Suhaib Webb – Bound By God Zarrqs Foundations of Sufism Part 4
AI: Summary ©
The importance of clinging to what one says is important in a relationship is emphasized, along with the use of clinging to God's presence and the use of " ham ham ham" to describe the physical and mental state of the person. The speaker emphasizes the importance of pursuing Bible teachings for personal growth and establishing a relationship with God. The importance of worship, avoiding struggles, respecting Sharia, and staying in touch with the Prophet is emphasized, along with the need for strong support networks and a sheikh to tell people they are the only way to God. The speaker provides advice on staying with the broader group and avoiding extremes, as well as on learning and sustaining worship, avoiding apologizing for everything, and staying with the Prophet.
AI: Summary ©
Is it hard to translate?
But he said,
it's not really the meaning.
The meaning is,
you gotta cling to what you say is
important,
and when you cling and attach to that,
if your attachment is real,
then you're going to establish what will take
you to what you say you're attached to.
That's the best way I can translate it.
Like if I say I love you baby,
but then I don't treat my wife well,
I haven't fulfilled what's
I haven't stuck to the conditions that will
show
I care.
If I say, I like my neighbor but
I never speak to them, or I'm down
for black lives matter, but I'm doing nothing,
or I love I'm about environmental resiliency. Oh,
pass me all that plastic. Let's make it
rain up in the house with plastic.
Then I'm not really doing what I'm saying.
So the Sheikh is saying, if you long
for God,
then attach yourself to what will take you
to him.
In other words, the verse of Quran, why
you say what you don't do.
So he's saying within the framework of the
relationship
of worship,
you gotta be responsible in this relationship.
So he's saying,
so when I say that this thing is
an obligation for me to do, I have
to cling to it,
and what will take me to it?
If not,
I'm not being honest.
One time the sister, she came to me,
she's amazing, Masha'Allah.
She said to me,
I feel so far away from God.
I was like, who moved?
She's like, that's not a fair question. I
said, no, why not? I'm asking you, who
moved?
Apostle Salloum said, Allah said if you walk
to me I run to you, if you
take one step to me I take 10
steps to you.
So the sheikh is saying now as we
try to think about the furnishings of our
heart
and directing ifrathukalom,
how do I make my heart for God?
He said if my heart is for God
in a balanced way, not extreme on either
side,
then I'm going to look to things that
will help me have
that relationship. So then He says,
He said that's why remembrance of Allah
is one of the greatest acts you can
do.
Because the Quran says what? If you remember
me,
I remember you.
If you want me,
remember me.
We talk about what we love, man. You
ever been around people that didn't have kids?
It's all they talk about.
Like anything that you contextualize to kids, man,
you could be like, you know, our trash
man is just, you know, my baby's so
messed up.
How we get to your baby? I'm talking
about a trash man. Right? You know, we
should never trade it cousins. You know, I
should never trade it in that bassinet.
Right? Because we talk about what we love.
We talk about who we are.
So the sheikh is saying
if you if you claim to wanna have
that heart for God,
then stick to what brings it to him.
And the easiest way to bring your heart
to God
is to remember him.
So he's giving us the first practice.
The first practice that we should try to
do in moderation
is digger.
Ibn Abbas said, every act of worship
is conditioned on time and place,
except the remembrance of Allah.
One time my brother said to me, how
am I gonna remember God in my cubicle?
I
said, well, I've never seen your cubicle,
but
if Eunice could remember Allah on the belly
of a fish,
you can remember Allah in that cubicle.
Dhikr is so important,
You know, if you look in different
Akham in the Quran, some something sometimes are
like, okay don't do this because you can't
do it. Don't do this bitch you can't
do this. But zikr, it's never said like
don't do it. That's why we leave the
restroom we make Istifar because that's the only
place
that is Makuru to make the
There's other places but in Jammu.
We had a Sheikh in Morocco,
my brother Ibrahim is Moroccan, Masha'Allah.
He was a quadriplegic
and he would say Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah.
I used to sit on the couch. Alhamdulillah,
alhamdulillah, praise be to God, praise be to
God. And one day his family member got
mad. He said stop saying hamdulillah.
He's like, what do you got to say
hamdulillah for anyway? You can even walk.
He said, but I can say Alhamdulillah.
Imam Sheykh, he said Alhamdulillah,
for the one who guided me to say
Alhamdulillah,
and now I have to say Alhamdulillah.
So Dhikr. All of us here like, you
don't have to go to Elohim to get
PhD through Dhikr?
You don't have to, like, have a fat
bitcoin account to do dhikr?
You don't have to be on the board
of the masjid to make dhikr?
That's the beauty of dhikr.
If you think about it, dhikr is the
epitome of equality
because anybody can be with God
by remembering
God.
Male, female,
black, white,
rich,
poor.
Fast Curoni.
Remember me. I'll remember you.
Arab, non Arab.
Remember me. I'll remember you.
Super pious,
broke down,
struggling.
Remember me.
I remember you.
And the Prophet said, Alhamdulillahi
tam lahu mizan, when you say Alhamdulillahi,
you feel the scales.
Also, there's something else,
the Sheikh doesn't just mean that as bicker
but he's framing
life as bicker.
That's why Abu Musa when he came to
say the Omar one night he said why
are you here? It's really late. Why are
you at my front of my house? He
is like, the fuck to understand religion. He
said, okay. If you wanna learn, I gotta
let you in and they set and they
set and they set and then said that
we're down. He made the adan for tahajjud
and Sayyidna Abu Musa said, we gotta go,
we gotta go, we gotta go make dhikr.
And Umar said,
Up until now we were making dhikr. What
are you talking about?
So learning the dhikr, my work is dhikr.
Any act that I do that is tied
to recognizing Allah's transcendence
becomes a form of dhikr.
And I'll say something that may
promote some thought in a unique way,
but in many ways
extreme religion
is the offspring of secularism.
Because it's compartmentalize
religious experiences in ways that forces
people to distill
that religious moment in one moment
that creates an unhealthy balance.
Whereas religion
is like it's not like Walmart. It's not
compartmentalized.
That's why the Quran says Mahiyya
wamamati
lila. Mahiyya isn't hayat.
Mahma is mahood.
Hayati is like a part of my life.
What my meti,
my whole death
is forgot.
So the Sheykhdi says,
have a life and think.
And he says,
If you're able to like live a life
that's tied
to extolling God,
there's nothing better than that, there's no greater
gift than that.
They asked Ibn Sina, the great
physician,
how are you so good at medicine?
He
said, I remember how Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
made everything balanced.
So I try when I see ailments
to think of the extremes,
the extreme illness and the extreme cure, and
I always go in the middle.
That's a form of dhikr. Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala has inspired you to seek moderation.
You can continue Shana, I'm gonna have to
go through this quickly.
Then he says, al Ibaratuh, what is worship
then?
I'm ready to go, I want to establish
because the way to arrive to God is
remembrance,
and remembrance is the best form of worship,
but now let me move into worship. I
sent this PDF also to Center DC so
if you signed up, Insha'Allah I can send
it to you.
But El Ibadah
is now this bridge.
How do I create this relationship? How do
I hold on to attachments? What am I
attached to if I'm truly attached to God
through dhikr?
And then worship.
So he says,
We're gonna take a part of this because
we don't have time. But what he's saying
is,
worship is to establish
what
the Islam
Sharia
has asked you to establish.
That's tough, man.
That's not like, well, you know, to me
worship is like getting a dime bag and
like listening to Cypress Hill
and going to the hookah bar and hanging
out and getting blazed.
That's worship man. No. No. No. No. No.
That's delusion.
You know worship is like to sleep in
on Sunday, you know, not pray,
take a day off.
That's delusion.
True worship, because remember,
if I want to arrive to something, if
I'm true and saying I want to arrive
at it or be close to it then
I have to cling to what will
take me there. So the sheikh is saying,
what's gonna take you there is what it
asks you to do.
So he said al Ibadah in its pure
form is iqamat matulibamink
is to establish those things
which
Allah
has asked you to perform.
That's a struggle.
It's not easy.
Those things outside of worship. What he means
here is like outside of the masjid,
outside of Hajj.
There's a brother one time, SubhanAllah, man, it's
really Converse, we have a lot of interesting
stories here.
Conversion is an excursion.
She wrote a book conversion excursion.
They used to tell me like, man, mashallah
brother. I'm so I'm so pious.
I was like, what? Masha Allah.
He's like, man,
I stay home,
I just make bicker and I read all
the time.
I'm like, that sounds tough.
You know, it's easy to be pious at
home
with a door shut
and make dicker. Like, that's not
hard. It's like reading a book at Barnes
and Noble.
Ain't hard. Playing a game of GameStop,
not hard.
But let me see you play a game
at Back Beth and Beyond.
Shen, what will you say when he starts
to talk about worship
is to establish what's been requested of you
from Islam
that may be part of the liturgy
or outside of the liturgy
because that's your whole
life. If I'm just pious in prayer
but not outside of prayer, I'm not whole
but he said the purpose of worship is
to make me what?
To marry that. To find those intersection not
to struggle. That's a struggle.
I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying
not dead. I'm saying it's what he's saying.
So Al Iverat
Yaqama to establish, you know what Yaqama means
like to erect, like I put work in.
I had to work for this, it was
a process. What
the sharia
has requested of you. Salah, being good to
your parents. Okay, salah is inside but being
good to parents is outside.
Zakah. Yes,
sir.
Yeah, I mean I think you should say,
yeah, we are trying to establish Sharia just
like you're trying to tap the Sunday school,
and let them deal with that answer.
And then again it goes back to earlier,
you could say to them, what do you
mean by that?
Like well, you're gonna take over the White
House. Okay. Who's trying to take over the
country right now?
Isn't the same people that accuse us of
trying to take over the country who, for
example, held up a Supreme Court nomination?
Mitch McConnell, there's a picture of him with
a rebel flag behind him smiling.
Stephen Miller is in the White House.
Stephen Miller.
It's not funny. We should be worried. These
are white supremacists.
So I don't play the apology game with
them.
Then I'll say to them,
so what do you well you know you
guys aren't gonna allow women to have any
agency.
Hello?
We just
elected
Rashida and
Ilhan.
And
I mean,
obviously, there's a problem in their coordination of
reality,
but I would say yes.
What does Shellyah mean to you? They say,
cutting off arms and killing people. We're not
trying to do that.
But prayer,
worship,
avoid the forbidden, that's not right.
So that will be my response and then
I would ask them like, why is there
always this like now even this discussion like
for them why is there always this false
assumption?
I One time I I was on a
talk show or something with this Islamophobe
and he was saying like you know Muslims
are here in America. They're gonna take over.
They're gonna establish like the, you know, like
crescent
flag on the White House and blah blah
blah blah. I said, really?
He said and this started in the nineties.
That's what he said. Right?
So I said,
can you show me one state
that's like we own?
It's like Muslim state.
He's like, no.
One county,
one town. I started choking.
One street,
one house,
one closet
for a lot.
I
was like, man, this is the worst invasion
ever recorded in history.
We got nothing to show for it.
And another thing is you need to write
back and fight back and say, man, you
know, you're a bigot, man. Like you're a
bigotry, right?
But I would I would I would not
step back from it. I would say, yes,
I am trying to establish
Sharia because I know Sharia better than you
because I'm Muslim and you're not.
And you need to respect the fact that
that's reality. You can't tell me who I
am. That's Holliday doing his book American Islamophobia
talks about this brilliantly,
forcing definitions on a community that I'm not
part of.
That's unacceptable,
so I don't back away from that
and make them deal with their fears. So
Al Ibarra, and also our Sharia
very clearly we do this in the future.
What are the rights responsibilities of Muslims who
live within a Muslim state and outside of
a Muslim state if that even exists now,
nowhere we order to like be a 5th
pillar and like over throw governments and create
mayhem.
It's not in our Sharia.
So he said,
so internal and external responsibilities.
Internal to worship, zakat, Hajj, fasting, but then
I have to translate that into being a
better person,
to being a good citizen,
to being someone who stand. If I read
in the Quran how Moses stood up for
justice,
I don't understand still why mosques and Americans
don't have Black Lives Matter signs. So
incredibly insane. The Turkish mosque asking what should
we do? I said that huge billboard that
you have between those 2 minarets, PG County
is right there. PG County was nailed and
buoyed was nailed by predatory loans.
But black lives matter on them.
And then your neighbors will talk to you
because your neighbors believe you care about them,
Cecilia.
Palestinian situation, Yemeni situation.
You know, these are things that we should
be vocal
and within the framework of our own communities
in America like now. I'm not going to
apologize for Sharia. I'm going to defend Sharia
and make sure you understand that what you're
saying is wrong. If you don't agree with
me, okay fine.
We can continue insha Allah.
Then what is worship? He says,
that pure worship or complete worship
is to
of worship means I know how to do
it. So I've learned.
I've learned how to worship.
That's a process that will continue throughout my
life.
Imams asked me what is our primary role
in America? Tech support.
Those series like
not not to be some
complete guy that has, like, the hidden meanings
of people's lives.
That's where you get into problems.
People message me sometimes on Snapchat like, should
I go to this college or that college?
I have no idea about that.
I'm not an advisor at your university.
And they're like, what kind of imam are
you?
I'm not the imam who knows.
I didn't read Consumer Reports this year.
I don't know
what college you should go to,
and I'm not gonna let you blame me.
When you go to that college. You know,
well, he told me to go here. I
hate these imams. These moms know that thing
blah blah blah blah. How can we never
see things out of like, man, Muslim scientists
are horrible.
Like Muslim artists are horrible. It's always imam
getting blamed for everything.
You know why? Don't let people put you
in a position
where you do more than teach them how
to worship.
That's your job. Tech support.
Is it got a 401 ks? Okay, hit
me up.
That's my job. Should I invest in this
or that? I have no idea.
So what he says, commando'idara,
completing worship is number 1, to learn, make
sure that I'm worshiping properly.
What will have of them to set up
a strategy in my life that allows me
to perform that worship properly.
So it's not only about learning,
it's about establishing and sustaining.
And He says that's done by Ya'amatul Hududiha
of Vaikratil Walbatinati
min ghayi Abu Luwin Waratafrid
And he's he's gonna now to go into
the third thing. So the beginning of the
text, we talked about wellness.
We talked about sincerity,
the first step, the second is establishing victory
and worship, so that's 3 and 4. Now
we get
to the 5th
and that is
learning
and making sure it's sustainable.
Someone may ask, how do I make worship
sustainable?
And this is the 6th
point. Min Ghayi Holuwin
Waratafrit
by avoiding extremism.
It doesn't mean extremism like CVE stuff, that's
that's
a whole another ballgame.
What he means here is,
by doing more than what Islam asked
or neglecting what Islam asked.
That's what he means.
Ifraat Tafrit.
So for example, in the Maliki met, to
do more than what the Prophet asked us
like to wash your hand 5 times on
the moon. That's Magru.
Because you're doing more.
To not wash at all? Also that's a
problem.
At least have to wash once according to
the Quran. So what he's saying is between
that,
be careful.
And the way to protect ourselves from this
is 3 ways.
Number 1
is to stay in touch with the life
of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. The Prophet
is not equalizer of how to practice Islam.
Number 2
is to have a strong
support network of friends.
The community because like if I do an
act of worship and I subjected to like
mediating institutions and mediating experiences,
it's gonna be somewhere in the middle. That's
why I tell converts even though it may
be hard like stay in touch with massaging
men, the big massaging, the larger communities,
not 2 homies being on the boat at
the Potomac at 3 o'clock in the morning
saying that they're on the Haqq. No.
Stay away from that.
That's a problem. But the larger mediating experience
within the Muslim community,
it's gonna be hard. You're gonna run into
some stuff that's gonna hurt you, yes. But
in general, if you're with the broader sense
of people,
they're gonna equalize
you. That's why the prophet, araikum bil Jannah.
Stay with the community.
And that's why one of the signs of
Muslim cults are number 1, a sheikh who
tells you I'm the only way to God.
Run.
Run.
Number 2, the group that says, we're the
group that follows the guy who's the only
way to God.
Run. Number 3, when people ask you to
turn off your sense of judgment.
I don't think that's right. Well, who are
you? You're nobody. You're not pious enough. You're
not sanctified enough.
Run.
Number 4, they militarize your race or gender.
Run.
I met a young woman once who was
following a teacher overseas
and she said to me I don't understand
why I follow someone I can never talk
to.
And I said what do you mean? She
said well because I'm a woman. I was
like oh my God, please.
Because I'm a woman they said that I'm
a fitna.
So I was like is your name fitna?
She's like, my name is Tiffany. I'm not
gonna give you a real name.
It's not a real name. And I was
like, well, if your name is Tiffany, then
you're not fitnah.
And I was like, you follow someone who
told you you're a fitna?
She's like, yeah. It feels bad.
I was like, why would you trust that
feeling? Well, I was told because I am
not of a certain spiritual constitution,
I have no right to trust myself.
Run.
Run. When people tell you don't trust yourself
in the sense of
general
first of all, no teacher should be telling
not to trust yourself. I don't care what
it is.
They could say be careful of your desires,
you know, Shaykh. I want to go rob
a bank. Okay. Maybe that's not a good
idea. Maybe you shouldn't trust yourself. Okay? That
I get. But when it's like
Shaykh, I don't think I'm a fitna because
I'm a girl. Oh, Oh, you shouldn't trust
yourself?
Run, because you're gonna be spiritually damaged, man,
and that stuff will mess with your life
and destroy you.
So we had to rehabilitate this young woman
not even out of a situation like that
and she didn't even trust herself.
The next when you're told not to trust
your parents and people who love you.
People that actually care about you and know
you.
One time my brother came here, he's like,
you know, man, you don't dress like your
mom. I said, what's my mama's name?
He's like, what? I said, yeah. What's my
mom's name?
Like, I don't know your mom. Boy, then
you don't know me.
He's like, brother, you're arrogant.
Okay. Maybe you do know me,
But,
you know, I'm messing with him. But I
said, no. You you think you can just
careed into my life and tell me about
myself and you don't know me.
You don't know. Maybe I maybe I'm broke.
That's all I got.
You will take me to, like, Nordstrom?
Okay. Now you know
me. What is when people try to separate
you from people that love you
and care about you enough to tell you
things that you don't want to hear,
okay,
that's the sign of something wrong.
The last is when people justify doing haram
because they are pious not to do
Lord have
mercy. That's madness.
But you know what?
Every few weeks, I get a call or
a message from someone
who was told that this can be done
because we're so sanctified.
What doctor West calls righteous indignation.
Run from that.
So Shannon is saying,
look after these things and preserve these things
without extremes.
And the best way to do that,
study
the life of Muhammad.
There's nobody that can be a better example
for you.
That's why I say every year try to
read the sera. Like every year try to
read about his life. How he dealt with
people? How he engaged people? How he taught
people, how he loved people, how he disciplined
people.
Number 2, stay with the broader group and
avoid what?
Cults. And the last,
use religious scholarship
like tech support.
Charisma is dangerous,
you know,
and allow religious leaders and teachers to tell
you like I don't know man, I'm I'm
sorry dude. Like I don't know. I could
try to find a resource to help you,
but I don't know the answer. That doesn't
mean actually that means those people like that's
that's what it's about. Like I like that.
My teacher used to tell me when I
say I don't know, tell me I say
I don't know.
I was like why? He's like, because then
I know.
Like man, that's nice.
That's nice, but you ain't said it yet.
But that's nice. Right? Because he was like,
I passed the test, man. I I heard
Imam Saraj say, when I'm able to say
in front of an audience that I don't
know, I passed the test.
Legitimately, I don't know. Imam Malik used to
say, a scholarship model ignorance
like he models scholarship.
It's a very beautiful statement. Like model that
you don't know.
Just like you model that you do.
So three things that would help us with
our worship and avoiding extremes,
being close to the life of Muhammad, peace
be upon him,
looking at it as an equalizer.
I love the book of Ados Salahi, Mohammed
Men and Messenger. Man, that's a great book.
It's big, but it's beautiful.
Adul Salahi Muhammad I think Man and Messenger.
That's what it's called, right? It's beautiful.
Number 2,
support system. Avoiding cults.
Be with a community. Number 3, scholarship is
like tech support.
That takes us to the next one and
then we're gonna try to finish. It can
take like a super short break because we
have a lot to cover. My apologies.
Can you, scroll on down? No, this is
all good.
The Sheykh, he says,
then see how it's phrased if you think
about it. It's phrased like a principle because
he's writing it like law.
So he said,
excessiveness in worship
and extremeness,
being extreme in worship,
is
forbidden
just as being laxed in worship is forbidden.
See how it's phrased like an axiom? Because
he's trying to write Earlier we said Mary
law with the soba.
So for example, in Islamic law if I'm
like you know what? I'm gonna pray Mahab
ten times
because I'm hyped for the Duhamah 10 times
today. What would you tell me? Brother, that's
forbidden.
What if I told you, I'm not paying
Maghrib.
You tell me what?
That's forbidden. See what he's doing here,
but he's saying,
I want you to look at it this
way.
That you stay balanced.
So you're married
and this what makes the book really cool.
You lose it in English a little.
So it says Atashdeed.
Maybe a better word in Arabic is
Atashdut.