Suhaib Webb – AlGhazzalis The Way of Worshipers Part Two
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of the Hereafter in religion, the use of words in religion, and the challenges of transferring knowledge into practice and devotion. They emphasize the importance of understanding actions of Allah's followers and leaving them to the boss. The speakers also discuss the definition of sincerity and devotion, the importance of fear and the importance of staying true to religion, and the challenges of transferring knowledge into practice and devotion. The speakers also mention the importance of learning from one's own experiences and the challenges of achieving a positive life.
AI: Summary ©
He's writing this text. He composed this text
to warn us of the obstacles
that are going to keep us from.
What are those obstacles? And they're very relevant
to today's time. The first one is gonna
be the obstacle of knowledge
and the obstacle of repentance because I've tried
to become aware,
then I feel a sense of responsibility,
and then I want to try to
rectify
my mistake with Tawba.
So he takes us through, like, these obstacles
that we encounter
within our daily life. But today,
we're going to continue to read from the
introduction for those of you who just came
in.
Unfortunately, the translation that I recommended, I continue
to read through it and realized
that some things have been omitted, and then
there are, like, really, really grave,
embellishments by the translator that I believe the
translator should say, like, this is my own
like, I'm adding now,
to the text. So what we'll do is
we'll pick up from where we started last
week,
and then we'll read through his introduction, and
then we'll stop at section 1,
the first section of his book.
So here's the translation. This is a summary
of the last text the imam wrote, and
he did not share what except with his
closest
students.
And here's the text. All praise be to
Allah.
The sovereign, the wise, the gracious, the generous,
the mighty, the benevolent, who created human beings
in the best form.
Not from so I'm gonna edit my
translation that I tried to get done as
fast as I could. He is the originator
of the heavens and the earth who administers
all affairs in this life and the next
with his wisdom.
He did not create gents in humans,
except for his worship. We're gonna talk about
that in a second.
And the way
to actually
means, like, self evident. It's clear to those
who seek
those who take
their time to, like, actually think.
And signs that direct to our evident to
those who who think and invest themselves
in their thoughts.
But Allah guides who he wants, and he
misguides who he wants, and he is aware
of those who seek guidance.
Blessing to Muhammad
the
greatest of the messengers, his righteous good community,
all of them, honored and blessed until the
end of time.
Now I shall read from the Arabic, and
I'll offer some explanations.
And let me also do this really quickly
so you can follow along. But please don't,
like, share this because this is,
like, a really
hatchet job of a translation
that I just did as fast as I
could to,
help you all.
So let me stop share and go here.
So if you look in the chat, you'll
see a link
that will take you to the the text.
So
And this student of the imam Al Ghazali,
his name was Abdul Malik ibn Abdulahi.
He was known as
a very respected person in his time in
the 5th century.
He said that, you know, my teacher, the
great scholar, the well respected erudite scholar,
read to me or shared with me the
following, which I dictate which I have dictated
from him. Al imam. Imam is the person
who you can follow in religion without necessarily
having to know the ingredients of their opinions.
A zahid is somebody who is indifferent to
this world,
who is not caught up
in the cult of conception, nor finds
a zahid, simply put, is someone who finds
their intrinsic value in the hereafter
and not in the temporary world. And if
they do find value in the temporary world,
it is in those things which are going
to help them in the hereafter, like their
family,
their kids,
their job. For example, they're using their job
to help themselves and help others be better
people.
Those people are considered zuhada.
We know the prophet, salallahu alaihi wa sallam,
and the sound hadith.
When the men came to him and said,
You Rasulullah,
show me something. If I do it, Allah
will love me and the people will love
will
love me. Like, be indifferent. Not neglectful, but
do not allow yourself to be consumed by
dunya.
Allah will love you. And have
with what people have, and people will love
you. 1 of my teachers years ago, he
his father lived to be over a 100
years old.
He was from a village in Sinelah, which
is, of course, as all of us know
in West Africa.
And
he told me that, you know, all of
the
the and the scholars, they they, like, loved
his father.
So,
I asked him, like, what is it that,
you know, your father did to cause
people
to to love him of all persuasions, all
different Muslim groups.
And he said, my father didn't want what
they wanted.
Like, they wanted fame.
And he told me the story of a
person who was using religion for fame, SubhanAllah,
as the prophet
2 hungry wolf
let amongst a flock of sheep
will do less damage than the love of
power
and attention
through religion.
Meaning, I use my religion for, like, a
status
or some kind of utility other than
the hereafter.
So he told me about this popular
preacher who
he he would come to his house secretly,
and, he used to come in the back
through the backyard.
So one day,
the Sheikh, he asked him, why do you
always come to my backyard? He said, I
don't you know, Sheikh, please don't tell people
I'm studying.
Like, I don't wanna lose my fans.
So the Zahid is someone who
intrinsically
is moved by
what the Hereafter has set as value.
We saw so many people rushing to buy
GameStop, but not very many people rushed to
pray FedR.
We see so many people
passionate about Bitcoin,
but who's passionate about
serving others?
This is the framing of zuhid is one
that is going to lead to social responsibility.
The faith the understanding of what is zzajid
is going to cause someone to have priorities
which are hereafter driven.
That's why Sily Ahmed Zoruk, he said,
That having priorities is the way of the
seekers.
Like, they know
they know what their base is.
Says
that Imam Khuzali was a happy person.
Means that Allah
made him happy. Oftentimes this form
saeed, thayil
means,
the object.
Except when we talk about Allah
Al Rahim Allah is Al Rahim.
Al Muffak,
the one that Allah
gave him success.
Al Islam,
the proof of Islam.
Zain ul Deen, the beauty of the religion.
The honor of the Ummah of Muhammad, Muhammad,
no Muhammad ibn Muhammad
al UHazi
Ali you Abdulsi.
Of course, as I mentioned last time, Imam
Ghazali is not gonna say this about himself
nor would his students have said this about
him in front of him while he was
alive. They're saying this after he died,
of course, hoping the best from Allah.
May Allah sanctify and bless his soul.
May Allah
increase his stations in Jannah.
And then he said
And
here,
as we read together, you're going to start
to see that Arabic prints are always very
difficult
because of the amount of work that has
to go into them. That's why
oftentimes, you'll find people maybe you notice sometimes
at the IS NYU, if I'm teaching, I'm
using, like, a really old looking book.
You know, it looks maybe something like this.
It's, like, quite
old because these old
typeset books
are much more reliable than the modern books.
Because years ago, the the scholars
if you look, for example, at this text,
this book was printed
for students. And then at the bottom,
you'll see that there is the editing
right there
was done by the.
So he would, like, go through every text,
and then they would set it. So the
older prints tend to be more reliable. This
mistake is inexcusable.
This is a summarized
text. This is the last book composed by
Imam Al Qazari.
And, you know, he did not share it
except with his closest students.
And here, Wahuwa, and here's the text. So
here we start,
the text. And up here is the translation.
It starts
Alhamdulillah.
So it begins Alhamdulillah.
Al Malikil Hakim.
Alhamd,
right, means to praise something
because it has praise worthy qualities.
It's different than thankfulness. Shukr
is to express gratitude in recognition
of a benevolent act.
So in Islamic Islamic nomenclature, we say that
alhamd,
that praise is rooted
in cognition,
understanding something.
So that's why we say
because our relationship with
Allah is not one based on I get
what I want, therefore I worship Allah. This
is a mistake. This is one of the
furnishings
of contemporary spirituality.
Contemporary spirituality outside of religious discipline is really.
It makes the person the center of everything.
That's why when you see advertisements for contemporary
spirituality, it's always showing the person.
So it is in many ways, perhaps, a
subtle form of idolatry.
Whereas,
in
in Islam in particular,
you know, we shun idolatry, as we're gonna
talk about later, and we try to divorce
our
lower
sense of value
from our relationship with Allah
Meaning, I don't worship Allah because he's given
me what I want, nor do I have
a bad assumption because I'm going through hard
times.
I'm with Allah
And he talks about this in the text.
This is an obstacle
to religious growth
is that at times,
people are going to look for
good and use that as a reason to
worship Allah and bad, oh, Allah hates me.
This happened to me. Allah hates me. You
know, I'm down.
Whereas look at the opposite. Sayyidina Bila said
the height of his life was when he
was being tortured. Of course, we don't look
for torture, but he understood that Allah would
bless him for every
difficulty and challenge he went through.
So Alhamdu
is based, we say,
that the also of Alhamd is understanding.
And the best way to be the people
of hamd
is to and now Imam Khaled is teaching
a really cool class on the names and
attributes of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
The more that I know Allah's names,
the more I'm going to be able to
contextualize
my relationship with those names.
So whether good or bad,
The salam means
You know, interesting story happened to me. I
was reading years ago one book. I had
to memorize it called
to one of my teachers.
And in
he talks about the signs of nouns, and
one of the signs of nouns is you
find this lamb in front of a word.
So
so I remember
I was reading it, and he said, well
well well,
Say the Imam Abu Ajamani says,
So I asked the
Sheikh, like, what is
I mean? I don't understand this word.
He said, wait. I'll be back, and I'll
tell you. This was at Asar time.
The sheikh, he didn't come back to Leshan.
And I sat there and waited.
Then he came to me.
He said, you still here?
I said, yeah. What's this?
He said, do you have?
Means the right from Haqq.
So he said,
like, if you waited this long,
it's your right that I answer you.
Then
he was a great.
He said something to me that I'll never
forget.
He said,
what I taught you
and you being patient
from Asar to Isha, you'll never learn in
books
to be patient,
to have a good assumption of your teacher,
not to suddenly assume the worst.
I said, I thought something happened to you.
Know, I started to think maybe I should
call your house.
But that's why I never forget Islam.
Islam means it is the right of Allah
only exclusively.
The Ruler of the Wise,
Al Jawad Al Kareem.
The Benevolent, the Generous.
Al Aziz or Rahim, the mighty, the mirth,
the benevolent.
Who created human beings in the best way.
What this means is the ability
to choose between good and bad.
Who originated the heavens and the earth
by his power.
Who was administrates
the affairs
in this life and the next. Adari means
dunya and akhira,
bihikmatihi,
with his wisdom.
So what that means is loss, success, pain,
happiness, whatever.
And he did not create jinn and human
beings except to worship him.
Him.
And the way to Allah
is clear
for those who seek it.
And the evidences that direct to it are
are are like self evident
for those who stop and think.
We read this part.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala can misguide who he
wants, who he's chosen to be misguided,
and whoever he chose to guide before creation.
That's his business,
and he is the knower
of those who are rightly guided.
Then
he says,
and feel free to ask any questions in
the chat
box.
Means blessings.
From the same word as Hamid.
Mohammed
who his
character is such that it demands
recognition and praise.
So Mohammed
is the one whose character
and conduct
is
such that it demands praise. Why would Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala decree that someone is misguided?
They choose to be misguided, but he decreed
it. That's answered already
in
the
beginning.
And we believe
when it comes to things which we have
trouble, it's a great question, Marwa.
When it comes to things that we have
trouble understanding,
we leave it to Allah
and his father. We leave it to
his justice and his mercy and his wisdom.
As we mentioned before,
in Al Qaeda 3 years ago,
says
that Allah
will call a
are those things which Allah can do.
I can be rich.
I can be
poor. I can be tall.
I can be,
successful.
I can get into this grad school.
We believe that
probabilities
sit between 2 things.
1st,
adlu,
his justice.
Number 2, fadlu.
One of my teachers used to say, if
the people of guidance worried about their guidance
more than the misguidance of others, the world
will be a different place.
What we can appreciate now is when Allah
has chosen us to be guided, and actually
the sheikh, he's gonna talk about this also.
We should take advantage of that opportunity
That Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala had done that
because
he didn't have to.
As for those that have
chosen
justice and fadl, fadl means, like, his benevolence.
Right? His benevolence.
A bounty.
Like, we don't have to be believers.
We didn't have to exist.
The word Fadl actually means
an increase
beyond what's normal.
Just as Allah that's why we say SubhanAllah,
Mashallah the Muslim
That Allah has blessed the believer twice. Number
1 is with the life that we live
in, and number 2, the life in our
hearts.
That's what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in
the 6th chapter of the Quran,
This person was dead, who brought him to
life. Here's talking about Umar, it doesn't mean
he was physically dead, he was spiritually dead,
So
just as he was brought to life once
physically,
Allah
brought him to life spiritually. So
between his justice
and his bounties,
his benevolence.
Then he says,
And Allah knows those who truly seek guidance.
Good questions.
Feel free to to engage or
or to
share.
Well, so that to Adam Mohammed.
So
peace and blessings upon Mohammed,
the master,
the best actually Sayyid means the best of
all prophets.
And all human beings as the prophet said,
and a sayyid, where did it mean Adam?
I am the best human being. I'm not
boasting.
His righteous
Ummah
These righteous people, all of them.
Then he continues in here,
he starts to break down
the
introduction.
He says, yeah,
If you see an Arabic here at the
bottom,
translation could be better.
Perhaps the explanation mark here is better. When
you see scholars say,
it means, like, pay attention.
Pay attention.
Dear brothers and sisters,
Allah bring you and us happiness.
It's like really beautiful. We
know that to bring happiness is a great
form of
Prophet
said,
to bring happiness to your fellow brother or
sister Muslim
will necessitate for you,
of course, in what's right.
He says,
May Allah bring you happiness
and us happiness
through his pleasure. So the happiness now is
conditioned that our happiness is conditioned on obedience
to Allah.
Then he says something so nice, man.
It's actually really, really nice. He says,
That worship
is the fruit of knowledge.
The word
worship is from a word which means to
pave something,
to pave it. We say,
the path is paved.
Because
with worship,
we
pave our nafs,
we smooth out the evil from our heart
and our character.
In the Islamic
nomenclature,
Ibadah has 2 definitions.
3 definite well, 2 definitions then the 3rd
that I'll explain in a second.
The first is a general definition that
worship is
Everything that Allah loves.
Everything that Allah loves.
So that includes like acts of liturgy,
right, devotion,
as well as my daily life,
what I do in my daily life.
Can the person that Allah chose to misguide
change that for themselves, or is that an
indefinite decree? How can one pay their nafs
if Allah chose misguidance for
them? So first of all, we're talking about
the decree of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, not
the choice of Allah. Allah, Ummah.
And nobody can change the of Allah. Nobody.
The dua
the hadith that says dua battles with has
nothing to do with dua. It has to
do with There's a difference
between
and
is what's decreed,
the is the measure of that decree.
The second question is how can one pave
their nafs if Allah chose misguidance for them?
This is the essence of trusting in Allah.
And this also creates a sense of absolute
impoverished
to Allah.
That only Allah
truly knows if I'm guided.
He's given me signs to know if I'm
guided. Alhamdulillah. That's why he sent prophets.
And those prophets make it clear. What are
the signs of
people who are guided? So I can go
to sultan baqar,
from
to Am I living these verses, or am
I struggling
to live these verses? That is a sign
that tells me
Allah has guided me.
Number 2 is if I look at.
Let me look at those first verses in.
Am I how how am I how can
I evaluate myself
based on prophetic teachings?
Because we have to, again, be very careful
of contemporary spirituality,
which has made the human being sole locus
of of of of control and focus. Islam
is the opposite of this. And this is
why sometimes we have to reprogram ourselves
and to think a little differently.
But at the end of the day, subhanAllah,
if I am obeying
the Quran,
or I I feel guilty.
Like, maybe I'm not, but I feel guilty.
Not a debilitating
guilt guilt because that is a pity party
oftentimes a mask selfishness,
but it is a sense of guilt that
leads me to want to be better.
These are signs of guidance. The sheikh is
gonna talk about this,
and I'm gonna be reading this with you,
Saman. Now you understand why I'm gonna read
it with the students at Tandem. What's the
name of the book that we're going to
read?
Deliverance from Mizkainis.
And the first thing he's gonna talk about
today inshallah is Hidayah. But these are really
great questions, very thoughtful.
The second part of that answer, Isra, is
then, if I truly
if I trusted myself, I'm doomed
because I know I'm not the guide.
But if the guide Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
is telling me in the Quran and through
the statements of
prophets,
work hard,
worship,
do good.
If I'm going to invoke Allah's perfect knowledge,
I cannot invoke it to justify my misguidance.
Because in that perfect knowledge, Allah is telling
me, do good,
Worship me. Everything will be I.
So if I believe in that transcendent knowledge,
then I'm gonna follow that.
But if I really believe that god has
perfect knowledge and then I say,
I'm not following that. I have a problem
with his knowledge.
So this is the height of trust.
We have to realize
that we have no power.
We have no ability.
It is the opposite of the contemporary world
where everything is about personal utility.
It also doesn't allow us to give into
fate
to give into, like, you know, submitting to
the world when it's going wrong because god
has commanded us to do good when everything
is going wrong.
So the variable factor
is Allah. That's it. And, of course, Allah
is not a factor, but what I'm saying
is my relationship with Allah, which is telling
me, keep going. Keep going, keep going. Your
worship is not in vain. Your efforts aren't
in vain. Keep struggling, keep working.
If you do an Adam's weight of good,
we are gonna give it to you. Just
keep going,
don't get caught up. Just keep going. That's
why the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam called
it.
This is now it's a great question
because your question allows us to frame the
entire purpose of our relationship with Allah.
To worship Allah as though I see him
is to ignore those doubts, to ignore those
insecurities,
not to be deceived by the morbidness of
the contemporary world and keep my eyes on
the hereafter.
Regardless of what's happening around me.
So if I feel that I'm being, you
know, suffocated, I remember Eunice being suffocated in
the belly of a fish.
If I if I feel that times are
hot, I remember the heat that Ibrahim experienced.
If I lost all my followers one day
on social media, I think about the migration
of Sayna Ibrahim and Sayna Muhammad
The purpose of the prophets
is to help us realize
the balance between the material world that may
be going wrong
with staying focused
on what's right and that's Allah.
That's what it means to be Muslim.
How can I pay my nafs
and also to trust in Allah?
If I'm worshiping Allah, if I'm serving Allah,
if I'm doing what I'm supposed to do
and being good to other people, I'm not
misguided.
Allah has How can we keep our these
are great questions, everybody.
No problem.
Help and feel free to ask. It's such
a great question. I want you guys to
feel that you can ask anything. If I
don't know the answer And if you don't
agree with me, it's okay. How can we
keep our intentions in check that our Ibad
is purely for Allah?
We're gonna talk about that soon, but that's
a battle.
Right? It's very normal. The fact that you
care about your attention is a great sign.
Right? The fact that you're concerned about your
sincerity is a sign of
sincerity. So he says, yeah, you guys are
gonna like this book, man.
Everything you're asking is, like,
it's those hurdles. Like, you imagine these things
as hurdles
between you and me and, like, as we're
trying to go through
the language that Imam Qazari uses is very
beautiful, and he he really answers some of
these great questions that you're asking much better
than, of course,
someone like me. He says,
Dear brothers and sisters,
May Allah make us happy
and you happy with his obedience.
That worship
and devotion
are the fruits of knowledge.
That actually touches on something very important. That
in Islam,
we believe that religious knowledge, which does not
lead to action, unless, of course, it's for
strategy,
but just learning to learn without putting it
into practice
is a problem.
But religious knowledge should be used,
should be employed.
That's why Allah
in,
I believe, like, 1 verse 174,
I think.
He talks about what
And this knowledge that was passed to people
from those shayateen, not from the angels as
many people think,
from the shayateen.
That knowledge that was passed to these people
became a fitna.
If you pay attention in Arabic,
it says, indeed they knew that what they
exchanged was bad.
Right? And they they would have it says,
They knew that what they purchased brought no
benefit for them in the hereafter.
And this was the worst thing they could
have purchased. Think about it. The first part
of the verse says they knew, the end
of the verse says they didn't know. Did
they know or didn't they know? If you
read the verse, you might be like, this
is like a contradiction. It's bad to a
nephew.
Because why? Sheikh Muhammad Alaihi
Was the Amid of the College of Sharia
and Al Azhar. He said,
because they didn't act on what they know.
So they knew this is wrong,
but they didn't act on what they know.
So it is though it didn't exist.
So say the imam al Khazari,
he is
drawing our attention to a very important principle.
And we said that the word generally
means
everything that Allah loves, your career, serving people,
whatever,
making people happy.
Self care can be an act of Ibarah.
The second definition of Ibadah means to observe
the orders
and prohibitions
that Allah has sent
with sincerity
and according to the Sharia.
So no
Say the prophet said, whoever tries to invent
something in religion that's not from it, it
will be rejected. So the second means adherence.
It's a masuk,
bisharia,
in my salah, my ramah, in my fasting,
in my Hajj,
my acts of Ibadah.
The third definition
of Ibadah depends on the subject matter.
And we have something called
means
a custom, but here
means whichever
whichever topic is being used,
then the word
or other words may be restricted
by the
meaning of that topic, like.
So we will use the word Ibara and
fiqh. Most people think it means prayer, fasting,
Hajj,
and zakah.
So
that is
meaning what I just said is that that's
the definition of according to legal scholars, and
always specific sciences are gonna restrict usually
the meaning of the word. For example,
in
is focused
on purifying the heart
and and and cultivating the soul.
If we're talking about of
Quran
and we say Ibadah,
it's gonna be contextual to what? To recite
in the Quran.
So the third, and this is very important,
that Ibadah at times can take on a
specific meaning other than its general meaning depending
on the subject you're studying.
Why is that important? Because oftentimes, we find
people in a secular world
taking the third definition as the first definition.
So they're gonna say, oh, the meaning of
Ibadah is
prayer, Ramadan,
Hajj,
and zakah.
In a secular world, that makes sense.
God is in the Masjid. Whereas
in in actuality,
the general meaning of worship is
everything Allah loves. So you have to be
very careful that when you think about the
word worship, you think
generally in the general way, everything, mashAllah, can
be it better. And then depending on the
specific subject that you're studying,
that subject can restrict the meaning
to the goals and objectives of that subject.
So what did I say? It's actually very
important. Number 1 is that has a general
meaning anything
that Allah loves.
Number 2 is that Ibarra we're talking about
worship.
Means that I'm observing as Allah says, we
only order them to worship them. That's it.
Sincerely.
So here at, the second definition means sincerely
worshiping,
actions are by the intention, and then adhering
to the sunnah of the prophet
And then the 3rd we said is dependent
upon the subject that we're studying. The word
will take on
a specific meaning
based on the nomenclature
of that subject.
But
what's important, the sheikh said,
Sayyidina Imam Al Ghazali says that indeed worship
is the fruit of knowledge
and the, you know,
the benefit of a long life
because it's gonna carry over.
And it is the cultivation.
Well, someone has cultivated
a devoui of Allah, this is their product
that they're gonna present in the hereafter.
And this is the prize of the friends
of Allah. The prize possession
of the friends of Allah
is worship.
In turning knowledge into devotion is the way
of the of the people of strength.
And the bounty of those who have, like,
a sense of regalness.
And it is the objective of people who
have high aspirations.
And it is a a sign of those
people who are generous. Here he is generous
in the sense that a selfless person can't
can't worship.
And we can say for
And it is the true the employment of
true men and women. Like, this is what
the essence of men and women
in the true definition of the word, there
are going to be people who are
worried about devotion.
And it's what the people who can see
through all the muck and myr and the
fog of the dunya,
it's what they choose.
It's devotion.
And turning knowledge into devotion
is a path to happiness
and the way to paradise.
Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
I am your sustainer.
So worship me.
Verse 92.
This was your reward
reward for what you did in the dunya,
and your efforts are appreciated. May Allah make
us from those people. Alhamdulillah.
Then he says, and we'll read from the
translation.
However,
if we think about it,
and we ponder the path.
And, again, I tried to rush and get
this out to you as fast as I
could.
From its beginning
to its objectives.
From the beginning of this path,
the the path to establishing a life of
devotion.
And
if we were to think about it from
its beginnings,
where does it start? That's what we're gonna
talk about in this text in the very
beginning.
To its goals, the goals of worship, meaning
Jannah, the pleasure of Allah.
And those goals that are the hopes
the hopes of those traversing the path. May
Allah make us from those who seek that
path.
The following becomes very clear.
So what he's saying is, if we all
stop for a moment and we think about
the way to establish
knowledge to devotion,
the translation of knowledge to devotion,
it becomes extremely clear
if we think about it from the beginning
of the process
to the end of the process.
If we think about this,
something becomes abundantly
clear,
and that is, it is a way that
is steep
and rugged,
harsh.
It's not easy.
It is filled with tremendous obstacles,
difficult burdens,
long distances,
and weighty shortcomings. Like, when we fall, like,
we really fall.
It has many obstacles and blockades.
It has numerous subtle causes of demise
and many blades, like you can get poked.
It contains strong enemies and infantries.
It is lonely.
And massive enemies and their allies.
Then he says and before we we continue,
let's read it in Arabic. It's, like, really
beautiful. And if you listen carefully,
you can hear that Imam al Azzawi is
rhyming.
The way of rhyming is the way of
the old scholars. They would write and at
times, they'll start to rhyme to get your
attention. And this, I'll write it in the
box for you. It's called with.
And this is something in the Quran,
Something,
from
in rhetoric. Rhetoric is made of 3 sciences.
From means to decorate your speech.
You find it in the Quran.
That rhyme is called.
Here, you're gonna see Sheikh. He does it
because Sheikh has bars. Sheikh is a person
of letters. Sheikh is a a a literary
beast.
He
says, If we were to ponder on this
path of worship and devotion and knowledge.
And
we were to weigh
its path.
From its beginning to its objectives.
And its objectives, of course, and the pleasure
of Allah are the hopes of those on
the path. It's
a
is like when you climb a mountain. It's
rocky.
They're saying it's not easy.
It's harsh.
A lot of hurdles, a lot of obstacles.
Tremendous hardships.
Is rhyming.
Right? And that its distances, like, from one
resting place to another resting place
are are immense. So the prophet said, give
good news to the the traveler.
Its shortcomings are are
incredible.
Meaning if you and I fall.
And a large number of things that block
the path and prohibit us from traversing on.
And there are many things there that could
lead to our destruction and harm us. And
means actually spears.
There are a lot of enemies over there
with weapons.
Has a lot of followers. A lot of
people are gonna,
you know, go viral on evil.
The path of misguidance, you're gonna find
a lot of challenges, a lot of peer
pressure.
Then he says,
Now we go back to the translation. After
describing
the path of living a life of faith
and devotion,
and he's not trying to create a sense
of somberness.
He's trying to say,
the way
through this is Allah.
So
trust in him
to make it through that journey
and follow
the prophets, Wahaasat and Sayyidina Risa Sallalahu Wa
Salam.
It has many obstacles and blockades. Then he
says
here, that is how
it should be
because it is the path to paradise.
And that affirms the statement of the prophet
paradise is surrounded by difficulties,
* is surrounded by delights.
And And
his statement in paradise
is sad,
rugged.
Actually, the sad is a bad translation.
Should be
placed in a rugged place.
He's placed
let me see if I can
Even a rocky works.
Is like a place. It's, It's like hard
to get to. It's rocky. It's difficult.
And indeed, * is smooth.
Easy.
With all of that, and the servants of
Allah are weak.
Times are hard. The affairs of religion demand
constant attention.
The helpers are few.
Work is abundant while life is decreasing.
Those who pick up faults are perceptive, meaning
like the haters are everywhere.
Death is near.
The journey to the hereafter is long, and
the provision is obedient. Meaning this journey
to the hereafter,
its provision is the obedience to Allah.
Thus it is a must, meaning
Allah's obedience, and if it is lost
there is no replacing it.
So what the Sheikh is saying inshaAllah, we'll
read it quickly in Arabic.
He says, Wa haqaza
SubhanAllah.
That's how it should be.
That's how this path of devotion should be.
It demands discipline. It demands hard work because
it leads to Jannah. And
he said that this affirms what the prophet
has said.
That * is surrounded by difficulties.
That heaven is surrounded by difficulties
and that * is surrounded by delights.
That paradise is positive, is placed in a
place which is rocky and steep.
And that the path to * is smooth.
Said, and then based on everything I just
said,
people are weak.
Was a man who saw. And times are
hard.
Meaning that, you know, the the affairs of
religion demand constant attention.
And, like, real helpers are few.
People mad busy.
And life is short.
And in our acts of devotion, there are
shortcomings.
And there's a lot of haters and death
is close.
And the the the the journey is
long.
And the provisions to help deal with all
of this,
but particularly this long journey is
being obedient to Allah. A question is, if
we continuously fear that our fears will be
decreed by God, how do we work on
having beautiful expectations of Allah to avoid this?
First of all, we have to define what
is fear in Islam. And Imam Ghazali is
gonna address this.
Another great question.
Because fear
in its in in in its proper context
is what leads to responsibility.
That is the fear that God inspires us
to have.
Right? That's a good thing. Yo. I need
to get my life together, man.
But the fear that leads to irrational
compulsions
and becomes debilitating
to the point that I feel broken, this
is from Shaytan from the Nas.
Allah is Raheem.
So the fear of Allah and we're gonna
talk about this probably next time because it's
actually the first part of the book,
awakenings.
When Allah awakens the heart, that's a blessing.
And if that happens to me in a
healthy way, I should say
Allah
is reminding me to wake up. But if
it becomes
consuming
and and breaks my spirit,
That's not of Allah.
That's called what's called
And yes,
despondency.
That's a great question.
So the provision of this journey is the
obedience to Allah, meaning worship and devotion.
So someone has to have it.
And it's fleeting. Like, if you don't take
advantage of the obedience of Allah, it will
flee it will flee from us, but we
won't be able to get it back because
our life, our time is short.
And whoever takes advantage of their life
to be obedient to Allah in the broadest
sense of the word, in their
devotion,
in their profession,
with their families, in their community,
as we talked about was sold to Yousef,
If someone does that, they will be successful
and they will be happy
in the in this life Inshallah and the
next.
And that happiness will be intrinsic to their
permanence in the hereafter.
And whoever loses this is the great loser.
Whoever fails to use their life
for obedience, then they're not gonna have the
provisions
in the hereafter.
And he will perish.
And now unfortunately, the translation
stops.
And if you guys don't finish, I just
wanna try to finish the introduction. I usually
try to stop in an hour.
So forgive me, but I know,
we need to to start next week,
the actual, like, chapters.
This is so
so this is something incredibly important
and something incredibly great.
He said, and for that reason,
since this is something incredibly difficult,
an incredible responsibility,
Allah calls it
an in the end of the 33rd chapter
of the Quran, a trust.
Because of
that, he
says,
the one who seeks it becomes honored.
Had a this way. Well,
but it's very few people.
And then he mentions this proverb
That if the objective is great and incredible,
very few
will actually, like,
work for it,
strive for it.
But the one who does will be honored.
And even more so for those who try
and reach it.
And it is those, those who strive and
achieve
it, that Allah has chosen
to know Him
and He loves them.
And He has protected them and guided them.
And as they those who he will connect
to his pleasure into his Jannah Ask Allah
to make us from those people.
Today,
we all received the dua of saying, Imam
Al Ghazari, how many of us will be
super happy if Imam Al Ghazari, one of
these great Masha'Allah friends of Allah, Insha'Allah
made dua for us here at the end
of his introduction, he's making dua for you.
He asked Allah to make you and himself
from those people.
Then
he says, indeed.
And he says, and when we, he means
himself, when I noticed that this was what
was happening.
When I noticed that this is what's going
on, I started to think what what can
help a person
to maintain I'm just gonna abbreviate the translation.
What can help a person
succeed on this path? What tools do they
need? What anchors do they need?
What gifts do they need? What provisions do
they need?
So that they will be able to subjourn
this path through the guidance of Allah.
In peace.
And they will not be stopped by any
of its obstacles
and led to
to discretion.
And then they will be destroyed.
So then he says,
now he's gonna talk about the philosophy of
the book.
It's a great book. He says, therefore, I
wrote a number of texts
on this issue like the IHIA, revival of
a religious learning,
the
secrets in in your relationship with
Allah and the great great objective
and text about how to be near to
And now you're gonna hear some of the
challenges that someone like Imam Al Ghazari
went through. Oftentimes,
we hear people irresponsibly saying, you know, this
sheikh, he people oppose this person or or
this person people opposed. If you look at
most of the great
that you love now, most of them, they
died in jail or in house arrest.
Most of them.
Because the people in their time couldn't appreciate
them.
Say read how Sayna Imam al Bukhari he
died.
It's it's a crime, man.
Read Sayidina Imam al Nasai when he went
to Damascus,
and he he saw people in Damascus. He
said their love of of
and their hatred for Ali is is is
wrong. And, of course, Imam Nasai is Sunni.
He said, Aksha, I'm I'm worried they're gonna
go into misguidance.
So he wrote a book called Fadl Ali,
The virtues of Ali,
where he collected all the Hadith.
And he also did Fadl of Umar, Fadl
of Usman,
He wrote about all of those great Khulafa.
Then they asked him, are you gonna write
about the fadl of Muawiya? He
said, He said, I don't know many like
fadl of him. Prophet didn't mention any fadl
of him and they beat him to death.
That's what I'm gonna say
from Sahih Sita.
So when you hear this kind of, immature
ill informed talk, oh, this scholar died this
way. Imam Abu Hanifa, the strong opinion, he
was put in prison and he died.
Don't get caught up in this.
Don't get caught up in this group stuff.
This is a means to divide the Muslims.
All of those people, they're better than us.
So so we shouldn't waste our time. We
need to work on ourselves more than we
need to destroy the dead.
So sheikh, he says, you know, I wrote
so many books about this topic.
And I touched on some of the subtleties
of the knowledge, meaning the issues of the
heart
and emotions and attitudes.
Yeah. Which were hard for the masses to
digest.
And they attacked me for this.
And and, you know, they got into these
issues that aren't good to get into.
And he mentioned, like, I was attacked and
brutally
maligned for this but he said even those
people in the time of the prophet
they said the Quran is just like some
stories from old times because they couldn't understand.
And then he quotes.
This actually is a really beautiful poem
from
Imam Zayd al Abideen, ibn al Hussein ibn
al Arab Nabi Taarib
He quotes this poem of the Imam Zayd
al Abideen.
It's it's actually really, really nice.
He
said,
he said, I hide
from some of my knowledge,
the inner gems.
Are like the gems.
So the inner
subtleties of the
knowledge.
So that the inner person,
when they hear me talk about this, it's
gonna become a fitna for me.
They won't understand it.
They said and this was the way of
Sayna Ali.
Right?
He didn't share everything because he knew
not everybody he shared it with people that
could handle it, it, but the the the
people around him at that time,
especially in in Kufa
and other places, they weren't ready for that.
Then he says,
Then he says, you know, perhaps,
you
know, the the essence of real knowledge, I'll
be able to profit with it.
But if I did that, if I were
to
means like if like if I were to
teach and openly talk about the deeper subtleties
and the beauties of worship,
They would say, I worship idols.
What it means is, like,
people
may be not necessarily
emotionally
intelligent
and cognitively intelligent
to understand the high levels. So what Imam
Fazali is saying is when I talk about
these things and teach these things, they accuse
me of the worst things, but it's because
they're not able to understand.
So instead of blaming me, they should start
with themselves.
And he
says,
He said, there, in fact, there are some
Muslims
who made my blood halal.
Who said I should be killed.
And these are people who the worst things
are presented to them and they think it's
good.
It's a really nice poem.
What he's trying to say is, I know
things that I learned from
my family back to my grandfather, back to
say, Muhammad,
about the issues of the heart,
which are known to the
said, there's things I know if I said,
you'd kill me.
Meaning, like, not everybody can handle the responsibility
of working on themselves.
Not everybody wants that. So he said, if
I were to start to demand this, they
would react in such a cathartic way, they'd
accuse me of being an idolatry.
And nowadays, we see
see people saying,
This statement that
is not from Islam is not supported by
the historical record in any way, shape, or
form. If you go to the
heavy and tight with,
the majority of
of
but we should appreciate that there are different
types of sufis. There are those sufis that
are upon the and the sunnah
As Imam al Muhasidhi mentions, there's those Sufis
who aren't.
Sheikh here is talking about
orthodox Sufism.
And then he said, you know, I turned
and looked at the examples of the people
of religion,
and I I I looked at their mistakes
even with mercy, and I avoided debating them.
And then he says that he began to
think deeply about all these issues
that
I wrote this book
that contains things for which the Ummah agrees
upon.
And
then it will bring benefit
to Allah that in this situation guide me
to write a book that will bring people
together in benefit.
And the one who answers the dua of
the one who is under duress responded,
and he opened up for me the door
of these things, these secrets.
And what he means here by secrets, not
that they're hidden
from us in that the prophet didn't teach
them or that Allah doesn't mention them, but
we neglected them.
That's why he said it earlier. It's right
in front of those people in Nazirin who
think about it, but they don't think, they
don't read, they don't study.
And he inspired me in an incredible way.
Which has as to his knowledge has not
been addressed
in previous
text on the subject.
This is the end of his introduction, but
he said, this is my goal,
to address these issues of the heart, to
talk about the challenges that people face in
transferring their knowledge into practice and devotion
in those obstacles. Next week,
because we wanna stop here, And I think,
yeah, that's where I stopped also.
Next week, he's going to talk about awakenings.
When Allah
allows our hearts to be moved
and awakened by things.
How we should process that?
How we should process religion in general?
And so he says the first
obstacle
is knowledge
and understanding. So we'll stop here. If you
have any questions,
we can take those questions now. My apologies.
I did my best to translate it as
much as I could when I realized that
the other translation
really wasn't
didn't pass the smell test as they say.
If you have any questions, we can take
them. If not, we'll see you next week,
and we'll talk about the first
hurdle
is the hurdle
of knowledge.
And he doesn't he he doesn't need the
acquisition of knowledge. It's part of it, but
the process, the cognition,
the thoughts
that we
sometimes have to engage with
on the path of
worship and devotion.
The book is available in Arabic. I can
also add it to the syllabus.
There is a good translation, I'm told, on
Amazon, but I think it's sold out.
So I don't know.
Make it easy. The syllabus
will be shared,
soon
inshallah.