Shadee Elmasry – The Greatest Happiness – NBF 380
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of pursuing a connection with God in one's life and being a good person. They stress the physical aspect of life and the physical aspect of death and emphasize the need for fulfilling intentions to achieve success. fulfilling intentions is crucial for achieving success and cutting ties with family members and not talking about them again is emphasized. The importance of pursuing a connection with God in order to achieve the ultimate good and achieve a connection with God in order to achieve a good life is emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Welcome everybody to the Safina Saadi, nothing but
facts live stream on a warm Thursday in
the month of September and it's our last
stream of the week.
Let's get straight to the point.
No beating around the bush with long intros.
I hate podcasts with long intros.
Listen to a podcast and the guy's got
like seven minutes of intro.
Like, hello, who taught you how to podcast
like this?
Let's go straight to the Hadith reading that
we do in the Mustalah of Hadith, in
the terminology of Hadith and how, what the
ulama termed different types of transmissions.
Now, something very important for you to understand
and not confuse.
Number one, there's the proliferation, the nature of
a Hadith proliferation versus the grading of a
Hadith.
If the proliferation of a Hadith was in
mass, that means such an example of that
being the last sermon of the Prophet, how
many people were there?
Even just a Jum'ah khutbah in which
there are 300 sahaba there.
Even something less than that, 50 sahaba there,
40 sahaba there.
At that point, any in mass transmission where
the number of witnesses are so many, it's
impossible and absurd to imagine that they conspired
for a lie or to a lie.
Then, that's mutawatir and it yields for us
absolute certain fact, right?
Yufidul ilm, absolute knowledge.
Such a narration, of course, is transmitted by
the scholars, but it doesn't need investigation.
So for example, if you're writing a PhD
thesis and you reference 9-11, do you
need to put a footnote and say where
you got the information that 9-11 occurred?
Of course not, right?
It's absurd to think it's a lie.
So that's the one hand.
That's a proliferation.
The opposite of that, anything that is not
mutawatir is ahad.
Ahad seems to indicate that it's one chain,
but that's not exactly accurate.
It could be coming from one or two
or three sahaba, but the point being it
is not mutawatir.
If it's not mutawatir, and this applies to
hadith and applies to regular everyday life, then
what do we need?
We need investigation.
So now we shift down from proliferation to
the grading of hadith.
And hadith are graded.
In general, the very simple grading used to
be acceptable for law or unacceptable for law.
That's it.
Yes, we're going to act upon this.
No, we're not going to act on it.
That's how simple it used to be.
Then they divided what we're going to act
upon and make obligatory or forbidden with these
evidences is sahih and hasan.
And then what we're not going to act
upon, they divided that into two categories.
I'm just saying in general.
There's many more, but da'if and mawduh.
Munkar.
Da'if, slightly weak such that we can
use it.
By the way, da'if here meaning slightly
weak.
We can use it, but we can't obligate
or forbid based on this.
But we could use it for other things.
And then the mawduh and munkar, we have
to reject it completely.
Okay, so many people confuse these.
There's the proliferation.
How did this report, historical report, get to
us?
If it got to us through tawatur, then
it's absolute fact.
But if it got to us through just
individual reports, then we have to investigate it.
And when we investigate it, the two overall
categories are acceptable to make law based on
it and not acceptable.
The not acceptable, we divide that into the
da'if, which we can use for other
things.
Non-law related matters.
And we have the munkar or the mawduh,
which we reject it completely.
We don't use it for anything.
That's why when someone says, hey, look, and
this is a beautiful dua.
Oh, this hadith is da'if.
Okay, good.
So I'll use it then.
Because we're not saying law here.
We're just saying it's a dua.
Wonderful.
Okay, so that's the nature of that.
And if you can understand that breakdown in
your mind, that's the main structure.
After that, the sahih, of course, has the
five conditions to make a hadith sound.
اتصال والسند والعدالة والضبط.
اتصال والسند.
The connected chain.
There can't be a break in the chain.
Every person in the chain is adl.
He's upright.
Every person in the chain has dupt.
His dupt can be excellent or good.
If it's good, hasan.
Hadithun hasan.
If it's excellent, sahih.
That's the only difference between hasan and sahih.
And then there has to be two things
that are not there.
It doesn't contradict the higher source.
And it doesn't have a hidden defect.
That's something that only the experts would know.
Okay?
Only the experts would know this.
Nothing, y'all?
Huh?
Shay'ajeeb.
Oh, hold on.
Did you, you wiggled the light bulb and
everything?
Shay'ajeeb.
I don't know.
My beloved shade light.
It's not working.
Gotta get a new one.
You guys noticed the shade light yesterday, right?
You guys noticed that, right?
I like it.
Anyway, let's consider it.
All right.
Let's consider that.
Let's look at this.
If a hadith is missing any one of
these five, then that informs you or provides
the types of weakness.
Now, the type of weakness which we could
deal with is weakness in competence.
Lack of competence by the narrator.
What we cannot is lack of uprightness.
In our world today, we utilize these.
We do utilize these.
Okay?
When I talk to somebody and I get
a piece of information from them, I'm gonna
ask two things, two simple questions.
Number one, is this person competent in what
he's saying in his field of knowledge?
That's number one.
Number two, I'm gonna ask myself, would this
person lie to me about this to try
to mislead me?
Like Hamza Hussain, would any of us be
considered adlan dabt today?
Well, first of all, we don't have the
Prophet amongst us, so we don't have to
worry about that.
And the ahadith, qalas, they're there in the
books.
We're no longer reopening the investigation.
Ibn Salah says this.
Ibn Salah says this, that we're no longer
reinvestigating the ahadith.
That's done for.
But in our world today, we do have
ilm.
So, if you're publishing a book of knowledge,
your adala and your dabt needs to be
established for us to accept your print.
Right?
And how do we do that?
We do that by asking about you.
And that's why it's important that a book
has forwards, preface written by so-and-so,
forward written by so-and-so, and it
has tazkiyah in the back of it.
That this author is knowledgeable and trustworthy, that
the book is accurate, and then we could
trust the book.
That's why there can never ever be a
religious book written by an anonymous author.
Not acceptable.
No, can't do it.
Rejected immediately.
In the bin.
Or, you read it, go through it, a
scholar can read it and go through it,
and then he can confirm it.
It's still wrong, but at least you can
use the book now, because the scholar confirmed
it.
So, al-hadith al-dha'if, wa huwa,
no hope, huh?
Shay'aji, huwa ma lam yajma' sifat al
-sahih or al-hasan, anything that does not
reach the level of sahih, or al-hasan,
it's da'if.
wa yatafawat da'afuhu Of course, there's so
many, there's a huge gradient for the weakness
of a hadith.
Alright?
And then they have al-qab, after that
they have different names for these many, many,
many, many levels.
Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi says, huwa, So
they firstly had a difference of opinion.
Is the transmission connected to the Prophet, or
broken, regarding the da'if?
Alright?
Why?
Oh, okay.
Alright, well Tuesday's fine then.
Alright, so we're going to have Shaykh Muhammad
al-Shinawi on Tuesday.
So today we'll, that's enough for hadith, our
little hadith reading, because, you know, we just
read a little bit every day.
And now we're going to turn to tafsir.
Is there anything in the news, by the
way, that Israel and Lebanon, by the way,
don't forget to scoop up your copy of
this book.
They're flying off the shelves.
I'm telling you, I talked to the distributor.
They're flying off the shelves.
Get your copy quick before this thing is
done for.
How many pages is it?
It's 148 pages.
Amazing.
An amazing, amazing book.
Alright?
Let me read you something.
What is the ultimate good?
Our difficulties may lead to something good.
That seems reasonable to believe, but sometimes the
pain is so egregious we cannot possibly see
anything redeemable coming out of it.
After all, some people are not tested with
gradual exposure to difficulty.
They find themselves in a terrible situation without
any preparation with no fault of their own,
or I should say you didn't detect preparation.
Adam Zady is asking about the audiobook.
It's coming.
This book is on the problem of evil.
When bad things happen, many people suffer because
they have these misconceptions in their mind.
He's talking here about what is the ultimate
good.
This is a section in the book.
Alright?
So what does he say about this?
He says that still such people may receive
many good things at the end of their
suffering.
A period of calm, a wave of recognition,
a host of worldly honors, even wealth, but
they may not be satisfied with such rewards.
So let me tell you something.
There are many people they suffer, then they
get things get better, yet they have a
resentment for the suffering.
And this, to me, is rooted in nothing
other than some level of arrogance and entitlement.
That you are entitled to a life of
no hardship.
Someone's asking for an audio book version narrated
by you.
Narrated by me?
That would be a good idea.
Maybe.
After traveling the vast expanse of Middle Earth
and braving the dark lands of Mordor and
suffering unspeakable spiritual assault as a ring bearer,
Frodo Baggins, in The Lord of the Rings,
did not return home feeling that he had
gained something by saving the world.
In fact, the opposite is true.
The suffering that he bore had left a
permanent scar to the point where he could
no longer enjoy a carefree existence, the carefree
existence of the Shire.
First of all, Frodo Baggins succeeded by accident.
His friend is the one who saved him.
Because at the end, he was tempted.
His friend saved him.
Worldly honors and glory defeating the Dark Lord
and saving Middle Earth did not help him.
Yet, that's because truth of the matter is
that at the end he was tempted.
Frodo was stabbed in the chest by an
accursed and dark creature and his soul was
torn apart.
By being the ring bearer, these scars from
his journey stayed fresh as they do for
many people who have gone through unspeakable things
with no choice of their own.
By the way, remember, we're not in heaven.
You can suffer a suffering that you never
make up for.
The whole point of our religion is prophecy
to tell us don't worry.
This is not the only chance, this is
not the only shot you get.
This book is for sale in the US
and the UK except that shipping is a
bit expensive to the UK, 15 bucks, unless
you buy $100 worth of books then you
get shipping for free.
Now you guys know how it feels.
We are.
I know.
Just buy a whole bunch of, just buy
three of these and you get shipping for
free and sell two to your friends.
Because we in the US we always have
to deal with this.
Like anytime you want any book you have
to buy from the UK it's like 40
bucks.
Imagine you're getting a book shipped from Egypt.
First of all, it's going to cost you
something.
Secondly, it's going to cost you the amount
that you get ripped off from the Egyptians.
You know he's going to rip you off.
Something bad is going to happen.
Our human hearts long for something greater to
come out from all the activity we engage
in during our lives.
Our hearts long for a type of ultimate
good.
Remember the story of Khidr where his hardship
that he imposed on people, all of it
was lesser of two evils.
Without this they would have faced a severe
hardship in the future.
We feel that if we get such a
thing the infinite desire of our hearts will
be fully satisfied and our lives will be
made complete.
After all, what is the point of striving
so hard to improve ourselves?
Even if we achieve our goals, will they
completely satisfy us?
What are we searching for so deeply?
Many of us think it is fame or
a career or a romantic partner or a
position of power.
Yet the number of people who have achieved
these things and have felt unsatisfied should give
us pause.
He's right.
Many people achieve all these things and are
still unhappy there's an emptiness on the inside.
Let us see how the Islamic tradition defines
the ultimate good the human heart is seeking
and how experiencing the hearts of others can
help us find it.
The Islamic tradition holds that the greatest type
of worldly enjoyment that an individual can be
blessed with is a good relationship.
The Prophet ﷺ said the best enjoyment in
the world is a righteous wife.
Why is a wife a greater relationship than
a friend or a child or a parent?
Because all those other ones they leave you.
But the wife is meant to be forever.
So for example your kids leave you.
Your kids you raise them as much as
you love your kids you raise them to
leave you.
That's the truth.
You raise your kids so that they could
move on.
Right?
But your wife will stick with you.
Perhaps we know this truth in our hearts
which many of us to some degree are
chasing fulfillment and we try our best to
find it in close friendships in welcoming communities
and in erotic love loneliness.
To be left to ourselves and to be
the prison of our own minds is our
greatest fear.
Many of us are looking for truly fulfilling
relationships whether it is with a person a
book a long term project or some form
of media.
When discussing free will we spoke about how
one of the central needs of a human
being is to be of use.
To be part of a greater story.
Another central need is that we have to
be needed.
Being accepted loved and understood.
Exactly what a friend of mine who is
a physician he says when he treats he's
a generalist right so everyone comes to him
and if he diagnoses them with depression or
something or if they complain to him of
depression he says to them who needs you
in the world?
And he discovered that the number one reason
for people getting depressed is nobody needs them
anymore.
Like they're not needed.
And there was one person who was doing
great and the reason was that he had
as a grandfather his kids needed help taking
the grandkids around.
So he actually went through a period that
he was really down where he retired and
his kids were marrying off.
And he was just like alone and really
really down.
But as the kids started to grow up
and you know he's a man so being
with infants is not really his thing.
And that can't help much there but as
they started to grow up now this one
needs a dentist trip.
This one has soccer practice.
This one has a game.
This one has that this and the other.
So that actually filled his life again.
And he became extremely happy all over again.
What is this?
TikTok?
Okay yeah because they're asking about the wife.
Do you have an anime wife?
Yeah go live.
Do you have an anime wife?
They keep asking me.
I'm not answering that one.
I am not answering that question.
Do you have an anime wife?
Hey listen.
We know that you know we know that
people can have I guess you can have
a wife that looks however you want.
Is she going to be a cartoon?
I'm not answering that one.
So relationships being needed.
This need for relationship and connection is hardwired
into our brain and into our very DNA.
Sensual pleasures money, food, * all fill our
brain with a dopamine shot of pleasure that
leaves us craving for more after it is
gone.
Yet when we are hugged, loved, and feel
a euphoric connection with the universe after a
spiritual experience our brain is filled with endorphins
and oxytocin which are the brain's natural opioids.
In fact the longest psychological study ever conducted
which tracked the lives of some 724 men
over a period of 75 years what a
study demonstrated that how many people took over?
It must be a whole university department.
Demonstrated that good relationships were the single biggest
predictor of long term health and mental stability.
Where did he get this?
Alright, a whole study here.
Alright, good.
Our flourishing is deeply connected to the support
that we get from and are willing to
give to those around us.
I remember reading about a neighborhood a town
that had two neighborhoods in it.
The lifespan of one was way stronger higher,
sorry consistently stronger than the other.
So when they looked at it the one
neighborhood was like German people immigrants to America.
The other neighborhood was Italians.
And the Germans were not as talkative as
the Italians.
And the Italians would go off for example
and go to the baker and chit chat
for 5-10 minutes with the baker as
they got their bread.
Then they go to the milkman they go
to get milk and they chit chat with
that guy for a few minutes.
Then they swing by the grandma and the
grandma never lives alone.
She's living with somebody in her family whatever
drop stuff off.
So on and so forth.
Their life was so social.
And all these brothers here could testify to
the importance of the neighborhood masjid.
I'm telling you people love to build jami
'ah masjids.
No good.
I'm not saying it's no good.
Every town has to have one.
It's a sunnah in our Islamic heritage that
every mosque has a huge jami'ah masjid.
But that is not a place conducive to
a great social life.
Guarantee you that.
Like we have a jami'ah masjid.
I say the closest thing to a jami
'ah masjid for us is ICJ.
Maybe if you go every day a little
neighborhood will develop.
But it's a very big institution.
And it's a big building.
And it's got great parking.
Now come to our masjid we don't have
great parking.
It's not a humongous institution.
But what does it provide?
It's not hard to be part of the
jami'ah.
To be part of that community.
It's not hard.
Within three months you know 50% of
the people.
Now you never want to be in a
situation where you know everyone all the time
because it gets boring.
But it's great when you go into a
building and you know about half the people
there.
And the other half is like lives a
little bit of to be discovered and a
little bit of mystery.
Right?
And to meet new people all the time.
But it's very quick that you'll know who's
doing what.
If I roll in for a maghrib at
the masjid at MBIC I know that probably
Mohammed Algerian will be watering the plants.
He'll be doing something.
Right?
If it's a Thursday they're going to be
rolling out the rug.
Like I know what's I have an expectation.
And it becomes there's so little people.
There's the number is not high enough that
you can walk in ignore everyone and walk
out.
You know that that's possible when the numbers
are a lot.
No one could consider you rude.
But I can't walk into MBIC for a
regular isha or maghrib.
Nobody can.
And ignore everybody.
You just can't.
You have to say salam to some couple
people.
That's what removes it releases some love.
I was thinking the other day subhanallah how
amazing it is and the mental health of
the people who pray a lot there.
Just going for fajr.
You go for fajr.
No nobody wants to talk at fajr.
You go to fajr but people still just
going and coming you may get a little
tap a smile a wave.
You may get five ten at 5 a
.m. And then you're going to that's going
to minimum minimum that's going to happen two
three other times when you go pray fajr.
I mean to the other prayers at the
very least five ten taps snaps hellos right
waves that does something to a person like
I'm part of something people care about me
if I disappeared they would care and that's
what he's talking about.
That's why what's one of the greatest things
that happen for a person is to have
great relationships.
Okay he says what else having said that
does cultivating our relationships in this world make
us sufficiently happy perhaps for a limited time
and degree relationships are notoriously difficult luxury of
a fulfilling relationship may not be available to
everyone.
That's why people got to learn how to
to navigate this marriage thing.
It's just pretty sad to see so many
people being single right just stop thinking so
much telling you stop thinking so much just
make the matter simple when you marry young
you're too stupid to think too much right
you're too inexperienced about the world to say
oh she's an only child she's going to
be socially awkward nah let's pass she's on
the she's really smart in 10 years she
may make more money than me nah some
people are too smart for their own good
they're too experienced in life they I met
a guy he told me I can never
marry again yeah he's he's a divorced he's
a divorced guy with kids he said I
can never marry again I said why and
he said I'm I'm too sharp I can
detect like I can detect issues when I
see it well in advance right he's too
sharp I said this guy the only thing
you can do is shut your eyes and
marry somebody right get it over deal with
that whatever the issues are the prophet said
when you see something bad from your spouse
think about what's good so he he recognized
and he's telling us you will have issues
you will have issues okay you will have
things you don't like so look at what's
good that's it the prophet said no Muslim
should a man a Muslim should not hate
a Muslim that means when you're in marriage
don't when you're having a fight don't get
to the point of hatred all right you
disagree you disagree hey Taimoor are we launching
starboard today or no we can't yes all
right we can't that wasn't a confident yes
no problem why don't I do this a
pre-soft launch everybody a pre-soft launch
to to solve this issue which I think
is a humongous issue because our Muslim population
will go down if you don't get married
simple mathematics right go to starboard marriage.com
I mean this is terrible podcasting because now
I'm literally telling you to leave the stream
but you can maybe multitask on your phone
put the stream up and go to Seferi
as the Arabs call it starboard marriage.com
gorgeous website let's check it out and then
we'll get back to the book we'll get
back to the book starboard marriage.com will
be launching starboard marriage.com look at how
gorgeous this website is okay this is our
new company who made the website that's I
was involved in it I could say that
much starboard marriage.com look at this we
will teach you how to be a good
husband and wife okay we will teach you
this is for people who need pre-marital
sessions and you get post-marital sessions pre
and post okay but look at it's up
now let's why don't you scroll a little
bit Omar very slowly yeah scroll look at
this this is a pre-soft launch starting
Tuesday which is going to be September what
2021 22 23 24 you can actually start
signing up we're focusing on people who are
engaged or they sort of even pre-marital
like I want to get married I'm about
to go but I need some help all
right Ahmed why don't you sign up for
this you found a sister Ahmed so what's
the problem all right so you basically we
will educate you using tried and tested techniques
Omar do you is there a video you
can go to because I need to take
a breather for two seconds all right find
something and talk in the meantime let's see
that all right give me two seconds I'll
be right back all right guys so starboard
if y'all learn how to get married
yeah read read each section for them oh
yeah this is actually my first time looking
at this so imagine someone put a gun
to your head and said you can only
save one your career or your marriage which
do you choose I mean come on you're
going to say marriage because career you can
always get a new career you can change
that everyone around us chose marriage so why
do we put so much effort into our
careers but so little into our marriage subhanallah
so true like how many people right got
to get a bachelor's degree master's degree PhD
majesty so they're spending four years six years
however long they're spending right for a career
and when it comes to marriage they think
marriage is more important because clearly they would
choose over marriage but they won't even take
a course on how to be a spouse
a proper you know husband or wife our
priorities are so off subhanallah same thing with
Dean right like we need to anyways you
spend decades in school university yeah exactly what
I was just saying how much time have
you spent learning how to be a good
spouse right marriage is too important to wing
it mashallah amazing amazing website so counseling is
the emergency room of a marriage that's true
right counseling you go when things are already
all messed up and it's beyond reparation sometimes
but mentorship is the gym where you go
to look better this is this is some
good good quotes right here I sent the
link in the chat for the website by
the way if you guys wanna look at
it there is a formula at starboard we
draw from three essential sources to outline the
formula for success the Quran and sunnah data
and research findings researched findings and specialized coaches
who spent hundreds of hours working with couples
your marriage is not unique nothing happens in
your relationship that hasn't happened to millions of
couples before you yeah and this is one
of the diseases of today with individualism where
everyone thinks like I'm special and you know
no one understands it's just me no you're
not that special trust me the things that
you're dealing with are guaranteed other people are
also going through it it's good news because
it means you can draw from collective wisdom
to model the marriage of your dreams and
this is our team Sammy Karivic mashallah the
man himself probably a bit dirty with the
picture but see the rest of the team
right here okay Imam Safwan and more people
as you guys just saw how we work
number one choose a package two book a
time three attend your sessions four stay in
touch one two three four is that simple
our products and packages you guys can look
here I mean people are paying what tens
of thousands of dollars some people are hundreds
of thousands of dollars of debt from college
right so I'm sure you can spare some
money for saving the rest of your your
life pretty much because marriage is half of
your deal how much you pay for college
tuition for a dumb course and you don't
even learn from the course you just go
to get the degree like you don't care
about lectures half the time for one semester
of college what is more important this stuff
it's going to take time and the thing
is that you stay in touch mentorship it
is not just a course it's mentorship that
means you stay in touch via whatsapp that's
the key you stay in touch via whatsapp
that's the most important part that you get
married you hit a problem you ask your
mentor this is not counseling no one wants
counseling right no one says hey guys where
are you going I'm going my remedial math
class because I look dumb when I say
that right if you were to say that
but if I were to say I have
a mentor I have a mentor everyone loves
that I have mentors you should have a
mentor in everything you do Allah says so
that's going to you can start signing up
for that you can start signing up for
that on Tuesday fair enough Taimur Tuesday good
Tuesday okay so let's go now to let's
get back to our book because this is
a good section here this is a really
good relationships are a notoriously difficult area arena
of life if human success is based on
relationships alone it's very limiting what about an
orphan what about the one who lost all
his loved ones Omar can you put the
cover on so everyone knows what book we're
reading from what about the heartbroken and the
abused what are we to make of the
vast number of human beings that cannot seem
to form genuine relationships nor manage their existing
ones human relationships no rather have you need
a divine relationship too if we can call
it that we're not relationship we don't use
those types of terms with Allah this problem
was perhaps unknown in our human past because
of tribal alliances family loyalties but now loneliness
and the lack of meaningful relationships are endemic
depression suicide rates possibly the highest in recorded
history in the US alone the suicide rate
has increased by a third in just 18
years according to Vestal if our true flourishing
and success is to be defined by the
material things we own by power or even
the quality of our relationships then it is
the reality that many human beings will never
even have the opportunity to live a successful
life such an opportunity seems more and more
to be left up to fate yet if
we were able to acquire all the toys
we wish for it is difficult to see
how a human life could be termed successful
if it ends the same way for everyone
death and annihilation you know that I my
dad used to work for a guy who's
a billionaire named Jamjum yeah Jamjum he used
to go to Saudi and you see this
guy was in every industry possible like little
sugar packets Jamjum petrol whatever Jamjum dad used
to work for this guy he used to
be his rep in the west right and
this guy had one son but it was
the son was so spoiled and he failed
at everything he did he made a mess
at everything he did because he was so
spoiled and his dad never had time for
him then he died young after all that
right so Jamjum with his billions of dollars
was not was not a happy man he
was a sad man he was very sad
he was such a good man right at
least from what we know of him he
was such a good man Jamjum you guys
never heard of Jamjum?
it is surprising that we remain sane knowing
that we will die one day reflecting on
the passage passing of time our own mortality
and the temporality of our pleasures may plunge
us into deep despair why why should it
not when we are in comfort we tend
to sleepwalk through life chasing one pleasure after
another in such a state we invent meaning
for ourselves restricted to the here and now
motivated by the pursuit of what we immediately
desire but when we encounter some difficulty especially
if it separates us from what we love
our illusions shatter why is it that some
specific instance of difficulty draws our attention and
puts us into crisis in fact how is
it that we are alive knowing that we
will all die and live as if that
profound fact does not matter in a universe
lacking any resolution the universe where our need
for infinite connection will never be met the
problem becomes much much worse separation and death
are constantly happening around us funny thing is
that the moment does not see death as
separation it's actual connection death is a connection
to so much so much more than life
it's just in the immediate the immediate moments
of death you don't have a body you
have your soul but you don't have a
body the soul is not some unimaginary thing
the soul is material but this is a
very very very subtle material jismun latif very
subtle material extremely subtle but it is and
therefore it experiences time very differently than us
so people in the grave they're living a
life we can't imagine it for sure but
they for sure are living a life there
is a type of life that they're living
and it's far superior than this one if
you did good it could be far worse
too if you did bad it could be
a type of paradise a pre-paradise and
it could be a pre-* and as
we understand it if you were sort of
bad but not that bad it could be
both for you it could be first *
then you get purified and when you're purified
of your sins through the punishment of the
grave then it becomes heaven for you right
like a gradient it's not just one or
the other it could be a little bit
of both we have many indicators that azab
can be in the grave but then it
could be relieved and then the person's in
pleasure again when we encounter some difficulties he
says here that separation that are constantly happening
around us every single good moment that we
enjoy is gone right after we enjoy it
every single pleasure whether power fame wealth or
food and every beautiful thing whether love tree
or flowers faces death and disintegration when I
was young my mom used to hold big
birthday parties for me I mean everyone in
school did when I was young when we
really didn't have much knowledge in religion now
we do things for the kids but not
a big one like a cupcake or something
like that a pat on the back maybe
a gift or something if they're a little
kid just so that they don't see others
doing it and then feel like it's a
zero no so it's just like a little
thing but no bazakh no excessive spending no
big parties that just gives them too much
attention that spoils them just a little thing
here and there maybe the grandma will come
in grandpa give you a little you know
gift from Timo or something like that so
but when I was young we used to
have these big birthday parties the birthday was
the best day of the year okay and
of course we eventually stopped doing that but
when we didn't know better we used to
do huge ones I'll never forget that after
the day was over I would be so
depressed right I'll be so down when the
day was over and you spend days like
decorating ordering food getting all these gifts well
the worst was when the mom gets you
close I don't want clothes when you're little
you want toys that night as I went
I would go to bed I would feel
so down right I don't know why well
the reason why is you were taken so
far up right and then all of a
sudden it disappeared right but the day's over
at some point I'd rather not go so
far up right we are adrift in a
sea of painful separation and its waves drown
our hearts it is not a pleasant thought
to know that every relationship you will experience
either with a person or an object ends
up the same through destruction separation death or
heartbreak after a person is gone from your
life it is as if they have taken
a part of you with them into the
abyss of non-existence of course belief in
Akhira changes all this nothing is gone even
when you look at if you have anyone
who has kids there when you look at
your old childhood childhood pics of your kids
and you feel really sad that those days
are over like when they were two and
three and four and five and six and
how innocent they were little globjammins and cookies
and munchkins that's what they look like walking
munchkin or walking cookie right their face is
like a cookie all have round faces and
so cute and all that stuff especially your
early kids cause it's your first experience you
feel this this almost a hollowness a sadness
when you look at those old pictures but
we don't have to you don't have to
those moments and what we did there they
will be packaged in goodness good deeds and
they will come and bear fruit for you
for eternity right and you're gonna go to
Yom Qiyamah and that relationship there in heaven
will be better than this relationship here and
you can have if I'm not mistaken can
you find the hadith about having children in
Jannah I wanna see if that is a
sound it's one of those things I can't
remember but I do vaguely remember that there
is a concept of that and that the
kid just stops at a certain age like
he's a toddler forever but look that up
how many of us would want your toddlers
to stay toddlers forever they're so cute at
certain ages right Tajuddin is like a big
munchkin right now I know that's what they're
like so but you shouldn't have pain that
moment of goodness that you experienced with them
and you did good towards them will testify
for you for eternity through hasanat so the
palaces that you earn in paradise are through
deeds entrances to paradise through rahma of Allah
but then the rewards therein are based on
deeds it's not the prophet say for every
tasbih you get a tree right for every
12 rakas qiyamul tahajud you get a palace
so the deeds are connected are reflected in
rewards and so that you never feel that
anything is wasted or gone with akhira and
that's one of the things that non-stop
constantly non-stop is this deen and sharia
and aqeedah removing sadnesses from the heart constantly
after a person is gone for a life
is it a part of you even our
memories while we may be grateful for them
recall a time that no longer exists after
we too are gone those memories seem to
come to nothing who was it that had
those memories who was it that experienced joys
pains and pleasures who was it that had
overcome so many difficulties he's a good writer
that had suffered so many pains what did
all that sound and fury mean in the
end time and ultimately death whittles away the
proud human spirit because I know that the
past will reflect for me in the akhira
I don't have to hold on to it
and some people hold on to the past
too much and that's what causes their problems
and they go into their 60s, 70s and
everything about them is stuck in like the
80s and the 90s or the 70s right
don't hold on to the past embrace the
change because what you loved so much is
not going to be gone it's there stored
for you and will be of benefit for
you in akhira in a way that is
perfect the English poet Tennyson despaired over such
a realization after the death of his best
friend in his poem In Memoriam Tennyson expresses
his pain at witnessing constant separation oh yet
we trust that somehow good will be the
final end of ill that not one life
shall be destroyed or cast as rubbish in
the void when God hath made the pile
complete that not a worm is cloven in
vain that not a moth with vain desire
is shriveled in a fruitless fire so if
you're an atheist if you don't believe in
akhira if you don't believe in God you
must live a very depressing life everything is
depressing to you right you look at your
kids memories of the past and they're all
gone now every relationship when it ends what
happened you know that there was a philosopher
listen to this there was we highlighted this
on a stream once a long time ago
there used to be a philosopher his whole
life arguing against the existence of God then
he's about to die he's really old now
he eventually had no relationship except his wife
he lived with his wife for the last
ten years of his life really old like
80s then his wife died in the last
three years of his life because he was
a famed philosopher his grandson you know probably
for a project for school or something said
and he was a good filmmaker documentarian he
said grandpa let me film everyday of your
life as the end of days for you
he said okay fine over time this guy
stopped being an atheist he said everyday I
wake up and I live with my life
with my wife like 40-50 years I
just say to myself I cannot accept that
that relationship all that good between me and
her is just disappeared at the end of
his life he submitted to the existence of
God there has to be something he had
a great relationship with his wife there's no
way this could mean nothing it just ends
at nothing there's no way and he became
a believer at the end of his life
now listen to this the kid his grandson
not a kid he was a young man
just put a camera in front of his
grandfather just the whole day and his grandfather
would sit in a chair and because he's
an academic he didn't numb himself down with
TV and cell phones because you know many
elderly people that's what they do they just
numb the terrible experience that they're going through
by just watching TV and scrolling on their
phone you know all the candy crush it's
like either middle school girls or old people
yeah I'm telling you cell phones they keep
them from going crazy but he didn't do
any of that and he would just ponder
and think listen to this on the last
half hour of his life the kid was
watching it later on he didn't know when
his dad's gonna grandpa's gonna die he said
he heard him looking up he saw him
looking up and talking he said yes right
and I'm ready take me now it's a
problem and then he died shortly thereafter how
amazing is that atheist went all his life
and then right in the last few years
became a believer in God maybe Allah accepted
it from him because Allah knows best but
his whole thing is the time alone with
his wife cannot be for naught good efforts
that he put in in his marriage can't
be for naught and that's why he became
a believer well we wouldn't categorize him as
a believer but he believed in God and
we leave it up to Allah his state
but he had a death where he seemed
very at peace with his death maybe that's
his reward Allah knows best we're not gonna
get into that part the ceaseless march of
time ensures that everything that we experience whether
they be material pleasures or joyous relationships all
come to an end Omar I think we're
gonna rename this the greatest happiness in life
something like that because that's what we ended
up talking to since Sheikh Mohammed Shinawi is
gonna join us Tuesday not today on the
Adab of Ikhtilaf he says here Naz says
you may live a long life but that
does not matter the amount of time you
get is irrelevant imagine that you are trapped
inside of your prison cell awaiting execution in
a few minutes in that interval of time
you are given every type of pleasure you
desire would it make any difference hey that's
powerful would it make a difference would you
enjoy anything this is why Imam Ghazali said
that the human ghafla is actually a blessing
the ability to forget death is a blessing
you can't do anything if you forget death
we literally wouldn't do anything sit on a
hill and sit next to a casket and
read the Quran until you die every second
becomes a source of unbearable pain knowing that
you will be annihilated shortening and lengthening this
interval does not put off the inevitable you
can't ask a pious Muslim who's close to
Allah Ta'ala if he'd be in pain
knowing that he died you know what a
Muslim would think of my only concern I
didn't make a lot of dua for my
kids I wanted to do this with them
this with them this with them I wanted
to teach them this I want to make
sure they do this that's his concern as
for himself if you have yaqeen you know
that I'm going to somewhere far better and
I'm going to see I'm going to see
people based on your taqwa Allah may connect
you with people such as your elders your
relatives people in the barzakh can live in
the community of their grave or beyond that
even it's almost like this a rich person
today when he takes a day off or
he's got a month off a rich person
where can he go?
wherever the heck he wants likewise the spiritually
strong people in the barzakh can go far
and wide whereas the spiritually weak they're in
the neighborhood if you're poor and you got
the weekend off what is a fun weekend
going to be like?
you're going to go to Wawa you're going
to get some chips invite a couple friends
over that's maximum right?
you have a limit on what you can
do but you're still happy you're still happy
but you have a limit and if you're
if you got 10 million dollars in the
bank and you got the weekend off I
got 3-4 days off for Thanksgiving I
go wherever I want I got my own
jet I don't even have to book anything
I just call hire a pilot take me
to Italy for the weekend no problem because
you know those private jets the air is
even better why is it that when you
fly across the world and you slept while
on the plane and you ate while on
the plane you still feel miserable it's not
about sleeping and being tired why are you
tired?
you didn't do anything you sat there like
a lump the whole time in fact you
enjoyed yourself the whole time watching movies and
eating food it's because of the air the
air inside of planes is terrible so you
just feel that's a beautiful picture Omar that
magenta, let's make use of that magenta you
feel so exhausted because the air that you've
been breathing in the airplane is terrible but
in private jets the air is excellent that's
why those things cost a lot more likewise
in the barzakh in the barzakh your life
depending on how you are it could be
more expansive or limited right?
like barely Rajul Saleh barely did some good
deeds but he's good he's acceptable his happiness
and his pleasure is in the small neighborhood
of the graveyard Subhanallah you want to hear
something amazing?
this is ajeeb this is not from the
realm of knowledge, I'm just telling you right
now this is from the realm of knowledge
and it comes to us through a story
of a karama of somebody it's not even
a karama, it's just like a mukashifa it's
a mukashifa mukashifats we can accept them, we're
not going to make law from it but
we're just saying that this is a story
a man, a woman died pretty young a
woman died pretty young a young lady she
came to her husband in a dream and
her husband asked her how are you?
and she was a righteous woman she said
not good I can't move I can't move
around I want to meet people in the
grave but I can't move around he said
why?
he said the sisters when they wrapped me
up they didn't do a good job and
part of me is naked he said he
woke up disturbed thinking what am I supposed
to do?
dig her up?
and rebury her?
listen to this this is so ajeeb I'm
going to say it again this is a
transmitted mukashifa this is not law this is
not absolute knowledge I'm just passing this on
as a story next night she comes to
him in a dream what does she say?
she says the next person who dies in
the community put in their grave an extra
kafan can you believe that?
that's ajeeb and he did that time later
he sees her again in a wonderful state
moving around and everything so that barzakhi life
is vast and it has it's own rules
and it's own laws right what's the explanation
of that?
I don't know the explanation maybe it is
just the fact that you have the taqwa
to wrap someone properly it's accepted as Allah
says in the Quran it's not the meat
and the blood that reaches Allah when you
slaughter something for the sake of Allah as
charity it's the taqwa so likewise taqwa was
not observed in the initial burial moment of
burial so taqwa needs to be made up
and the son and the husband made it
up by putting in that extra kafan and
Allah knows best and of course as we
said it's a mukashifa and the stories of
mukashifats they're speculative knowledge and dhani knowledge so
if you don't even want to believe that
we have to say that because some people
think everything you say has to be absolute
just like the other day someone was talking
to me and said that our technology is
like sihr to the jinn and their actions
is sihr to us because we can't see
how they're doing what they're doing likewise they
don't know how we're doing what we're doing
right so is that like ilm?
no not everything you say has to be
at the highest level of qat'i knowledge
that's in aqidah and fiqh yes everything else
then that could be speculation could be dhan
right just speculation and stuff so not everything
that everyone utters at all times in every
book is qat'i knowledge even in fiqh
70% of the book is ijtihad right
it's ijtihad so people I don't understand what
the level of certainty of a statement is
let's see what else he says here because
this is really good where are we he
says faced with such constant separation from things
we find good and beautiful we try to
overcome the abyss of nihilism by inventing meaning
for ourselves we may tell ourselves that death
is a type of silent sleep or that
life is nothing but chaotic competition or some
other consolation to deal with the pain of
separation yet the silent voice of our conscience
may whisper to us in our lonely hours
your life means nothing all that you love
is nothing and you will become nothing without
ultimate purpose we try to make an unbearable
situation tolerable by ignoring the problem this is
the mindset of the atheist is this honestly
the only posture we can take towards what
seems to be the innate tragedy of life
hey Omar that happiness can you put that
in bright magenta yeah huh try see what
happens maybe bright yellow then bright color bright
yellow what is the way out of all
this is this honestly the only posture we
can take towards what seems to be the
innate tragedy of life what's the way out
it seems the only way is to take
our ingrained desire for eternity seriously and treat
it like all our other ingrained desires such
as the need for food shelter and intimacy
these natural desires point to external things that
satisfy them it should be no surprise to
us then that our desire for eternity should
be satisfied by something eternal something that actually
exists our experience with passing pleasures leave us
unfulfilled because we are desiring some ultimate beauty
some ultimate good that cannot be encapsulated in
this limited world we want to preserve our
good moments to experience them in their same
intensity and freshness forever to find some meaning
behind such pleasures no wonder separation hurts us
so much we want to be held by
the embrace of eternity forever such an impulse
must lead us to search for a way
out of death a way out of the
pain of separation it leads us to truths
confirmed in revelation it leads us to conclude
that no worldly relationship no matter how blissful
can fill the essential need that we have
for infinity but a relationship with something eternal
something behind and beyond the experiences in the
here and now could satisfy that desire and
be accurately called the ultimate good.
Islam like all of the Abrahamic religions says
such ultimate good is only to be found
in a relationship with God the creator of
our pleasures from this view if a person
establishes a genuine connection with God then they
have achieved true success such a definition of
human success means that every single human being
can theoretically achieve it regardless of their circumstances
and their time bound nature and that's the
end of this section let's put a book
mark here because this is really powerful isn't
it it's moving and it talks about really
the most important elements of life I almost
want to take little pieces of this and
and post it I think it's worthy brighter
yellow brighter yellow this is the book get
it now from meccabooks.com slash pearls Q
&A time Q&A final stream of the
week inshallah not the final stream ever but
stream of the week inshallah a nice death
story I heard was an old pious lady
at her deathbed in her final moments a
young lady whispered in her ear to teach
her the kadima as the old lady recited
she passed away my grandmother had a dream
that her late daughter told her not to
complain because she's going to heaven she said
it felt so real could it be true
if they're not muslim hopefully they will enter
islam after that keep in mind so that
you don't be misguided by these things all
narrations about dreams and other worldly things they
will not enter the level of doctrine why
because they come to us through a speculative
source and doctrine comes to us through an
explicit definitive source that's the difference so you
can just say simply that you can say
something simply and hopefully we wish good for
them that's all and as a rule by
the way as a rule when the dead
come to you in a dream they only
speak the truth even if he was a
bad person okay even if he's a bad
person he only speaks the truth why because
the qabr is the realm of or the
barzakh is not you cannot do kadim everyone
speaks the truth only if a couple did
not agree says john r on the number
of kids beforehand then they had two and
the husband feels happy with that but the
wife feels incomplete with a third how to
proceed have the third kid have the third
kid because that's a sunnah and you're happy
you're not going to be made unhappy by
three but she will feel unhappy by two
so have the third kid well
give your grandmother dawah then you know tell
her to give you the say the shahada
so that this dream could be true yeah
the daughter died tells the grandma don't ever
be sad you're going to go to heaven
this is dhani to us right this is
dhani knowledge it's not certain knowledge remember that
it's dhani knowledge so we cannot say it's
absolutely true but you can say hopefully this
means she'll accept the truth now you're in
the family so she's not she's not going
to be ignorant about islam have an excuse
right so now you need to tell her
about if you love god accept all his
prophets you know I love when people say
islam in the quran means submission right it
doesn't mean islam the religion it means submission
okay I love that because tell me exactly
how are you submitting to god by rejecting
his final messenger if it's islamist submission remember
that debate I did in LA no islam
is not the religion of islam it's submission
to god okay how are you submitting to
god when you reject his last prophet it
ends up being the same thing so it
is islam the religion and submission to allah
is islam the religion you cannot submit to
god while rejecting his final messenger and his
final book what's the opinion about pouring water
on graves there is no definitive aqidah about
that so the question should be if the
person has a definitive aqidah about that we
have to say no it's batil there is
no definitive aqidah about that are they doing
that to make the water go the soil
settle could be allah knows best are they
say hoping that there is rahmah there allah
knows best we know that it's the prophet
has the hadith of the jareedah the green
stalks the ijtihad of the ulema on that
is that they're making tasbih and hence the
tasbih will push away punishment so are they
making qiyas with water on that allah knows
best and it rains all the time on
the graves of people we never heard of
any narration where when it rains punishment decreases
so yeah go ahead ahmed 100% we
can read one of those we can definitely
read one of those right definitely read one
of those can you find it for me
ahmed find it for me and also find
me an amazon for the light a nice
wide and strong one he's saying can you
force the guy from sarim to come to
oklahoma shaykh asadullah i think he could team
up well with maliki literally when i saw
him i was thinking he looks just like
maliki he could team up and here's the
thing i don't think shaykh asadullah who was
with us the other day on the stream
he doesn't need to go to an established
community he should go to a place where
he builds his own convert community from scratch
from zero and in my imagination it would
go like this you get a store front
first half is a social room tv's food
coffee couches hangout fridge pantry a hangout place
for guys that can of his age want
to hang out with him and with maliki
back of it make it a masjid yeah
then anyone can come in just come in
and hang out and the thing is going
to be the thursday or like a friday
night dinner that's it that's the event that's
all you do the friday night dinner free
food for anyone who wants to hang got
a tv on hangout that's it guy hangs
out for a year will be muslim by
the end of the year shaykh asadullah is
overall just a very interesting person go ahead
speak shaykh
shaykh shaykh shaykh intermission 20 pounds no 20
pounds no skin min min alright
here we go hold on Ahmad will translate.
All right, let's do this.
No, no, take it, take it.
You got it, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Call him, call him.
But check this out, like...
Haroon Osmani.
He's such a strong personality, he's like, like,
you just look at him and you're just
like, this man is, like, he sticks out
very much.
Yeah, I'm telling you, that's a technique.
It's a Friday night, hey, I have a
better idea.
I have a better idea.
Sunday.
Sunday evening, watch the game.
Monday night football.
I'm telling you, that's the way to do
it.
This is free food and Monday night football.
Bro, I would go to that.
Free food and Monday night football.
A bunch of couches, a bunch of screens,
okay?
A fridge and free food.
Okay?
Monday night football.
Some free wings and other food.
The masjid's in the back, that's it, right?
You as a Muslim, as the host, you're
not gonna say, you're just gonna go pray
and come back.
Hey, what are you doing over there?
Nothing, we got the mosque over there.
No, don't worry about that.
These guys, who's gonna come to something like
this?
Someone who needs some friends, right?
That's it.
After a year, all of a sudden, you
have a relationship, right?
When football season's over, when football season is
over, I'll tell you the travesty.
Complete travesties that they took away Shaq and
Charles Barkley.
It's a complete travesty.
I think just for the record, when you
look down five, ten years, Sheikh Hassanullah's gonna
be popping off.
Here.
Like, if you've met him, you just know,
like.
The best way to do dawah is the
subtle building of a relationship.
Stranger comes here.
Stranger comes in.
What are we, we're not gonna talk about
something serious.
Right?
Let's just unwind ourselves.
Okay?
After Monday Night Football's over, it should have
been TNT.
Shaq and Chuck.
But now, they took that away from us.
Is this not a crime?
Adam Silver should be, I can't believe this.
Okay?
But anyway, that's what I'm talking about.
You know what I'm talking about.
In dawah, let it come easy.
Right?
Don't make things so direct, so quick, that
it's awkward.
Right?
It's not gonna work.
How did Al-Habib Ahmed Mashhoor Al-Haddad
give dawah?
He gave dawah by going out to the
tribes and giving them gifts and sitting with
them and having dinner with them.
After the dinners, to honor the guests, okay,
they would do dances for him.
And they would sing songs for him.
Success?
So that's the way they honor the guests.
Okay?
So Al-Habib Ahmed Mashhoor Al-Haddad said,
okay, well, you know, we got our own
melodies too.
So next time they would came out, they
brought the daf with them and the munchads.
And they did that.
They did their own nasheeds and qaseedahs.
And through that, he taught them to recite
La ilaha illallah as part of the qaseedah.
Right?
The chorus, what we would call a chorus
now.
So here you have this pagan tribe singing
a song with La ilaha illallah as the
chorus.
The relationship continued to grow and grow and
grow and grow until the chief said, we
want to be part of this.
And he took shahadah.
Once the chief takes shahadah, he was able
to easily convince the rest of the chief,
the rest of them to take shahadah.
So you got that front room, qaseedahs and
nasheeds running nonstop, screens on there, fridges, pantries,
coffee, bathroom, couches, hangout, nice lighting, you know,
neat stuff on the wall.
And you hang out.
That's it.
No alcohol can come in the building.
Sorry, we're religious people.
You can't bring alcohol.
And no women, it's gonna be men only.
It's not gonna turn into chaos, right?
Women can do their thing on another day.
How's that?
If there's a female day, she does her
own women's night, right?
But you're not gonna have a guy and
girl in a small space like that.
All right, here's a dream.
Someone has a dog in his cupboard.
He threw it away.
Then he felt bad.
And then the man gave it back to
him, but it was a baby.
What does it mean?
Allah knows best, but sometimes the dog is
your desires.
And you went against your desires and your
desires, your nafs has now went from being
a bad nafs to a good nafs, but
young and fragile.
And that's a nafs al-lawwama, al-ammara.
You keep working on it, keep working on
it, push away desires.
It develops as nafs al-multima'inna.
But of course, everything grows slowly.
So that's why it's like a baby, right?
It grows slowly.
And Allah knows best about these things.
kulluhu ijtihadat dhaniyyah.
Understand this.
It's ijtihad, that is dhaniyyah.
I'll tell you why people flip out because
they think everything you say, you mean it,
qat'i.
No, we have to try to do ijtihad
on certain things or use our brains on
certain things.
So it's ijtihad dhaniyyah.
But I think it's a very strong dhaniyyah.
My dream interpretation teacher, recently he's been saying,
stop checking with me.
You know your stuff.
But I still check with him.
I don't trust myself.
I think Oklahoma City is the best place
to do it.
See, then you could have stuff for the
Muslim guys.
The first half is open for everyone.
It's just a space, a hangout space.
Behind there is a masjid, masjid.
The hurmah of the masjid applies and you
could do everything you want there.
That's really what I think should happen.
Does attributes of Allah imply multiplicity in Allah
and is it the same in Christianity?
No, the attribute of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala is not separate from God, is not
a separate entity from Allah.
They are separate from themselves.
In other words, generosity, his attribute of generosity
and his attribute of knowledge are two separate
attributes, but attributes as a whole are not
separate from Allah and they are not his
essence either.
There's an essence and there's attributes.
The essence, unknowable to us.
The attributes, knowable to us.
But the attributes are not separate things from
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And then therefore we have no problem with
ta'addud al-qudama because we do not
believe that there is a multiplicity of a
pre-eternal thing.
No, one infinite, that is Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
And his attributes are not separate from him.
They are separate from themselves, but they're not
separate from him.
I want my answer today, says Aslan, McDonald
style.
I want it now, he's saying.
Aslan, yeah, what is your question, Aslan?
Aslan the lion here.
What's your question?
Yeah.
So then you'd go to the poor areas
of town for Maliki Click and this imagined
Dawah Center in Oklahoma City.
You go to the poor part of town
and you put up posters.
Free food, hangout, Monday night football.
No drinking.
No drinking, no girls, no drugs.
You have to put that explicitly.
People who have need for food and don't
care, whatever, they come in, eat, right?
Hopefully you build relationships from that.
And what do I do as the host?
Nothing, just welcome people in.
Don't have to talk too much, I'm watching
the game.
Welcome in, there's some chicken there, there's some
soda there, right?
That's it.
Hey, what is this?
What is this all about?
Nothing, it's a mosque back there.
And this is the hangout space, that's it.
We're open about it, but we're not preaching
and pushy.
That's it.
Nothing going on on the TV, put some
Qaseedahs on.
Some Nasheeds.
What if I trust in the mercy of
Allah, but not in myself to not return
to the sin?
That's exactly how it's supposed to be.
We should never trust ourselves, even when we're
not sinning.
You know, when kids say to you, you
don't trust me?
I don't trust anyone with a nafs, right?
Do you have a nafs?
I have a nafs, I don't trust myself.
If you have a nafs, you should not
be trusted 100%.
Yes, I trust you in that.
If you were to tell me something that
I don't trust, and that happened, you're upright
witness to me.
But do I trust you that in your
future, you'll never commit sins?
Of course not.
So I trust you in terms of your
testimony.
I will give you my money to save
it for me.
In that way, I trust you.
But are you trustworthy to never fall into
sins again?
Nobody with a device can be trusted.
That's the only policy to take.
Do not ever trust your nafs.
Do not ever trust your nafs.
Can Shaitaan imitate dead people in dreams?
Yes, he can.
Yes, he can.
But Shaitaan does not come in the true
dream.
And he never comes in the form of
prophets.
And some said the Awliya as well, and
Allah knows best.
So there is ways to separate between when
Shaitaan comes in the form of a person
in a dream and a true dream.
And the separation is misguidance and fear.
If the dream comes with misguidance and fear,
then you can say that's from Shaitaan.
But if a dream comes with guidance and
truth, then you can say that that is
a true dream.
And Allah knows best.
At the end of the day, sometimes you
just leave it.
We suspend it.
We don't have to, we can't always know
an answer to everything, right?
It's very important to understand.
The first lesson of everything related to dreams
is dhani and it's dalala.
You have to know this, right?
I asked Shaykh al-Maghidi about this.
And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said,
dreams are 146th of nabuwah.
It's 146th of prophecy.
Means it's 146th of communication between us and
the heavens is exists.
And it's in the form of true dreams.
So I said, does therefore our dreams, do
they yield absolute knowledge or speculative knowledge?
And he said, speculative knowledge.
If verses of the Quran themselves can yield
speculative knowledge, right?
There are verses of the Quran itself, which
is completely mutawatir that yield, and undoubted, that
yield speculative knowledge.
Indefinitive, what does that mean?
Many verses are indefinite.
Thalatha taqroo is the best example that applies
in real life.
Allah is telling us when you, thereafter there
is a divorce, you have to wait.
Thalatha taqroo.
Three taqroo is a taqroo.
Is it the purity or is it the
blood?
That makes a big difference, right?
In a woman's life and in a man's
life.
He wants to marry a woman.
He's got to wait another month in one
fiqh and he doesn't have to wait another
fiqh, right?
So that affects our life.
And Allah left its indefinitive and it's in
the book of Allah.
And the scholars make ijtihad on it.
Therefore, dreams would be even more appropriate to
be speculative in their nature, particularly that it
comes through a transmission, right?
Every single dream is ahad in nature, right?
Because one person saw the dream.
You could see wrong.
Guarantee you right now, if I ask you
to testify, after this stream is over, let's
say Ahmed leaves the stream.
I want you to tell me what books
were on my desk.
You can't tell me.
You can maybe say one or two, the
big green one, there's the Shama'il book
and there's this Pearl's book.
You can't remember.
So people, just because you're looking at something
doesn't mean you can see properly.
Same thing with dreams.
You can see incorrectly or interpret incorrectly.
But they're there to give us, and after
a while, a person can be mutamakkin min
al-ru'ya.
After years of experience and purifying himself and
interacting with scholars, it's possible to become mutamakkin
min al-ru'ya.
He knows for sure.
He's like a faqih, a mujtahid or a
mufti fin nawazil.
I mean, go ask Shaykh al-Maghili about
anything in Muqtasir al-Khalil with his eyes
closed, he'll tell you.
Shaykh Mahmoud Shabib, anything in al-sharh al
-kabir with his eyes closed, he'll tell you.
Mutamakkin min al-fiqh.
Right?
Same thing in hadith.
There are muhaddithin, they are so mutamakkin, they
could tell you everything about any hadith they
hear.
90%, right?
Only 10% of things they won't know.
So that exists in the world.
And the mashayikh who focus on purifying their
heart and learning and studying, and they have
a lot of experience in this realm, they
are mutamakkin min al-ru'ya.
Both in when they see a dream and
in other people's narrations of dreams.
So much so that my dream teacher, interpretation
teacher, he had told me a story where
a sister came to him with a dream.
And he said, stop lying.
Right?
There's no way you saw this dream.
And she admitted to lying.
She admitted to lying.
Right?
He's that mutamakkin.
Yeah?
Just like you could come and tell a
scholar that this hadith, I saw it in
Bukhari.
He's gonna say, stop lying.
It's not in Bukhari.
You're just lying.
Imam Masjid al-Rashid, stealing money from Long
Island community.
Confirm with Mufti Tariq Mason's.
Please reconsider giving a talk there.
Okay.
My respected commentator.
This is an accusation and allegation.
I cannot confirm it or deny it.
Nor am I responsible for investigating the message
that I'm going to in Long Island.
So I'm just take, I'm actually, you know
the funny thing is I get myself in
trouble.
I read the thing to life.
I didn't read it beforehand.
It gives a better reaction too.
You get to react.
But let's take it as an epistemological example
here.
This is an allegation.
Your Y-E-R-R is not a
name.
It's not an identity, right?
Therefore, I can't consider it even anything because
it's not an identity.
Hadham Majhool.
Majhool, not just Majhool.
Majhool, Mubham wa Majhool.
Is unknown and is Mubham too.
It's not even a name here.
Mubham means the name is hidden.
He hid his own name.
If his name was like written there, he'd
be Majhool, Al-Hal.
I don't know him.
I don't even know who he is.
So I cannot accept anything here.
Okay.
So could he be correct?
Yes, it's possible.
It's rationally possible that the accusation is correct.
But is it in any way for me
to know?
Probably not.
99%, there's no way for me to know
because you're going to have people alleging and
denying.
Okay.
So I apologize with respect.
I can't change my commitment to the community
because this doesn't reach a level of certainty
that would force me to act.
Okay.
Okay.
Again, could you be correct?
It's possible.
I don't know any of these people.
It's rationally possible.
But can I act upon it?
I can act upon it.
Because it's not truth to me.
It may be truth to you, but to
me, it's just hearsay and allegation.
What should I do if my dad does
not let me go to the masjid and
stops me from what's to have acts like
seeking knowledge?
If you're a male, you can disobey him
in that.
But try to disobey him in a way
that doesn't inflame the matter.
If the damage will be greater, then don't
do it.
Like for example, he beats you, right?
Or he'll further get involved in your life
so that you can't do other things, right?
That are necessary for you to do.
Like for example, when a corrupt government, it
doesn't let you talk about jihad or khilafah,
but it lets you pray and fast and
have gatherings and have whatever.
But just don't talk about khilafah and jihad.
That's the hakim says.
Then you come and say, no, we got
to remove this hakim and you do a
revolution.
The revolution fails.
Now the guy's more paranoid than he ever
was before.
Now he doesn't even let you guys gather
and pray and have gatherings and seek knowledge
and all that stuff.
So if you had a suspicion that that
might be the case, that that's how he's
going to react, then you shouldn't have done
that in the first place, right?
But if you have a suspicion that, yeah,
he's going to back off when he sees
we're really upset and we need to talk
about khilafah and jihad.
And if your suspicion is, yeah, he's going
to back off, you know, that's what made
them do it in the first place.
So you have to judge yourself.
Is my dad, if I start going to
the masjid and growing a beard and doing
what's to have the acts like seeking knowledge
and stuff, if I just say, I'm doing
it, I'm disobeying you, is that going to
cause him to say, all right, let's back
off so we keep the relationship good?
Or is he going to now clamp down
further and say, you're not even leaving the
house?
At that point, you're going to have to
make that judgment call.
And if you can work, then you have
the right to leave your house.
Leave this condition and go work and pay
your own rent.
It's your haq as a man.
Christians bring the first ayah of para five.
Para is juz or surah?
What's a para?
A juz, okay.
They bring the first ayah of para five
and say, Allah is allowing adultery, na'udhu
billah, please answer this.
Para number five, open that up for me.
Somebody open that up for me.
Permission to do adultery.
Why would you say something stupid?
Not him, but the Christian accusation.
Why would you say something ridiculous like that?
Huh?
Yeah, para five in the Quran.
What is it?
What's the first verse in juz number five?
Yeah.
This is about marriage.
This verse is about marriage.
Far off, far off.
I don't know what you're saying.
Must be.
I have no idea.
I have no idea.
Listen, Christian, don't worry about the Quran.
Worry about your priests, okay?
They're doing a lot more than zina.
All right, so please.
Zina is haram in our religion.
Everyone knows that.
If I commit a sin, says Maak Aslam,
hypothetical person commits a sin, a hundred times,
hundreds of times, and I make taubah every
single time.
For my taubah to be accepted, do I
have to fully believe that I will not
commit that sin again?
Do I need to make an oath?
Don't make an oath.
But you don't have to believe about anything
about the future.
That's not ever asked from us.
You have to make an intention.
What you believe about yourself in the future
is irrelevant.
We're not, nothing in the Quran or the
sunnah ever asked us to believe that we
will or will not do something.
The Quran, Allah commands us to intend not
to do it again.
That's it.
And Allah accepts the taubah as the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, even if you sin 70
times a day and you make taubah each
time.
And 70 is just a number for Allah.
If someone alive in the dunya says in
your dream that he dreamt of people who
died in reality and relates his own dream
of what the dead people said, is that
true?
Allah knows best.
Allah knows best.
Could be, could not be.
There are very few absolutes in the realm
of dream interpretation.
What should a person do who's 80 years
old, father, tries to fornicate?
I believe once parents reach an old age,
it becomes acceptable to them that you start
to get involved in their behavior.
If it's acceptable to them, then you should
get involved and say, dad, I'm not letting
you go there.
I'm not letting you meet this woman.
I'm canceling the internet from you.
Sometimes parents accept it from their kids.
If they accept it, you can act.
If they don't accept it, you're not responsible,
except to give advice.
This question is about jinn.
There are jinn who are good and they
may attend gatherings of goodness and they won't
harm you.
They will not harm you.
They shouldn't harm you.
It's haram for them to harm you.
Can Yajuj and Majuj be jinn or jinn
-human hybrids?
We only know that they're a tribe of
humans.
That's all we know.
Let's go to some other questions.
How do we view art in Islam, movies,
paintings, books, fiction, et cetera?
We view it as something that is good
if it transmits a good message in a
halal way.
Two conditions.
If it transmits a good message in a
halal way, you get rewarded for it.
If it doesn't transmit any message, it's art
for art's sake or for entertainment's sake in
a halal way, then it's halal.
And if the method is haram, then it's
haram.
Simple as that.
I'm struggling to find people to talk about
akhira with.
Any tips?
Go to classes where that's gonna be the
normal way to discuss things, place to discuss
things.
Go to classes.
What do you speculate about my daughter's dream?
She dreamt there were 99 staircases in the
house and bowls of ramen downstairs.
She woke up and came downstairs and saw
bowls of ramen downstairs.
I'll just give you a general qaeda, general
qaeda.
Nourishment, food that is acceptable to eat, healthy
or unhealthy is a good sign in a
dream.
It means nourishment of different kinds, wherever you
feel there's a deficiency.
Because one time a brother said, I had
a dream that it was a cheeseburger and
I enjoyed it, but in real life, I
never eat this food because it's cholesterol and
all that stuff.
The sheikh said, no, no, no.
If it's good halal nourishment, that is enjoyable
to people, then it has a good dalalah,
good indicator in dream.
What about the number 99 is always the
best as it replies the attributes of Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la.
And staircases is always excellent because it's upward,
upward, like the rope of Allah.
One of the Sahaba saw that he climbed
a rope upwards.
So those are always good dalalah.
I'm not saying what any specific dream is,
but I'm saying these are very good signs.
What was the name of the book that
we held up?
This book is Pearls in the Deep, available
now at meccabooks.com slash pearls.
Really good book.
When do you come back to Australia?
Well, technically it's supposed to be Malaysia or
South Africa, but no organization out there has
really reached out to us.
So it's always England, Malaysia, Australia, South Africa.
Those are the candidates usually every year.
It is okay for a lay Muslim to
learn dream interpretation.
Anyone can learn anything as long as you
go to the right sources.
And when you learn dream interpretation, you will
learn a lot of Quran and Hadith because
that's the symbolism of Quran and Hadith is
the number one source.
When Allah reveals a book, the symbolism from
that book becomes the number one source of
dream interpretation for that community.
So for Sayyidina Musa, they had dreams at
that time from the symbolism of the Torah
and then from the symbolism of their culture.
Does Arcview Arabic help talking to people in
Arabic as well?
Yes, but in Fusha, not dialect.
We don't teach dialects.
Arcview Arabic, why don't you fire it up
Omar since he mentioned it.
Go to arcview.org to learn Arabic with
Sheikh Mahdi Locke.
If a person struggles to wear hijab but
makes Tawbah every day knowing most likely they
won't cover up the following day, is that
valid?
So the key is for Tawbah in general
to apply to everything, hijab, everything else is
the intent, not your speculation about how you're
gonna behave.
That's not what you need to worry about.
What you need to worry about is the
intention that what you plan to do, okay?
And strengthen your intention.
How do you strengthen your intention?
Surround yourself with people who did it in
the past.
If you want to be a millionaire, for
example, go to another millionaire and tell him,
take me up the mountain.
Tell me what to do, right?
Guide me.
He'll take you up the mountain.
That's it.
And for him, it's simple.
It's easy.
He's done it before.
So he knows in your company, you need
to do this.
You need to do that.
This product, don't waste your time with this
product.
This product, yeah, this is a good one,
right?
This is why what I said about the
euthanasia, where in Europe, the old people, they
just go to kill themselves, right?
And this is lawful.
It's legal, I mean, in Europe.
It's legal in Europe, hmm?
Are they trying to fight for that in
America?
Yeah, so in America, it's limited to end
of life care, but in Europe, it's totally
legal in certain parts of Europe.
But I'm like, then there are companies for
this too, right?
And they have like pictures of heaven, right?
But I'm like, this is a terrible business.
You can't ever have repeat customers, right?
You can't have testimonials.
Oh, the euthanasia turned out great.
Where are your testimonials gonna come from, right?
You can't get repeat customers.
This is a terrible business model.
You're gonna go out of business, right?
Hey, you want the people to die, so
let your business die too, right?
But it's not a good business, right?
Just from a business standpoint, it's terrible.
How is Zakah given to Sara Suleihi?
Should the recipient know what it's for?
He doesn't have to know.
You don't need to tell the recipient this
is Zakah.
You don't have to tell them that.
Are stocks and debts owed to you counted?
Nothing owed to you is counted.
Can I remove bills that I know must
be paid in the near future?
Yes, you may.
Okay, you can.
But you must give the Zakah in kind
to somebody.
You cannot go to somebody, says I got
$5,000 of Zakah.
I'll tell you what, I'll pay your rent
for the next two months, $2,500, can't
do that.
Number one, Zakah money in your hands has
to go out immediately.
You can't say I got this Zakah, I'll
save it for later.
I'll distribute it later.
No, you gotta distribute it right away.
Number two, you give it to them in
kind according to the Maliki school.
You don't go to him and say I'll
pay your bills.
No, what, I'm my child, give me the
money.
I don't wanna pay my rent, I wanna
buy fried chicken and shrimp.
Let him to buy what he wants.
You can't control him like that.
You cannot ask him to do work for
you.
Hey, come and clean my house and we'll
pay him from the Zakah.
Can't do that.
It's his haqq, it's the haqq of the
poor in general so you have to give
it to somebody.
Can you recommend sources to learn dream interpretation?
No, unfortunately, I don't know any.
Just my teachers in Egypt, when he picks
up the phone too, he's very busy these
days.
But in COVID, he was free, I was
free.
We learned a lot, we did a lot
in COVID.
I don't even know anyone in English who
does it.
I know Sheikh Amin Khalwadia is solid at
it but I don't know if he does
it, teaches it to people.
Probably he teaches his students there.
Do you pay Zakah on gold?
Jewelry and anything that is jewelry, no, whether
you wear it or not.
But you got gold coins or bullion, yes.
He pays Zakah on that.
Weigh it and pays Zakah on that.
Is kidney transplant halal?
The ulema said that there is for darura
permissibility for that.
What's the best seerah book or PDF?
I can't really say, to be honest.
Paul Williams, I keep pushing him to write
a biography of the Prophet, for new Muslims,
in like 100 pages, 150 pages.
But I can't say what is the easy
go-to right now.
I don't have the answer to that.
Ahmed, do you have anything to say?
Should I go to Ibn Sireen's book of
dreams?
It's not gonna help you much.
It's not gonna help you much.
It'll tell you how dream interpretation works.
It's like spheres.
The biggest symbol in the dream is like
in the middle.
Then the secondary symbols, tertiary symbols.
But the secondary symbol, its meaning changes based
upon the primary symbol.
And the tertiary symbol changes based on the
secondary symbol.
Just like in language, if I use an
indefinitive word, like, give me an indefinitive word,
a word that has multiple meanings.
Give me one.
Huh?
Mean, the word mean.
So if a kid says to me, what
is mean?
What is the meaning of mean?
I said, where did you see it?
He says, in my math book.
Right, so the math book now is the
second piece of information, now I know what
to tell you.
It means, like, what is it, the middle
one.
All right, if he says, what is, huh?
The average, right?
So what is mean?
And I said, in what context?
My teachers really mean.
Now I know what it means, right?
So that's how, what even Sudin tells you
is all the possibilities.
It's irrelevant, you need to know relative to
what?
Relative to the math book?
Or relative to somebody saying my teacher's mean?
That's how a dream interpretation works.
And Allah knows best.
Shaykh, I started doing hijab to cover my
gray hair, and now I do it permanently.
Will I get swab?
Because the original intention was not to please
Allah.
You will, you will stop getting sins.
And when you change your intention to do
it to please Allah, then you get rewarded.
If a woman goes out with her hair
covered, just because her husband told her to.
She doesn't get sins.
She gets rewarded when she does good deeds.
When she changes her intention, right?
Just like a guy wants to get drunk.
He wants to drink.
But his father-in-law's here all night,
spending the whole night with us.
No, I can't drink.
He goes upstairs upset that he can't drink.
Did he get rewarded for abstaining from alcohol?
No, he doesn't get sins, right?
Because you didn't do it.
Same thing.
So you get your, you do not get
sins.
That itself is good, right?
And now, if you ever, the day comes
that you genuinely do this for the sake
of Allah Ta'ala, then you get rewarded
for it on top of that.
How do we concile the Hadid ayah about
Rahbaniyah with Qutbat al-Hajjah, stating that bid
'ah is in the fire?
Ah, good question.
Surah al-Hadid said, monasticism, they innovated.
We didn't command it upon them and they
didn't fulfill its rights as they should have.
But then the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wasallam says,
every bid'ah is astray.
So one seems to allow for innovation and
one seems to condemn innovation.
The answer to that is go back to
the stream we did about innovation and that
innovation that is within the confines of what
Sharia has commanded us to do.
To give you an example, we are streaming
on Tuesdays from 1.30 to 3.30,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.
And we're reading this book, this book, this
book and this book.
And then we answer questions.
Did Allah command us to do this?
No.
We chose to do it.
And we organize it in this manner.
Is there anything saying, do it on Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday at this hour and read from
these books?
Nothing saying to do this.
We literally invented this, but it's within what
pleases Allah.
We came up with this stream, came up
with the name, how we're gonna stream, what
we're gonna do, all this.
But what are we doing within it?
What we are generally commanded to do.
So that's what they did too.
Now, once you make the intention, you have
to fulfill it now.
You need to fulfill it.
Just like once you open a Nafla, you
have to finish it.
So Allah affirms here that although, while they
came up with it, now you have to
give it its haqoq, right?
So you would be blameworthy if you establish
a school and stop showing up to class
to teach, right?
Would you not be blameworthy?
The community blames you, you're blameworthy, right?
So same thing.
So the bid'ah the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam is talking about is to introduce something
from outside of Islam into Islam in any
way, shape and form, outside of it completely.
Like nationalism.
It contradicts the way that the Prophet commanded
us to rule, right?
It contradicts that.
The Muslims should have one nation, one ummah,
one set of borders, not cut up every
nation.
Nationalism is fine if it's just, I'm proud
to be my ethnicity, no problem.
But I can't base my borders and the
citizenry based on nationalism.
That's not ethnicity, it's not allowed in Islam.
That's an example of those bid'ah.
Rahbaniyya in general does not necessitate monasticism as
one of my shuyukh answered me.
That rahbaniyya just meant devoting yourself to God
fully.
It later came to mean monasticism.
So that's why it may be that Allah
had accepted it from them at that time
because they didn't introduce an innovation from outside
the religion.
It was just like today where you wanna
be a devoted Muslim.
You set up a school, set up a
schedule, set up things to do.
I'm gonna fast this day, I'm gonna do
this dhikr, et cetera.
I'm gonna read this much Quran.
That's what they did, but they didn't fulfill
it properly.
That's the meaning and Allah knows best.
But the monasticism, we don't know in their
shariah was it halal or haram for them
to stay unmarried.
So some of the ulama, the way they
answer that is to say that what the
Quran is saying that they innovated and they
should have fulfilled its rights is what was
acceptable in their shariah at that time of
acts of worship.
And ibtad'uha means they gave themselves a
discipline.
They scheduled themselves, right?
From now, we're gonna pray tahajjud.
From this time, we're gonna read Quran.
For this hour, we're gonna make du'a.
For this hour, we're gonna study fiqh, so
on and so forth, like any school, like
any zawiyah or khaniqah in the past.
Ladies and gentlemen, one more question.
What to say to a brother who won't
act as the imam of the family, the
wife leads, cut ties to his family, but
kept hers, deny parents, siblings, kids right to
know each other.
How to fix if elders die in this?
You need family counseling.
It's too big for a live stream question.
This family needs to go talk to the
local imam and explain everything.
You need sit downs.
This is one of those long nights in
the masjid sit downs with drama.
Okay, that's what this is.
How do you kindly advise a revert who
free mixes at Islamic events and settings?
Eventually, somebody can give a speech within the
speech that he's sitting there.
You could talk about it so that he
doesn't feel put on the spot.
Best strategy to go from degenerate lifestyle to
pious one, make pious friends and hang out
with them.
Cut off your degenerate friends and don't talk
to them again.
If you're so stuck, move.
Go to a new city all together.
Subhanak Allahumma wa bihamdika nashhadu an la ilaha
illa anta nastaghfiruk wa natubu ilayk wa al
-asr inna al-insana la fee khusr illa
allatheena amanu wa aminu as-salihatu wa tawasu
bil-haq wa tawasu bil-sabr wassalamu alaykum
wa rahmatullah