Suhaib Webb – AlGhazzali’s The Way of The Worshipers (Part Ten) The Hurdle of Repentance
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Welcome everybody to our weekly gathering
reading through
of Sayyidina Imam,
Al Qazari
And we noted that this text is going
to talk about 7
issues
that a person is going to find as
they try to live a a life of
faith,
and devotion.
And we went through the
first
issue, the first challenge was knowledge.
And now that takes us to the second
challenge if you will or obstacle
So Imam Al Ghazari, he says
How could Tawba be a challenge
if we failed to utilize it?
Imam
Ashaikh Ahmad ad Dardir, he says
Ashadu'ara shaitan
min tobetul mummin, like there's nothing more difficult
and hard for shaitan than when somebody repents,
when someone of faith repents.
And Allahu Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in the Quran,
he says,
Repent to all of you believers you will
succeed.
And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wa'arihi Wasallam
he said, by Allah I repent to Allah
and I seek his forgiveness
70 times a day. Now the narration from
Abu Hurairah
says a 100 times a day.
Sallallahu Wa Salam.
So Tawba becomes
a problem if we fail to use
it and that's why SubhanAllah there's a really
beautiful statement
that someone who fails to repent
should make repentance for failing to utilize
the power of repentance,
SubhanAllah.
So the next few weeks insha'Allah we're going
to go through this obstacle
and hopefully be able to translate this obstacle
into something that can be a tool that
we use.
So the Shaykh, he says,
And he says, then it becomes
obligatory upon you, you who are seeking worship,
Ibad
and that's a very, very important statement of
the iman.
What is it that you and I seek?
What is it that we truly seek in
what we do?
So while we say that
a believer is always asking his or herself
2 questions, why and how?
Why do I do what I do,
and how do I do it?
So the Sheikh he says, Talibu
alaibadati,
right?
Talib alaibada,
you who seeks
worship,
SubhanAllah.
Wafakk Allahu ta'ala
b Tawba. He said if you really seek
worship
then you should be consummate
in repentance.
And maybe somebody will ask why, like why
do I need to repent?
Like, we live in an age now that
is constantly filling our ego up with the
helium
of the dunya.
It's very difficult to be a pentent person
for a number of reasons. Number 1,
the failure to recognize sin.
So we say, like, Islam identifies this as
sinful behavior.
People will get an people will catch an
attitude, man.
Within the Muslim community,
people will catch an attitude
even though
and we're gonna talk about how do we
recognize sin today. Allah
has defined sin
and the prophet has defined sinful behavior.
People catch your attitude.
So that's the first.
We live in a very kinda dystopian world
where there there is no sin.
And then the second is
an inflated ego.
As one time, we were sitting with one
of our teachers and he was talking about
repentance,
and one of the brothers, he was like,
I don't need to repent.
I haven't done anything wrong.
And this was in the nineties when things
were a little bit more rough,
and the sheikh, he said, no. You're the
first person who needs to repent.
And then the brother caught
his feelings.
He said, why? And the sheikh, he said,
you need to repent for being stupid.
Only a dumb person
would think that they haven't made sin, or
fallen into some kind of sin.
And then the third is that
comfort in in the material world
is often translated
to mean
that my faith is fine.
So the glitz and the glam and the
access to the shine of the dunya
can blind us from seeing our own shortcomings.
That that feel, man, that
that
that juice
that the glitzy world gives us, man.
And we have to be very, very careful
in an age of opulence
that this opulence doesn't cause us to forget
Al Jannah, man?
So the sheikh responds to this
as though he knows exactly what we were
probably gonna say. He says that the relationship
between worship and repentance is the following
that's due to 2 things
the first
that when you repent
this brings
about the guidance to become obedient.
Fa'inna
shawuma
zanubi
yurithul
herman
wa yarqibulukhizlan
SubhanAllah.
He said because
the evil of sin
causes a person to, like,
inherit
more evil.
Being caught up in sin
without repenting, right,
leads to evil.
And punishment.
And that
the bonds of sin
prevent a person
from literally walking to Allah,
taking steps to Allah,
obedience to Allah,
having proper faith in Allah.
It is interesting that he uses the word
because we know the hadith of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam that Allah
said, if you take one step to me,
I take 10 steps to you. If you
walk to me, I run to you.
But sin is gonna stop us from being
able to walk, man. It's gonna weigh us
down.
And to race and to flee
and to be expedient
in his service.
So sin now is located by the imam
and posited
as a force
that's going to weigh us down.
And the way to to immediately remove that
is to repent.
When somebody says, man, my life is horrible.
I'm so far from Allah. Repent. As soon
as you repent, you are close to Allah
Man, I'm such a bad person, repent Alhamdulillah.
The prophet says,
the one who repents is like one who
has no sin.
So now we see the importance of repentance
as
a medicine to treat
a heart that feels like there's no hope.
Like there's never been someone who truly repents
that's not forgiven.
Allah says
The Quran says Allah
is constantly accepting
the repentance of a person.
So now we see why Imam al Khazari
locates this as an obstacle. If we fail
to use it on the journey,
then we're gonna get too heavy. We won't
be able to continue on the path.
And, also, if we feel
like we've done so many evil things, this
is a way to immediately, Alhamdulillah,
change our life and live for something better,
man.
Imam Saydna, Imam al Qushairy
is one of the great scholars. Inshallah, one
day we'll teach Risada to Qushairy inshallah.
He said that somebody asked him when does
the relationship with Allah
start?
He said
that the first step in being near to
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala in the relationship between
a person and Allah
is faith and forgiveness,
faith and Tawba.
And then the second thing is is to
constantly try to work to become better.
Allahu Akbar.
He said in that Allah's nearness to you
in this life
is first found in the sense that you
continue to gain more insight and understanding and
knowledge
of
what is really important,
Ibadah.
You have perspective. That's why the akhirah is
important. Without the without the akhirah, if you
look at a painting that doesn't have perspective,
everything looks the same.
But when it's drawn with perspective, you're able
to see through everything else and get to
the point.
The akhara gives you perspective.
It allows you to look through the dimensions
of the dunya
and to see through all that to the
hereafter.
The Muslim community, we have to be very
careful, man, that we don't get caught up
in this glitzy cool
amplification of the dunya in the name of
Dawah.
Any true person that's calling to Allah
will always amplify the
and put the dunya in its right place.
I can't be part of the problem I'm
trying to solve.
I can be aware
of the problem I'm trying to solve.
That's why the Prophet
one of the consummate one of the constant
teachings of the Prophet
is don't get caught up in all this,
man.
Don't get caught up in this. What did
he say for us about us? He said,
what I fear for you is dunya.
That's what I fear for you. Shaitan has
given up that Muslims will ever make shirk.
Alhamdulillah.
Al Ummah Muhammadiyah
Alhamdulillah,
its iman is strong, sha Allah. There's no
shirk in this Ummah, Alhamdulillah.
But what he said is, what I fear
for you is this world, is this dunya
is getting caught up
in the glitz and the glamour so you
no longer have perspective, you can't see
through it, you can only see it.
That's why the prophet
when he was walking with the Sahaba
and they saw a sheep
that had died and was decomposed
and had holes in its ear
and he grabbed it and he said,
who will pay me
a good price for this?
Okay, They said nobody nobody nobody will wanna
buy that. It's useless.
He said this is the dunya.
This is the dunya.
If we want to assess what's wrong with
the Muslim Ummah,
it is we are no longer an ummah
who lives for akhira.
We die to live
instead of living to die.
So what makes us different from any other
ummah?
We became very similar to the other communities,
but what has always made us different
is our connection to the hereafter, that perspective,
that depth.
So Sayyidina Imam he says
That's some of our Iraqi brothers and sisters
here. Alhamdulillah. May Allah bless them, InshaAllah.
We hope that America will repay you for
the war crimes
that it has continually committed against you
for the last now almost 30, 40 years.
Same with other
brothers
and
sisters.
Sheikh, he says that
you have to repent because
if you don't repent the weight of sin
will keep you from moving
to the obedience of Allah
and rushing
to serve his deen.
Because
the weight
of sin
the lightness needed
to move towards obedience
and to be active
obedience.
And
And he said because sin, it impacts
the heart,
the heart finds itself in a state of
confusing,
confusion
and harshness
and loss.
And in that heart you find no purity.
The word
actually, you know, we say
when there's no clouds in the sky. So
it's hard to translate. It means there's no
clouds in the heart, man. The heart is
not.
You can see, you can see clearly, there's
no blemishes.
And there's no true pleasure.
And there's no true sweetness in this heart.
Meaning the sweetness of Iman,
the pleasure of Iman,
the clarity of Iman.
Allah says that hearts are blind
Surah Alaihi Wa Ta'ala says that he made
iman beloved to them and
sweet in their hearts.
Then Sayyidina Imam he says
And if it wasn't for the mercy of
Allah and that person,
that sin would drive them to disbelief.
Imagine, even though Alhamdulillah
we may sin and even some of us
as Muslims
we may be into some really evil sin.
But Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has preserved and
protected the iman in our hearts
even though we are steeped in sin we
still say La ilaha illallah
Muhammad
And he says,
it's incredible.
How could someone who's steeped in sin and
evil
be guided to obedience?
You Allah
And how?
How
can someone
serve Allah
when they are consistent
in disobeying Allah.
And they are,
you know, we say mokeen.
They are a resident of evil.
Allah
And how can someone
truly flee to Allah
when they are covered by the filth
and impurities
of sin.
Then he mentions a narration
attributed to the prophet. The sound narration actually
with a little different wording is related by
Sayyidina Mittirmidhi.
The sunnun of Sayyidina Mittirmidhi InshaAllah one day
we can teach it to our students.
One of my teachers used to say
Whoever has the sunnah of Imam at Tirmidi
in their house
is like the prophet live with them.
Sallallahu
Alaihi Wasallam.
Anyways, the imam he mentions this narration
Allahu
Akbar.
The Hadith, this narration is different than no
one in Tir Midi but the Hadith is
similar
in meaning
that when somebody tells a lie,
the 2 angels that are
there to
collect
our deeds, they pull away from this person
because of the filthy
smell emanating from his or her mouth.
This smell, of course, is not a physical
smell.
This is a smell of
SubhanAllah,
this is a spiritual smell.
Even the malaika pull away from the person,
Allahu
Akbar.
Allahu Akbar.
We also know this in the hadith of
the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam whoever fasts,
you know their breath is like rih al
misk.
Some people they got this confused, they thought,
Oh, when I fast,
my breath smells like musk. No, to the
malaika
next to you
or in Jannah.
That now brings us to the question, what
is sin?
We live in a world now where people
question authority to the point they question the
authority of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and revelation
to designate what is sinful behavior.
But if we believe in the Quran and
believe in the sunnah,
then we know that those
are the sources for defining sin.
In Sharia,
sin is
is anything which opposes the commands of Allah.
So a sin is to do anything which
opposes
a clear command of God
or to do something
that opposes the clear command of Allah,
either in the Quran
or in the sunnah of the Prophet
that's sin.
That's sin.
And in our relationship
to repentance,
as Muslims,
in all honesty,
when we repent,
we actually repent from being like 1 of
2 people.
The first are those who
know and don't act on what they know.
They know,
but they don't act.
I know this is wrong,
but for whatever reason,
khalas.
I'm not supposed to
do something right and I don't do it.
This is we
find in Surat of Fatiha.
The second are those people who don't know
but try to do a lot of things.
Say now, Omar, even Abdul Aziz used to
say either
Say now Amr ibn Abdul Aziz used to
say whoever acts without knowledge
will
do more evil than good.
Then he says,
So using the Hadith he mentioned earlier,
that the prophet
said when somebody lies, the angel
the 2 angels pull away from that person
because of the filthy smell of their mouth.
Sayyidina Imam Al Ghazari,
he says,
So then how is it possible that a
tongue that lies
can be suitable to remember al Haqq?
So, somebody who is constantly
like steeped in evil,
and not repenting, and not turning back to
Allah,
they're not going to experience success.
Know
nor will they find it
like easy to worship.
They won't be able to use their limbs
because those they're doing the opposite of what
Allah created them for.
Allah created us for Ibadah, now we're using
ourselves in a way which is contrary to
its purpose.
And and here here's something very important that
we we we wanna think about
because we don't want people to get distraught.
Right? We don't want people to
to give up or or to get distraught.
So he's saying what I'm talking about now
is
for people who do not repent.
Khala Sayani,
he's he's talking about this in the context
of someone who's doing evil but doesn't repent,
right?
Of course, we all fall into evil. We
all make mistakes. We all sin.
And the best sinners are are those who
repent, as the prophet mentioned. But he was
talking about someone who's just obstinate. You know
what? They don't repent. They just keep doing
it, doing it, doing it, and they don't
care.
And
this is like if perchance
that person was going to,
you know,
be guided
there would be no real sweetness in this
guidance.
And all that is because they are steeped
in sin and have left repentance.
Actually, this is a very beautiful statement
of the imam
that many of our spiritual ancestors
have shared with us.
And that is that if somebody finds it
heavy to worship, and here he mentions fasting
in the daytime
and praying in the nighttime. He's not talking
about health issues, that's very different. What he's
talking about here is a a spiritual lethargy.
A spiritual laziness.
So people may ask, what is the sign
that I need to repent?
So here he's saying, if you find
it weighty and difficult to worship,
you are then
maqbulun,
captured
qad,
qabbalatka,
kati atuk. You have been
ensnared
by your sins.
So the way to loosen that is to
repent.
Fahadihi hadihi. And he said, this is what
it is.
Right?
You you gotta take it upon yourself to
repent
regularly, and I repent regularly
to remove the weight of sin because the
weight of sin has an impact.
Keeps me from worship,
keeps me feeling bad. One day someone sent
me a message, they said my iman is
so low, I feel so horrible,
I can't pray. I said, repent. And they
wrote back and they said, how dare you
tell me this? How dare you tell me
to repent? Do you think you're better than
me? I said, no man.
Why did it have to go that way?
If you if you want advice,
I'll give advice. I'm not necessarily gonna give
you the advice you want, but this is
what I know works
in my own life. It's what I would
tell myself.
So the sheikh says,
this is what it is.
Watani,
the second reason that we should repent,
minal amreini
imma
The second reason for repentance
is so that your righteous deeds
and acts of devotion
will be accepted.
Fa'inna rabbadayin.
Because and what he means here is your
your nafal acts,
not the fard.
And this is one of the greatest deceptions
of shaitan, and I put something today about
it on Instagram and TikTok.
It's interesting. It's called TikTok,
and so many people wasting their minutes on
it and their seconds on it. TikTok.
Tick,
tock.
That time,
imagine every second will be for us or
against us.
He
says,
So what he's saying here is that another
reason that we need to repent regularly
is so that
our extra deeds outside of the obligatory deeds
will be accepted.
And this is one of the greatest traps
of shaitan,
That a person will not be praying Fajr,
will not be praying Isha,
will be horrible to his or her family,
will be rude to his or her parents,
but think
that because I am in Dawah,
or think because I am an influencer,
that I am absolved of those obligations,
and Allah loves me and has forgiven forgiven
me,
Even though they're not doing those obligations.
It's one of the greatest tricks of shaitan.
Why?
Someone does all those voluntary acts of good.
So they built the walls to the house,
they put the roof on the house, but
you got no foundation.
So the nice walls,
the marble,
the nice filters that you put on that
joint,
the fancy roof, it all is gonna fall.
The Quran says, it's gonna be like wool.
Fear Allah.
And that's why the Hereafter gives perspective. No
matter how many followers
someone may have.
If what they are doing is not essential
to salvation in the hereafter,
those followers will be a witness potentially against
them in front of Allah.
May Allah protect us.
There are hadith that mentioned this explicitly.
That people will see people and help.
And they will say to them, how are
you here?
You used to tell us
about the good stuff.
And they will say, I said it but
I didn't live it.
So the sheikh is saying,
repent all the time
so that your good
extra deeds will be accepted
that will buy you a little time while
you work to establish the obligatory
acts.
And he gives a very powerful example,
fa'inna
rabbiin
layaqbarulhadiyata.
Because
someone you owe a debt to, they're not
gonna accept a gift from you.
If you contacted the people we owe our
college debt to,
student loans.
And say, hey. Hey. How you doing? Hey,
man. It's me.
I've been in debt to you for, like,
40 years. What's up? What's good? How's it
going, b? Oh, everything's great. You know what,
man? I got you a PlayStation 5. That
cool? Let the debt go? I'll give you
the PlayStation 5. Everything's gravy. Right?
Cool.
Click. You think they're gonna accept the PlayStation
5?
Somebody
might, actually, but
in reality, no.
So he said, that's the same thing in
your relationship with God.
You might have a 1000000 followers on Instagram,
you might be blowing up
like a hot air balloon,
But if you are not observing what Allah
commanded you and made Farulda on you,
then you are like someone trying to give
the person you owe a debt to a
gift.
They're not gonna accept it.
Said because
the one you owe that debt to is
not gonna accept the gift in its place.
And that's why repentance
from evil
is a fault.
In And most of the worship he said
here here you can appreciate
the tricks of Shaitan.
That the majority of the acts of worship
that you do are actually not followed.
They're voluntary.
They're.
And how do you expect your charitable
donations of good deeds to be accepted
when you haven't fulfilled
the loan
that you have to pay back to your
creator.
And how do you justify
not doing certain things that are halal and
not doing certain things that are permissible
in the name of piety
why you are still committing Haram?
And he says, and how can you flee
to the 1, and turn to the 1
in dua,
and praise him
while he is angry with you?
He said, and this is the case of
most of the people who fall are consistently
caught up in sin.
Then Imam
Al Ghazari
says,
You may ask what is true repentance?
Allah says
Quran. There's another
What does
mean?
It means to go somewhere and never come
back.
If you if you ask what does that
mean? What does it mean like
Tawba Nasuha?
And you ask
And and what does a worshiper have to
do
in order to escape from sin?
Before we
share the answer of the imam,
let's talk about repentance.
Sayidna
Dhunun al Masri
was asked about Tawba, he said, Tawba
You know the the repentance of the regular
folks is from sin.
Wa ta'ba tul khawwalsi
minal ghafla.
And the repentance of those who know Allah
is to repent from negligence.
Imam Al Khazari says
Repentance
is from the actions of the heart.
It's something that the heart strives for.
And now we're going to
to to address this in a in a
much more detailed way.
And he says that in, you know, the
epistemological
framework of scholars,
Tawba is
is that the heart transcends
or moves beyond sin.
He mentions one of his teachers
and his definition of tawba
Yeah. This is heavy.
So he says, that
Tawba,
true Tawba
is to leave sin by choice.
So you have the
you've you've chosen to avoid sin,
which someone has fallen into previously.
Out of awe and love for Allah
and fearing his anger,
that definition.
And Sayyidina Imami says
says
From that we can understand that Tawba has
4 conditions. That's what we're gonna talk about
quickly.
The first is to use your utility and
to avoid sinning.
And what's important about this component of the
definition
is that it puts the onus on the
person.
Allah in the Quran warns us of being
those people
You know, when Allah guides me I'll be
good.
Of course, we ask Allah for his guidance,
and then we have to try.
So the person
in his or her own power
and utility
refrains from choosing to do the sin.
And what does that mean?
Wa yujaridahazmatuara
annahu la yahuila
zham bilbatah.
And what that means is 2 things, Number
1 is the person checks his or her
heart
and stops it from
heading to the sin,
and then also
has the resolve to never go back to
it.
This actually is really nice, man.
So what he's saying is that
when when a person feels this sense of
remorse,
they turn to Allah
that the first part of this
has to be met with, like, really three
things, regret,
number 2 is refusing to do the sin,
not allowing my heart to choose it,
and then the third is having the resolve
to never go back.
And he says, if somebody repents,
but they're like, I don't know, I don't
know, maybe maybe,
he said, we don't call this, we call
this.
They have prohibited themselves from the sin,
but there's a chance they may go back
to it. But toba the word toba means
to turn away.
Tip to ankle.
But if I haven't I'm not really sure
I'm gonna turn away. You know, I kinda
like them. I don't know. Did.
So temporarily, this is called.
He says in the second is that the
person repents from a sin which they actually
fell into.
So something that someone actually the mistake, I've
done this evil.
So that's why I say,
Sayyidina
Sayyidina Ali radiAllahu Anhu he never made tawba
for disbelief.
Why? Because Sayyidina Ali, he became Muslim when
he was 9 years old.
Even though he was Masha'Allah, a great Muslim,
one of the greatest Muslims in our Ummah.
Sayyiduna
Umar ibn Khattab, he would often repent for
his disbelief.
Why? Because Sayyidina Kareema
kufr,
he never committed kufr, so he didn't need
to repent.
But Sayyidina Umar ibn Khattab
he repented for that mistake.
So it's okay sometimes those of us like
myself,
those of us Allah
Those of us who Allah guided to Islam,
when we think about the past and some
of the mistakes
that we made,
we can repent to Allah
that's Taib.
But if somebody never fell into the sin,
this is what mutak muttaqiyyan.
Just muttaqiyyan.
That's why he mentions here, Sayyidina Imam Al
Ghazari says,
That's why Sayyidina,
he never repented for Kufr
because he never fell into Kufr even before
he was a prophet.
Sayyidina Umar, he repented because before
he fell into kufr.
So the first we said is that someone
has to be determined not to return to
the sin.
If they repent I don't know. Maybe I'm
gonna do it again. This is mumtaniyan.
The second
is that if they fell into the sin
they repent,
if they haven't fallen into the sin then
they ask Allah to protect them, alhamdulillah.
This actually is very beautiful man.
You know,
he says the third thing that you need
to know as a foundation of tawba
is that if somebody fell into sin,
say they were very young,
so their
physiological
makeup,
their biological
makeup, their emotional makeup,
and their physical makeup will not be the
same as when they become old.
So maybe when they're older
they wanna repent
but maybe Shaitan will come to them and
say, oh, now you're old,
now you wanna repent for the things you
did when you're young,
to repent generally for other sins
as a means to cover all those sins.
Masha'Allah.
How merciful is Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Sometimes you know, you meet people, oh, when
I was young, you know, I did this,
I did this, I was such a bad
person or
I was, you know, just a few years
ago, I didn't know what I know now
and I was so stupid, and
khalas too, biillallah.
He says think about an old person
who is near
their last years,
and when they were young they committed zinnah
and highway robbery.
If that person wanted to repent,
it's certainly acceptable for them to repent
because the doors of repentance are not closed
until someone dies.
Even though
at that moment in his or her life
being elderly,
they don't really have the ability to say
like, I'm not doing this.
Because they don't have the strength. Like, he
doesn't have the strength to rob.
So just because he doesn't have the ability
to do the sins he did in the
past
doesn't mean he cannot seek forgiveness for the
sins he did in the past.
SubhanAllah.
SubhanAllah.
God doesn't have the ability to do that
at all.
So basically what he's saying,
Rahim
is that, oops,
that that person,
that that person Masha'Allah,
at that moment,
may not have the ability
to to to repent
for those things.
Hold on,
I'm
Repent for those things
that he or she did when they were
young,
but there are other things that he or
she is doing as at at at that
they are old and if they repent for
like lying,
slandering,
backbiting,
spreading harmful information that's not true.
That even though those sins may be different
in the degree of evil,
that that general repentance, if done sincerely for
those things, will cover all of that, Alhamdulillah.
And he gives ex some other examples like
bidah and kufr.
He said, like, bidah is not the same
as kufr,
but if somebody were to repent for both
of them, alhamdulillah, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will
forgive them, sha Allah, if they change their
life.
The 4th is that the reason the person
leaves these sins
is out of their reverence for Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And
fleeing
from his anger.
From his punishment in the hereafter.
Sincerely
Not because the person hopes to gain something
from this world
or is scared of the people. The repentance
is for Allah.
Or that a person is doing this for
fame,
right, doing this to be praised, you know,
this person has repented and that's why we
have to be very careful with new Muslims,
You gotta allow new Muslims to grow outside
of the light of the public.
Too much attention is not good, man. There's
still a lot of work to do
Because sometimes the attention of people can blind
you from really working on yourself.
Because the attention of the people, that gas
will fill a person up, but it's not
clean gas, it's not healthy.
A person doesn't repent because they're weak because
they're weak
and, oh, fucker and they're poor, they wanna
gain some financial thing.
The Tawba is for Allah.
These are the conditions of Tawba
and its
foundations.
And if you were to fulfill these conditions,
then this is true repentance.
So the Imam, and we are going to
review it quickly, he answered the question
that a person asked. That person asked,
what is real repentance?
So he said number 1,
that toba is an action of the heart
And for that reason,
it has 4 conditions that you need to
think about.
Number 1 is that a person leaves the
sin
and has a resolve, never return back to
it.
The second, and I'm skipping through the notes
here,
is that the person is repenting for a
sin they fell into previously.
The third
is that a person does not have to
commit the and there's another reason he's saying
this. So let's say as a young person,
someone robbed the bank.
And then when they got older, they were
like, oh, I should repent for this, but
the only way I can be for forgiven
for is if I, like, rob a bank
again because there's no sin
equal to robbing a bank. He said, don't
think like that.
He said the third
that it is sufficient
at the 3rd level to repent for the
sins you've made between you and Allah only
is what he's talking about
anytime in your life
because Ma'alsi is Ma'alsi.
And then the 4th is that the repentance
is for Allah,
not for some kind of gain or fame,
not for attention,
not not for accolades,
not for anything like that, but that the
repentance
is for Allah
only.
I'm gonna stop now, if you have any
questions or thoughts next week inshaAllah we're gonna
talk about Muqaddimah
Tawba.
Muqaddimah
Tawba,
what are the first
kind of steps
to Tawba.
Today we talked about kind of the four
foundations of Tawba,
the importance of Tawba, Alhamdulillah. And
next week we'll continue Muqaddimah
to Tawbati
Fathalatun.
And today we also talked about what is
sin.
If you have any questions, if not, alhamdulillah,
this is recorded. It will be put up
later this evening on my YouTube page so
you can watch it there,
Insha'Allah,
but we meet every, Alhamdulillah,
Tuesday
at 6:30 pm Eastern.
Hamdulillah. Wa balalameen for about an hour.
InshaAllah soon we hope to be back
in NYC
doing this class live
at the ICNYU
InshaAllah.
Someone's asking how do you know if your
tawba is accepted?
First of all,
the majority of Sunni theologians
say that anyone who truly repents,
Allah has promised to forgive them.
That's the first.
The second is that a sign of good
repentance
is that it leads to good,
right? So if I've truly repented then I'm
going to see some kind of measurable change
in my life.
I'll see a measurable change in my behavior.
Any other questions? That's a great question, Mashallah.
So actually I see someone saying that if
you stop doing the sin, you know that
actually is not agreed upon
amongst
the ulama,
and the reason is the hadith of the
prophet
Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
who
Alaihi Salatu Salaam
said
that
there is a person who will commit sin,
and that person,
will repent to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
and subhanAllah
They were pinned to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
and Allah
will forgive them,
then they will fall into the sin again,
and they will repent to Allah
and Allah
will forgive them.
Then they will repent again,
and Allah
will forgive
them. So, actually scholars say that repeating the
sin is not a sign
that your repentance hasn't been forgiven,
but not repenting
is the sign.
SubhanAllah.
Alhamdulillah.
Alaihi, unfortunately we don't have any classes
for 4 year olds and 6 year olds,
but
we're working on it insha'allah
insha'allah.
Insha'Allah. We're trying our best.
People sometimes make mistakes, man. It's not easy
to leave sin.
Right? So maybe somebody's repented but they struggle,
but they keep repenting. The person keeps repenting.
Alhamdulillah, that's what the hadith says. Masha'Allah, Masha'Allah.
Any other questions for folks here?
How can one influence ones around you to
repent? That's such a great question, mashallah, Mahin.
May Allah bless you,
mashallah,
what a question. Mahin asked a question of
the night. Everyone give a big
clap for Mahin. Mashallah, Mashallah.
First of all, is to repent yourself,
right? To be someone who's upright,
to be someone
who does what they say,
to be someone who also is repenting,
that they see that example.
And then I think it's important to think
around around the surroundings. We're gonna talk about
this, what are the triggers to sin?
So instead of telling them like, repent, maybe
try to work on the things that are
triggering that evil. Okay, Mehin?
How to overcome helplessness?
Just read the Basmalah,
Masha'Allah.
Allah is Arrahman Ar Raheem.
Allah Khayr,
alhamdulillah,
Allah is present and here, alhamdulillah.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is constantly present,
he's alwudood,
he's loving, he's forgiving,
so if you lose hope in yourself never
lose hope in Allah.
And then also think about the people around
you, do you need to create some healthy
boundaries?
There may be people henna around you that
are causing you to
lose
your self confidence, so you may need to
distance
strategically
yourself from those people.
Naima is asking such a great question, masha'Allah.
Islamic ruling on adoption, especially adopting when not
married but financially stable, It's allowed to adopt.
We keep hearing non educated people say adoption
is haram.
Speaking without knowledge is haram.
How would a single woman
adopt? And first of all we ask Allah
to help you and whoever find
an awesome,
spouse.
Don't give up.
Keep making du'a.
And I think with your name, Brittney, either
you have a convert in your family or
you may be a convert. So for us,
it's difficult. We don't have families to help
us,
and and sometimes we fall into shortcomings and
mistakes, so we ask Allah to bless you,
to
find a good person. Ameen, Ameen, Ameen.
And your value is not in being married.
Right?
Marriage is like salt on the food.
It's important,
it adds something to our life, but ultimately
the most important thing is who we are.
Alhamdulillah.
How can
I import value if I can't export value?
So
it's allowed for you to adopt in that
situation
if you were to lactate,
take some medication to lactate and that adopted
child were to drink your breast milk,
then that child will become a haram to
you.
And there's no daleel that this is haram.
What's clearly haram is what's found in the
book in Sunnah.
If they
say this is not talking about adoption, this
is talking about tabani,
and tabani was when people would take someone's
child and change that child's name and identity.
So, of course,
eventually, you would need to tell this child
that he or she has been adopted,
and ideally, if known, if known, they should
keep their family name. If it's unknown, that's
a different story.
These are 2 different issues.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And this isn't the books of fiqh. What
I'm telling you is not something like a
modern fatwa.
This is because we have so many people
flooding the airways who haven't been properly trained
that they're giving people really irresponsible
bad advice.
Any other questions, insha Allah for Instagram people
before we let you go, I need to
go now play with my daughter, alhamdulillah,
she's excited.
So you know, you're gonna get me in
trouble.
BarakAllah Fika. May Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala bless
you
and increase you. We'll see you on Thursdays
as well as Tuesdays around this time.
Yeah, you can fast
if you miss Fajr.
You can, but you need to repent for
missing Fajr and then pray Fajr when you
can. Insha'Allah. Insha'Allah.