Suhaib Webb – AlMunfarija Part Three Awareness & Healing
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AI: Transcript ©
Number 2 is the is the Kada of
the middle schooler.
Right? Middle school, man.
High school, middle school. Where, you know, I'm
I'm able to see a little wisdom sometimes
in not getting.
But still my happiness
with receiving
is
by far more intense than my happiness with
not receiving.
They say that's the that's the Iman of
the Amma, like most people. Like most people
are in this place.
It doesn't mean these people are bad by
the way. We're talking about aspirations. The first
one is a problem. The second one,
it's not easy, man.
The third is the of
those who have basira,
who have insight beyond this world. Last Tuesday,
we talked about there are some people that
Allah gives them the ability to see what
their
in the 7th chapter of the Quran, Allah
says,
They're looking at you, oh, Muhammad, but they
don't see you.
Meaning they don't understand what you're for. They
can see you physically,
but they don't understand your purpose.
So they don't follow you. So the idea
is that someone that Allah has given, Basarahum,
they've been able to see is that they
see the purpose of things.
So they're able to prioritize
stuff.
They're able to understand
that test and trial, again, is just part
of the process.
So the test and trial or the success
doesn't consume them
because all that's just a means.
That's not the ending.
So for them
we're gonna talk about the 8
etiquettes Insha'Allah maybe later if we have time.
Test is an opportunity for patience.
Success is an opportunity for thankfulness.
The prophet said, I'm shocked at believers.
Every affair for the believer is good.
The believer, the one who sees
the purposes.
So he said salallahu alaihi wa sallam, if
the believer is given something good, then
that person is thankful. That's good for them.
And if they're tested for
they're patient,
and that's good for them.
So that's that
in a very mature nuanced way.
The other thing is to have patience with
trials. So we mentioned
that patience, resilience I don't like the word
patience. I like the word resilience.
Sheikh Zakari al Ansari actually to prepare this
text, I actually rent went to a handwritten
book.
I don't know if it's been published by
Sheikh Zakaria Al Ansari. He's buried next to
Sayyidina Shafi'i
in Egypt.
Sheikh Zakaria Al Ansari said there are 4
types of of resilience, of sabr.
Number 1 is to be patient on the
obedience of Allah. So
to be patient with obedience.
Number 2 is to be patient away from
evil. So, like,
to control myself.
Jim Carey has a funny statement for anyone
that's trying to diet.
He said, you know, between me and paradise
is that sandwich at night.
Right? What it means is that you gotta
have patience. Right? You know? Whenever I get
up, my wife is, like, where you going?
No.
I don't know.
She's, like, why did you take a left?
I meant to go right.
Kitchen Right?
So being patient away from things which are
not desirable or harmful.
And that can extend beyond just a religious
components that helps us organize our life around
things.
The next he said is to be and
and he said that this forms a foundation
of being a person of taqwa,
a person of pieties,
being patient on being a devotee of god
and good to people,
and then being patient away from disobedience
and evil.
So that's the foundation.
To
come. Then he said, patience from the excess
of this world.
Prophet said, there will be people from my
that have used shoes
and live off dates and water, but their
duas are accepted by Allah.
He said there are people who when they
are seen youth,
when they are when people see those people,
Allah is remembered.
They're not people that are caught up.
We mentioned that Al Ghazadi said,
this dunya is like an island
and people are on a boat, and the
captain stops at the island and says, this
world is like an island.
And the people on the boat and the
captain says, hey, man, we're not gonna stay
at this island. It's really awesome. It's a
carnival cruise. It's amazing.
But we're not staying. We gotta go somewhere
else. And he said, there'll be 3 types
of people. Those who when they see the
bananas and the mangoes, they could be like,
oh, snap.
This is all there is. And they're gonna
start losing their minds.
Then there are those people that try to
balance, like, their luggage,
like what they can bring back on the
boat, and what they can't, and some of
them may make it, and some of them
might not. And then there's a third group
that's like, this is not the goal.
Let's just use this island for completing the
task.
He said those are the and the of
Allah. Those are those who know the purpose.
So the sheikh, he says, you know, in
the explanation, one of the things we should
learn about tests and trials
is that we should be away from
this kind of cult of of opulence,
because
that's a foundation of patience, Sheik Zakaria.
So.
So the first, he said, is to be
patient, resilient on obedience. The second, to be
resilient from disobedience.
The third, to be resilient from getting caught
up.
Like really, man, I did this once. It's
scary.
Research the clothes you wear and look where
they were made.
Try to sleep at night.
It's it's it's like, take it slow. Trust
me. Because it can be overwhelming.
But like, if I'm crying for the world
and I'm crying for the Ummah, but I'm
wearing clothes that were made in a sweatshop
in Bangladesh,
to someone that's working insane amount of hours
around chemicals that are known to harm people
and cause cancer.
Like,
that's like eating food with plastic
and saying I'm worried about the environment.
I mean,
there's a contradiction there
And, that that touches on something that the
Sheikh mentions here.
Being
a devotee of a prophetic message
is not always easy.
Like it demands discipline.
The next, he said,
is patience with calamities, and that's the 4th.
And he said, this is the foundation of
rida.
This is the foundation of being pleased with
God, and this is the most difficult type
of resilience.
The next is having a good opinion of
God, meaning
when things are happening in my life,
I have that good opinion.
The prophet said that Allah said,
I am to you as I think I
am.
So that means, like, in the face of
a test,
I could say, well, god is doing this
because he hates me because I'm so important.
Or I could say, this is happening so
that I can become closer to god and
become a better person.
Or perhaps one day be a healer
because of the pain that I've experienced.
Now that takes us to where where we
stopped.
But before we do that,
I think it's important like, to realize that
we like, I go through this.
Like, we all suffer
through these things. My wife now is 7
months pregnant, man.
It's a cool thing, but it's kind of
freaky too. You know what I mean?
Anyone here that's had a child, you know,
like 7 months in, you got freaking Ronaldo
up in your belly, dude, kicking free goals.
It's like,
You know what I mean?
So, but it's like, it's scary because now
it's like,
oh man,
my baby.
Babies.
Baby n.
Right? And you feel like really helpless.
You feel like concerned.
We all go through different moments where we
experience these kind of fears. We have to
because that allows us to love each other.
Last time I gave this
class, someone came to, like, how could you
just talk about your personal life? What do
I have to lose? Like, my personal life
can't be a threat against me.
If I try to model for people a
perfect life then I will be a liar
to them.
But model
your own challenges to a certain degree and
share your anxieties. That's how we create a
community of love.
But if we're all like, yeah I'm good,
I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good,
we're all liars
and we're all bad.
So there are actually really beautiful and this
is not in the text if you signed
up
the old text.
There are some important supplications of the prophet
for anxiety
and sheltering
and celebrating
the storm. They're so freaking beautiful, man.
And what's amazing is, like we we believe
prophet Muhammad is perfect, but like the Sahab
al Sayeeda ahammahu,
when something would cause him anxiety.
So we learned this last year in Akida
that the prophets
are not absolved of human experiences.
He said, like, it's allowed within the framework
of believing about the prophets
that they could be afflicted with human emotions
and challenges
that other people are. This is our belief.
So when Allah says to say, and
and Harun, go to Firaun, what do they
say? Man, we're scared.
Don't be scared.
So these du'a insha'Allah we can send to
you, the translation of I'll add to it,
and then maybe next week if you send
an email back to us, we'll send you
these insha'Allah.
But these are really cool, man.
The first is that the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wasallam
said
that this is a very famous supplication.
He said that
that the prophet used to supplicate in the
face of difficulties
and hardship.
That the prophet say there's no god except
Allah, the all knowing,
the
partner, the forgiver.
There is no god except Allah, the lord
of the
mighty throne.
There's no god except Allah, the lord of
the heavens and the earth,
and the lord of the honorable throne.
There's one important thing here in this supplication
that imam Al Ayni Al Hanafi,
he said something really cool for people.
When you call Allah by Al Adhim,
like Adhim is like the one who has
no limits.
So the prophet's character,
Like his great character, his vast character.
But here, Alim
is one of the names of Allah that
we should invoke
when we are facing
seeming impenetrable
challenges
because Avim
is the one whose
recipes
for coming through those difficulties and challenges
are beyond our imagination. That's why he's Alim.
It's like really beautiful.
So like maybe I feel I'm going through
a very difficult time that's taxing me, and
I can't find a logical way through it,
at that moment I turned to Al Azim,
because Azim's
mechanisms for pulling things
out are not measurable by the human mind.
So it's like a dua of what's called
Iftikar,
acknowledging,
like, a sense of,
you know, reliance
and impoverishment
to Allah.
1 of our masheikh
from West Africa used to say, oh, Allah,
make me rich by feeling impoverished to you,
and don't make me poor by feeling autonomous
of you.
So the idea is
now we understand, like, when that should be
said.
Or when, like, there's incredible success that came
from nowhere.
We know that the prophet said those two
statements. You know, one of them
is. It's easy to say, but it's heavy
in the hereafter.
One of them is the name of Allah
SubhanAllah
So, again, the supplication is there is no
god except Allah,
the which I just explained.
Is the one that can punish you because
you messed up but doesn't.
That's why in Ramadan we say that. Because,
like, we made mistakes,
like in the month of Ramadan.
Pardon us, the
tolerant.
There's no god except you, the lord of
the
the great Arsh. Imam said, why in this
dua does it mention the Arsh twice?
Because there's no greater creation from creation than
the So
he's saying, like,
if Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala created a creation
that's greater than anything you can imagine, then
also take hope that he can pull you
out of a situation that you can't imagine
you can get out
of.
It's really cool
The other thing I noticed about all these
supplications except one is they're like super short.
You think about it, if someone's going through
anxiety, you ain't trying to drop a freaking
encyclopedia dude, du'a on them dude.
Like I just need something like in and
out. Like
go.
But it feels like, you know,
like we're gonna start now.
It'll be hard for them. The next one
is from Sayyidina Anas ibn Malik. Sayyidina Anas
who used to serve the prophet as a
young man, He was born to a single
mother.
The prophet used to lamb.
Is a g. Masha'Allah.
And she was a person who did not
allow her challenges to overcome her. We should
give Khutbaan single mothers because masha'Allah, the Ummah
is filled with great men and women who
are the product of single parent homes.
Single fathers and single mother.
Sulayim one time she came to the prophet
alayhi salatu salam, and she said, you asked
us to give, and I had nothing to
give
except I give my son Anas. You Allah
Anas go with the prophet.
So Anfaqat
ibnaha
bi'ajri
rabbiha. So she
gave her son to the prophet, and the
prophet told her, no, I can't take your
son.
But then she said, let let him serve
you. Like, let him be a servant to
you. So Annas,
as a young man, the prophet calls him
like Pookie, you know, Lily and Pookie. I
don't know if you do this in New
York, Oklahoma, like Wee Wee for William. In
Egypt, my daughter, she she fast.
Right? Do it in Arabic.
So
he used to call him, You,
Like this is a form or form of
like love and like nurturing this young boy.
Showing him love.
Teaching him. And he said, you know, one
day the prophet ordered me to go do
something. I was a little kid and I
forgot. I started watching people play and then
I felt the softest hand ever,
and the kindest voice I ever heard. And
he said,
You
know and his hand smelled like like perfume.
And he said,
You didn't say
like,
You Now we see religious people
online. What happened to their akhlaq and their
character?
You could be like,
you
know, I really like this ayat of Quran,
and they'll be like, you know, you're a
deviant ahu bidda going to *. Have a
nice day.
The verse of Quran, man.
Right?
Or someone will like try to come to
God and make like a mistake, and they'll
destroy them.
Here the prophet says, Yeah Ones.
Like he he calls him by a term
of endearment.
And then he said to him,
did you forget what I told you to
do? He didn't say it like, why didn't
you do it?
And the prophet And then Anna said, yeah.
He said, okay, Yalla go do it. He
said,
like he never hit me, he never scolded
me, he never yelled at me.
I never saw anybody nicer than him. That's
the importance of Annas, one of the last
sahaba to die.
So Annas, he said and, obviously, he saw
this when he was a young child.
He said,
When the prophet was challenged
with things which caused him anxiety, he would
say,
Oh,
the living, the one who sets everything aright.
The prophet said
because the ultimate life is a life in
the hereafter. To remind us like with Allah,
life continues. Khalas, don't worry. Allah can bring
life back to you after you've died through
a test.
And Khayyim, the one who sets everything right
for you. So like, don't worry. Insha'Allah. One
day it's gonna be
right. In your mercy,
I plead for help and aid.
The third from Abu Huraira, the allahu anhu,
who suffered from epilepsy.
He said, the prophet
when something would cause the prophet anxiety.
He would turn to the heavens and say
He
said
and like when there was something really bothering
him and he would supplicate earnestly,
he would then say, oh, the one who
is the source of life and the one
who causes all things to be said alright.
This
one is very beautiful that the prophet
said that this is the supplication of the
makrub.
That's what the prophet named it.
He called this the supplication of the one
that's going through hardships.
And he would supplicate
Oh Allah, there's no
greater hope I have than your mercy. Your
mercy is what I hope in.
In.
Don't let me trust myself for the blinking
of an eye. Like, don't leave me to
myself.
And set forth all my affairs, set them
rectify them for me.
The 5th,
from Abdullah ibn Jafar,
who said that his mother,
Asma
Bintu Umayz.
She said,
She said the prophet taught me
a supplication
that I should say when I'm being tested.
Wow, man.
The prophet taught people how to deal with
anxiety.
And that was Allahu Allahu
Which means You Allah, You Allah. Oh Allah,
oh Allah, my lord,
I associate no partners with him.
And she would say it twice. Some narrations
said she would say it 7 times.
But she said, alamatni
or Rasulullah he salallahu alaihi wasalam hadiil kalimat,
like the prophet taught me this, taught me
to say this.
We talked about this on numerous occasions that
the prophet is not only invested in people's
cognitive growth and their physical growth, but he
cares about their emotional capacity and their psychological
ability.
So he teaches that as well.
The next that the prophet
said that the best dua
that you can say when you're going through
it is the
dua of Yunus.
Now the said,
prophet Yunus,
who is in the belly of this fish?
And he said,
And then the prophet said, whoever makes this
dua,
then Allah will answer their dua.
And the last is quite long,
but it's really beautiful and we'll just go
through it quickly because of time. SubhanAllah.
And the prophet said nobody said this dua
at a moment of sadness or anxiety
except
Allah
will give them something better, perhaps in the
hereafter, maybe in this life,
and eventually remove their harm.
That doesn't mean that we use this dua
and don't seek help. Of course not,
because seeking help is part of that dua.
But he said that the prophet said,
oh Allah, I am your servant. The
son of your servant.
The son of your female servant. Me, my
mother and my father.
Which basically means
is like this, but it means
all my affairs, like everything
is rendered into your control.
My past,
my future,
all those things come through your authority and
your power.
I ask you by every name which you
have named yourself.
Or you revealed in your
book
or any of those names that you taught
to create anyone from creation.
Or those names that you have not revealed
to us and only you know of of
yourself.
And that you make the Quran the delight
of my heart.
And the light of my chest.
And you cause it to remove my sadness
and my anxiety.
And to move things which
concern
me and make me depressed and anxious.
He said nobody says that except
He said nobody will say this except Allah
will take this away from them insha'allah and
bring them happiness.
So those are some supplications to help us
shelter the
the hard times. If you want them, just
send us an email. We'll get them out
to you, inshallah.
Now the sheikh, he continues and he moves
on from the idea of envisioning and seeing
trials and the wisdom of tests and patience
and and and and shouldering them and and
how to shelter ourselves through trauma.
So now talking about
another key component of making it through the
storm, and that is to see blessings.
So it says,
which means, like, the blessings of God are
infinite.
The blessings of our Lord are infinite.
For the delight
of souls,
and the delight of what will reach the
depths. Muhaj is the depth of the heart.
It's hard to translate this, but what it
means is that and Suru actually is a
word used for, like, cattle when cattle are
let. I think I told you My grandfather's
a cattle farmer. So I remember, man, in
the spring, when I open up that gate,
these cows go crazy, man.
It was like, you know, Black Friday or
something American people in front of, Walmart, man,
losing their minds, man. So he would
open up the gate and these cows would
lose their minds, man. I've never seen cows
dance.
Right? Jumping up and down and eating grass.
That's called Suruah.
So the sheikh is saying
and there's a subtle meaning here too if
you think about it.
You know, the blessings of your lord are
infinite.
So,
like, graze in those blessings.
Like, find redemption.
Find life again.
Just like the cow, they find life
in the pasture
when they're let loose.
So he's saying appreciate blessings.
It's a very beautiful hadith of saying that
Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala loves to see the impact of
his blessings on the lives of people.
So what he's saying here is
appreciate that things around you are a blessing
and try to see them and let them
be a source of your
your redemption,
your resurrection.
Then he says,
And he said the blessings of Allah have
a a beautiful smell. There's a reason that
he's saying this English. It doesn't make much
sense, man.
Because we talked about this a lot that
the idea of knowing God, the word is
Marifa and the word Marifa is from smelling
something.
So the person has utilized their senses to
recognize
that these things are a blessing, just like
someone uses their nose to smell the araj.
But instead of it being the nose that
smells this beautiful scent, it's the heart that
sees the scent of these blessings
that
metaphorically smells
the blessings. That's what you feel in Arabic.
So the idea of being perceptive,
mindfulness, taking time to appreciate things,
Slowing down.
Taking it easy.
If if
sometimes when people I talk to them and
they feel like
they don't feel grateful,
one of the things I talked to them
about is the speed of their life.
And usually their life is just like, it
doesn't stop, man. It doesn't take a break.
It doesn't pull over the rest area
to see how far they've come.
So the Sheikh is saying,
and then he said these, this is a
metaphor man, but these beautiful scents
they resurrect. They bring life. They're a source
of for you. Meaning,
the purpose of engaging in mindfulness that leads
to thankfulness
should be a point of resurrection.
So now coming out
of the trauma.
Then he said, so set your course
for those
things which bring that life, meaning blessings, nama,
to be someone of shuk,
a thankfulness.
And he keeps using words like
because these are words that invoke agency.
He didn't say
He didn't say just like wait and chill.
One day those smells will come to you.
And also,
there there's
a subtlety here in the language that, like,
when people smell something nice, they tend to
what?
They tend to turn towards it.
They tend to find it.
So he's saying like these, the blessings of
Allah If you take time to find them,
then you're responsible
for turning towards them
and seeking them. There's this idea of agency.
Like, you're responsible,
man.
You gotta go for it.
Nobody's gonna take you and push you there.
Then he continues
and he talks about this moment where someone
is able to see blessing.
1 of the scholars used to say
One of the scholars, he he went through
challenges and tests,
and he said I see that people,
you know, they act as though
they're, you know, in night,
but I feel that I am at the
time of duha.
Like I feel as though
mashallah everything's clear. There's clarity for me.
It's very important that we understand our purpose
in life is not self gratification. Scholar. He
found a man. He was laughing. He said,
what happened? He said, my son died. He
said, my son died. He said,
my son died. He said, my son died.
He said, my son died. He said, my
son died. He
there was a scholar, he found a man.
He was laughing. He said, what happened? He
said, my son died. He said, why are
you laughing? He's like, well, I wanna show
I'm pleased with God. He's like, this is
foolishness.
And the prophet, he wept when he lost
his son.
But
when I'm able to understand the purpose of
life is to
worship Allah as though I don't see him,
as though as though I see him even
though I can't see him.
And everything falls into this meta narrative
of a life of purpose.
And then I'm able to appreciate what the
gibra has given me and that's why on
Tuesday we said, it's not allowed to study
the names of Allah. Like for example,
the one who gives,
but the one who keeps from you.
And there's 2 important names of Allah that
will help us at least intellectually kind of
build some constructions around how to move through
this or 3.
Number 1 is Arab,
the one that provides all things,
all the provisions that I have.
Number 2 is Allah's knowledge, his transcendent knowledge.
One of my teachers used to say
all anxiety and he didn't mean this
to discount
therapy or help. Right? He meant within the
specter
spectrum of not needing clinical help.
He said most simple anxieties of people can
be remedied by remembering that Allah knows more
than them.
I was like, man, it's hard, man.
And the third that Allah is just.
So those are
attributes of God
that I can hold on to as
I go through this.
And one of the outcomes of knowing that
Allah is the giver is that blessings are
appreciated.
That the Nama are real.
So the Sheikh, he's he's now
trying to portray
what this state would be like.
What this cognition may lead to.
And of course, he's not talking about someone
that's going through the trial. He's talking about
now someone that's used
seeing blessings,
seeing the stars,
Because we talked about also in the in
the first verse, the second verse how Arabs
used to use stars as what?
As their ways,
as their Google Maps.
So the Sheikh is saying,
recognizing
blessings and being a thankful person
is a way to GPS
yourself out of the the difficulty.
And there's something else why he used stars.
How many stars are in the sky?
Even though they appear very tiny, we know
they're large, right?
But it's an infinite number.
So there's also this idea of incremental
small blessings.
It doesn't have to be like, you know,
I slay the dragon and marry Khaleesi.
It don't have to be that.
Okay. But it could be, I carried the
water for John Snow.
It doesn't have to be this epic moment
of grand success.
So what he's saying is like,
incremental
small steps to change.
Appreciate that because that has a source of
life for you
that will ultimately act once strung together
as a potential guide
to take you through the difficulty. So he's
painting a strategy at least spiritually
for moving beyond
being caught up.
And then he and this is really hard
to translate.
He portrays the moment when that realization happens.
He says,
He says, at that moment,
if if that process is truly met with
sincerity
and certainty,
at that moment that the person realizes
that the blessings are there, they don't have
to be the epic, you know, conquering the
death star.
That's a problem of popular culture.
Popular culture only celebrates
the hero.
I actually like the last Spider Man movie,
man.
I like jumping off the ledge.
I like the metaphor of
knowing the ledge, knowing your limits,
engaging your
vulnerabilities.
I really appreciated that.
But often times, we never celebrate
what the prophet called Al Akhfiya.
The partners in success. Those who did small
things. And that's why you find sometimes our
communities,
everyone wants to be the hero. Everyone wants
to be Salahuddin.
Everyone wants to be the great reformer. What
if I could just carry the pins for
Ghazali?
Ghazali.
Said that Issa said, who would help me?
People weren't like, nah, man. I wanna be
Esau too, dude.
People are there. And I can say one
of the beauties of the Muslim community and
Imam Khaled is here is like, we have
like infinite number of people just volunteer, man.
From vacuum in the floor
to like serving poor people in the park.
Like that's that's that's a sign of a
healthy community. I evaluate communities
not only by having charismatic leadership,
but also having passionate
volunteers.
So Sheikh is saying,
you know, it doesn't have to be this
grand moment
because the sun may take time to come.
But string some victories together
and then appreciate that those victories will bring
you life
And follow them until they lead you out
of this difficult situation. It's like hard to
translate. So I'm doing my best. So he
says at that moment
that at that moment when you realize that
the sources of life are going to flood
you.
Fald.
So he's like talking about the idea of
cognition
as being synonymous with being what? Everyone probably
recognizes this if you're like involved in wellness
studies and stuff. Right? That this water is
gonna what? It's gonna make you it's gonna
make it what?
Full and whole.
So like the idea
is the the flood here is a healthy
idea of flood
that you've been made whole and brought to
life again.
You've been flooded by the understanding of nam.
You've been resuscitated.
And he said, by powerful waves because a
relationship with God can be overpowering.
Like if we really really sometimes think about
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and our responsibility
to Allah
And how that plays out, and how we
live our lives.
That can be overpowering.
It can be like a wave that hits
you.
And he said, a wave that comes from
an A bottomless
ocean. Meaning,
that this knowledge of Allah and the knowledge
of the divine and the mysteries of blessings.
You'll never
reach its end.
So you'll be like
filled and it will never run out.
There's a lot happening in this line. Everybody's
like looking at me like, wow. There's a
lot happening. I actually wanna do this book
like with, you know, like planet Earth.
Like for real because like it's so powerful
what he's saying.
But the idea is that you've been fill
you've been flooded
and made aware.
And that came by stringing together incremental moments
of success
and redemption.
Shall we have to finish in a few
minutes? So
let's let's talk about
one one thing
and and
we'll
we'll continue in the future.
Even
Nahu is a deep guy, man.
But sometimes you can't be full all the
time because if we're full all the time,
that would make life very monolithic
and everyone around us isn't fooled.
So there are times where you have to
be drained.
There's times that we go through difficulties.
And actually, those difficulties may be blessings. And
that's that belief
in good and evil,
challenges and successes.
I'll leave it to Allah.
But
our scholars were
enamored by
these moments of knowing,
realization,
and then slipping,
and knowing,
and realization,
and slipping, and knowing. It can be constant.
Because if it wasn't constant, one time I
asked my teacher why does our iman go
up and down? He said so our duas
will have meaning.
I said what?
He say, yeah.
But scholars, they said there are 8 situations
that, you know,
we fall in as we move through life.
They actually wrote one of our teachers a
poem. He said
used to say there are 8 situations people
will find themselves in, and always it's gonna
be one of the 8.
Happiness, sadness,
being together and splitting. Like, we're here today.
Tomorrow, we don't know each other anymore.
Ease, hardship,
health, sickness.
So there are really 8 etiquettes
to each one of these situations
that I thought I would share with you.
And then inshallah, we'll
have to make a move.
The first is happiness and sadness. Ibni Qayyim
said, happiness is the pleasure in the heart
based on knowledge,
whose object is that of love and admiration,
or it's a sense of happiness because you've
attained something. So it could either be like
you've received love, you've given love, or you've
attained something. So I brought like some
that feeling
to the heart.
The etiquette of happiness is to ensure that
you're happy with what pleases Allah because there's
2 type of happiness. There's happiness such as
happiness and there's happiness which is sadness. You
Allah.
So if I'm happiness happy with evil, then
that may be what for me in the
hereafter?
Sadness.
If I'm happy with what deserves to be
truly
a cause of my happiness, then I'll be
happy in the hereafter.
And if I'm sad because I lost something
that will make me happy in the hereafter,
that will also be a source of my
happiness in the hereafter, Allah.
So happiness.
Religiously,
the etiquette is to be happy
with what pleases Allah.
They are pleased with god, god is pleased
with him.
If my happiness is for something evil,
then that may be a source of my
unhappiness in the hereafter.
And so Allah says,
In the 58th verse, of 10th chapter, Allah
says, with
god and with faith and with Quran, let
people rejoice.
Once I had a friend,
man, this is an interesting story.
First time I ever traveled in the mid
nineties before some
of
you So some of you weren't even around.
So I went to a Muslim country that
was not Egypt
or Malaysia.
And,
I met his father.
He's telling his father, this is my friend.
He came from America. He's like, his name's
William
and he came from Oklahoma,
And then his father wouldn't smile.
The whole time, man,
he just would not
smile.
So then I thought like, maybe he thinks
like I'm the white guy FBI agent.
I don't know what to do. So then
I asked my friend like, did I do
something to your daddy's like, no man. My
father believes like, it's religiously,
unacceptable
to be happy.
I was like, man, it's really people like
this. I thought they only existed in Oklahoma.
Right?
That's crazy.
But Allah says
rejoice.
You should be happy. I tell people convert
to Islam, man. Be happy with
your deen.
No.
Sadness.
The beloved messenger used to say,
Oh, Allah, I seek refuge in you from
things that cause me anxiety and things that
cause me to be concerned about the past.
And the idea is that sadness is good
if I'm sad over something good.
If I'm sad that there are 4,000 children
on the border, that's a good
sadness.
If I'm sad that the bail laws in
the state,
you know, 70% of people incarcerated,
They don't have the money to pay for
their bail.
So this weekend, there's like a a big
thing happening with many interfaith partners, right, to
take this on
at a legislative level. When I see inmates
that don't have heat in Brooklyn,
I should be sad with gentrification. I should
be sad
that people don't have access to health care.
I should be sad that
corporations
control
many of the important decisions made for people
in this country. Now I should calibrate that
to action.
That's good sadness. But if I'm sad because,
you know, I missed
I don't know, man. Something super ratchet.
Can't think of it. I'm too tired. But,
you know,
sad because whatever.
Don't wanna put myself on blast. But I'm
sad for something trifling. Right?
Then
last night, I gave the example in the
Chobah.
I
am a fan of the greatest,
basketball team in history,
Boston Celtics. And,
you know, it was a long day, and
I actually left my computer here. So I
was coming back from Harlem, and I was
like, man, I'm gonna go watch Kyrie. I'm
gonna beat the Bucks. This is a kind
of a guy thing. I'm sorry. I know
also there are a lot of women that
like it too,
but I've been told it's a guy thing
by a woman.
So
I got there and I left my computer
here, so I tried to play off the
staff. I was like, man, I left my
computer at work, like, anyone see my computer?
You know what I mean? So it's on
the WhatsApp group. Actually, I'm just needing my
computer because
I wanna watch the game. But my wife,
Allah bless her. Even though she's pregnant, she
made this amazing keto dinner. You I'm saying,
it was amazing. It was like, mashallah.
Like, who knew you could do that with
cauliflower?
So, it was incredible
and then she's like, she's really excited because
it's like her first time to try to
do a keto dinner. So it's like, it's
a big deal, but for some reason my
mind's on my Kyrie and my my Kyrie's
on my mind. You know, I'm I'm Kyrie
right now, who we need to get rid
of anyways.
So I'm sitting down and I start to
use my phone, like, you know, I'm a
watch the game on my phone, man. I
get the Sony view up.
And I said, hold on a minute. This
your wife.
Right? I caught myself. Right? For me to
be unhappy that I missed Kyrie,
instead of
being with my family, that's some ratchetness, man.
That's what he means here like, make sure
that your unhappiness is with like, things that
are intrinsic to you, man. And things that
are intrinsic to your hereafter.
Not side stuff. We all struggle with this.
Right?
The next
is meeting and separating.
And there's etiquettes for that.
Number 1 is to love the person sincerely
in most situations, when we separate from them.
We're gonna have to stop actually now because
I have to go to another masjid and
give another speech.
But we will,
continue.
Reading from
Al Mun Faridah. If you have any questions,
we can take, like, a few minutes,
and then we're gonna have to
make a move.
Forgive me if I run out. It's not
because I'm trying to be Christian Bale from
Batman. I'm just gonna be somewhere.
Any questions?