
I thought it would basically be based out
of England, but it's based out of Canada.
And the the chief instructor, I guess maybe
the founders Abdullah Sabri, and he's a shaykh.
Shaykh Abdullah Sabri says, know the nature of
self in order to defend self.
And then it's an auxiliary system of education
focus on mind, body and soul.
Quran and Sunnah as our guide.
Abdullah Sabri has been involved in developing martial
arts.
In the Islamic world in the greater Toronto
area.
And now they're into entertainment.
So now they incorporate salah, zikr, akhlaq, adab,
istiqamah.
Okay.
And they have it for guys.
They have it for kids.
They have it for sisters.
Sisters can take taekwondo lessons.
Imagine your wife takes taekwondo.
Then what do you do?
You got to take two classes if she's
taking one class.
You got to take two classes if she's
taking one class.
So I guess they're now getting into the
entertainment element of things.
Now, is it pay-per-view?
They could do a pay-per-view and
start going like that little by little by
little.
But they're going to have to use the
Hanafi ruling on purses for games.
Because you know that we in the Malikiya
do not allow for earning from la'ib.
They don't allow for it.
And so they have a whole bunch of
community partners.
I don't know what that means, but maybe
they're the advertisers that will be the back
end of the finances.
Because why would a guy go and get
punched?
He's got to get paid, right?
All right.
So there's nothing about their actual fight here
on the website, but it's very, we'll watch
this development.
But I'm assuming though it is non-face
hitting.
But by the way, it's not just a
face hitting.
All the type of injurious punches and kicks
would be unlawful for entertainment purposes.
The grappling fight, in that case, it's not
MMA then.
It's just jujitsu or grappling, which I don't
think is going to garner much of an
audience, right?
I don't think that's going to get an
audience.
But anyway, interesting.
It doesn't say on the poster where to
watch it.
Oh, there is pay-per-view.
Oh, it is pay-per-view.
So I messed up the ad.
All right.
So it is on pay-per-view.
Let's take a look real quick.
Where do you see that written?
I see MMA heavyweight hijab versus here.
Oh, so that's a different poster.
Mine was cut off.
That's why.
I got to be honest with you.
The first few fights, you got to put
them on for free.
No one knows what they're paying for.
No one knows if this is any good,
right?
Yeah.
Nobody knows if this is any good.
People got to, okay.
Eight pounds.
Oh, okay.
Eight pounds.
Charity.
So they'll walk away.
Yeah.
That's nothing really.
Imagine a guy goes with his wife.
He said, we got special.
We're watching some special tonight.
That's going to go bad either way, right?
Because on the one hand, she doesn't like
it.
If she likes it, you got a problem
because why aren't you there?
Right?
All right.
Let's get to some, something serious here because
you know, our live stream is like mixed
between stuff that's just happening and actual that
is useful and beneficial.
And that I believe we should all have.
And we try to take it directly from
the source.
And we probably should have went straight into
the serious thing first, and then eating the
dessert later, you eat the meat first.
So let's begin with this.
We read an important element of something
very important for our spiritual element to ourselves,
a very important part of the knowledge and
science of Tasawwuf.
And it's something that will lead us to
Ma'rifah, which is coming to know Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And that is being alone.
As many sheikhs say, the khalwa and uzla
for us today is 30-40 minutes by
yourself, doing munajah, sitting with, doing dhikrillah, or
even just not having a device.
We reach that level at this point, just
being in the fitrah, being in nature, etc.
Let's see what he says here.
So the first he says from the best
way of living is a man, he takes
his horse for the sake of Allah, meaning
to protect the ummah.
If he hears a noise or anything, it's
almost like a volunteer neighborhood watch.
If he hears a noise or hears anything,
he goes out knowing he could die.
So a protector of the ummah, protector of
the community.
Another person, he's in these valleys.
In other words, he's out in nature, he
worships Allah, he pays his zakah, and he
leaves people alone, except what is good.
If there's any students of knowledge up here,
get us the sharh of Nawawi on this,
or the sharh of Qadi Ayyad on your
phones or on your iPads, so that we
can read the sharh.
It is, well, it says here, of course,
the numberings are always different, one thousand eight
hundred eighty nine.
But if you want a key word, that
you probably will not find in other hadiths.
So look up and write the word, because
that's the key word that will probably not
be in many hadiths.
And he's saying here, the man who lives
far off on the mountains or deep in
the valleys, away from the people, he only
gives good to the people, and he worships
Allah by himself.
The people of Safwa, clarity of heart, is
that they have khalwah.
They have a time where they get to
clear their head and remind themselves of their
relationship with Allah, that I'm a Ummah, all
the affairs of my family, I'm leaving it.
One of the signs that a person is
going to be drawn near to Allah is
he finds himself suddenly in a lot of
alone time.
This happens to many people.
Even the worst of people, how they just
become good, forget ma'rifah, just from bad
to good, they go to jail.
Mike Tyson was one of those, and he
did enter Islam in jail.
I mean, just because you see in his
real life, you don't see Islam, does not
mean he's not a Muslim.
I can get you many guys from our
countries, they see no Islam in his life.
I knew a brother who grew up around
all the Zawiyah, all the Zawiyah of Syria,
and he grew up with the Shia.
The big Shia were just his neighbors.
He knew all of them.
He literally knew all of them, but you
don't see any Islam on him, until he
has to swear an oath.
He knows all these things.
When he sees someone praying, he goes, make
dua for me.
It's funny.
I know a guy, he doesn't skip salah,
he does not pray, but he tells his
kids to pray, fold up your pants when
you pray.
Some people are connected to the good and
to the truth by some hair, but you
don't see any other Islam in them.
But Mike Tyson's story is that he says
that being in jail was the only thing
that could have ever made him think about
something else besides himself and his desires.
Malcolm X has the same story.
I think he spent seven years in jail,
but in those seven years he was reformed
in such a way, he could never have
been reformed in that way outside of jail.
And for us, we could do that too.
If you spend 30 straight days, and you
take out a set time of the day,
and you sit alone with your mashaf, book
of adhkar, just munajah between you and Allah
about your goals in life, your desires, and
make dua and spend it like that, you'll
see a huge difference.
It's 30 minutes a day.
We don't need to be going to those
heavy uzlas and heavy khalwas.
Did you find anything?
Okay, that's it.
So basically, just like we said, basically.
No problem.
Type in shamila.
Type in the word shamila, and then in
Arabic, sharh Muslim, and write the word ash
-sha'af, and you'll get the whole sharh
of the hadith.
So, in the beginning, usually, as Imam al
-Haddad said, when Allah wills good for somebody,
He forces it upon them.
A person, for example, may get a job
far away, may go to jail, may get
sick, may move just enough to be away
from what He calls your ibn-e-ijinti,
meaning His peers.
Because we're always competing with our peers, whether
we know it or not, like it or
not, even if it's good and halal, and
like we're trying to measure up.
Oh, you're studying this book?
I'm going to study that.
Oh, that guy opened a business?
All right, I'm going to open a business
too.
We're always living like that, right?
So, in order to clear your head of
all these things, sometimes being alone, sometimes it's
not you who gets sick, it's a family
member who gets sick that disallows you from
leaving the house.
A family member gets cancer, no one's leaving
the house.
There's no such thing as parties, weddings, you're
not going to any of these things.
Funeral, maybe.
If a family member gets stage four cancer
and it happens, I think colon cancer is
one of those where you're not even in
pain until it's stage four.
You've heard about this?
Colon cancer is one of those cancers that
you wouldn't even feel, that's why they give
colonoscopies after age 40, 45, is because if
you feel pain, it's too late.
That's one of the sneakiest cancers and there
have been families who got colon cancer.
When your family or mother or father gets
colon cancer and it's stage four, usually they
say start counting because it's going to be
a matter of months.
So, when that happens, and then they're still
going to go for the chemo, then radiation,
then different types of things, and they're always
back and forth in the hospitals, the whole
family is in a standstill.
There's no such thing as going out, none
of that stuff.
So, that is a type of qabd of
the whole family that will make you start
thinking of deeper things in life.
A death in the family is كفى بالموت
موعظة.
Prophet ﷺ said it's enough of death as
a lesson.
If death isn't your موعظة, nothing will help
you.
And it just takes a Muslim youth to
witness one or two deaths throughout your youth
of close relatives.
This situation, the whole weekend is taken up
by this.
Between before the death, the burial, all the
proceedings, the جنازة, the عزة, the burial, the
عزة, the day after, the day after that,
the somberness, then also the good news.
You never have a pious Muslim family and
then someone dies except somebody has a good
dream about the dead person, the deceased I
should say, المرحوم as we call him, the
one whom we hope mercy has been showered
upon them.
We always see that.
It happens in every community.
You don't have to be from the great
صالحين.
And some of the great صالحين, but he's
a regular guy to us.
But to Allah, he's something else.
And you always see بشارة.
If the person was pious, family's pious, someone
gets a بشارة.
People at that point do not need lessons
to be told آخرة is Haqq, Islam is
Haqq.
They've just seen it in front of them.
They've seen their relative live and go to
جنة.
Because oftentimes they see بشارة, where are you
now?
I'm in a good place.
Don't worry about me.
It happens all the time.
There was, I believe, I don't know where
I told this story, but recently I heard
a story of one of the علماء الشام
told this story about one of the شيخ
that they had who passed away and who
died and came back to them.
I think they said, well, what has Allah
done with you?
And he said, Allah سبحانه وتعالى said, مرحبا,
welcome.
Have you not brought a gift to your
حبيب?
I mean, and he's lived his whole life
as one of the علماء الشام.
طقوة, حفظ القرآن, تعليم, فقه.
The man must have done a million good
deeds every single day and maybe one or
two little hiccups.
Multiply that by a long life.
So he was received, he said, no angel,
no translator.
I walked in, of course, this is مجازي,
right?
In upon the presence of Allah سبحانه وتعالى
and he welcomed him and he said, حبيب,
where is my gift?
How can a traveler come, visit somebody, you
have to bring a gift.
In all customs, maybe not the Americans because
they don't have some of these old world
customs, but you don't ever go to someone's
house, as we say, with a hand in
front and a hand in the back.
That's one of our sayings.
Or hands empty.
You never go.
You always bring a cake, cookies, something.
So he says, Allah told me, مرحبا, after
a long journey, and where's your gift?
You've come to us, where's the gift?
So he smiled.
I thought, what is the best thing that
Allah loves?
He said, Oh Allah, I brought five Salah
every single day of my life.
I never missed a prayer.
He said, but I can't accept this because
I'm the one who gave you the توفيق
for Salah.
What else do you have?
So he thought, of course, he's a man
of fiqh, so we know that Allah loves
the فرائد most.
So he said, I came to you with
Zakah.
I never missed paying Zakah and I gave
a lot more صدق on top of that.
He said, ah, but who gave you the
money in the first place?
He said, طيب, then I fasted.
He said, okay, but fasting takes strength.
Who gave you the strength?
Many sick people can't fast.
I made you healthy to fast.
He said, then العلم, I sought to preserve
knowledge of Quran, hadith, fiqh, sharia, aqidah.
He said, ah, but who gave you the
Zakah?
Knowledge takes intelligence.
Who gave you that intelligence?
He said, then, Oh Allah, I come to
you with تعليم المسلمين.
I sat all day teaching the students in
the day and giving وعظ, general talk about
deen and encouragement.
This is وعظ.
Jum'ah khutbah is وعظ.
General talk is وعظ.
It's not تعليم per se.
It's وعظ.
He said, who do you think drove those
people to listen to you and made them
enjoy listening to you?
Without them, you couldn't do it.
Who gave you the audience?
He said, then, by Allah, I have nothing
then.
I'm bankrupt.
I have nothing to give you.
And he started to feel down.
I literally have nothing to give.
And he said, this is not bankruptcy that
you have.
This is my من upon you to show
you how much I loved you.
My من meaning المن.
بَلِ اللَّهُ يَمُنُّ عَلَيْكُمْ أَنْ هَدَاكُمْ لِلْإِيمَانِ من
is to brag about what you've done for
somebody.
Right?
That I raised you.
I fed you.
I paid for your college tuition.
I did all this.
I paid for your wedding.
I paid for your dowry.
You say that.
When Allah says that to us, He has
the right to say it to us.
He says it out of محبة, out of
love.
He said it.
So while it looked like it was bad,
right?
It was like, I have nothing to offer.
But rather at the end of it, He
said, I'm making من upon you to show
you how much I loved you.
I was the one taking care of you
from the beginning to the end.
So his heart was just overflowing with love
of Allah.
And that was one of the dreams that
one of the shuyukh saw for his colleague
after he died.
It's one of the dreams.
And when someone dies, that's common to see
some بشارة like that.
And that's one of the greatest موعدة.
Woman, he says here, at the beginning, you
need to leave your peers.
This is also one of the wisdoms of
الرحلة في طالب العلم.
To travel seeking knowledge is because when you
leave everyone who knows you, they can't busy
you.
So when you travel, your aunt can't invite
you.
Your grandma can't invite you.
Friends can't have a party.
When you're living here, you have to do
all that stuff.
You have to be extremely social.
And you get good deeds with that.
It's not bad.
You get good deeds doing those things.
But when you travel, you can't do any
of those things.
And he says here, at the end of
one's journey, now you have been worshipping Allah
for 30 and 40 and 50 years, doing
all sorts of good deeds here, there, and
everywhere.
Of all types, you visiting the sikh, mujahidah,
everything.
He says now, at that level of being
a senior, being an elder in the ummah
and in عبادة, he says الخلوة لتحققه بأنسه.
Meaning, after all that, now it is his
time to sit alone with Allah.
Because you're just so busy, right?
In your middle of life, you're too busy.
Even Sayyidina Dawud, when he worshipped Allah alone,
and they brought him and they said, there
are two people fighting.
And he said, yeah, so many people today,
they oppress one another.
So it's said in the تفسير there, that
it's an إشارة for Dawud.
Why are you doing عبادة by yourself when
you know there's a ظلم happening in the
society and people don't know the rights of
Allah and the rights of the neighbor?
They do all sorts of wrong things.
You should be out there teaching them and
preaching to them and doing all these things.
So he then said, Omar, if I can
not get a haircut in the picture, please,
somehow, you know, he's got a haircut in
these pictures, right?
He then said, that was an إشارة for
Sayyidina Dawud, that for you to be outside
teaching, helping, advising, it's better for you.
So likewise for us, in this life, you
have to live a social life to support
your brothers and sisters.
There's no, you cannot afford probably most of
us to just disappear.
It wouldn't even be appropriate.
Imagine a brother, a guy, he's a student
of knowledge and he has a younger brother
who doesn't pray.
You have to do dawah.
You have to pull him in slowly.
It may take a long time, but you
got to pull him in.
You have to.
Now once you have children, you can't go
off leaving them and abandoning them.
That is your first assignment.
That's your assignment that Allah is going to
ask you about.
Allah is not going to ask you about
anybody else.
He's going to ask you about your kids.
So now you have to be involved with
them.
Now, dawah cannot be, all right, let me
sit down and let me just teach you.
No, you have to have, there has to
be a reason for them to love you.
They have to love you first in order,
then you don't have to talk.
Beyond basic lessons, you don't have to talk.
They will follow in your footsteps if they
love you.
How do you get a kid to love
you?
There's, every kid's got their own ways and
kids have their own ways.
In order to be loved, there are different
techniques.
There are different ways.
Meaning, you're going to be loved when you're
on their wavelength first.
You have to first be on their wavelength
if you want to take them somewhere else.
And that's, suddenly that's going to mean engaging
in a whole bunch of youthful lahoo.
Children's play, then youth will still want to
do things like go to soccer and stuff
like that.
You're going to do that stuff.
You have no choice, right?
You have to have, a kid has to
have a normal healthy childhood and you've got
to be part of that.
So those sort of, in your imagination when
you're young, you're like, okay, I'm going to
leave.
I'm going to go travel.
Tahtabim.
And I'm doing all that.
Well, guess what?
In a few years, you're going to be
wake up at 7 a.m. There's a
six-year-old soccer game at 7.30,
at 8 a.m. That's what you want
to do on Saturday morning.
They don't even know what's happening on the
field.
They're running around, right?
But he had the funnest time in the
world, right?
And then you're sitting there and there's another
dad.
I have to talk right now, right?
And they want to talk.
And the coach says, everyone, please check your
emails.
We have to get the fees in and
come and check your jersey.
What am I doing?
Right?
But that is what you have to do.
Whether you like it or not, a kid
has to have a normal, healthy childhood based
on his customs around him.
That's what you had.
And you turned out okay.
Because when you have a normal childhood, everything
is basics of life are taken care of.
That's when you can think of higher order
thinking, like Takwa, like Dean, like these other
things.
You want it.
It's something you want to do.
But it started off, no one jammed it
down your throat.
And also, no one took away something from
you that everyone else had to make you
desire that more than anything else.
Because Imam al-Haddad warned against that.
Imam al-Haddad warned a man who kept
bringing his son to all the classes.
And he said, doesn't the boy want to
play with the other kids?
He said, I want him to be a
sheikh.
I want to bring him to classes.
Imam al-Haddad warned him.
He said, if you do that, he's going
to think about playing all the time.
When he grows up, he'll play.
Because he was robbed of it in his
childhood.
So fill him his belly with that now.
Fill him with that now until he gets
bored of that.
At the very least, he'll say, I did
my thing.
And so many of us youth, we reach
a point like that.
It's like sleepovers, playing all day, basketball, video
games, going out to eat with the friends.
I did all that.
I don't need to do it anymore.
You reach that point.
And that's the healthy way to do things.
Raising a decent kid, it happens one dentist
appointment at a time, one math homework at
a time, one little play session with children
at a time.
And you just add those up over the
course of 15 years.
Then hopefully, you end up with a child
who doesn't want to disappoint you.
Even better, you end up with a child
who wants what you're doing.
That's how Islam has always out-survived every
nation, every empire.
It's because we have that.
And we know how to do that very
well.
We know how to do that very well.
Avoid zina, avoid khamr, raise your kids, have
kids, get married, have kids, and do the
regular thing.
Because bir al-waladayn, they see you serving
your parents, what do you think they're going
to do when they grow up?
They see you serving your parents, because here
comes a bridge time, where you're serving old
parents and raising young kids.
That's the best, because they see that.
Oh my gosh, it's serving them, then taking
us to practice.
They become very appreciative, and they follow in
the same footsteps.
And that's why if you have a chance
to do bir al-waladayn, keep in mind
that's your reward.
That's not your job.
That's not a sacrifice you're making.
That literally is your reward.
Just like I tell you, listen, I need
you to go and drop this money off.
I'm going to give you a bunch of
cash, but you're going to do the work.
You're going to set up the crypto account,
and you're going to make the deposit.
You don't see that as work.
That's reward, because I'm going to be rich
in a few years, right?
So same thing, when the situation happens in
life where you're required to make sacrifices for
your parents, you have to treat it the
same way.
Allah literally has taken a bunch of cash,
put it right in front of you, and
said, now go deposit it in the bank.
Imagine you gave some guy, here's $100,000
in coins.
I need you to now count it out,
take it to the bank, deposit it, take
the money now, open a debit card, open
a bank account, and shift it over into
crypto or whatever investment or whatever is a
powerful investment at the time.
You got to do it all.
Does that work?
Now, the person who, oh my gosh, the
guy gave me $100,000, but it's in
coins and singles.
I got to count it now.
I'm like, are you thankless?
You're not right in the head.
We'd all say that.
Here's $100,000.
You should be counting them happily, and then
go into the bank account with a smile
on your face.
Everything you do, you're the beneficiary.
This is free money here that's coming to
you.
The same thing.
The three generation households are always very good.
Sometimes they could be a problem.
You have to keep in mind that not
all in-laws get along, so you have
to be careful of that too.
We're not just saying everyone throw yourselves all
into one house.
That could be a problem too, so it's
not like we can make a blanket statement.
But in most cases, especially when the parents
are very old, you're literally just earning so
much Rida of Allah, Dua of parents, and
most important, you may not even realize, children
seeing this happen.
So when you become old, if they're just
normal, they're going to do the same thing,
and then life is good after that.
So when an old person reaches a point,
as a Muslim, that I don't have to
worry about anything in life anymore, and you
move in with one of the kids, you
don't worry about taxes anymore.
I don't pay bills anymore.
I don't cook anymore.
Khalas, out to pasture.
This is out to pasture.
That's the way that people should grow old
in Islam, and the culture of extinction doesn't
have that.
Culture of extinction literally, they're just going to
do self-assisted suicide in Europe.
What's the point?
There's no one to take care of me.
The state, social security is what it is.
Going to an old folks home is *.
These old folks homes are just *.
They get so mistreated, and they get depressed.
Some of them just die out of grief.
It's a terrible, terrible, that's why really the
reward of a Muslim begins right away.
It begins right away.
When you see old people, and I've seen
some old, some of the families out there
with like five and six kids, multiply that
after they get married for 20 years.
How many grandkids?
Maybe 15 to 20 to 30 grandkids, and
you're an old person, and sitting and seeing
that all the time, it'll keep you mentally
sharp, emotionally loved.
It's a great reward.
It's a sign of a good life lived.
One of the rights, one of the correct
ways to perceive comes from a story of
a man who visited him and his friends.
Let's go visit Abed so-and-so.
It's known that he lives in one of
the hills all alone.
By the way, when they used to say
a man lives in the mountain, it doesn't
mean he never sees people.
He just lives far from people.
So they went up to visit him, and
he welcomed them, and they're sitting and talking.
He said, MashaAllah, you left the people and
left all of their evil, fled from all
the evil of the people.
He said, Astaghfirullah, no.
How could you think of the people?
How could you think bad of the Muslims
like this?
I left protecting them from my evil.
So al-Qushayri says, when you do uzla,
never think in your mind, I'm leaving the
corruption of the people.
No.
How about I'm protecting the people from my
corruption?
I'm leaving the people from my corruption.
Because that will just increase you in arrogance.
I'm leaving all these people, these terrible people.
I'm leaving them all.
Maybe you're the one who's going to become
arrogant after this.
Alright.
Al-marhaban.
What group is this?
So many people from Atlanta and Memphis are
here today.
It's a funny thing because yesterday it was
just me and Omar, and I was noting
it's one of those, you know, quiet, middle
of the week, gloomy day type of streams,
where it was just me and Omar the
whole day.
And now there maybe is like 12 people
here, 15 people here.
Is this a Shaykh?
Which Shaykh?
Is this your Imam?
Is this your Shaykh from Atlanta?
Mashallah.
Okay.
Mashallah.
Make room for him right here.
Atlanta or Memphis?
Atlanta.
Atlanta.
Mashallah.
Most of you are from Atlanta, right?
Do not say to yourself, I'm protecting myself
and abandoning the evil of the people.
That's going to increase you in arrogance.
And it's to adh-dhani bin-nas.
There is a concept of So
we have to put down our own nafs.
We have to put down our own nafs
and not put down other people.
And not view ourselves as something special over
the rest of creation.
Now a person can and should view himself
as unique.
Because Allah does not create anything except it's
unique in itself.
Every single creation of Allah is unique.
Even they say that snowflakes are all different.
And a snowflake's existence is not witnessed by
many humans.
99.9999% of snowflakes are going to
drop and melt before any human being sees
it.
So even that, well who knows, maybe Malaika
see it.
Maybe there are tiny Malaika who are wondering
and who made that, fashioned it, and amongst
themselves they adore it.
And if that's not true, it suffices that
Allah saw it.
And Allah knows how it is.
And Allah made it.
So we don't know about the world of
Malaika.
We could just put a question mark there.
Are they the witnesses of such a tiny
little thing in our world?
It's so tiny and irrelevant.
But Allah doesn't create anything irrelevant.
So it's relevant to someone.
So here, even the snowflake that falls on
the ground within 60 seconds and melts and
is gone, finished, its existence is over, its
ajal has come, then even that is unique.
So every makhlouq is unique.
Therefore you have to see what's the benefit.
What is your benefit?
Every creation has a benefit that no one
else can give.
But uniqueness does not equal superiority.
And that's the difference between people who view
themselves as unique and they have facts to
back it up.
Life actually backs it up.
They are unique.
Their achievements are unique.
Everything about them is unique.
But they made the mistake of leading them
into kibra and ujjab.
So the shuyukha we say, recognize the uniqueness
but not the superiority.
The superiority is by taqwa and taqwa is
hidden from everybody.
No one knows who's taqwa is best.
The most noble of views of people, not
aalamukum, not astaqukum, in other words most sadaqa,
aabadukum, the most worshipful, no, atqaakum.
Taqwa can be in so many different things.
You could have a person who his taqwa,
his whole life is resistance from doing haram
that's at his fingertips.
He would have very little ibadah, very little
positive deeds, but many, many deeds of resistance.
And you don't see those.
You don't see the effect of it.
You don't see it.
He's just resisting himself from doing bad things.
If you see yourself as superior.
So maziyyah here he means a uniqueness but
that's not really correct.
A uniqueness should be seen because that is
basically you're recognizing the ni'mah, recognizing Allah's ni'mah
in being unique.
Shuhood al-minnah, recognizing the blessing Allah gave
us, but that doesn't mean I'm superior.
So maziyyah does not, it should, the translation
here should not be uniqueness leads to arrogance.
No, not at all.
You're unique but humble.
Don't feel yourself superior to anybody.
A man like this, he left and he
lives in a cave or a mountain or
a tent somewhere and he says you're a
raahib.
Qala la, ana haris.
I'm not a raahib.
I'm a guard.
I said, oh, what are you guarding?
He said, kalb.
I'm guarding a dog.
So where's the dog?
He said nafsi.
It's my nafs.
I took the dog far away from all
people so everyone can be safe.
That's the right way we have to view
our nafs.
Allah.
A man came to one of the righteous
and the righteous packed up his bags and
started leaving.
He said, why do you leave me like
this?
My clothes is not najis.
Why are you gathering yourself and leaving?
He says, you made a mistake in your
assessment.
My self is the one who's najis.
I'm protecting you from myself.
And by the way, I've seen Americans do
this stuff for their own reasons in campsites.
I went to Massachusetts one time.
They have some of the best campsites up
in Massachusetts.
They have a place called Mohawk Trail.
It's one of the prettiest mountain ranges you
go to because it has a river that
flows through it.
Right?
And you can just hear the river.
And it's one of those amazing rivers that's
not too broad and it's not deep at
all.
Part of it maybe you can swim in,
but mostly you can wade through the whole
thing and it's moving quick.
Water's clean and crisp and it's one of
the prettiest campsites I've ever been to.
And there are guys there who live there.
They just live there.
They have a camp trailer and they pay
them.
They just re-register, right?
There's always registering.
And they literally live there.
And they go out fishing.
They're a type of, I don't know what's
going on with them.
Some people who may be like veteran of
war that's traumatized.
I don't know what.
Some weird reason he wants to leave all
society and lives there.
And you see these guys, experts in camping.
They got things that make them tea.
They got the lawn chairs.
They got everything.
And they fish all day or whatever they
do.
And they're living that kind of life, but
obviously they're not living it for this purpose.
But you see how it could be done.
It could be done, right?
It's not far off.
They're good at stuff.
And they go into town to get supplies.
It's not like they're totally cut off.
But they're living like that.
And you never know why people become these
natural types or nature types and never interact
with people.
And I saw a guy there.
He had two dogs.
When you live out there in nature, you
need dogs for protection.
You need dogs for hunting.
And it's lawful at that point to have
dogs for those reasons, even when the dog
enters your tent or enters the RV or
whatever.
They live in an RV.
A lot of these guys, they live in
an RV.
And they get bored from this campsite to
them.
Like just go to another campsite, explore the
world.
They're literally off the grid.
Maybe they got a pension from the military
or something.
And they don't want to spend a lot.
And this is the cheapest way to live.
Who knows why they live like that?
But it does go to show you how
potentially some kind of Oslo like that could
happen.
And you could fathom, we don't want this
to happen, but you could fathom severely traumatic
things happening to people.
And they just need to get off the
grid.
It's fathomable.
I've always said, if I ever had to
get off the grid, I don't want to
get off the grid.
I want to be on the front lines.
We should, but everyone's different.
But if you ever had to be off
the grid, I'd probably go to Tangiers, get
a beach front house, enroll in a HEF
school, right?
And live like that.
Then go in the afternoons, go to one
of these little street vendors, eat there, drink
Moroccan Shay, and then go to one of
the vicar sessions that they have.
They always have dhikr.
They have Hizbul Qur'an recited and these
group of dhikrs.
I do that in the evening, sleep early
again, wake up really early in the next
day, do it all over again.
But I actually pray that that doesn't happen
because you want to be on the front
lines.
I'd love to be on the front lines.
Sayyidina Umar said, I wish not to die.
I want to live.
Because here's where we plant our seeds.
He plants seeds for Akhira now, in this
life.
So why would you want to die?
All right, let's see the next thing that's
said here.
ومن أداب العزلة أن يحصل من العلوم ما
يصحح به عقد توحيده Before you ever get
into uzla, you must understand your aqeedah properly.
لكي لا يستهويه الشيطان بوسواسه You're not going
to be alone.
There will be malaika, but there will also
be shaitan, and he could mess with your
head.
People who go into uzla must understand the
epistemological level of thoughts.
They must know the epistemological level of dreams.
They must know the epistemological level of all
the spiritual things that would naturally happen to
anybody who goes into uzla.
See, this stuff is not just for the
khawas and the khawas and khawas and the
khawas khawas khawas.
It's not like that.
Any one of us who goes off into
uzla and lives like some of these men,
his praises, his five prayers, his dhikr, even
routinely, not even all day, but lives alone,
you will be exposed to a lot of
spiritual occurrences.
So the first thing that the person who
goes, he must know the rank and level
of what they mean.
Because shaitan can try to trick you.
Then Abdul Qadir al-Jailani, when he was
in such a uzla, he received a hatif,
a voice, and he said, blessed are you
for this ibadah that you're doing.
You're now free from the sharia.
So he said, I know you're shaitan.
Like his knowledge was so strong.
And he said, your knowledge saved you.
Then he said, Allah saved me.
This is a double play right here.
He was trying to get him.
He knew this at first is like a
jab, right?
That's a distraction.
Try to get the uppercut after that.
But the second one was actually the test.
The first one, you're not going to fool
someone who studied the whole Hanbali Madhab, Hafiz
Qur'an on that one.
That's obvious one.
But you could get him to say that
sharia is no longer applicable upon you.
You're not going to get him on that,
but you could get him in the little
droplet that you're leaving as shaitan is leaving.
Your knowledge saved you.
He says, yes, that's the real problem.
If you say yes about that.
And he said, no, Allah saved me.
So the person who spends a lot of
time alone and he remembers Allah, he will
also, yes, he will have angelic and true
spiritual occurrences, but he'll also have satanic ones.
So shaitan can potentially also mimic the nature
of the angelic ones.
Because in that story, Sayyidina Abd al-Qadir
al-Jailani said, a cool breeze came upon
me, right?
He's mimicking actual descent of malaika that makes
you feel wonderful and good.
So feeling wonderful and good and sakinah and
all of these feelings can be true, but
also can be from shaitan.
The only differentiator is what are you coming
out of this with?
What aqeedah are you coming out of this?
What amal are you coming out of this?
If you can't weigh these things against sharia,
then you throw it away.
That is from shaitan.
So keep in mind, that's a very scary
thing.
Sakinah can be from shaitan.
So the question is, is the story much
bigger than that?
Much bigger than that.
The hanafi nikah aqid is not even valid
in the malaika nikah aqid.
That would be zina, right?
That's acceptable.
Ikhtilaf shar'i.
Ikhtilaf between the madhab, that's acceptable.
The hanafi aqid of nikah would be zina
for malaikis, shaf'is and hanbalis.
Because if a woman was to be there
doing the aqidah on her own, without a
wali, that is the aqidah salim.
It's a valid aqidah.
Did I get it right, Omar?
By the way, how's your paper for azhar?
Good?
MashaAllah, good.
No wali is needed.
This is very well known, right?
No wali is needed.
It's simple, but it would be valid.
Valid, that's what it is.
Valid but sinful.
But valid.
We take the ayat of the Quran as
well.
Okay, and also the hadith.
وَالْعِيمُ حَقُّ بِنَفْسِهَا عَنْ وَلِيِّهَا But maybe the
ayat of the Quran is mutlaq.
Yeah, mutlaq, okay.
So, مَنْ بِيَدْهِ عَقْدَةُ النِّكَاحِ Right?
That's it.
So, he's not zani.
He takes that aqid to any of the
other three madhabs, he's a zani.
So, that's a huge ikhtilaf in a massive
obligatory thing that could result in zina and
hudud and loss of iman and everything.
Because you know when you commit zina, the
Prophet ﷺ told us that, I think it
was, I think it's a hadith from the
nabawiya, don't quote me on this, but Sayyidina
Musa saw a bush shaking and then two
pillars of smoke come out of it.
And he said, oh Allah, what is that?
He said, two people from your ummah just
committed zina behind that bush.
And he said, and what was that smoke?
He said, their iman.
So, iman comes out of you when, this
is how bad zina is.
And here you have a mass, a huge
ikhtilaf.
So, ikhtilaf in certain ibadat, it's mutasawwur, yeah,
it's something that's we can conceptualize that.
As long as you have a swath of
people.
So, when the sakina comes, you have to
ask, is the sakina coming to me after
a good deed, an acceptable deed, or an
unlawful deed?
Many people could say, I get the