Shadee Elmasry – OCD & Waswasa Abdullah Misra NBF 2771
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss their past experiences as Christian and their desire to become a Muslim, including their past experiences with OCD and their belief in Islam. They emphasize the importance of learning the Bible and practicing its values in order to achieve higher points in their religion. They also discuss the importance of understanding the Sharia law and measuring actions and words through their will. The speakers emphasize the need for individuals to use their own mentality to achieve their goals and provide advice on stopping reading and listening to information. They also discuss the importance of being patient with one's behavior and not giving up on one's beliefs. They describe a person who experienced a dream and had a twin sister, who died young but had a picture of her and eventually was confirmed to be a real person. They also discuss a person who had a twin sister and was eventually confirmed to be a real person.
AI: Summary ©
Good values and stuff like that. And something I found about okay,
let me get to know about Islam a little bit more. So I remember I
was I don't really remember Napster. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So
I was burning I was I went to a kind of a Muslim Muslim guy who
burned a hip hop CD and rap CDs and stuff like that for people
back in 2000. So I went to this Muslim guy's house that I knew
from high school, and I was just like, kind of burned some CDs. And
I saw a book on the shelf called Islamic focus. I said, Hey, can I
borrow that? Now every Muslim even if they're not practicing, when,
when someone comes interested about Islam, they're all They're
all getting the data excited? Sure, yeah. Take it, you gave it
to me. I read that. I was walking through my university, and I hear
this beautiful voice. And I look around. And it's a white
gentleman, who is singing the most beautiful voice. And there's a
whole bunch of hijabi brown girls in front of me, and I'm like,
what's happening here? This doesn't make sense, like,
visually, culturally, that was that would Hornsby that would once
be I stopped afterwards. And this is before he was like, kind of
more popular, famous. Yeah. And I stopped that afterwards. I said,
Hey, do you can I ask you questions about Islam? And he
said, Yeah, here's my card, and I never called it. There were these
there were these like, kind of micro, you could say steps that
Allah felt like, you know, let me meet Muslims that were and the men
the brotherhood and coming to an MSA dinner as a guest, like, Hey,
I just want to come to check this out. And, and then when they
realized that, wait, this guy's Brown, but he's not a Muslim. They
can't take money from you. Just Just come. And and so it's just
like the brotherhood that I found. And then when you when you when
you get the brotherhood and you look at, you know, I remember
this, this girl's family, you know, she, you know, they're happy
to be Muslim big beard club. So, you know, like, it's like, the
opposite of what you would kind of scary at that time. But, but happy
and, you know, vibrant. And, and it's time is working for them in
their lives, scholars. And so so it's while I was I was like, Wow,
that really gives you a different view of Islam to see Muslims
smiling, happy, joyous, but fully decked out as most Yeah. And
that's when Yeah, what made you want to take the book Islam and
focus? Well, because because I knew this girl who I liked. And I
wanted to kind of get a little a little edgy. And so I was like, I
learned something about, about Islam a little bit. So I'm like,
why don't I learn something about this? So then, when I started
reading, and I was already interested in Christianity and
kind of cult Hinduism, I was always into the spiritual thing.
And so when I read about Islam, I was like, oh, like, Okay, the
reason I couldn't become Christian was because they wanted me to
worship Jesus. But I loved the concept of one God, the concept of
a messenger. I like prophethood. But I didn't like the idea of
human deity, because that's what I had left Hinduism because of Yeah,
I left him to him, because I could not believe in the man God idea
anymore. Yeah. And because I was actually involved in a cult called
Sai Baba before, before I became Muslim, where I'm done with this
whole man, God thing. So when I say, with all due respect, I mean,
you know, then when I became when I came to Islam, I've seen that,
wow, all logic is there, and the spirituality is there. So you feel
good, and you feel satisfied? Logically, your heart and your
mind are both taking care of your body, and your limbs are taken
care of, because everyone, the people love each other. They're
feeding each other. And there's modesty and their values. And it's
not just like religion, religion is not just an identity you lived.
It's beautiful. And other people don't really live their religion.
It's just an identity. And so from that point, I realized, wow, this
is something I really want to get to know more about to get closer
to. Now. You You said you studied 12 years. Okay. How did that
exactly start those 12 years? Like, how do you go from being a
convert, which is a big jump, but then
12 years that happened by accident, like he went for one
year, then it stayed and, you know, that happens to some people,
they just end up? Yeah.
You can't stay a long time without stop planning. You know, you have
to discuss it, as they say stop planning. So I was out for a total
of 16 years. I spent three years in the darkroom system.
portion of one year was in Yemen. So in 2005, by that growth, who I
was interested in, do I married her? She's my wife today. How much
Allah Subhan Allah. The story continues. The saga continues.
Yeah, it's yeah, it was 18. So when I became Muslim, I was 18. I
got married as well, the next year. And, and again, I'm not
religious family, and they understood mashallah, here's a
convert, and I'm serious about my dean and they married their
daughter to me, I mean, 100 May Allah bless them. And here we are.
22 years later, somebody laughed and said, timeout real quick on
the stream stopped I think completely
It's It's good. It's good.
Now it's a new lake. Okay. Okay, let's keep going. So mashallah,
what an amazing story. So you ended up
being consistent in that relationship and you and they
accepted you. Now they're Pakistani or Indian, Trinidadian,
actually. And that has to do with it. That helps. Right? That helps
a lot. So they have similar stuff with Hindus, Muslims living
together in Trinidad and Guyana, right? Very much, very much, very
much coexisting, kinda. But, but that wasn't like her. Her family
is not like that. Okay. Her family is adorable and family, heirloom
family. And so I think that the only thing they didn't have was a
stigma against conversion.
So they were like, you're, you converted, okay. And they, I think
they were, I think, to be honest, they just appreciated that. Like,
I said, you know, I could relate to stand and then, you know, you
know, got, you know, got to kind of know, the sister, my wife, you
know, and, and we're like, Okay, well, in Islam, you know, you
can't date. So I was like, Okay, what do you have to do? You have
to get married, like, alright, you know, Allah somehow put in my,
I'll put in my heart. And I somehow found a way at 18 years
old to like, take a plane over there for the first time by myself
and say, okay, Islam says you can't date so I don't want to do
that. So can I get married to your daughter? And I think because
there are a madrasa enemy family, they could say that, Oh, we can
respect that. Like, okay, that's, that's alright, you're invoking
Islam on us, then we accept what you say. But we just want to know
what if you go back to your mother's your mother's religion?
And I said, No, I became Muslim, not because I like your daughter.
But because because I love this. I like Islam. I love this. So I want
to be a Muslim. And I will do that whether with your daughter or not
Sharla. So So then they said, All right, you can get married. And so
that really helped during the university years to build our deen
together. That's amazing. That's amazing. And then when we were
finished university, we quit our jobs in 2005. And then we went to
Yemen first. We're just we just we had to learn Arabic because we
were told, okay, you gotta learn Arabic. First. How'd you get to
what why did you go to Yemen? What was the inspiration? So I had a
teacher at that time, who was based in Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
And he had a, he had a contract. He was kind of like, he's the one
that we started learning more religion from. And he had a small
group of students, you're here in Canada. And if you have the
Chicago Brookes, Chicago, Chicago books and all of us, we were on
the same kind of Jamar, a very small GEMA. Sort of Yeah, so he
knew Sheikh Ibrahim Oh CEFR, who was the principal of the ink of
the Arabic school for dharma stuff at the time.
So we had a choice, either you go like, you know, back then it was
kind of, you know, also as 2005, all this stuff had gone on, you
know, after 911. So, Yemen was just very cheap. And, and I went
on a on a journey to hudge kind of, that's another story mag kind
of, I got taken as a guest of a prince and I just went there. And
I met a scholar, and I said, I got 100, I want to study this Dean. So
that's where I was recommended. Go to Yemen, it's cheap. It's easy.
You're going to practice your Arabic because it's a lot of
immersion. So I went there for the first time, and got a lot more
than Arabic. To tell you that.
So it's only for one year, I wanted to bring up our main topic,
but
you're the background story in Hinduism and around the time of
911. And all that is so interesting that I we spent a lot
of time on that. But now let's shift over to
a religious, what do they call it? Excessive scrupulosity or
something like this, where a person is trying to do something
good. And perhaps Allah knows best shaytaan pushes them over the
edge, because he can't stop them now. So he pushes them over the
edge over the edge to overlook extremes and excesses. This then
merges into almost like a psychological trap.
Use you have a lot of experience with it. I don't have a lot of
experience with it. So why don't you take over and talk to us about
scrupulosity OCD was Was, Is it medical? Is it shaped what shades
ons? Was was or is it both? It's all those things because Islam is
holistic, right? So it's psychological 100% It's OCD is OCD
up and down, right, like the way that like modern day psychology,
but Muslims knew that, you know, centuries and centuries where the
prophet slice on himself in my study of Hadith he clearly knew
OCD, Inuit, and he knew what it was. Yeah, he knew it before
anybody else. He taught people how to deal with it, how to prevent
it. It's just now we have some terms from the Western medical
establishment but we've had terms even from the Islamic side, but
The hadith are very, very clear about their indications about
understanding that some people will have this problem. Okay. And
what I noticed was as I was teaching fit over the last year,
I've been I was answering questions for last 10 To 10 to 12
years, 13 years online. And what you realized was slowly as a
student then starting to teach was that a lot of your students are
like, they have these kind of like yeard questions and this it starts
getting so strange, that that you're like, This can't be
healthy, like, and then I realized even going back to my own self,
that some some lines are just like this, you overthink, so I was an
overthinker. To you know, even though I didn't have religious OCD
in my life, but I could see that I am like an overthinker. And I have
these other students and privately that publicly they're all studying
FIQ, masha Allah to level L. Right. But the difference is,
there are people who studied the autodidact. They studied from
answers online. They didn't actually have teachers, and they
studied online got answers. And what I realized was the students
who I'm teaching on this platform, are privately they're all
consulting me for serious issues. And I'm seeing that Islamic law
seems to be causing more problems for them in their life, and
solving so all their problems in life, deal with Islamic law. And
I'm just like, don't worry about it. But they're like, no, they're
obsessive. That's when I when I got to know about OCD. And I
learned about this. That's why over the last 10 years, I've been
so passionate about this, because so many people love alone, their
deen is just cut because of the Shaytards influence on them. And I
do believe from a spiritual level, it is an attack. Right? There's
the psychology of it, which is a whole other issue, right, a whole
other way of looking at it. But that Islamic modality is like,
Yeah, you see someone becoming religious, and they're not doing
the same things that they used to do. So shaytaan, can't get them to
40k can't get them to steal, drink alcohol. So how would I get this
person away from religion? Well, I'm going to come into religion
itself. And I'm going to be the one that filters the answers that
they get from the MFI or from the answers the books. And I will I
will program I will try to insinuate that no matter how much
they get exact in Fick, no matter how much difficult they have, I'm
just going to ask them for more difficult, more difficult, more
difficult until the point where they outdo themselves. And so you
want to make a perfect will do Masha Allah is beveled will do is
beautiful. But if you want to say wait, you know, and you know the
Hadith of the Lama, right? Like, yeah, there is an idea of making a
complete will do, but it's not meant to say, Wait, did I do this
part? Or did I do that spot? Or did I not or what I do it again.
And so that's this idea, the whisper when it comes into your
mind that you didn't do it properly? And when your way of
looking at Islam becomes the validity and validity paradigm. So
I call the invalidity paradigm that is the wrong base. It's the
base true Islam on so people often who got this or people who became
religious very suddenly, and their first line of, of religious
influence was answered online. Which is a it is it is in one
sense, it's a bit of a hustler, but it didn't exist before. In
previous times, you went to the shape and the Jamya or you went to
them often you said, here's the question, and they just give you
hokum finish this pitch. That's how the army would learn. Now you
have this idea of the alarm but I'm religious now. And I can read
overnight as the Imam and all these different answers may Allah
bless them. You having a million factoids in your mind, so you know
more Islam in like three months than your parents and grandparents
and entire extended family combined. And you know, even
Aberdeen and you know, what I can fill out and you know, mow the
edge, and you know, Holy Land, you know, all these words, but you
don't know these books. So you have these, like, people debating
issues. I've never seen these books before. Also, you had in the
old days when you had to ask a human to human assesses that the
Mufti is obligated to assess them with stuff T, right. This is
Hollywood stuff. D Yeah. Is is like you have to know how to study
before getting the photo you don't give a photo into the void. Yeah,
the problem is with the internet, we've started giving photography
into the void and one thing that when I was in my when I was in a
program for one year, it's like they realize that no, no, no,
there's a lot you have to take into consideration if you have to
ask them to come in. Or if you have to ask them for a follow up
question you can do that. But just never nothing is just cookie
cutter especially when there's so much at stake which is a person's
psychological state. And so what you realize is yeah, when you when
you have these people who you know you're supposed to go to someone
and ask an answer but you're not supposed to know things before you
know things so example this to the rich, the prophets I saw them
interestingly, what really changed my mind was doing a little heavy.
That's what changed my mind was what really though to Hadith Yeah.
So after the after in the
Let me just give a translation to everybody Hallel Mustafa, it is
the condition of the questioner. So in Islam, you don't just give
an answer you have to assess the questioner himself. And his
conditions number two Dota. Two hadith is a year in which they
study the major books of Hadith all day, every day for a full
year. tundla. And so and so the thing is that, even with Khalid
Mustafa t, so you have payment Abbas, someone comes to him,
and says, you know, is there Toba after murder? And he says, yes,
there is. And another person comes in after that person, and says, Is
there Toba after murder? And he says, No, there isn't. So his
students are like, how did you answer the same question to two
different people to give two opposite fatwas? How's that
possible? It was the first person had done it already. And wanted to
repent. So I told him, yes, you can there is tilba After a sin.
And the second person what had it on his mind? He hadn't done it
yet. And he could he could sense that from the Haldol stuff the the
way he was? And he said, That's why I said no. So he doesn't go
and do it. So so now the prophesy Salam, also when he used to pray,
what did he say? How did he teach people prayer? Like, we teach
people prayer, like a mutton now, right? Which is okay, because
that's the tradition. But when you go back to how he taught people
how to pray, he said, Son, Luca, my right to
pray the way you see me pray, and it made complete sense now why he
was doing that. Because most of the details of prayers are
observations that other people made of him. Like the way He
Himself taught, like, just pray, the way you see me pray, and
that's why they're all these purposely these kinds of like,
these kinds of
he had the Messiah. So we don't know do you do subtle for your
arms do you do for your hands? You know, in prayer, do you? Do I mean
out loud or not? They're not settled questions. In our own
mind. That's the beauty of the diversity of the the legal
diversity of the problem is the one with wasa cannot understand
the legal diversity because they began to take one framework of
Fick or acleda. As copy not been it's become absolute for them
written in stone, where as the laws and the laws, the the values
and the morals and the acquired yeah, those are written in stone,
but not the wish that had fee right, not the different upon
masala. So so that's how, you know we, a lot of people are picking
this up. For those who are listening, you're always going to
hear on this live stream because it's a column based live stream.
It's a theology and epistemology emphasizing live stream, you must
know and right on the margins of some paper or on your desk
somewhere. The word khatai means absolute unequivocal, it can only
have one possible meaning. And the word lundi is equivocal, or
speculative. Meaning it could mean different things, it could mean a
couple different,
it could have a couple of different meanings. Language is
like that words are khatai. And they are funny. And they are meant
to shabby, which is Shabbat means is a word that it sounds like
something that would contradict something stronger than that. So
therefore, we must take it as an expression or an idiom that
doesn't exactly mean, what the immediate understanding would be.
And all humans use this in their language. Okay. So these are three
important words caught the eye and the knee and what you said, Now, I
want to share with you something that I observed as well, that you
talked about the fifth he mind once you get into fifth, it's
sometimes can go down this dark route, and this route that stops
resembling Islam. And the
the, the opposite of that is people who grew up not with FIP
but with Sierra. And the Sunday school mentality of people. Sick
polar opposite, right? Oh, yeah. Right. So you know exactly where
I'm getting at? Oh, yeah. Right. So the fifth he mind without any
Sierra Shema in,
is very legalistic. And will sometimes you read the story of
the Prophet biography, the Sierra means the biography of the
Prophet. You read about the companion like they've ever did
this, they never talked like this. So
maybe perhaps a little bit more Syrah and seeing how the
companions did things and didn't do things what may be an antidote.
So you seemed like, immediately, you know what I was talking about?
So why don't you get into that? Yeah. 100% So what I realized was
that people need to have meaning that money before they start to
bring form into their religion. So what that means is, you need to
have spiritual and heart connection with whom you're
worshiping Allah, and you have to fall in love with the Prophet,
celestial and as a grounding, to build your religion on right and
this is why
I, another one of my kind of directions is sera, sera song and
different things like that, because I realized this is really
founding the basis otherwise what happens is you become almost like
the Pharisees, you know of the Bible at a Pharisee Ik, you know,
or, you know, very pedantic ritual based and I noticed it's even to
be honest, even amongst senior Talal URL and even some scholars,
right? Where it just becomes so convoluted for the details, but
you're missing. What about the values? What about what about the
Wrath of Allah? What about all these other things? And so it's
very important to have a balanced curriculum, so you don't notice.
You don't actually see too much wasa among madrasa students, for
example, or among people have actually been through a proper
curriculum. You see it among people who got into religious
matters before they were really ready.
You know, you know, envelope or mentor Angela che Kamala awanee.
Right. So hopefully by Harmonix, so sometimes you get into
something a little too fast, and you haven't built that ground
level of love and spirituality connection to the profit price of
them, and really just practicing the values of Islam. So then you
were not able to achieve the higher points of the religion
because you just got stuck on voodoo and you got stuck on
intention and things like that. Yeah. And I noticed that people
who, whose religious learning consisted of Sierra, memorize
Quran and study the Sierra? Well, those types, they have a different
Pitfall,
which is they, they simply don't have a legal sense of how rulings
are made and why they may be made.
In contrast, we said that to legalistic ends up in
seemingly a different religion altogether, the spirit I should
say, the spirit of the impossible, it's impossible. That the, you
know, even in touch we'd write when I hear some of the real true
experts in Tajweed. And they say you have to pronounce a letter
like this. And it has to sound like that said, Listen, I'm
submitted to you. I know you're right. Because you have an answer
to the there's a reason you're saying this.
I got to probably tell you, I don't think oh, the Sahaba recited
like that. Right. Exactly. Thank you. Is that because that's not
possible, right? Because what you're saying is so refined. It
was would require lessons, multiple lessons and practicing to
move your mouth like that. Where is that in the sahaba? Where is
those sessions? Right? Mashallah. Mashallah. So you there. That's
why I love this concept that you that the fuqaha, the old lemma,
they need to sort of be the edge has to come off a little bit with
some practical Syrah. And, yeah, and in our world, too, that just
involves Dawa. Right? And if you notice why the Sahaba didn't sit
and do details was because they were busy bringing Arabia into
Islam, right.
So you could get the feeling that Sahaba would travel over, become
Muslim at the hands of the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam, and
they're looking for just enough to go back to their tribe give me
just enough knowledge of solace. Zeca, Hajj, so I'm Jihad
Tauheed. Just enough, that's necessary. I'll go back and I'll
convert my people. And I'll be busy with that for another 20
years, right. And that sometimes in our world involves youth work,
it involves doubt will work at the moment, a Taliban, a student of
knowledge, a scholar, a jurist, a theologian, comes back studying 20
years, 10 years, the moment they set foot and deal with a youth, a
youth group, a convert prisons, all of a sudden, you notice that
their priorities balance out, I would say, Yes, right. They
balance out. And that's really important. And maybe that's,
again, the source of Wiswell is that balance wasn't there to begin
with, which leads me now to the next question. What if someone has
was was? What's the solution? So my, my solution, because as as an
OCD counselor, I would say and a fake teacher, I would say, they
have to completely unplug from the sources of information that they
have. So they have to, they have to completely stop reading
questions and answers, no fatwas online. No listening to videos.
Stop.
Stop altogether. Because and this is a hard advice when I heard it
from from one of my teachers like as a recommendation to for someone
I was like, because I said like I have a student who's like this,
what should I do to tell him to stop studying completely? Why?
Because you need to be in a sense quarantine from that any
information that you get your psychological state your fitrah
has been bent actually, and any information that you get no matter
how many facts wasn't going to give you how many Roxas you're
going to bend it bend to bend it and get into more OCD. You need to
actually stop reading online. Stop listening to
The tic tock answers online, stop reading on your own, and you to
unplug and get back to the basics of the religion. And first
understand that if you think Allah is not more has more Goodra than
everything else, then you're from the beginning, okay dies off. And
if you think that that majesta Has any theory in itself has any
ability to harm you, or that if you even think that validity and
acceptance are intrinsically connected with each other, then
you need to actually cut that off and stop this idea of pseudo
learning. It's not learning it's pseudo learning, and need to go
back to the basics. If it's too bad, you need to get therapy, or
like some type of help with someone who knows, what was fossa
is and is balanced as a scholar with all the different subjects go
into Sierra go into, you know, a HELOC and Teskey go into these
things. And then just have a lot your your mud hub should be the
mud hub of taco and Rama, not the mud hub of Africa. And that's that
was
one reason I believe is this is totally from Shaytaan is because
Wes was a is almost always in a bad person doesn't get westwards
to in their job or in their homework or in.
In that respect. It's worldly things. It could but it's
increasing. Now, to be honest with you, it starts in blue, and Nia
and these things but I have seen you're seeing a lot of income
loss. Income actually is yeah, in a haram risk was was because
because of the prevalence of rebirth in our societies.
It's a river is a big thing, then you have you have a lot you have
divorce also a religious matter. Oh, yeah, there is no doubt about
that. But I'm saying it's finding itself outside of a badass and you
have a divorce was facade, that's a big one as well, that's coming
up. Because you know, this photo was out there about Holmatro,
Massara and all these types of things are putting ideas in
people's minds. So anytime you have access to fatawa that are
above your paygrade. And then you're in you have that type of
mindset, you're susceptible, falling, falling into it. And I
think you're right, that there there is definitely OCD outside of
religion, like, especially turning off the gas oven is a big one,
because that's so dangerous, right? Or locking doors at night,
things like that. But
most of the time in the masajid, what we're seeing is we'll do
related to hardware related. And I think that the goal of shaytaan at
this point is to make you stop praying altogether, because you
don't believe you have to do 110% That's exactly what happens. By
going down that route, you think you're getting better and better
imperfect. But Allah is teaching that person in one sense that it's
not your amo that's going to reach Allah, your perfection is not
going to reach Allah. And so that's why the shaytaan can get
you because he can only get you to try to be more and more perfect,
which is a shame, ironic thing to begin with your mind. It shouldn't
be actually humbling ourselves and saying, I am imperfect. Now what
can I do? You know, oh, Allah, I need your mercy. Right? So the I
completely agree with you that I've seen the end of it will
always result in a person leaving prayer because a psychiatrist has
to tell them, Look, you cannot do religion anymore. And I've seen
this as well, people into like, they just leave fasting, they
leave praying and checkout wins at the end of the day, but there is a
silver lining. That is I think that the people of OCD, who have
OCD have actually a gift. And there's actually a positive, even
more positive outcome at the end. So if you if you can see through
the gift is to be a perfectionist. No, I don't think that is I think
if you can get through OCD, oh, I said if you can get through it,
and you can beat the shaytaan and understand all of a sudden the
idea of the cone and theory I like the idea that the world has any
effect on you can go away so you actually have a chance to actually
reach a lot purely knowing him without any of these other
attachments which is actually a gift perhaps that that a person
with OCD if they get through it, they can realize this is why some
of the big scholars had OCD in the past and they got through it and
they their level with a lot increased is OCD connected to lack
of socialization
Yeah, it's a lot of staying inside your head. And so one of the
results of it one of the ways to help it is to just be interacting
with people because socialization you'll see imperfection you'll see
people making we'll do you know whatever however we people
touching food and stuff like that. So yeah, isolation is one of the
one of the big things that causes OCD and being on the computer.
That's what's caused isolation. So let's go to a question here.
What a question here from
from online
Questions?
Where was your source of knowledge on how to handle OCD? Do you find
all of that in the subcontinent or in the Arab world? You know,
teaching this curing people from this? Yeah, no, I don't. I'm gonna
be very honest. Now, I don't see very many scholars today,
teaching this type of knowledge, and I don't, I did not find many
people even understood the problem. So before they were Yeah,
I mean, I had, you know, one or two teachers that kind of
understood how to how to deal with it. But most of it was my own
experience, then the teachings of some of my thick teachers who kind
of understood the problem. And then going into the texts of the
past Imam BurgerFi understood what was even Kodama understood what
sauce and wrote texts on him, look at him understood. They understood
what was so the aroma of the past, when you look at how they were
dealing with it, you realize, oh, they knew it, they understood it,
they knew how to prescribe things for it. So a lot of it was going
to the Hadith, the Hadith itself, and going into the older texts of
our tradition, and then applying it from the teachings of what our
teachers taught us today. But I'll be honest with you, there is a
real lack of information. And even among scholars today, many of them
don't realize the causing people was fossa. So not understood this.
The prophets I saw them, obviously understood it, and he prevented it
through many different studies indicate that so we need to study
those again and bring that and revive that tradition. This
question says, Is it ever reach a point where medication is
necessary.
So I don't go through the clinical perspective, I'm from the
spiritual perspective and hamdulillah people find benefit in
approaching it spiritually. There are some people, for example,
because OCD is tied to anxiety, that they will need a
psychotherapist or psychiatrist to handle some of the chemical
imbalances that they have. And so for some people, you can only take
medication to calm your mind enough to start doing the work on
the spiritual level. And that is, that's when the psychological
issue becomes out of hand, for any scholar to be able to work on, but
that's what I leave towards my psychotherapy colleagues. So you
you work with somebody until you realize that now this person needs
some other help. And then you ship them to a psychiatrist. Yeah, it's
all I work in tandem. That's why I work with a psychiatrist,
psychotherapist group. So Canadian Muslim counseling, asked me to
come on board, because they saw the work I was doing in this and
we were like, hey, and they said, let's let's team up and 100 It's
been a great, great success by Allah's blessing. That yeah, the
the enemy aspect of it from the western point of view, in the
eastern point of view can combine. And so I do consultations, you
know, for people who are psychotherapy patients, you know,
outside, if I can help them, I say, Look, you need to, sometimes
it could be a bigger problem. And so I don't even try to get
involved, where it's a psychological issue that needs
medication. Is it always necessary for the psychotherapist or the
psychiatrist to believe in God to believe in the soul to believe in
angels and devils? No, no, because their job is just to give you
something to make your mind calm down, so you're not like
hallucinating, then it doesn't matter, then then then come back
and work with me. And we'll talk about the religious stuff, once
your mind is calm enough, that you're not you know, you're not
going into like a psychosis or something. But in the end, the
reason why Muslims have not found relief going to secular
psychiatrists or psychiatrist psychotherapist is because they
need someone who understands their worldview. So not even just a
Muslim psychotherapist can help you unless they understand how to
use the flip back and reverse engineer. They understand our
theta, they understand their texts, they know how to reassure
you that what we're going to put you through is Islam. This is real
Islam, otherwise, they're not going to leave reading their
websites just because some non Muslim psychiatrists tells them to
do so or even a Muslim psychiatrist who is a kind of
secularized. Okay, what are the percentages of success success
rates in your experience high or low? And the middle? So, it's
success rates, I found that Hamdulillah I mean, I found that a
lot of the people who work with me they've had a lot of relief. We
had some people clear their their their obsessions completely,
actually hamdulillah so it is something that is that is working
well, but it always depends on the patient or the client, because
their issues if they have to sort out traumatic issues from
childhood that's, that's something you have to work on. So it's not
like a formula like we're you know, it's a series of medicines
and you take this and you're good. It's not like that. It's really up
to the work. It's you have to do the work. If you can handle the
work and you want to do it, then people can help you but if you're
not going to do the the work
and challenge your misconceptions then no one can help you in
reality it's the individual it's not the practitioner. Okay, next
question says where is the website where I can make an appointment
with you? I'm Canadian Muslim counseling. Or you can see me on
Instagram Abdullah dot Misra and get in touch with me through
there. Okay. Do you do you do virtual consultations? Yeah
because because it's all it's global so people can come from all
over the world. And for the last five to six years, my daily job is
just answering people's questions. Subhan Allah, did you know that
I've been in the process of putting together a life coaching
company, masha Allah. Yes. said brother Sajid. Yeah. So, you know,
I hope that you're available because we may really need your
help on this in this specific subjects to be like a consultant
on this subject, because if it comes up, we might need your help.
You know, I know you're, every Imam is extremely busy.
Let's talk about it. And yeah, maybe we can meet each other
inshallah. Yeah, inshallah. So, this is a method of
getting what I want by putting someone on the spot in front of
200 people on a live stream.
Lot of harmony between us, I can tell ya, hamdulillah Al
Hamdulillah. So, last question here. When is it? Do you? Do you
have a regular routine of coming down to the United States or No,
it's not it's been regular, but it's not because it's a pattern.
It's just you get an invitation and you go and you go to Allah
wills and so inshallah you know, let's see. Okay, Mom testimony
because I know you have to go get your children from school. And
they may start finding you for every minute that you're late. But
thank you so much for coming on.
Jackal. Okay, and I really appreciate you coming on. And I
hope that we can do this again, a couple you know, more often in the
future. Java shall guarantee you and all of your listeners,
everyone that has been exciting. Allah bless you guys. Welcome
back. Love. Exactly. Love it. Take care solidly, like Amsterdam.
Okay, let's now turn to some other questions here that I see that I'm
going to answer. I mean, if God knows everything, then he's
compelled to do what he knows.
Okay? No, that premise is wrong. God is not compelled.
Is not compelled to do what he knows. And to do what he knows
itself is a logical statement.
Okay, so because some knowledges don't impact a reaction don't
require a reaction. For example, God created a tree green, he knows
that the tree is green. Okay, well, there is no necessary action
to follow that. So that's the first correction we have to make
God. He's not compelled to do anything.
So God doesn't have free will or choice now. That's incorrect. He
won't. 100% has free will, everything is free will. So God
knows what is and what could be. And he chooses one of them.
And that's what happens. So Allah knows that elephants could be
great.
And they could be black, and they could have been Brown, and they
could have been white. And they could have been a plethora of
colors. Yet he chose that the elephants mainly are great.
Purely his will. He's not forced by that by anything to make it
like that. Okay. So that's the first correction, I was gonna run
tonight, I lose the capacity to decide not to run.
So for example, you wanted to do something, this is actually in the
hallway, I mentioned something like this, not about running but
about making a choice, you you you choose, you want to do something,
and then you end up not doing it.
So you have a will. And then there's Sophia is to be able to
fulfill your will. Or quadra, we should say ability, there's will
and there's ability, Allah possesses will and ability. All
right. And we may in a, of course, relative sense or symbolic sense.
Have a will but no ability. Like who a man who's in a wheelchair
wants to walk but can't.
A man who is not in a wheelchair wants to walk, but his lazy.
Another man wants to walk and successfully walks. Okay, so
that's the world of human why because we are ultimately and this
leads to the next question. We have a will by Allah's will.
We have a will by Allah's will. Now the words God has willed that
you have free choice you have the choice. So you're not when you
choose you're not going outside of God's will. There's not one single
will there's two there are others Allah as well as absolute your
will relative by Allah's permission, you have a will.
Alright, this leads to the second question.
Creed question by Khalil Hamza
Is it correct to say that our choice and free will is also the
will of Allah the ultimate leave the belief and unbelief comes down
to Allah having willed it for you or not? Again, Allah has willed
that you have a choice. And that's why we can say everything is under
God's power, yet you are responsible for your actions.
That's how we say that everything is in God's power, yet you're also
responsible. We're responsible for actions and we can be punished or
we can be rewarded. Simple reason that we have a will. Because Allah
has willed it. God has willed that we have freewill. Well, Matt Tisha
una linea sha Allah very simple.
Aki, the point there in the Quran wama Tisha una Illa Yasha Allah
you did not have a will, unless, except that Allah willed that you
have a will.
And they said this because
the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa salam called his uncle, Abu Lahab to Islam, Abu
Lahab then said, if I want to enter Islam I enter if I don't
want to, I don't.
So
ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada says, This arrogance of thinking that he has
some will have his own. No, you only have a will because Allah
will that you have a Will you never outside of God's will. Okay.
Mina AJ says, Can il m be an audible voice you hear? And that
inspires you? Are all voices you hear Wes Watson from Shaytaan?
Okay, there's two answers to this number two parts of this answer.
The first part of the answer is the theory of it. The second part
of the answer is the how do I know what's what?
The diagnosis so the theory is that Ilham inspiration from Allah
can come through dreams, through a vision in the wake and through
hearing something in the wake, can come through all of these routes,
and can come in the wake with no sound, and no voice just directly
thrust into your heart.
But now, that's a theory Iblees can inspire you in different ways,
not inspired, but whisper to you in different ways, what are his
ways
he can also come and take a demon can come in the form of anything
form of a person could come in the form of a nightmare can come in
the form of a trick. Okay, someone looking like they're pious and
misguide you. Okay, things like that? Could it come in the form of
like hallucinations, what we now call hallucinations as possible?
That's one thing, but that's all theory.
This what I'm about to say is much more important. How do I know
what's what?
You know? What's what very simply by measuring it against the Sharia
and the sacred law? And looking at the results of that? What is the
result of that? Is the result of that? Are you now behaving
in a way that is more in accord to God's law, or more against God's
law? Simply It's okay. So that's what you have to look at the
result? All right.
And that's how you'll know whether it was from Allah is from the
angels from Shaytaan. Okay. That's that's simply how it is. So you
gotta when you hear a voice, well, that voice is irrelevant
completely until it translates to action.
Now we measure that right? I hear a voice it says,
Go to Somerset go to the corner of Somerset Street and
any sent Avenue? Yeah.
Big deal.
Really, it's a big deal. What's the big deal? So what's the ruling
here? Well, firstly, it's permissible for me to go there.
Right. It's permissible for me to go there. What's the ruling on the
voice is speculative. You may have heard wrong, you may have thought
it's an unseen voice. It could actually be a person.
Right? So it's speculative in its nature. It could be this it could
be that who knows? But what's the ruling on going to that street
permissibility
even for no reason. So I can, I'm getting in my car anyway, let me
just drive over there. But if it's going to be now, I'm fulfilling an
obligation right now.
I'm on the job.
I'm an ER ambulance driver, or I'm a nurse or I'm a surgeon I'm
working right now.
Or I'm tending to
a parent which has an obligation, something like that.
And I leave the obligation to go there. Now now, whether it's true
or false or sinful, it doesn't make a difference to say to honor
from truth or from falsehood, because it could be from the
truth, a source of truth, but you don't know how to deal with it.
Likewise, Allah subhana wa Tada.
is remember me much remembrance. Alright, so I leave my job now
that I'm paid on contract to code for eight hours, I'm going to
leave it and do remember because Allah said you remember it. So
that's a true statement from the Quran, but I miss applied it. So
we care less about the analysis of the statement and we care more of
how it results in our actions. And because that's objective, we can
measure that we have a law to measure that.
And that's why it's far more important. And sometimes it's just
a matter of looking Is this a destructive force in your life
like beautiful mind? And he starts seeing these, you know, Russian
spies and all that. Well, what will big deal if he sees Russian
spies? What if he has a big imagination? What if his
imagination is so big that he sort of fooled themselves and it sort
of created an image in his mind and he sees it, or he's just
claiming that? Well, all of it's no big deal.
Until we start to look at your life, hold on a second, your life
is falling apart, you're not showing up to classes, you're
socially odd, your your your turn your shed into a world war two
training site, you're spending eight hours a day there and you're
getting divorced from your wife and your wife's gone crazy. You
forget the baby in the bathtub. So we see that it's destroying your
life. Once it destroys your life, we could really say either you
have a mental problem or shaytaan, strict you or shaytaan tricked you
and cause you to have a mental problem. Because that could
happen. The Trickster shaytaan could induce mental problems for
people. So that's, that's the example of how to handle these
were Salas. Okay.
All right, Nan Pranaam. Let's hear your questions. And if you could
open up the Instagram, let's take a few questions before we wrap up.
Is the neffs worse than the devil? Because Satan became arrogant
because of his knifes told him he's better this question by
Abdulhadi. The answer is that
the neffs is a more dangerous enemy. Can't say it's worse than
devil or it's better until this your life is over. Then we know
whether you made it to John No, you went to the hellfire, good.
But anyone who died upon toe hate will never be worse than the bliss
died upon so he
IBLEES refuse to submit to God and His prophets. And so he's a Kapha
Kapha does not mean he doesn't actually genuinely believe God's
there. Kevin could know that Allah is true. could know that the
prophet is true, but just refuses to bow to submit to it. Okay,
that's why the opposite of a Kaffir is a Muslim, someone who
submitted to it not I had if someone who knew it's true, or a
movement, no, a movement is someone who believes it. If it's
someone who knows it, okay. But we called Muslims, someone who
submits to the fact okay, I submit and I will admit there is one God
and when there is a prophet IBLEES he knows very well. He doesn't
need to believe he knows 100% Adam was created, Adam was preferred by
God.
There there are prophets and Allah exists. He knows this 100% but he
refuses to submit to it. That's what a Kevin means. So a Muslim
who dies will never be worse than Satan.
Because at least he submitted
Leila illAllah Muhammad Rasulullah. However,
shaytaan
is worse from one angle, in that he refuses to submit, but the
knifes is more dangerous from another angle and that we can't
see it. It's intertwined within us, okay. It's intertwined. That's
why the Quran warrants against your kids, and your spouses and
your money, these things that you love that are part of your life.
Without realizing it, they can intoxicate your brain.
Good. And of course shaytaan uses your knifes he know he knows not
by because he knows the Unseen by your behavior.
right by your reactions to things he knows you love wealth so much.
Because your your behavior shows that right? The little signs and
your behavior shows that he doesn't know the unseen. Okay? He
doesn't he can't go into your heart and know but from your
external behavior from your reactions, trial and error of
misguiding this person.
He loves money. And he's not so much into food. So the fitna we're
gonna get this guy through money, not through alcohol and over
eating, for example.
All right, this guy, he has a weak spot for women not money. So we're
not going to we're not going to lower him by money. We're going to
lower him by women. How does he know this? Isn't does he see your
soul? No, he has limits. He doesn't know these things. He can
he sees your behavior. Right? throw darts at him. See which one
sticks?
AK says I have four kids. Twins.
Masha Allah My Allah to Allah give them to FIP then make them blessed
and make them love Humana Heiko for
their 11 months life is hectic, I'm so exhausted, I can't be
bothered to make wudu or to pray or read Quran What's your advice?
Your in your situation your test is physical.
Okay? Your test is in being patient
with the physical, this physical taxing burden of taking care of
all these kids. So you're not expected what is not expected from
you to do extra worship.
But you must do the five prayers. But you're not no one expects from
you to, at this point read a lot of Quran. No, your pet your test
is to be patient with the physically taxing task that Allah
gave you. You're helping the OMA because your kids are part of the
home. So it's so funny when people say, I'm taking care of my family,
but not the OMA isn't your family part of them? Right? That's
literally the first person and then what you two are part of the
OMA so you got to take care of yourself too. It's why the
prophets, the great Sahabi
said Your body has rights over you. Right? So when you fulfill
the rights to the body, you're doing something good. So what is
expected of you is the five prayers that is the bare minimum
you have to do well, why is it so hard to make we do? No, it's not
hard to make we do.
That's that there's some things where the shitty I put the line
right here. Allah does not command us to do something that we can't
do. And if we truly can't do it, then he gives us something called
the rasa. Rasa is a license not to do it. Like what a license to
shorten your prayer when traveling. You have a rasa, a
permission, not to the obligation of prayer is lifted upon you. If
there's no water and no natural sources so that you can make tam
dry. It's a dry symbolic act that permits you to pray. Okay, so
wherever there is a true reason,
okay, for something, or is a true reason for something.
Excuse the Surya the city itself has a new rule for you. Okay, for
example, a woman's breastfeeding. And if she fast she can't
breastfeed.
Don't Fast, fast later on in life when you can make it up when
you're healthy. You still have to Oh, that you still owe the day.
But you don't have to fast Ramadan. Okay, so the Cydia puts
the bare minimum. And if there is no valid reason not to pray, then
you must tell yourself, I can pray. I can pray for the five
prayers. That's it.
Next question, what is Fitz in its
last was say Euro? What do I know? I don't know that I gotta look
that up. Model.
Romeo, Augustus says, I heard that for the believer, the time in the
grave will feel like the time between Austin and love. Is that
true? The answer is
I didn't hear that narration. But whether it's true or not, what we
do know for certain for the good believer who's righteous and he
was devoted to Allah and he tried to clean his heart from sins, and
from bad attachments and from bad qualities like anger and envy and
all these terrible things that make you in this life feel
miserable, let alone the next life. The life in the grave. It's
a piece of heaven.
It's just a little bit different, different sensation because you
don't have a body. And the human being was created to have a body.
So the life in the grave is a temporary state, very hard for us
to
to imagine very hard for us to concept to understand what it's
all about. Because we're meant to have a body and we are incomplete
without a body. And yet the life in the grave. It's almost like
a different sensation that we can imagine. Because it's the soul
without the body. Therefore, gravity doesn't apply to it. Our
concept of time doesn't apply to it. Good. I remember a man was in
a coma one time he came out of the coma he said but he was conscious,
not conscious of like the hospital and everything but he entered
another level of consciousness.
And in that level of consciousness, it's I believe in
Allah knows best. My explanation of the theory of his story is that
his soul went into the bulky realm.
And he said, I was cast like, like somebody threw something into the
into soil.
And I said he said I was in a dark void for 1000s of years.
yours just sitting there for 1000s of years, right? In a dark void as
if somebody as if it was like a little worm that was put into the
soil. Scott is not a Muslim, by the way, right? He was a Harvard
professor. That's why I accepted his. His heart doesn't mean
Harvard professor doesn't mean he's not going to tell lies, but
he's a medical guy, right medical guys. So I took his word for it
that that's the story.
And he said, I was literally 1000s of years must have passed, like
epochs upon epochs upon epochs.
And then someone plucked me out, then he said, I was was tossed up,
for up up up and it started to go from darkness to light. And that I
was entered a realm of such beauty and love that I couldn't even
can't even describe.
And there he was riding on a blue butterfly, flying around with a
woman guiding him.
This is a nice young lady guiding me my whole through my whole
route.
And he went on and on and on. And he came back. And of course,
everyone said, You're crazy. This is nonsense. And he said, I'm
telling you, this is real. So he said, I fought with everybody, for
nine months.
Until I began to doubt myself.
Was I am I Was it a dream? What am I crazy. He then said
he was adopted, by the way, this guy in his birth, he was adopted.
His biological mother finally reached out to him. Okay.
And he meets her. And he said, By the way, something I never told
you.
You had a twin sister, but she died at birth. He said, Oh, that's
crazy. Said she said I have a picture of her. Right.
And that picture, oh, she knows she died in childhood. Sorry, she
died and talk. She was adopted a different family. She died. Right?
She died. But you had a twin sister. She died young took the
picture. It was the young lady. And it was like that confirmed me
that I was seeing something true. So in something real.
Like a couple of weeks.
Many, many strange stories, stories like that, right? And what
do you what do you do when you have such such such a story? just
listened to it? And that's it. If there's a direct contradiction to,
to, from the Quran, we reject that part.
really puts time into perspective. Because like, the way we view
time, yeah. And then the way we view it in a dream is completely
different. Like, I don't know if this is just me, but in the past
had dreams where it's like, you feel like it's the years. Right?
And then you wake up and you're like, wait, that was just the
dream. Any dream. Any dream person has is tends to be more than a few
seconds, right? But I heard scientists say that your only
dream for like, two three milliseconds.
But you feel that it may be a big you know, what you're actually
experiencing it like if you ever recall your dreams, you're
experiencing the whole timeline, told not like, the whole thing.
And you also experienced like, eating, sleep, experience tastes,
you experience sensations of being hit. Right? And you feel pain in
your dream. So I remember because early says that
the room has all the faculties of the body. Because when you dream,
you taste you smell you see you hear and you feel right. And even
see Dean says I'm one of them. He says one of the things I'm proud
of in my life is that I never committed Zina neither awake nor
asleep.
Which means that there is a sin of asleep, right? But it's not
sinful. Like you're not sinful. It just means that your soul just
didn't have the discipline, right? He he was proud that he had the
opportunity to commit Zina while sleeping, but he didn't do it. And
many people have opportunities to commit Zina while sleeping and
they do do it happily. Right. Because they feel that that's
something that I'm not accountable for and you're not accountable for
it. Allah takes you to account for what you're doing when you're
awake, not when you're asleep.
But the true dream is 100% true.
And you can have Yaqeen on it. Right but you just don't know when
it's gonna happen.
I prayed though and you need to pray though you can go over it
now you guys go
Alright, let's actually wrap up if we don't have any Instagram
questions let's take this last one from Nadine Sheikh
doesn't wash was isn't also a blessing leave because we will get
to know the shaytaan always do so. So yeah, whenever it's almost like
anytime that you interact with with the shaytaan it's actually a
proof of the existence of Allah. Right? Because there cannot be a
dark side without a light side. What Why is what is shades on
trying to attack right
If you can hold that there is an evil side unless, by necessity
there's also a good side. Right? And that's one of the positives
about
the existence of bliss, whether he knows it or not. He's actually
helping us. Likewise atheists. You guys are bringing God at the
center of the conversation.
There's there's no anti Zeus people out there. No one's out
there trying to try to disprove the existence of Zeus. Right?
Because you know is you don't need to do that. Right? Everyone knows
it's not real. No one's out there trying to disprove even Muslims,
they don't go out and disproving the Hindu gods. It's just silly.
Waste of time. We all know it's fake. They know it's fake. So why
is it that you are spending your entire lives Dawkins his whole
life is great when he wakes up to when he sleeps to disprove God.
Why because people believe
PSP believe is real right? You know that people hold them to be
real whereas no one's disproven either God right and you know that
it's compelling for people to believe in God right it doesn't
match up with the idols in the rest of the world leprechauns it's
always like a thing that that Atheists say well yeah, you think
God is your then why not leprechauns and dragons and Santa
Claus? Yeah, because those things don't have a rational basis don't
have a spiritual basis don't have
a practical basis. You don't see societies families living
generation upon generation believes based on the lifestyle of
those gods or that those the law in the life that those gods
established for us for them, right. He just said it into him no
one really believes it's just tales that are told with some
morals to it, but there's no way of living right
now rationally basis for this stuff.
This routine says what's the best to draw out from a shell Tina
Jenny well was was to recite lots of a sheet every night.
To recite rights. Where can you find it? Safina? sided.org/wood
lowercase w IRD
Alright ladies and gentlemen.
We shall wrap up right here Subhanak Allah Who Moby Dick no
shadow Illa Illa Anton iStockphoto Kinetico eek whereas in in Santa
Fe Of course, in the leadin ammonoid middle side towards the
wall so but Huck, what's a while so the sub was set while they come
Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
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