Shadee Elmasry – The cure in times of difficulty
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To the prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam
and made a complaint
about his weakness
saying,
He made a complaint. He said, the rules
of Islam are too many.
Meaning,
there's there's so much good.
I need you to narrow it down for
me for one thing to do.
And the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam said,
keep your heart cons your tongue constantly moist
with dhikr of Allah. Something very simple that
he could do.
A man came to the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam
had a having a problem with zina
and told him directly, make it permissible for
me.
Another man entered Islam
and he had a problem with salah.
He said, oh, messenger of Allah, I'm entering
Islam,
but I want one thing from you. Permit
me that I don't have to pray.
And the prophet answered all of these
newcomers
and gave them the cure and the medicine
for their problem. But what is the point?
The point is that the
these new Muslims and some were Sahaba. All
of them became Sahaba.
Some were already in Islam
for some time.
They had no problem complaining to the Prophet
of
their weakness
in establishing
all the rules of the deen.
And in these cases, the prophet
gave them a cure.
And the overall general cure
for every difficulty that we have
in handling the Sharia,
in accepting
the limitations Allah puts upon us,
and the obligation he places upon us,
there's one general cure for all of this
and that
is,
remembering
that the this is not heaven here on
earth
nor
will life on earth exist forever for us.
And that,
The afterlife is the real life.
And the mumin,
the sign of a mumin. If you want
to be a mumin, you have a
sign. One first precondition
is that,
They believe in the unseen.
This is the entire
issue and all of the rules and all
of the laws
are meant for us.
Almost symbols
to express
our iman and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
If you truly believe
in the ghaib, which is the key, then
do this. If you truly trust in Allah,
then do this. It is as if Allah
is telling us, if you truly believe in
me If you trust me, then do this.
Do you trust me? Then don't do this.
This is the root of iman.
It means unseen.
It means that which is unseen.
The only way
to actually
live
as if the Ghaib is visual to us,
is in a constant
recitation.
A constant recitation of its signs.
This is why
all of the small Surahs,
they're about.
All the Surahs that every Muslim prays
with, all of them
are about descriptions
of death and afterlife.
The shortness of this life, the brevity of
this life because Allah knows
99%
of the prayer that occurs by Muslims is
with
short surahs. And this is what we're told.
Short Surah. We're told to use them in
the prayer.
Allah
wants us constantly
doing a recitation. Not not just of health
but of paradise as well. Surah Al Insane
tells us on sofas,
on roads,
in which
the pebbles are made of gold.
The pebbles on the road are pearls and
gold
on which
neither is there ever
darkness
nor blazing heat
nor cold
nor anyone to bother us.
The speech
between people is never meaningless. There's never, you
never cross someone's path in Jannah
and say, oh, it's him. Okay. What I
need to do? Let's talk about the weather.
Oh, beautiful day out.
And you're just thinking in the back of
your mind, can you please keep walking because
I don't wanna talk to you. This never
happens. There's no Lagoo.
Between 2 people there is no hatred.
There is only Mahaba, Ikhwan and
is fulfilling work.
This is the joy of humans. Fulfilling work,
your joy. You have a job,
your career, you fulfill it. You have children,
you raise them well. This is the joy.
In this life, the joy is good work.
And seeing the end result in the next
life,
you have to understand and know, it is
constant
joy of the body and soul, and gratification
of your body and soul eternally.
There's no work.
There's no volunteering.
There's no missions.
This is what paradise is.
Constant recitation
to our
selves of.
This is going to make the orders that
we receive from Allah easy.
Because when you look at how extreme the
punishment is and how extreme the pleasure is,
you realize
everything that we are asked in this life
is actually
the the scales are never going to be
even. We are asked so little in this
life in return to something so great.
One of the things that people have a
lot of problems with that we have to
emphasize, and you have to study the fiqh
of it. And you have to realize that
this hokum sharay,
this rule of Sharia
has no is not about perspectives.
It's not about opinions.
We have
the Ulema have discussed it and that is
riba. A
hokum, a ruling many people
have difficulty with because it's intertwined with our
daily lives.
Lives. Intertwined with our daily lives. So what
is riba?
It's simply
an exchange
of 2 currencies.
Money for money transaction.
Loans,
in which one side is getting more than
the other side.
In Sharia, in Islam,
to give people loans
should not be a business or a method
of earning.
To loan money is not an industry. The
entire industry would have an x on
it. Not every just because something is an
industry that employs 100 of thousands of people
means that it's valid.
Giving out loans
is not a valid industry nor valid way
to make money
in our shut up
because it leads to great corruption.
One of the basic wisdoms of it, the
man who's taking a loan for a $1,000
means he doesn't have a $1,000. How is
he gonna give you back? 12.50.
He didn't have the first 1,000.
Then how should he expect it to have
1250? It means
that just by inheriting wealth
and giving it out
that this is someone's employment.
It's not accepted. You're doing nothing for society
by giving out wealth that you have. It
means
that you make more money from a vice.
The vice being
that the person doesn't pay back in time.
You hope that he doesn't pay back in
time so that you can earn more in
interest.
Paying back loans on time is a virtue.
Delaying your loan payment is a vice.
Making money off a vice is prohibited.
You should hope then that more people fall
in debt.
So when the society and the people in
society are falling into poverty and debt, a
certain group of people gain in their industry
and in their wealth. Those who are giving
out loans.
So the lone person giving out loans is
hoping for destruction in society. He benefits
when there's more poverty
and more need
and expenses go up. And people's income goes
down
so he benefits.
This is a problem.
So Sharia has prohibited this matter.
So much so
that the prophet salallahu alaihi wasallam
cursed,
meaning he is hope he
the word lana in said in in hadith
and Quran.
In the Arabic language, means far from the
mercy of Allah,
near to the punishment of Allah
Unblessed.
Baraka is blessing which means I have a
little bit,
but with this little bit,
Allah opens many doors. More than logically accepted
or expected.
Is the opposite. You have so much.
You have so much, but still, at the
last minute, it all fails on you. This
is This is when someone's cursed that someone
reaches the finish line then breaks his ankle.
Not the normal way of losing. You're cursed.
Prophet
The one who's
making his wealth off of riba.
The one who facilitated this, the one who
gave the loan.
The one who contracted it, the agent,
the scribe,
and the 2 who witnessed
it, served as witness. That means,
just like alcohol,
everyone in the chain from a to z.
From a to z, everyone in the chain.
Like alcohol.
The bottling company, the shipping company,
the guy who bought bought the warehouse for
them to have it, the guy who runs
the farm to make the grapes,
The entire
industry
and all those who facilitate
it. The lana is upon them. Some things
are like this. Not everything is like
this. Pork, for example. You can work at
a restaurant. Simply tell the guy,
I'll serve anything except pork.
And pork is being passed right in front
of you. It's halal it's halal job. But
this is not.
This is not. Riba,
to go
help
accounting for a liquor store
is no different than help in the accounting
of a riba transaction,
let alone
doing the transaction, being part of the transaction.
We have to realize
that this is such a danger to society.
We're witnessing it now.
The great poverty, what's the cause? They all
know. It's the banks.
It's the banks.
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam cursed their deen and
their dunya.
Quran tells us, lay up for Let's talk
about the deen of someone involved in a
ribawi transaction.
He says,
He doesn't get up for any good deed
except as
if someone who is touched by shaitan and
made insane.
Why?
Because
you're doing a good deed for Allah
and waging war on him at the same
time. Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
speaks of those who
commit You are so destructive to society at
large.
Okay? That the prophet the Quran tells us,
it's as if you are waging war with
Allah Azza wa Jal. On the
the people who do riba will be called
and thrown a sword.
They'll say, what is the purpose of this
sword? They'll say, he'll be told, look in
front of you. He'll look and he'll see
rows of
with swords.
He'll try to kill himself,
but death will already have been killed. There's
no death. He'll keep slicing his neck with
his own sword.
Why is Allah
giving us such
grave imagery for
this? Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam woke one
day and he said, I saw a dream.
The dream was there was a river of
blood and a man yelling, screaming, trying to
get out of it. Every time he comes
out of it,
there throw a boulder on his head and
he falls back into it. Why this this
gross imagery?
Do you know my brothers and sisters, have
you ever been
in debt?
Have you ever been in need? Have you
ever been impoverished? What emotions are going on
in your heart? These images
are those emotions.
Have you ever been unemployed? Have you ever
been poor?
Have you ever fell asleep not knowing where
the money gonna come from tomorrow? Have you
ever not have a home to live in?
And you can't pay your rent? Have you
ever been searching for an apartment to live
in? For a job? Do you know what
goes on in the heart of a man
who has a family and he can't find
a job?
This is the result
by the 1,000 and 1,000,000
of a system that imp raises up
the riva industry
and crushes everything else. You're crushing the souls
of men. You're destroying the futures of
youth. This is what that industry does. Every
other industry, you're a doctor, you make a
100,000, 200,000.
You're a dentist,
You're doing something for society. You're making good
money. These people who are in the Riba,
they're making 1,000,000 of dollars when they get
fired.
They walk away with $3,000,000
bonuses when he gets fired. What do you
walk away with when you get fired?
2 weeks notice?
Why is this industry
is so out of control
that you could see the wisdom of Allah
when he said don't even take the first
step because this industry will engulf the entire
society.
And thousands
of hearts
of men, women, and children will be torn
apart
by the nerve anxiety of poverty,
of debt,
of hopelessness of the future.
How many youth today, they know they will
not have a financial future as good as
their parents?
How many youth today are on heroin knowing
why should I be working all day and
going to school when all I'm doing is
inheriting debt? What's this debt coming from? Because
these
of ins
these
when they realized
people can't
buy enough stuff anymore,
the product
became
debt.
And the debt gets compounded with interest.
Interest is the biggest problem in the society
today,
which is going to lead to wars
Because eventually,
the who's the best customer for a bank?
What's the best customer for, interest
based bank? They're all interest
based. It's a government. It's not a person.
It's a government.
And why does a government ever need a
loan? Immediate.
1,000,000,000,000 of dollars. Why? For wars.
For wars. Go look at the history of
all the wars.
Who
made the most money off these wars? They're
all banks made
huge profits off the interest loans
that governments took for wars.
You see the harms of river?
So when war happens, they benefit.
When people are orphaned,
and women are widowed, and men get their
arms cut off, or blinded, or their legs
cut off, and they go home.
The source behind who fed this war
was a business based on riba.
This is why Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
has talked so grievously.
Such
exaggerated
imagery such as being drowned in a river
of blood, being told to wage war on
an army of angels,
being having your head smashed.
Why?
This is the crime that they committed.
All of those images
were what was in the emotions of people
as a result of this one
industry of money lending.
We as individuals
are commanded
not to take part in any part
of this business.
Even if we are making a d a
loan to buy
some clothes
from a store with our credit cards, and
the interest that we might pay
after 2 months is only $13.
Not accepted.
It's not accepted. This is how severe it
is, and we haven't seen yet the worst
results
of the river industry. We haven't seen it
yet. It's coming. Look. Read.
All the analysts,
they're telling us. The banks.
The banks. They're gonna have
find a way to make more money,
and they're gonna use it through wars.
They already use it to make your home
so expensive to give you homes, and and
you're gonna have to pay 10 times more.
College loans.
Who's at fault here? All the river based
industries.
Who's at fault for all this?
Who's to blame?
This issue of Ribba is something that a
Muslim should consider
worse than.
Worse than
Would you want some blood in your in
your food? On your clothes? Would you want
urine
and defecation
on your clothes or on your kitchen table?
What happens if there is a drop of
blood?
A drop of urine
in the hallway
outside the bathroom?
What do you do? You run and clean
it right away. Wait a second. It's just
a drop. What if I said, I'm making
a soup here, but little bit of blood
went just a drop.
What do you do with the whole vat
of soup? You throw the whole thing out.
So you understand
the concept of filth when you see it.
Now you have to trust Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala when he tells you even a drop
of money
or income
earned from a loan, from Riba, from facilitating
Riba, from working for a company that facilitates
Riba.
That their main job is Riba.
You understand blood in your soup, don't you?
You understand urine in your in your in
your cereal,
in your drink.
Someone else spit in your coffee. Just a
drop. You're gonna drink it?
This is the same thing. The only difference
is you don't see it. It's unseen. What
did Allah say?
The mumin,
he believes in the ghaib. He believes in
the promise of Allah. The judgement of Allah
means more
than what we're own to eyes see.
Our own to eyes see something.
What do you believe in more? What's your
own 2 eyes see or the judgment of
your god and your lord? And if you
say no, then you don't believe in your
God. You got to test. Test again.
Check again. What is the level of your
iman at that point?
This issue of riba,
look deeply. Are your children eating from it?
When they eat food,
the innocent children, are they eating from it?
Because the prophet says,
the wealth,
the food, the growth
of a child.
If his growth,
the flesh
is come from food earned through the riba
industry or passed by the riba industry in
any way, shape, or form.
It is more worthy to be thrown in
the fire.
It doesn't say he will be. It says,
it be it is worthy. That means, it
deserves it. It deserves this flesh deserves to
be put in the fire because it passed
through this poison.
This poison to society.
The money lending industry. It also means,
eaten from haram,
the actions of that person will lean towards
the haram as well.
Eat pure food
and do good deeds.
Means, if you eat pure food, you will
naturally incline to the good.
If your food is all haram or earned
from the haram, you will naturally incline to
the haram.
A worldly
guarantee from Allah.
Not only
will this individual
who's engaged
in Riba, get up with laziness,
with contradictions
in his head when he does worship.
That's his spiritual problem. Let's say some some
of us don't care.
All we care about is money. Alright.
If you believe in Allah, he says,
Which means,
you're gonna gather it. You can make a
lot of money. There's a guarantee from Allah.
If it's based
on Riba,
expect one day
for it to collapse completely. Tell me, in
what industry
can you go from being a millionaire
to a pauper,
poor, impoverished
in one day?
Not only one day. 13 minutes. Stock market
crash, a whole bunch of millionaires,
they have nothing.
Tell me what industry
do people kill themselves at the rate of
Wall Street bankers?
Yeah. I've never seen a doctor have a
bad day at the office and come home
with no money.
Why?
This curse is not upon those other jobs.
Dentists, engineers,
accountant, trash picker uppers. All these people. It's
a regular job. You get money. You keep
it. Good. It's halal.
These people are cursed.
Go and look Every time the stock market
crashes, one of these Wall Street people jumps
off a building.
His portfolio goes from having $7,000,000
Now he's at 0.
Because a lot of what they're doing is
not even regular investment anymore. It's all gambling.
All under the different things under the banner
of riba.
You think, what is making money? Well, you
make something nice, you sell it to the
people. Not for these people.
It's stuff that you won't even understand at
the end of the day. This is a
game. What's the difference between it and Las
Vegas? Go ask the experts. They'll tell you
really nothing. It's legal. That's the only difference.
It's a gamble.
This is why they go from having 1,000,000,
and in 13 minutes on a on a
Tuesday morning,
they're gone to 0 and they're gonna jump
off a cliff.
Allah destroys it.
That wealth will be destroyed.
Do not be fooled by the short term
gains of riba.
Look at the long term harms.
Long term.
How about a low waging war on a
person? Okay. You bought the house with Riba.
Now your kid gets cancer 2 years later.
What's the point?
You enjoying your home? Yeah. You have home
that you own now, so you can cry
in it all day and all night.
Think of the bigger picture and don't fall
for the It's very
simple sophomoric mistake that what looks good in
the short term is good.
No. It's not always like this. What benefits
me now and saves me now is good,
not necessarily like this. You look at the
long term.
We ask Allah, Azzawajal, to open our basira
and see
that this industry of money lending
is the root cause
of so much destruction,
of so much pain of the individuals in
our society.
And may Allah
pull us out of this industry
and make us have not a scent
of ribawi wealth.
Neither from riba nor from facilitating
it.
We ask Allah for all those who are
sick in our ummah that you give them
a speedy shifa, that you give them strength.
We ask
Allah for all those
who are impoverished,
who have needs,
financial and otherwise, that you speedily alleviate their
needs. Before they exit this jumuah,
that you write in the book of destiny
that their needs will be alleviated. We ask
Allah
for all those moving, having ambitions, working. We
ask Allah, Azza wa Jad, make it give
them a pure halal path and let them
reach their goals and let it be blessed
in this life and the next. We finally
ask Allah
to make more beloved to us, more beloved
than our parents, and our spouses, and our
children, and our own selves,
his most beloved. Sayedul Khunain, Sayedul Muhammad Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam.