Suhaib Webb – AlGhazzali’s The Way of The Worshipers (Part Nine) The Obstacles of Knowledge & Repentance
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AI: Transcript ©
We praise Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
We send peace and blessings upon our beloved
Messenger Muhammad
upon his family,
his companions, and those who who follow them
until the end of time.
Brothers and sisters on Zoom here at the
ICNYU,
as well as brothers and sisters on Instagram
live. Let me try to adjust these cameras
so we're all kind of there we go.
Kind of looking at each other better.
Welcome to our weekly gathering.
As we're reading through the book Man Hajjul
Abideen
of Sayna Imam,
Al Qazari,
This
is a very important text
that is going through 7 obstacles
to living a life of faith,
and the first obstacle that we have been
discussing
is the obstacle of knowledge.
And and what is meant by an obstacle
here is something that if you don't
if you don't assume responsibility for it, then
you may fall into trouble.
And this book is not,
written for, like, specialists
or people, you know, who are, like, scholars.
This book is written for everybody.
And and my job is to explain the
text Insha'Allah and then animate it in a
way,
that is
relevant
to,
our lives Alhamdulillahi
Rabbil Alameen and to the lives of the
people
around us Alhamdulillahi.
And we stopped here towards the end on
the section on knowledge
and he says
and he's quoting Abu Yazid Al Bustami,
after talking about the challenges
and the dangers
of
of, you know, like knowledge and the methodology
that you should have when you wanna learn
religion and what you should focus on and
what are the details of the things
that you should focus on, Alhamdulillah.
He now
begins to talk about some of the dangers
and he says
if you're following it unfortunately
the translations that I've seen again,
it's not easy to translate
this text. Last week towards the end my
mind I started getting tired. I made mistakes
in translation.
It's not it's not simple, right? It's not
an easy thing. So we ask Allah Ta'ala
and Yesilana,
Yesilana Al Amra Insha'Allah.
Qala Abu Yazid Al Bustami
Al Bastami is near Nisapore which is an
area now known as you know part of
Iran.
He says,
He mentions that Abu Yazid says that I
worked on my nafs like, I worked on
myself, whatever that means, my character,
the inner qualities,
worship, being a better person, being a better
man.
I worked in all these things for over
30 years.
And he says,
And I found nothing more difficult
than knowledge in being,
you know,
the dangers that knowledge brings. What he means
is what we talked about last week, like
learning for the wrong reasons.
And then Imam Al Azari he says
and he says, be careful that Shaitan
after you hear about the dangers of knowledge
showing off, not learning for the right reasons,
After hearing all that he says be careful
that Shaitan doesn't try to trick you with
that and make you say
that shaitan will say to you know like
if these are the dangers
associated with learning then you should just stop
learning like don't engage.
Imam Khazali says be careful of that,
he said don't don't fall for that. Don't
fall into that kind of negative
assumption because it has been narrated
on behalf of the prophet
Prophet says that he you know, on the
night of Mi'raj, he was raised
and he saw that night he
was presented to the hellfire. He saw what
was going on in *.
And I found that the majority of the
inhabitants of * were the poor
so the Sahaba immediately said, like from wealth
he said no they were poor
meaning they didn't have knowledge.
The Sayyidina Imam Al Ghazali says that makes
sense because the person who doesn't learn,
he's repeated this over and over and over
again as though he's trying to say, this
is why you learn.
The reason that we learn is to become
better in worship.
So he says for the person who doesn't
learn,
then that person is not going to be
able
to conform to the rules of worship
nor to establish the rights and responsibilities of
worship
as he or she has been commanded.
Then he says, you know,
if somebody were to worship Allah for 70
years like the angels on ignorance,
because
we have to make a point here, then
they would still be a loser.
Why? Because part of ignorance is intention part
of knowledge is to have the right intention.
So for 70 years, right, this is kind
of hyperbolic race,
making hyperbole, this kind of hyperbolic
statement.
But what he's saying is if someone did
a lot of worship
and they did so on ignorance, they'll be
losers.
So work hard. Someone's asking,
Then he says
he said so
he says, so struggle hard in seeking knowledge.
Someone's asking on Instagram,
how can I go back to Allah? Masha'Allah,
you just started that beautiful question. Allahu Akbar.
Masha'Allah.
If someone ask, how can I go back
to Allah? You you're already back?
Subhan Allah, Allah has guided you to ask.
And
today we're gonna talk about Tawbah
Alhamdulillah Alahu Khulihah. And that's what this book
is about. This book is about practical
the practical application of this relationship with Allah.
What's called
So he says
Sayyidina Abu al Khazali says therefore
you got to work hard, right?
After what the prophet
just said he saw
on
then work hard so you can establish worship
and worship correctly
and avoid laziness
because if you don't,
He said you're going to be astray. We
ask Allah to protect us.
Then he says as he completes kind of
this section and now he's gonna talk about
some of the foundations of belief that are
agreed upon by Ahlul Sunnah Alhamdulillah.
He says, and
he said, you know the the summary of
all of this you need to know as
far as knowledge.
He says
to summarize all of this when it comes
to the issues of faith,
if you were to look at the word
actually comes from a word
which means to direct you to something other
than
what you're looking at.
Say the word daleel is something that directs
you to something else, not itself.
So that's why we say everything
everything in creation
is an evidence for the existence of Allah
because it's not Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
as a mission in the Quran. So the
word dala'il
here he says if you are to ponder
on the
dala'il of creation, the creation of Allah
and you are to think like, you know,
means, you know, you really invested your thoughts.
And you would know that you as well
as us,
we have an ilah,
there's a God,
in control of all things,
who
knows all things,
Hayyan
who's living,
Mouridan
whose will of course
is before creation,
who sees and hears all things,
who speaks
and who is transcends any physical notions of
speech,
knowledge, and will. Right? Our speech, our knowledge,
and our will has a beginning and an
end, what's called.
Where in Islam,
we say that God Almighty
Allah is
beyond
any type of, oops, sorry, any type
of physical
representation
or existence.
Someone's asking, do you consider the Ash'aris part
of Ahlul Sunnah? The Ash'aris are Ahlul Sunnah,
Alhamdulillah.
As mentioned by Imam Safrani
Alhambari Al Ahlul Sunnah Thalatha.
In Aqida we have 3 Madhhabs, the only
one who denied this are the Salafis and
the extreme extreme Sufis. But the majority of
Sunnis Alhamdulillah
we say in the madhhabs of Aqeedah, there
are 3 madhhab of Ahlul Sunnah.
This is also mentioned by Sayidna Imam
What I'm about to say is mentioned by
the majority of them. You should stay away
from this fitna. And Imam Abu Hazan Ashari,
he's from the salaf,
from the time of the salaf.
But the majority of Sunnis throughout history have
been Ashari. That's why Al Azhar, Ashari.
Syria, Ashari,
Morocco,
Ashari, Jazayer, Libya,
Ashari,
Senegal,
Mali, Nigeria,
Sudan,
Sumal,
Congo,
Malaysia, Indonesia,
Bosnia,
Albania,
Turkey.
So we should think,
if I wanted to split Sunnis,
if I wanted to divide Sunnis,
the best way I can do that is
to tell them that their ulama are wrong
and astray, that their aqeeda is wrong and
astray, and now it's allowed to oppose them
and fight them. And this is what happened
to us.
Of course, in Saudi Arabia, you used to
be Ashari
and Matridi, as you used to be Madiki.
The majority of Hijaz was Mariki and Sha'afin.
Me personally I believe in this wide definition
of Ahlus Sunnah is held by the majority
of the Ulema Alhamdulillah
as mentioned by Sayyidina Imam Safarini
in Alumah
who says RadiAllahu
Anhu that Ahlus Sunnah are 3
in Afghanistan
like in Pakistan
parts of Iran
and most people don't even know about this
stuff, why you want to bring this up
and fight about this?
But this quote is very important, Sayyidina Imam
al Safarini,
he said that in
the madhhabs of Aqeedah we have 3 groups,
the madhhab of Ahlul Hadith
and the Imam of the Ahlul Hadith is
Sayyidna Imam Ahmad Muhammad radiAllahu anhu.
The second is
what we call Ahlul Kalam, Wa Ahlul Kalam,
Imam Uhum,
the 2 Imams, Imam Abu Hasan al Ashari
and Imam Abu Mansoora al Maturidi
Alhamdulillah. And the 3rd
as mentioned by Sayyidina Suki is
Those people
on the way of Sophia
who agree with 1 of the 2 above.
We don't need to, like,
fight about this and
get involved in this stuff. This is a
fitna
that was purposely put into a community.
Now people are witnessing the evacuation of Palestinians,
genocide,
the violation of their human rights. And you
and I, we have time to talk about
secondary issues of aqeedah. What's the fruit of
aqeedah if you can't defend your own community?
I
studied with both. I studied in my early
days, I was Salafi. I studied with the
students of Sheikh Ibn Usaymeen.
Alhamdulillah, I continued to learn and continued to
learn, and I learned from scholars Alhamdulillah, and
I felt my own personal
peace of mind
with
And also we should realize, you and I,
we don't have a right to ask each
other this question. What's your akhida? What's your
madhab?
This is strange, man. The Sayidina Imam Al
Azari, what he's mentioned now, all of the
agree on except one point,
that the Hanabi that some of the Hanabi
that differ over. I'll mention it when we
get to it.
He said that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala transcends
human speech and human knowledge and human will
and that Allah has no shortcomings and no
blemishes
excuse me, he's not described in a way
which shows temporality
and it's not possible for us to grieve
about him or to assume about him
anything related to creation
and he is not like anything from his
creation
and nothing is like him
And he does not reside in a place
or a direction
physically
nor does he enter or come in or
come out,
right. We don't believe this Allah
Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala Transcendent.
Then he said the second thing was
and
if you look at the miracles of the
Prophet
salallahu
alayhi
wa salam you will know if you think
just for a little bit about the role
of the Prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and his miracles and his
character and his teachings, everything he brought,
you would know that he's the messenger of
Allah, Sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam, and that he is the
one that Allah entrusted
to impart his revelation to us,
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Yeah. The other thing he said is you
have to believe and what
the
the
the early Muslims, the first three generations
believed about that Allah
will be seen in the hereafter,
as we know is mentioned in the authentic
Hadith of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam.
And that Allah exists but he is not
regulated to
a place which is Mahduda which can be
measured
That
the Quran
That the Quran is the speech of Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala it is not his creation
and that of course,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala speech
does not have letters or a sound. This
is a slight difference between
sadaat al asha'ira
was some of the
about sound and letters and
Understanding this difference, if you're taking an akhida
class, this is not the purpose of this
class, it's not gonna cause you to pray
at night, man, it's not gonna cause you
to be a better husband or a better
wife, just know that there's this difference
in this opinion.
Because if Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala spoke with
sounds which are measured or letters which are
contained
then this would make him like creation.
If you understand rhetoric here, this is called
Imam al Qazari was a great writer, so
if you look at these two words those
of you who are seeing it in Arabic,
and
here if you look he inverted the and
the lam here,
this is,
showing you that he has style, like Masha'Allah,
he knows how to write.
And means like a moment of thought.
Like the you know, just just for a
split second,
and just you look for a second
that there's no
simple thought or brief glance
except it's caused
by the qada of Allah and the qadr
of Allah. But this here, just FYI it's
not super important but if you speak Arabic
it's nice to know this, It's called
means I have 2 words
and they both have the same letters but
in different order and I use them right
after one another. This is called jinas al
kalb, from what's called the al mumbadir.
Al mumbadir is the sign the science of
how do you make your speech, like, nice.
How do you decorate your speech?
For Sayyidina,
uh-uh, Imam Abuhamad says
Allahu Akbar
except with the defined decree of Allah
and then how that decree has
shown itself in creation.
And his will
and if you speak Arabic
this is called the
the same meaning
means the same thing the will of Allah.
And this is one of the foundations that
all Ahlul Sunnah agrees upon that good and
evil comes from Allah.
And benefit and harm us from Allah.
Somebody may ask how do I understand Allah's
blessings
because we say that's from his fadl,
from his Fadl,
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala his Benevolence.
How do we understand things like people are
disbelievers,
harm, pain, suffering,
from his justice.
But the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said,
And nobody can force Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
to do anything. He doesn't owe anyone anything.
As I just
said, whoever He chooses to reward in the
hereafter, this is from His blessings and His
benevolence
and whoever
he punishes, this is from his justice
And you have to believe also
on those things that the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam told us about related to the hereafter.
So what the imam has done again quickly,
and this is not even the subject of
his book,
is given you the aqeedah that you would
need to go to Jannah, in a page
and a half,
A page and a half, and he divided
it into 3 parts.
The first is what's called
the science of
God. The second is
prophethood.
And the third
is
called
a
Those things that you that are unseen, you
have to hear it. You have to hear
it from the Quran, you have to hear
it from Sayyid Al Aqwan
This is the way of the majority of
Sunnis how they teach theology.
What's we have to believe, what's impossible to
believe, what's probable to believe,
The same thing with the prophet
and then what's called a Samayat. I remember
in Al Azhar, in the Alameda course, in
the Alim program, when I was taking the
test,
and I had never seen the word
before.
So as I was studying, I asked the
teacher,
What's a he said,
The unseen, you have to hear it, it's
a nice word,
And why did they use this word
To show you that these are not things
you can infer from your heart. You know,
I feel like the hereafter is like this
man, or like I had a dream
or some strange experience,
have to be heard,
Masha'Allah,
from
Al Ambia
and from the Quran.
Masha'Allah,
look at the dukkah of the ulama in
the Ibarah,
the precision of the scholars in terms
because some people nowadays like I have this
cool feeling,
you know, I was eating some
really spicy food and suddenly I realized like
this is the reality.
It has to be heard from the Quran
and from Sayyidina Aqwan
What What is Al Hashar? Al Hashar means
when everyone is going to be gathered together
near Baytul Maqdis,
and today we're seeing the genocide
and the eviction
of Palestinians in this area,
we ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
to make us in a situation where we
build enough power instead
of fighting all the time and arguing over
things that we build power to support one
another
and to support our community
and to support the organizations Alhamdulillah
who are doing this great work on the
ground,
trying to help Alhamdulillah
people there.
1 nashar And nashar means, of course, when
people will come out of their grave and
we know the first person
to come out of the grave will be
Sayna Muhammad
You have to believe in the adhab of
kabr, this is the opinion of the majority,
this is Orthodox.
Mainstream
theologians
across history Alhamdulillah
have a firm belief in the punishment of
the grave and
being asked by the 2 angels,
who is your Lord,
what's your deen, and who taught you?
So what he just did is he modeled
for you what's called Al Ghibiyat Samayat.
What are the Ghibiyat? Those things you have
to learn about through Wahi,
like for
example, the hashar,
the nashar,
the
mizan,
the scales, well sirat
where people will pass over *. Then look
what he says,
These are the foundations of belief.
And he said these foundations are what the
early Muslims
held as being mainstream beliefs in which they
cling to.
Here he says something very important that the
consensus of early Muslims
on these issues of faith the Ijma' which
is a binding consensus
occurred before the prevalence of bira,
before there were differences about theology.
And people started to follow their desires.
And
Sayyidina Al Khazali says, We ask Allah to
protect us from innovation and religion, heterodoxy
and following our desires
without any dariel.
Then he says
And
now he gets to the subject matter of
the book.
When it comes to knowledge, he says, Then
you need to think about and ponder on
the.
The word for the actions of the heart
is hal,
ahwal.
The word for the actions of the limbs
is efal,
firil.
And when both the hal and the fiil
align is called amal,
needs to pay attention to this.
So the
actions of the heart are called
like we say, the actions of the limbs
are called
when those come together
with the mind
and the intention is called Amal.
That's why Allah the prophet
said that's why Allah says
and this goes against
the 2 extremes we see in society today.
Some people just say, oh, it's about my
heart,
One time, one brother, he said to me,
I pray in my heart. I said, you're
not having cardiac arrest. How you pray in
your heart, man?
You know, brother, I just pray in my
heart.
And then we find some people, they just
focus on the outer and neglect the inner.
They're they're harsh. Imam, Ibloo Jhozey,
said, how many people,
they have
their their pants above their ankle,
but their heart is busy looking at other
people. So, like, even though they they did
that out of humility, like their pants above
their ankle, which is not a farr, it's
it's considered recommended,
they did that, subhanAllah,
but then they're busy looking down on other
people so it's like they they blotted out
their humility with their arrogance.
We wanna bring both together,
the heart and the mind and the limbs
as well Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in
the Quran
Allah loves the people of Tawba and the
people of outer purity,
Tawba is the inner purity, Tahara is the
outer physical purity, Allahu Akbar.
So the Sheikh, he says,
He says, as it pertains to the stuff
that's related to the heart, look at it,
we're gonna address it in this book.
And now he does something very nice. He
shows you the subtle relationship between acts of
devotion
and the heart.
Because after someone has started to work on
their heart and purify their heart and try
to be a better person, he says, then
you're going to look at what you need
in order to perform that
from purity, from salah,
from fasting and things similar. So the relationship
between
purification of the heart and worship.
If you do that
then you have
successfully performed the obligation that Allah
has commanded you to use to worship him
when it comes to knowledge. So now he's
coming to the end of the section,
and what he's saying is you learn faith,
you learn about the science of the heart,
and you translate this into good deeds, if
you do this,
then a data
Arabic, then you have successfully
observed and performed what Allah has obligated upon
you.
In relationship to what
are the, what is the component of worship
when it comes to knowledge.
And you've become from those people
who have
knowledge which has rusuk,
strong foundation
He says something beautiful, and if you accept
this,
right, and you act on what you know,
and you keep the hereafter in front of
you, then you are going to be those
servants of Allah who have knowledge,
who
worship for Allah's sake upon clarity and insight
without ignorance.
You're not someone who just goes with the
flow or is negligent.
And that is for you a great honor.
And your knowledge then has incredible value
and of course this reward is going to
be great.
And then at that moment you passed beyond
now
Our first obstacle,
your first hurdle,
knowledge.
We spent a lot of time on this,
man.
And what did he talk about? What's knowledge?
The necessity of knowledge,
the location of knowledge, religious knowledge
as being central to our lives,
then what is it that we have to
learn?
The three things, faith,
practice, and the heart.
Then he went through each one of those,
how much do you have to know?
Then he talked about some of the dangers
of knowledge, showing off, getting the likes, doing
it for the gram, getting attention,
exhibition.
And then at the end, again, he goes
back to some of the foundations and he
says the purpose of this book is to
work on this,
the heart.
Then he says,
very beautifully,
He said and Allah is the one who
is responsible
for guiding us and extending our lives and
our path
towards proper guidance and facilitation.
And indeed Allah is the most merciful of
those who grant mercy and there's no
movement or power
except by the will of Allah.
So congratulations, you finished
the first hurdle.
That takes us now
to the second hurdle,
the second obstacle,
and he says,
So, the first challenge in living a life
of faith and devotion is knowledge and and
all those things that are packed into it.
Now the second challenge,
Wa'alaikum Salam Rahmatullah Yusuf,
is Tawba,
Repentance.
Masha'Allah the Sheikh, he finished the last section
by saying
The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said that
he said that the statement
is a treasure from Jannah.
Some of the righteous people they said about
that it has an incredible
impact in repelling the shayateen
and the jinn.
And they're saying
brings about provisions,
brings about a sense of autonomy in a
healthy way and healing.
Ask Allah
brings about strength,
and it brings about strength and pushes away
weakness.
And the sheikh, he says,
Sayyidina Al Khazali says the second
obstacle
is Tawba.
One of our teachers used to say about
Tawba,
that Tawba is the foundation of the religion,
the first step of the seeker,
and the anchor
of those who are like
looking for Jannah.
We know there's a lot of ayaat in
the Quran that encourage us to make Tawba.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says about repentance
Shaitanur Rajeem
Allah says, and repent all of you to
Allah, O believers,
and you will be successful.
Allah says,
Allah loves the people of Tawba and loves
the people of purity, we talked about that
verse earlier.
And the prophet Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam said,
oh people,
Sayna Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, oh people,
repent to Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
for indeed, I repent to Allah
at least a 100 times a day.
You know, sometimes you may feel
that your sins, I may feel that our
sins are too great,
but we know that,
Washi,
the one who killed Sayidina Hamza,
Sayidina Abbas he mentions that Washi,
he sent a letter to the Prophet Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam
and he said,
I want to become Muslim
He said, but there's a verse of the
Quran that prevents me from coming to Islam.
Was sent to you, oh Muhammad, alayhis salatu
Islam. It's the verse Allah says,
Imagine in the time of the process of
the non Muslims, they could quote the Quran.
Don't be shocked.
Ma'am Mohammed
Abdou,
when he was in Lebanon,
one of his student students,
student students told me
that
the Christians used to come to his tafsir.
They used to attend the tafsir of Sheikh
Mohammed Abdul,
and somebody asked them, and if you understand
Lebanon,
that's not easy.
And somebody asked, Sayna,
someone asked, why do you guys attend
the tafsir of Sheikh Mohammed Abdul?
Said nastafeed
because we benefit from him.
We cannot only locate the Quran as a
book for Muslims,
But the Quran in Surat of Furqan,
this chapter which Washi is quoting from,
Allah says in Surat Al Furqan,
blessed be the one
who revealed the criterion to his servant Muhammad
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So it could be for
the Muslims
or for creation,
a reminder
for everyone,
except Joe Osteen is an uneducated
peddler of the gospel of prosperity.
It's very easy to tell everybody everything's
great. God is love.
Get rich. God loves you. That's easy to
tell people, But then when people are outside
of your church during a flood and you
won't let them in, are you really,
really a peddler of paradise?
Or a peddler of something else?
Because religion can't only be about feeling good.
Religion is about responsibility.
Rabban ayadi.
So washi
And, you know, not to go off, but
talk about the
prosperity gospel
pushed by people like Joel Osteen.
In his own book, it says that Christ
came into the church and
turned the tables over. We had to be
very careful who we take our religion from
because oftentimes
carriers of religion
may
actually be reflecting
parts of the secular society which are not
permissible for us to engage in, but
it pulls on the heart. It brings about
a sense of comfortability.
Islam is not about likes and friends, man,
it's about the haqq
and presenting it in a nice way,
So, Washi, he sends this letter to the
Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he says, I
will become Muslim except the verse that says,
those who call on other than Allah, like
people who pray to Jesus
or prophets,
and those who have killed
unjustly,
and those,
right,
who have
fallen into fornication.
He
said,
Why? She said, I did all this,
I did all
3. Is it possible for me to repent?
Imagine the person who killed Hamza,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala heard him.
The person who killed the uncle of the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
SubhanAllah,
nowadays, we don't listen to the sinners,
we don't listen to the people that are
trying to come back, like earlier today this
sister who typed
and she said I want to come back
to Allah, you're already back if you're asking,
welcome home.
The Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala heard the voice
of the one who killed Sayedna Hamza,
The of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam because
when he wrote this question, it was read
to the Prophet,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala revealed
When this was read to the prophet, the
verse came,
except those who repent
from those things
and believe
and do good.
Listen to this verse, man.
Listen to this verse if you feel like
you're struggling,
then indeed,
if they do that,
Allah will exchange the evil they did for
good.
SubhanAllah.
And that was
sent back to Washi, this verse.
Then he Washi said,
Then Washi wrote back, he said, but in
the verse, it says, those who do good,
I don't know
if I actually can be from the people
who constantly do good. Like, I'm not the
best guy. Look at the moment of vulnerability,
man.
We have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable
with one another
so we can expose each other to Allah's
forgiveness.
I may not forgive you,
you may not forgive me, but Allah can
forgive us both.
And when we don't allow each other to
be honest and vulnerable with one another,
then how can we shine
Allah's Rahmah
and see
hope through that mercy?
So, he wrote back, he said, I don't
know if I can do that, man. I
don't know if I'm you know, one of
the conditions is those who do good, I'm
not the best guy.
If you can't forgive yourself, at least know
Allah will forgive you.
Someone asked, what if we can't forgive ourself?
Allah can forgive you. It's not your business.
But we talked about this, we'll talk about
it later. We should never allow a mistake
to
reach the point
that it destroys our ability to be better
people.
So he wrote back,
the end of the chapter,
Thanks for asking.
May Allah bless you.
Imagine everyone now who looks at the end
of
Adam is gonna get edger for it. So
he wrote back, he said, I don't know
if I'm that good of a person. I
don't know if I could do that.
Then that was presented to the prophet
and then Allah revealed
Allah forgives every sin except shirk and also
he forgives shirk
in. This life,
what it means he doesn't forgive shirk after
death.
No, no problems, I like contrarians anyways,
Contreans are fine, alhamdulillah, it's some people that's
how some people learn,
right? Some people learn by asking questions and
engaging, I don't, that's not a bad thing.
So then Allah revealed this verse,
as long as you don't commit shirk, you're
good bro,
just do your best.
Then he said, but there's also
another
condition, Washi said, in this verse
that says,
Allah will forgive.
I fear Allah won't forgive me. Then the
other verse came from Surah Zomer
Say my servants who have wronged yourself, it
is forbidden to give up on the mercy
of Allah.
And when he heard this, Masha'Allah,
al Madinahu
alaaslam,
Allah.
When he heard this,
he came to Madinah and he embraced Islam.
Now sometimes maybe because the world around us
hates Islam and hates Muslims, we have
inadvertently began to hate ourselves,
or we replaced Islamic values with other -isms
and we use those other -isms as a
way to hate one another.
So sometimes even people who try to become
Muslim, people give them a hard time, man.
Look at this, though.
Look at this person. He's the murderer of
Hamza,
and he's extremely vulnerable.
And he keeps saying, but this, but this,
but this, but this, but this, and it
ends Allah
forgives all sins, buddy.
And he comes to Medina
and Allahu Akbar,
he embraced Islam.
Saydee Ibrahim
he was shown masha Allah different types of
people,
and every time they were doing a sin,
he would ask Allah to destroy them.
Then Allah said,
He said, stop, like leave my servants alone
because my servants fall into 1 of 3
categories.
The first is someone who repents,
and I forgive them.
The second is someone
The third maybe that person doesn't repent,
but I will bring from them
offspring who will worship me,
like Ta'if, like me.
And the third,
and the person who's overcome SubhanAllah
by evil, that person will go to *.
Meaning, I bring Berensha business.
So now we reached
the second obstacle,
a
Tawba.
Prophet Muhammad
then he says,
then upon you, O secret of worship,
any of you watching now, if you're new
to this class, what you wanna understand is,
Imam al Ghazari, what did he say the
entire goal of everything we're talking about is?
For you to worship.
So the the premise by which you want
to look at all this is how can
I be a better worshiper? How do I
take knowledge and translate that into worship? Not
likes, not attention,
not arguments,
not debates, not splitting the umma. How do
you take what you learned
and pray at night? How do you take
what you learned and serve people? How do
you take what you learned and heal a
shattered world? One of the challenges of the
Muslim community
is that knowledge now is for the sake
of knowledge, but that's not what knowledge is.
Someone ask Imam, ibn Abbas radiAllahu anhu,
what is knowledge? He said, knowledge is the
reverence of Allah.
So understand how he's talking,
for Sayyidina Imam he says,
And this class is for mature people. If
you're one of those people, I don't know
who's Al Ghazali, who are you? You should
know yourself like you know yourself more than
you know Ghazali.
No. The way you talk like you know
Ghazali more than you know yourself.
This imam, what about you?
I remember
one time there was 1 brother
in the with us and every time a
name was mentioned he would have something to
say.
And then afterwards, he took me to the
side and he said, man, can you help
me? I'm having trouble praying Fajr.
You can't pray Fajr,
but you got time to go after the
big wigs. You got time to go after
the that
shows you there's a problem.
When you're able to project your weaknesses and
your anger and your anxiety and madness and
frustration
on Hazari
or any other luminary from history, but you
yourself are so messed up and broken.
What does it tell you?
That's why Sayyidina Imam al Muhasibi said,
is sufficient of a shame for a person
that he or she is constantly critical of
others for things that he or she does
themselves.
Oh you who seek worship, this is what
you need to do.
May Allah guide us,
you need to think about repentance.
And that's for 2 things,
two reasons,
The first is so that you will be
guided to obedience.
Fa'in shawum
zanubi
yurithulhurman
wa
Wa Annaqaydazunubiyamna'u
ani shayd Anil mashi'ilaa
ta'ati lahi azaawajal.
What he says is because sins have an
impact,
and the first is that sin leads to
haram.
And causes a person to fall into destruction,
and that the chains of sin
keep someone from moving towards
the obedience of Allah Azzawajal.
Ilahitmatihi
and racing to serve the dina of Allah
says something beautiful,
he says the heaviness of sin, the weight
of sin
keeps someone from being light
in moving towards
good, being
in good actions in obedience of Allah.
And to be consistent in sinning
which blurs the heart
He said because you know, constantly doing the
same sin over and over and over again
is gonna make your heart blurred,
and you're gonna find your heart in the
state of loss and harshness.
And there'll be no,
you know,
we say
when the sky has no clouds, it's, like,
really clear,
it's the same where you say you're not
going to find this in your heart man,
when there's going to be no sweetness
and no joy truly in the heart,
You
Allah
Allahummaqfirla
wahamna wa tabunna You Rabb.
And if Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala wasn't for
his grace,
And if it wasn't for Allah's grace and
mercy,
those sins will leave someone eventually to
He said how incredible
is Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala that he guides
those people who are stuck
in loss and sin and harshness.
And how?
I'm gonna put it in the active sense
even though it's in the passive in Arabic
and how Allah
guides people to service
even though they're headed towards disobedience,
and they are like established
upon sin and harshness.
And how can anyone
flee to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
when they are polluted
and covered with filth and impurities.
So what he's talking about here and we're
gonna finish insha Allah because of time,
is the importance of repentance.
How can I go to a party if
I'm filthy?
How can I present myself in any place
if I'm unclean?
So what he's saying is,
let's just talk about the importance of repentance,
that to step into the relationship with
and to be covered with
the
filth of sin and disobedience.
So therefore, before I step into that situation,
I have to repent.
I have to turn to Allah,
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Every place has conditions for
us to enter, our house,
the school,
our work,
the gym,
the restaurant,
no shoes, no shirt, no service,
relationship with Allah
the condition is Tawba.
To repent to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala promises for whoever
repents to him,
the Khalaas attaibbu the Prophet said whoever repents
is like nobody
that has sinned. Next week in Shaa Allahu
Ta'ala
because after forgive me, towards the end my
mind does start to get exhausted man, trying
to think in 2 languages.
We're gonna continue on this first,
SubhanAllah,
second obstacle,
the obstacle of Tawbah.
We finished Alhamdulillah,
congratulations,
the obstacle of knowledge.
Now Alhamdulillah,
we continue to
the obstacle,
the challenge, the hurdle
of repentance.
Ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala You
Ask Allah Subhana Wa Ta'ala to give us
Tawfiq, ask Allah to bless
brothers and sisters in Palestine,
Kashmir.
If you have any questions, we can take
them now. If not, next week, Insha'Allah,
we're gonna continue
with a Tawbah.