Suhaib Webb – Bound By God Zarrq’s Principles of Sufism Part 3
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Because oftentimes I've seen this also, a person
was suffering with serious depression and he was
told read the Quran and he came to
me and was like man,
the more I read the Quran,
the more anxious I get
because the problem is not the Quran man.
If someone's broken,
they're broken.
Why would Allah say to the Quraysh
after He sent
Islam to them? Why would He say,
why would He say to them,
I secured you? Think about Maslow,
you were in a state of security, then
I sent a prophet to you.
So you were ready,
internally and externally, spiritually and materially,
it was all gravy.
So now you're in a place where you
can learn. If we're ministering to people, if
we're serving people,
we need to pay attention to the fact
that they're ready for that moment. And if
they're not ready for that moment, then carry
them to the finish line.
Don't rebuke them.
So He says,
it's okay at times to feel good and
don't you? It's not like wrong, like people
actually see what messages meant is yoga halal.
I was like, why? Like, it's like I
feel really good when I do yoga. Like,
what's wrong with feeling good?
I'll watch him shut eye.
Then he says,
he is sukuroqalbi
ir Allahi ta'ala.
But He says, true tranquility
is to transcend the material
and to transcend
other things
and to be pleased with
and to be secure with
and to have silence
with God.
What do you think that means?
What do you think he means here?
How you and my translation will be this
is at different times will differ from the
translations, so don't don't worry.
What does he mean by that? Why is
it called
imanbildar?
We mistranslate
this by the way. It's translated as faith
in God, but the word bad doesn't mean
in. The word bad means with.
Bad means to move.
Maratul bibayt. I passed by the house.
So when the word ba' is used in
Arabic,
right, it implies
I'm moving.
That's why when do you when you wanna
do something before you do it, what do
you say?
Bismillah because I'm I'm moving. I'm hustling.
Right? I'm hustling, so I'm not grinding.
Bismillah.
So when I say I believe in God,
that implies only the acquisitions of of rules.
I learned.
But when I say I believe
with God,
oh snap. That's responsibility
right there.
To give a great example of this man,
when I converted, we had this brother who's
amazing, Masha'Allah.
He memorized the Quran, alhamdulillah,
But prior to that he needed some
rehabilitation. He needed somebody for work. You know
what I mean? Like spiritual buddy for work.
We were young. We were all a whole
gang of bloods who converted at the same
time.
So this guy,
he loved to go to the club
Especially because he wasn't 21 yet, so I
was like yo, I'm up in the club.
I'm not 21 yet. You
know? It's like a big deal useless stuff.
So
he went to our Sheikh
because we're all memorizing the Quran as new
Muslims.
Wow, man. We're wild young guys, you know.
And he said, Sheikh,
like, I can't stop going to this place
called club.
He's like, cloop.
Club, Sheikh.
He's from synagogue. He's amazing, man. He's like,
cloop. I said, yeah. Cloop check. All in
the front say
he said,
I know the answer.
Shake. Oh, man. Here's some
sagiest advice
say
Bismillah. He said,
I'm not gonna go. He said, exactly.
But the Sheikh was
identifying what it means to be
with God. Now you can understand the hadith,
worship Allah as though you what?
Because you're with
him. But when we translate it as faith
in God, that's not a relationship,
But it's faith
with. So
when I have the opportunity to make a
choice, I make the right choice because I'm
in a relationship.
I'm not window shopping for sin.
Right?
Everybody knows about window shopping. If they're married,
your wife would tell you no window shopping,
brother.
Oh,
no. No. Curtains are cold.
Right? Means looking around at things. This window
shopping? My grandma probably used to tell my
grandma who was 80 years old. I'm just
window shopping. She's like, nobody wants you. You're
80.
He was a Muslim. You can do it.
But there's no window shopping in Iman
Because I'm in a relationship.
There's fidelity.
That's how we should teach young people faith.
You're with Allah is with you. Why does
Allah say in the Quran?
I'm with you,
and also
he has your back.
It's out of love,
but it's out of responsibility.
So the Sheikh says, sukuruhalb,
Right? The Haqqiqah, the reality of true wellness,
and true tranquility
is to find that tranquility of the heart
with what God has given you.
Of the heart
with what God has given you.
That's tough, man. My mother's funny. God bless
her. My mother used to tell me, I
trust God until lunch.
I said, what does that mean? She said,
I wake up in the morning and I
said, Jesus.
She was a Muslim, Jesus I give it
all to you.
And then by lunch I'm like can I
have this back?
Can I have this back? Like I don't
want I need this right? It's hard.
And how do we achieve that? First of
all, perfection is impossible so
don't ever think that this is asking you
to be something you can be. Imam Al
Khazadi said something very important in his book
that we should all remember. He said everything
that I talk about has to be understood
in moderation.
So like I'm not gonna go extreme,
I'm not gonna also become neglectful.
I'm gonna struggle. This is a struggle.
It's hard to tell people when they've lost
a child, you know, have sukoonuqal.
That's not possible.
So this is something that we're constantly
trying to achieve
even though it will never be perfect and
that's okay.
But the idea of faith as a relationship
and a process
and in a relationship
on our side because we're not
infinite and we're not perfect, we're gonna make
mistakes in that relationship. That's called Tawba to
talk about.
Then he says,
and he said that type of wellness
is the people of Kamal. You notice a
theme in his writing? What does Kamal mean?
People who are whole.
People who are complete.
What do you mean serious? Remember the context
of the book? They've worked on the inner,
they've worked on the outer. They've worked on
the outer, they've worked on the inner.
They're balanced.
Even though Josie said, how many foolish people
have their pants above their ankles
but they look down at people. So like
although your pants are raised,
your akhlaq is lowered.
It's hard to translate in English. What he's
saying is like yeah you got your parents
up high
but you're like low and arrogant.
Like there's a problem there.
So Sheykh is saying
people that have that that balance. And if
we're gonna Venn diagram this,
you know it's okay for example to be
emotional like we're not stoics, man.
Like I remember there was a sister, subhanallah,
a siddeh used to serve in. Her husband
died and she was told like, you can't
see your husband after death because when he
died, he divorced you.
I was like, holy
smokes.
Right? So then they called and said, Abba
Baqarah, he kissed his wife after she died.
He washed his wife's body, man.
They're like, well, brother, we didn't know. We
just I mean, you just gonna give answers
like this? And and it threw her off
and then she then they told her, well,
it's not acceptable because you're gonna go in
there and start crying. And you know, if
you start crying, this means you're not pleased
with God.
I was like,
man, get a different job. Like,
really? Like,
yo, I find you something.
But
when Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam died,
if you've read the book Rial Salihinab
imamal Nawawi,
in the chapter on patience,
why does he go into detail
about the mourning of Fatima
for her father.
The people who know the story
that she wept.
Why would Imam Anaweed say that's cool, that's
patience.
As if to say in the Venn diagram
of what's emotionally is expected of you as
a person,
it's okay to have lapses, it doesn't mean
you're you violated something.
This is the daughter of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam who mourned his death. There's a
place, now it's been destroyed in the name
of religion, where she used to sit
and she would weep
at the loss of her father.
And then when Anna said the matic said
we were burying him, she she scolded us
and she yelled, Yeah Abata,
oh my father.
Like she would move and none of the
Sahaba said to her, you know, like you
need to check yourself, dude. Like I don't
know. I don't think this is religious.
That's why and now he puts it there
as if to say, that's okay. That's human.
That's normal.
Then she said to Annas, how are you
putting dirt on the body of our Prophet?
Like she's moved. When the Prophet died, Sayyidina
Ali, he fainted.
Sayyidina Uthman fainted,
and we all know how Umar reacted.
What did Umar say? No man, I don't
believe it. It's
like in a state of delusion. Did anyone
say to any of those people,
you're, like, not accepting god's plan, bro?
Like the way you're acting is just not
religious.
What happened to our community now that we
don't allow people to mourn?
We don't allow people to experience happiness. One
time I was given a chukba and somebody
laughed, and this brother came to you. He's
like, you know, I don't think people should
be laughing and the chukba said they cry.
It's like, well, yeah, they should cry. Well,
they shouldn't laugh?
Like they can't be they can't be happy
with God?
They can't be happy with Islam?
They gotta be always sad and morbid?
So there's a balance.
So when he said, you know to be
pleased with what God has given us it
doesn't mean to be like
That's why ibn Tamiyah, in chief story, he
was told about 1 sufi who his son
died and they said your son died and
he started laughing.
And even Timmya, he went off on this
person.
He's like, no. No. That's not how you
really feel. You're not really he's like, I
know, but I'm trying to show, like, I'm
really with God. He's like, but that's not
being with God. That's that's, like, hypocrisy. You're
lying.
And God doesn't mind the prophet when his
son died Ibrahim, what did he do?
He wept
and he said you know,
this is not this is not going to
be punished.
But the tongue and the tongue and the
eye, the tongue and the heart will be
punished like if I say something against God.
But to be emotionally invested is okay.
To struggle,
to question,
to wonder,
to ask God, like why is this happening
to me? That's between you and God, that's
great, that's an important maqam, that's the maqam
of Yaqub.
I complain to who?
I complain to God.
And there's 3 areas for this on emotions.
Number 1 is for people who can handle
it, it's a struggle.
Number 2, I may need support around me
of people who can, like, help bolster me
going through hard times. The prophet said, Yeshu
do badmul badmah. We support each other.
And then there's people who may need therapeutic
help. That's okay.
If you suffer
or I suffer from emotional trauma
or depression or psychological issues,
going to a therapist is a form of
worship.
Because we have an axiom in Islamic law
that says, whatever helps us complete
an obligation
becomes an obligation.
So
going to the therapist to be whole and
healed
to my wife is like wudu to salaam.
So the Sheikh he says the goal is
wellness.
We have to frame wellness within the framework
of being human,
And now he's gonna start to talk about
what are the things that will help us
achieve
spiritual wellness
so we can continue inshaAllah.
And the first is Ibadah,
worship.
Always in the Quran after knowledge and worship.
Sayyidina Musa when he is told,
ana or Moses,
I'm God. Faabuddani,
worship me.
Most scholars they say that worship
unfortunately because of secularism,
we tend to define worship as the mosque.
We tend to define worship
as salah only.
But most scholars, like if you look at
classical text, they'll
say, anything God loves.
And whatever is pleasing to God
is worship.
That's very important because
sometimes within
the scaffolding of the American Muslim community, we
may have restricted what God left expansive. Like,
not everybody wants to be a scholar, not
everybody wants to study, not everybody
wants to, like, go and becomes like a
religious
specialist.
There were only 30 scholars amongst the Sahaba,
by the way.
The majority, they weren't scholars.
But if we define worship according to its
foundation in the Quran, we find that the
Quran uses worship in the following tenses. Number
1, of course, is like worshiping God, prayer,
zakah, salah. Worship is also a mission in
the context of working. Well,
the.
Allah mentions in the end of Shoto MuDati.
So my trade,
my struggle,
my efforts
to take care of my life and my
family is fortunate.
So my being an artist,
you know, being a designer, being an athlete,
being an engineer, being a civil servant, being
a whatever.
It's all worship.
The third is serving family.
The 4th is serving community.
The 5th is being an agent of justice.
So we found out worship in like 5
contexts in the Quran, even more.
So the Sheikh he says, Al Ibadah
that worship in its
broader
understanding.
And the reason he mentions that is to
say this is the first key to achieving
tranquility because we're going to talk about later
on this important statement of Abu Abbas al
Musi who said,
man.
Whoever always cares about attention, they're
the slave of the kitchen.
I have a relative, it's Palaman,
in Oklahoma,
he's younger,
and every time I'm sitting with him it's
like he looks at his phone
more than us, and I asked him like
what he said. I'm checking the likes,
man. I was like, do you know those
people? No. Then talk to people who you
know. I don't like you.
I was like, I don't like how you
act right now. Unlike.
He's like but, I was like no, but
you know me, you don't know them. What
matters?
Right. Let's reframe how we look at what's
important.
So the Sheyin says, Al Ibaratul
kuduha
Jamu wa Nuru. That worship, the purpose of
worship, number 1 is Jamar. You know what
Jam means?
Should bring you together,
should give you a sense of wholeness.
Because if we if we look at worship
at it if we go up, like if
we rise above it and look down,
we see that the purpose of worship
may be different than what we've been taught
and maybe what would be a condition to
know.
So I'll give an example. Once I was
in a Muslim country, I was reading the
Quran in front of my friend's house.
That time I had a longer beard. I
was in a white photo. I was a
student in those days, and I got to
the part of Yaseen. I was reviewing what
I had memorized,
and their phone started blowing up, man.
And they came outside, like, would you mind
not reading a Quran in front of our
house?
I was like, why? Like, people thought, like,
a catastrophe happened.
That's what the meaning of the Quran is
to people now. It's like someone else I
read in the Quran, all * must have
broke loose on the inside.
What does worship mean to you? Think about
your past experiences with people, man. How you
may have been treated.
You may have also met someone that motivated
you to achieve through worship is the process
of achieving a godly relationship.
When people convert, they ask me, what is
Islam? I said Islam is about reaching your
potential
tied to God.
Not intimidating you, not beating you down.
That's why we pray 2 raka'a fajr,
3 raka'a mahrim, and the rest of 4
raka'a because the angels have 2 wings, 3
wings, and 4 wings. So their wings cause
them to fly. Our worship causes us to
fly.
We're not anchored
in that way.
We're inspired to worship.
So the Sheikh
says the first
real reason for worship after of course serving
God
is to make you holy.
Like think about some of the things that
have made us nervous
over the last few weeks.
They're really important.
Think about some of the things that may
have rocked us that like really, really if
we were to pull out of our life
and talk to ourselves,
like man it's not even important.
But then think about things that are important.
It allows us to understand how to be
whole. So he says worship
should create a sense of wholeness,
sense of well-being.
Wanor
and light.
And light is something which is constantly used
but without without darkness you can have light.
So it doesn't mean it's always gonna be
perfect,
but in times of confusion,
worship will be that
kind of night light that shines the way
to the restroom for you.
It's gonna bring you a sense of safety
and security.
Walmaasihkulluha
walmakruhat
alwatathaqariha
tafriqunwazulma
and sin which is agreed upon,
meaning scholars have come together and said, yeah
this is sinful behavior.
And then those things which are clearly identified
as sinful behavior in our texts
create
divisions.
He doesn't necessarily mean communal divisions. What does
he mean?
It's gonna divide your return.
It'll split you up.
It won't allow you to be holding well,
wafulma,
and a sense of metaphoric blindness.
So what he does now after talking about
wellness
is he's helping us reframe how we see
worship.
Worship is a means for achieving
my whole self.
Worship is a means for me marrying the
outer and the inner,
and worship is something that helps me see
through difficult times
and hard times.
Is there any way you can like just
scroll down? So we can make sure there.
Okay, it's cool. Thank you.
And as you can tell he's focusing on
the heart.
The heart.
Afia sukunumalb.
So now he's going to talk about after
worship,
the first step is a step of sincerity.
But like sincerity is not really a good
translation of Ikhlas. Anyone here speak Arabic?
So like in the
Mahalos Mir Sheikh,
yeah, like halas.
The word for sincerity is translated as a
Chlas.
And it's interesting, by the way, the form,
Ichlas,
is a form in Arabic which means
I achieved
it. I initiate
it like Islam.
So there's a sense of what?
Individual
responsibility.
Often times people like, man, you know, I
just hope I'll be made, you know, sincere,
like
passive is hated in Islam. We like the
active participant.
Go get it.
But the word ekhlas means more than sincerity.
If you go to Sultan Nahal because people
ask that, how do I choose sincerity? And
something we need to be careful on and
Shaykh he does this too. When tasolef and
the ideas of tasolef
are only about like philosophical
stuff, I'll never be good. That's not tasolef.
The soul is about I suck, but tomorrow
I'm a suck a little less.
That's what it is.
It's not about being
some kind of awe. Right now you're a
wali of Allah.
Like If you say,
you're a wallahi. The prophet
said, this and Allah says,
I'm the body of anyone who believes in
me.
Spirituality
is here, and I'm here. No. The grit
and the grind and the sin and the
struggle, the pain and the joy,
that's that processes. That's what that is.
The word echlas
means to clean.
In its pure meaning, we say the
right? The honey was cleaned and made pure.
That process when
they pull the honey out and they take
out the bees, you know bodies and all
the dirt and the muck and that's called
tahalos.
So in order for there to be Ikhlas,
there has to be filth.
In order for something to be pure, it
had to be what?
Impure.
That's why the word is beautiful. It's hard
to translate like sincerity. It's like okay.
I don't work.
I like it like
sincere cleaning,
and that's why in the Surat An Nahl,
the B,
you'll find Wa'inna Lakinfil Anamilahibara
in cows
is a lesson for you.
The Quran says,
We provided you
drink
from what came out of the belly of
the cow,
bayinafathwaddem
between blood
and feces.
Allah says what came out of that process
between blood and feces?
And remove this incredible challenge that's happened in
Yemen and now it's famine, SubhanAllah.
So we used to ask him like
through blood and feces, metaphorically, you got to
go through it.
And through that process, you come out with
Ikhlas.
So Ikhlas is an event.
Ikhlas is a process.
Sincerity doesn't just suddenly happen.
We have to move away from event based
religion
to process based religion.
So the process of cleaning
never stops.
So the Sheykh, he defines it in its
purest form, he gives us a distilled
deification of Ikhlas
as being the first step of wellness.
Ikhlas, why would one scholar say echlas is
to be
intoxicated with the creator
to the point you don't notice creation?
Does it mean that I'm not responsible?
No. I'm not those. I'm not rocked by
superficialities.
I'm not thrown off by little things.
Oh dude, I didn't get those new Yeezys,
I'm not going out today man. Are you
really?
Like some Yeezys?
So He said,
Setting your heart and singling out your heart
for God alone
is requested
in every situation.
This has 2 meanings.
Number 1 is
demanding responsibility,
like that's hard.
Number 2 is
that no matter where I am,
a relationship with God is possible.
So there's a meaning of, like,
creating a sense of responsibility
but there's also a meaning like,
you know what, it don't matter where you
are, God is there.
Our scholars said that there's 8 situations,
8 habits.
Habits mean situations
that we experience in life.
One of our teachers, he wrote a poem,
he said,
8 situations
always impacting.
You're gonna find yourself on one of these
8.
4 of whom, Wahuznun,
happiness,
sadness,
firqa, ishtima'u,
being together, being separated.
Wawlgena Wawl Fakam, having enough to suffice
poverty,
Wawl Sakamu Wawlafia,
health
or sickness. That's it.
The Sheikh is saying of course you can
branch out from those a 1000000 different experiences,
That in those situations,
make sure that your heart is for God.
What it means the heart is for God,
we'll talk about later on, through worship,
through service,
through your investment.
That's something which is constant.
We can move on InshaAllah. So, sincerely.
Now he brings about the idea of responsibility.
Up until this point it's been kind of
like, you know,
kind of theoretical,
it's kind of cool, it's beautiful.
But now he brings it home
after like setting my heart for God,
after trying to think about achieving the process
of wellness,
the process of sincerity,
framing the purpose of Ibadah
is to please God, to make me whole,
and to be that night light that shines
through the hallway of dunya.
Now maybe I feel like
I'm that,
like I'm there.
So now he brings about some physical responsibility.
He says