Suhaib Webb – Bound By God Zarrq’s Foundations of Sufism Part 5
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AI: Transcript ©
Fil Iberi
on hiyun anha.
Ketorah yanha.
Meaning,
being extreme is forbidden just like being laxed.
So what he's saying is achieving wellness and
worship is what?
Balance.
So one of the themes that he's gone
through the last few axioms is balance.
Stay balanced.
So he started with
the idea of wellness,
then he moved to sincerity,
then he talked about worship and remembrance,
and now he's talking about what? In that
worship
because there's 2 things that make worship
that make our religion
possible.
Number 1, it's meaningful
and we're gonna talk about this in a
second. It's sustainable.
Is my Islam sustainable?
Meaning, if I'm 23 and I'm hanging out
with the 3 homies on the falukkah, the
boat at the Potomac at 3 o'clock in
the morning, and we're cursing all the and
saying that everybody's wrong except us 3 people.
Am I gonna be able to marry and
do that?
Am I gonna be able to have kids
and do that? That's not sustainable.
It's like a diet.
You're gonna eat all the cream you want,
but you are not gonna die on keto.
Well, you might.
You can eat all the kale you want,
but I do not believe you're going to
continually
eat kale biryani
for the rest of your life. It's not
sustainable.
So sheikh is saying
make sure the worship that you establish is
avoid
of being too extreme, going beyond what Islam
asked or neglecting what Islam asked. Then he
says,
watawaslut
and moderation
is what ahu
the tarafin
is there are times where you need to
be hard on yourself, there's times where you
don't.
And what it means by that is fear
and hope.
So that takes us to the next point.
Moderation
is founded
on fear and hope.
A fear that pushes me to establish
religion but not excessively.
Imam David Imam, I don't know if there's
any followers of Imam Mohammed here, but Imam
Mohammed talks about being too drunk with religious
wine. I love that metaphor.
So he said,
are you tipsy?
Too much religion in you. You can't walk
straight,
but at the same time are you too
sober?
So there's that balance that he talks about.
So she says
meaning, sometimes you need fear.
Sometimes my teacher to say the antibiotic of
fear like, man,
dude, I'm just not wanting to do this.
Remember *. I'm good. Okay?
There's other times where like Allah hates me.
Allah doesn't love me. It's all over with.
I need the antibiotic of hope.
Ibrahim
said as we finish now,
that religion
has 2 wings just like a bird has
2 wings.
The wing of hope and the wing of
fear. I like reverence better than fear actually.
Reverence.
So he said, atawasut
aflugitharafani
fahu
waasabu'omur,
he said and that's the best thing, that
moderation that falls between being motivated by fear
and reverence and
and excited
and and encouraged by hope, he said that's
to Muslims.
So the prophet cried out of reverence for
God but he left out of love for
God.
So he's saying have that balance and he
said that's why the Prophet said the best
affairs are
those balanced, then talking about people who spend,
Allah says
those people who don't waste but they're also
not stingy,
they in the middle.
It's a constant principle in the Quran.
That moderation,
and he mentions though the verse where Allah
says when you pray, don't be too loud.
Don't be too silent, right?
Be in the middle, take that moderate path
and then at the end He says something
very beautiful
as we finish.
So at the bottom, in every one of
your efforts in worship and outside of worship,
try to find that moderation.
It's not easy.
In engineering, the hardest thing to do is
achieve balance.
Right? So achieving that balance
is a process
not an event. We'll take a break. Insha'Allah,
I think we need to pray and then
I think we have time to come back.
We'll try to run through a few more
of these insha'Allah.
We can also do part 2. My mother-in-law
is here so I'm gonna try it. Masha'Allah.
Give Give it up for my mother-in-law, man.
She's amazing, man. She's super shy and she's
hiding.
But,
yeah. If you're down for Persian cuisine,
nothing better. Masha Allah. I think I put
on £20.
But,
you know I'm in the area so we
can also do part 2 because there's a
lot. This is a process but we'll try
to come back maybe take a little more,
take some questions and finish inshallah.
Much done as we can, and then we'll
do part 2 in the future.
My family lives here, so I'm tethered, Mashallah,
to the area, alhamdulillah. And my family's here
also, another
way, Lauren and Mohammed.
So we we, we stopped where he said,
you know, let's let's let's kind of frame
where we started. He starts talking about the
idea of wellness, internal wellness,
then he starts to talk about what are
the keys to achieving internal wellness,
and the first thing he says is sincerity
and then to be sincere means that I'm
going to adhere to what The object of
my sincerity
is going to demand that I follow the
path to the object.
He's like the the object of your sincerity,
my sincerity if it's Allah,
and I'm gonna live a life
that shows that that's really the object of
my sincerity.
So he creates a sense of responsibility and
I actually love that he doesn't outsource it
to something or himself
or to anyone. He's like it's on you.
Like you got a ball. I'm gonna give
you the ball. Shoot it. Second thing is
that he he recognizes
worship
and sincerity, the process of security,
reframing these things as not events or moments
but processes,
and that that sometimes is one of the
tricks of shaytan. Ib Moqaim talks
about Shaitan causes us to look for the
home run ball, man.
Causes us to look for the 3 point
ball, You know? So we start bombing 3
spiritual three pointers
but we keep missing.
The other team keeps scoring. Right? We find
ourselves behind.
Whereas appreciate the free throws. Appreciate that's how
I'm trying to say. Appreciate
the process.
Everything that leads to that.
Then he talks about
the idea of worship is to help us
be whole,
not to be split.
So that our life is seen for God,
not just moments.
If you think about it, an event based
faith
is gonna cause me to look for, and
I said that earlier,
events for worship.
Whereas the Sheikh is saying,
see your whole life as this canvas of
opportunity,
not just like one little point here and
there.
Don't compartmentalize.
And then he talks about fear and hope
as motivators
and the idea, this is where we stopped,
a balance.
And he defines balance
as being able to utilize
reverence and fear and hope
in the right time, the right place.
That's why studying
life of prophet Muhammad that I mentioned earlier,
being around the broader community.
A dangerous dawah,
a dangerous
expression of Islam is one that tells you
the community is astray.
Community is wrong.
No doubt there are some things that are
wrong in the community, but
the community helps us mediate
those wrongs over time.
We should have instigators that help us mediate
them.
So he says
So he said, mentioned this earlier that new
extreme in worship
is
as forbidden as being relaxed in worship.
What Tawaso
aftergul be Thalafim
and being balanced
using both of those raw materials of fear
and hope
when needed,
When needed.
And then after mentioning a number of verses,
he mentions a very important incident that happened
in life of the Prophet, peace be upon
him, where a group of young men came
to say to Aisha,
Badi Allahu Anha, and they asked her about
the Prophet's
devotion.
And when
she told them
like this is how the prophet was,
They said like, I'm going to never sleep
again. I'm gonna pray all the time at
night. The other person said, I'm gonna fast,
you know,
forever.
And the other person said like, I'm never
gonna get married. I'm just gonna live a
life that fell of a sea.
When
she told the Prophet that this is what
they said,
he ran to them
and he said to them you know, and
the Sheikh he quotes it, he said that,
Waqaniyaqumun
alayhisfa
you know that he says to them, I
pray
and I sleep.
I fast, sometimes I don't fast
and I'm married.
So for an Nurati bihi sunnatifallaihissimunni
Whoever
swerves from my sunnah is not from me,
The idea of balance.
Sustainability
coupled with meaning. Meaning with sustainability.
So meaningful would mean like I see someone
that does something really, really interesting
and kinda like hits me,
but is that sustainable?
Something may be sustainable but I don't have
passion in it, so I want to marry
that.
The moment
with pragmatism.
And at the bottom he says
exactly what I just said, He said, so
clean to being moderate.
In the future if we had time we
define moderation in greater detail,
but stay moderate in everything because that's kinder
to your soul,
like care for yourself. Self care is something
we should think about. There's a great book
called The Resilient Clinician, it's like a really
good book about like self care.
So I'm resilient, but like I'm caring for
myself.
And he said, and also that will allow
you to sustain worship.
You'll be able to keep the relationship of
worship.
Right? If we can scroll
oh oh okay, I see
you. Get the birthday cake and just getting
all kind of cool stuff.
The next thing that some people tend to
do is they blossom spiritually is they think
that you know what, I need to make
things difficult on myself.
And
sometimes
trying to create difficulty
is
convoluted with like Allah's pleasure.
Like sometimes you see people online, they're like
man,
you know we suck as American Muslims,
We have jobs,
we eat nicely,
we live in neighborhoods.
No, man, you should rock that for something
good.
Don't feel bad about it. That's like
strange.
I should feel bad about it if I'm
not using it, if I don't use that
privilege,
right, to make a better world.
So he says, Al Ajru Al Qadr Itbaah.
Again it's phrased
like an axiom, like a legal axiom that
says
reward
is based on
the adherence to who you claim to follow.
So like if I claim to follow the
Quran, if I claim to follow
Sayyidina Muhammad Alaihi Salaam,
my adherence to that
is where my reward is.
La Ala Qadri al Mushakah
not on how hard something is.
Like that has nothing to do with it.
So he's like,
don't make things hard for yourself, just follow.
Sometimes people want to like make things harder
than they are.
So like I said, I'm a pray Madhur
like 10 times, that's prayer once. That's where
the Adjar is. The Adjar is following the
Prophet.
Not decreasing it or increasing it. Al Ajru
Al Akhadri Al Itba. It's a very beautiful
axiom.
Which means your reward is based on how
you follow. It's not about I want it
to be hard or I want it to
be easy,
it's about following
what's right.
And that also helps me limit, and it's
not completely possible,
my desires in this.
So I can say in my own life,
my early conversion,
you know I thought it was about being
hard so I destroyed relationships that's not sustainable
man.
My mother was like, you know, I would
like if it's not Islamic wasn't for you.
I was like, what? She's like, son, you're
wild. Like, no TV, no music, no meat,
no this. No. Like, I don't get all
this.
Right?
I went in
hard. Whereas,
Not because you've made it harder on yourself.
We have a famous axiom in Islamic law,
almushakatazibutasih
or the opposite that when you're faced with
real hardship,
ease comes in
and buttresses you. Like for example,
you're at the mall, you're scared to pray
and you pray sitting, pray sitting, pray in
your car, could pray in your car, you
have your kids with you, could you go
and pray in the dressing room? You pray
in the dressing room,
Those like axioms that come in and ease
not making things hard. Allah says in the
Quran,
Allah wants things to be easy for you.
Not easy to the point where I'm
not adhering
but not in the sense of a hardship
that
becomes
counterproductive.
So the Sheikh he says,
He said that's because
So He's saying, at the end of the
day, if someone has understood
and worshipped
and acknowledged internally,
that's more difficult than physical hardship.
So what he's trying to say is,
don't use
physical difficulties that you may have created for
yourself
as a means to tell you that you're
doing great
because that's not what's asked of you, what's
asked is for you to understand,
internalize,
and find sweetness in worship, and he said,
that's
harder.
Yeah, it's a little different now.
So the external
self imposed hardships
may actually mask
spiritual laziness.
And that's why the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam,
you may
understand that there's certain hadith where he said
to someone for example like your award is
based on hardship,
it's very important when we read hadith like
this and the Prophet is talking to someone,
we research who he's talking to and then
we go into the explanations
of early scholars and even that person who
would say for example, he was just talking
to
me. That wasn't for everybody.
I had a specific case.
We have to understand something, especially in hadith,
there are times when things are specific to
the person asking the question. Like the famous
hadith where the Prophet said, ask your heart.
He was talking to someone Al Wasid, who
is considered a Mufti?
So he can ask his heart, he knows.
But the general Quran is what? Fasilu alaadiqar,
ask.
Ask people.
So the Shaykh is saying, don't confuse by
what I said. If you've read the hadith
where the Prophet says to someone like the
more difficult the more reward you get, he
said, fahaada ifbarum
khasfilkhas.
This a specific situation
that demanded a specific response
is not for everybody.
And also,
he's reigning in the Sufis who started to
do these really difficult acts of worship.
It like for example, I had friend from
Pakistan, his grandfather Masha'Allah passed away but his
the friend from his neighborhood,
he was told by someone, his friend used
to drink and he made Tawba. So he
went to the local piersab, the Sheikh, he
said, what can I do? He said, you
should go live in a graveyard for 40
days and you should stay in the empty
grave.
And he did it.
And he knows Prophet Muhammad he has now
like mental problems.
The Sheikh is saying like that's not that's
that's not, it's not about this, about how
hard something is, how difficult something is, la.
What the reward is, is adhering to the
Prophet's teachings.
Not
introducing your own potential
and how many times does it happen to
us when we wanna come back to Allah.
All we have to do is make Tawba,
but Shaytan will tell you like, that's too
easy man, that's what he's saying
here. Don't be deceived by that stuff, just
do like if the prophet said, make Tova,
make Tova, have
confidence in that.
Don't
inject things in there but aren't there.
We can go to the next one Insha'Allah.
And then he also mentioned the Hadith
you know like
the best religion is the easy religion, ease
doesn't mean neglect, wouldn't say to Aisha and
also he said this is how I explained
the other narration where he said to the
person you know your hardship brings reward, when
Sayyida Aisha said that the Prophet SAW Alaihi
Wasallam,
illa and khayarabi
eisarihimah.
This narration of Sayyidha Aisha from Bukhari that
whenever the Prophet had a choice between two
things, he took the easier way as long
as there was no sinful behavior involved.
AssalaAllahu Alaihi Wasallam.
Now
he brings us into
a more responsible
approach towards living a spiritual life as muslim.
So he says,
It's very similar to what He said earlier.
Mora'a is what a shepherd does
like Mora'atil Ival, you know like
shepherds
the camels
looks after them and guides them.
So He says, maraatashrut
looking after conditions and the word He uses
this is a legal word by the way,
in the books of Fefch Shorot shal't,
looking after the conditions
that will cause this worship
and this relationship with God to happen,
are an obligation for someone who claims to
want them, to want it.
Like if I want God,
then I'm going to find out what are
the conditions that I have to live
that will make that relationship
possible.
Every this is something you can apply to
anything,
you know. If like someone says, you know
I want to get lean and then they're
like a king's pizza smashing freaking jumbo slices,
that's not live at the shahoot.
Someone may ask why are there conditions of
worship to keep us from delusion?
To help us monitor ourselves.
So if I state that I want to
have a spiritual relationship and I want to
be close to God but then I'm not
changing my life, I'm not making incremental changes,
I'm not being honest.
So the Sheyin, he says,
Looking after and shepherding those conditions
that are going to allow me to achieve
what's conditioned upon them
are an obligation for the one who claims
to seek
that thing God.
And he says,
at that moment if someone tries to establish
that relationship
without those conditions,
it won't be authentic
even if the
physical appearance is there.
So for example, I pray without Nia, the
physical appearance is there,
but the condition is not there.
Imam ibn Abta'ala Askandari who
had a great influence on this writer,
Ibn Alta'u'lai wrote a book called Al Hikam.
He said,
He
He said, all your actions are like mannequins,
all your actions are like empty shells.
Well Hayat and the life inside those shells,
wujuzirri
ikhlasifihah
is the appearance of sincerity inside it, like
sincerity is the oxygen
that brings life to actions. So he's just
giving like one condition.
Shaykh, when he's talking about conditions, he means
the inner, the outer.
So salah, my inner is my niya, the
outer is wudu, for example, I'm facing a
qibla, I pray on time.
So those conditions are met.
I think our
scroller is occupied.
And then he begins to start to talk
about how you establish this relationship and what
you want to attach to and the attachments
that you see yourself trying to achieve
and the objects of your attachment. So He
said idasahalaslukast
for the Awar yulataduh.
It's really beautiful
which means
if the foundation
is sound,
if the foundation is sound,
opposition is not really the good word.
Are things that suddenly happen.
Things that just happen.
That
out of suddenly happening can become an opposition
to you like unexpected opposition, maybe it's a
good word.
So He said,
If
the foundation
is sound,
Then those unexpected moments of opposition
are not gonna sway you from your purpose.
So here he's touching on 2 more things,
number 1, sincerity
and number 2, consistency.
Like if I really want something,
if I really claim to want it,
I'm gonna stay focused on it. I'm not
gonna be dissuade
from certain moments of
things that come out of nowhere.
I got my eyes on the prize.
So for example, Jannah,
if my my focus is paradise
then
nothing is gonna throw me off course. I
may take an exit. I may stop for
a minute and grab something from you know
Starbucks,
but I'm getting back on.
But opposition will happen.
Al Abari will happen.
So what he's talking about now is test,
trials, hardships,
failures,
things don't go our way.
Sometimes people say something interesting to me, they
say, you know I don't feel anything in
my prayer.
So what?
Some of our scholars used to say, whoever
worships Allah for a feeling
has worshiped the feeling.
Meaning, you don't have to feel anything.
Like alhamdulillah, one of
the highest
levels of worship is to worship Allah
and be happy with worship
because it's worship.
So I've disassociated
my,
you know the break maybe because maybe you
like had some bazbusa, right? Before salah. It's
like this amazing sweet. It's like gulab jamun
in the Arab world.
It's like apple piefas down south. Like you
have some cobbler, man.
You know, with
like everything.
So your brain is like you feeling good.
It's not this salah.
It's your pancreas
and your brain, and they're reacting.
So the shape and and if you think
about it, there's a subtle
beauty there
that if I'm worshiping
the transcendent
being
for a material feeling,
I've corrupted my worship.
I mean I'll take it though, if Allah
wants me to feel good, hey I'm down,
you know,
but that's not why I worship.
And it not being there is not a
sign that it's not accepted.
One time my brother came to me, he's
like I'm angry I stayed up every night
the last 2 nights of Ramadan
and I don't think I experienced it at
Al Qadr. I was like, how did you
not experience it? Like, if you stayed up
every night, you experienced it. He's like man
I didn't feel anything but that's not why
you're there.
Like that doesn't mean that you're not
experiencing it.
The higher Maqam
is that the hustle is sound.
I'm worshiping Allah because Allah is Allah. Same
thing in activism,
you go out, you struggle, you work hard,
we have a sister Umasha Allah right now,
I'll put her on Instagram, she's amazing. She's
at the border of San Diego, she wrote
me, she's like there's 4,000 kids being detained.
I don't think what I'm doing is right.
Like what do you mean? You're you're right.
The success doesn't have to be in this
world. If you did it and it's right,
it's right.
Sometimes we struggle with our parents,
especially marriage. I get it every week someone's
like me and his brother, me and his
sister, we've known each other for 5 years.
We kept it halal, hamdulillah.
And our parents won't allow us
to marry because
whatever strange reason that's not religiously sanctioned. If
you're right, you're right.
Doesn't mean go wreck your family,
but try to work through it and be
confident. If the hustle is sound,
it's not going to be hurt.
So if I'm worshiping Allah and my my
sincerity is because God is God, if I
didn't get a high from it, it don't
matter
because I'm serving God.
That's what he's saying here. Like don't be
rocked by things. The absence of something, the
presence of or if I worship Allah and
I get this amazing feeling. Don't get it
twisted.
Don't now let me tell myself like oh
I'm special.
Really?
People always come to me I saw Sayedid
Muhammad in my dream. Man, God bless you.
So what?
How you treat your kids?
Did you mow the yard?
Are your parents happy with you?
When the Prophet died,
what did the Sahaba asked his wife?
How did he act
in the house?
Because they already knew everything.
But what they didn't know is,
how is he really? Is he a little
different?
She said,
he served his family.
And they're like, I knew it.
Right?
He's not moved.
Doesn't change.
Stays focused.
Doesn't get blinded by spiritual success.
Doesn't become depressed by assumed spiritual failure?
You sinned. When I was studying with another
student, he kept sinning. He had a challenge
with an issue. He kept coming to our
teacher. He's like, I don't understand
why I can't do it. He said, wamanatashawuna
ilahaayashawallah.
Because you can't do it.