Suhaib Webb – Riyadh alSalihin (Part One)
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Our praise is
Allah
We send peace and blessings upon, our beloved
messenger, Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
upon his family, his companions, and those who
follow them until the end of time. It's
great to see everybody here. It's
nice to see
so many familiar faces and brothers and sisters.
As you know, my wife is from the
area, so I never really left. Right?
So when you marry from an area, you
become, like, part of the area. You say,
It's like a famous axiom in Islamic law.
When something draw near to something, it takes
its ruling.
So I officially became a turtle
when I married
Miriam from Maryland.
So,
it's great to see everybody. As you know,
I recently moved back, from New York City
because,
I have now 2 kids.
I have 4 kids, but I have 2
new firmware updates.
The most recent was in July,
which means,
there's no sleep,
and,
perennial poverty.
So we're back in the area because my
wife I'm white. I have 4 cousins total.
My wife has a 81, like, first and
second cousins.
They all live in the area. So with
the free free babysitting and free,
language skill
acquisition, you know, who could say no?
So it's great to be back. And the
imam,
Farhan, he asked me to come
once a week,
and eventually to see potentially opening up a
branch of Swiss,
in, like, Dollar Hedra where we would offer,
like, classes, adult classes, night education, and, night
school.
But now I told him
step by step, you know, with with 2
babies.
And I have the night shift, alhamdulillah,
so
it takes some time.
We'll see how it goes, be itnillah.
We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to put
Ikhlas
in this important journey that we're about to
take through this book, riadu salihim.
We We ask Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, yir
zukna be riyadu salihin.
We
ask Allah to grant us
in this life and the next.
This book
is an incredibly important book, and
it's written by a very important person
who was born around 631 after Hijri.
He died around 676
after Hijri.
Hadassayna
Imam An Nawawi,
Rahimu Ta'ala.
Imam An Nawawi,
thank you so much. May Allah bless all
the volunteers. You know, it's a lot of
work
to keep these things going, man. It's not
easy work. So may Allah bless you.
So Imam Anawi
we'll we'll mention some things about him, like,
every time, because his his
his importance is is very difficult to encapsulate,
and it would take, like, lessons
to go through his life. But
it's sufficient to know that as a child,
like, he didn't play. He wasn't known to
be a child who played.
In fact, one time, a person saw him
and he was sitting, and children were playing
with a cow. And he asked him, like,
why aren't you playing with a cow? He
said,
I wasn't created to play.
So then he knew, like, this individual,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has created him
for an important reason, so he took him
to
the madrasa or the kuttab.
And here we see a very nice lesson
about ageism. You know, America is rocked with
ageism.
You know, old versus young, young versus old.
That older gentleman, he didn't feel insecure at
the talent of Imam Anawim.
He recognized that talent, so he directed it.
And
he began to study, and he excelled in
his studies.
And he became known as the Sheikh of
the Shafi'iha.
At the end of the Shafi'i Madhab
everything really goes back to 2 people but
Sheikh Raffaeil, but
also Sayyidina Sheikh and Nawi.
There's a funny story also.
Nawa means nuclear now.
So when I lived in Egypt, there was
a group of students in the Azhar that
they got their house got raided by,
Alhur Abihani,
the, the secret police of Egypt.
And
they found in their house this book Riyadh
Sarihin, and
they saw the name a Noahi,
which means nuclear also.
So they thought they were terrorists.
So they actually
held
them and were going to try them on
terrorist charges.
And then SubhanAllah they found out this is
Imam An Nawimah.
It's not like a handbook on building nuclear
weapons. A dirty bomb. Remember the dirty bomb
scare? Years ago, like, they thought they were
making a dirty bomb. Subhanallah.
So, Imam Anawi, I think what's important for
us is to realize
that his contemporaries
noted a number of qualities about him that
may be important to us before we start
this text. The first was that he was
known to be someone who did not covet
fame, and he did not look for
benefit through his
scholarly privilege.
In fact, it was the opposite.
He was known to be extremely humble,
and he was known to be extremely approachable.
The second 2, and I'm gonna make them
brief because of time, are with his students.
And the first was that his students, when
they would make mistakes, he wasn't harsh on
them.
And that is the that that's the quality
of an ignorant person. And a lot of
times, you know, many of us may have
young children.
We sometimes are scared that they may have
a bad experience
with a religious educator because we know
that
unfortunately,
sometimes religious education at an early age is
linked to intimidation,
right? Being made to feel inferior,
being made to question things like your gender,
your ethnicity, your language, how you pronounce things.
There's a lot of trauma,
and this is a trick of shaitan to
make
a person of religion feel like the Ummah
should serve him,
instead of he has been put in a
place, or she has been put in a
place to serve the Ummah.
This is actually a great fitna.
So it was witnessed like the people that
would read to him, and they would make
mistakes even though he was like this great
great scholar.
He would be very kind with them.
And I I witnessed this, you know, years
ago.
I was lucky to read Hassan al Asim
to Sheikh Saeed Jibril, the brother of Mohammed
Jibril.
So
there was an old man, he was Palestinian.
He would come, like, in at the fajr
time to read. And he was very old,
so, of course, as he became older, it
was more difficult to pronounce, you know, and
read, comes with age.
And so and then he had lived, like,
in the US, so his
sometimes he would confuse
the dialect with English. So he was reading
Shotoqi'ama,
and of course banana,
And he was saying banana.
Like Moses,
the
Sheikh, he said to him,
banana
or banana?
He's like, banana. Kept saying it, banana.
And sheikh said,
Do you wanna eat bananas or what? And
then the uncle, he started laughing.
And so the sheikh, he said, Please, please
try to say banana,
not
banana. Then of course he said, What?
Most. Banana.
But I remember seeing like Sheikh Zayd Gibril,
he's a great scholar, right? Perhaps one of
the most
profound scholars of just hafs in Egypt,
and he's like being easy with him, you
know,
and making him feel relaxed and comfortable.
I remember when I took my exam in
Usul al Firkh,
that exam was like an oral examination.
And doctor,
Slahuddin Seydin, he's maybe he's passed away, he
was very old.
So on my on my, you know, on
my ezhar card is like William Webb, man.
It's not a soi e
Webb because of your passport. So he looked
at it. I was there for my oral
exam,
and he was like,
we're
live
web.
You know?
And he was like,
where are you from?
I said, I'm from Obamastan.
Genuine Obamistan.
So
he said to me, oh and then he
realized, like, I'm not Arab, you know. So
he started say asking me, in America, do
they have koshari?
It's like a famous dish in Egypt. In
America, do they have umali? It's like a
dessert.
Like gholab jamun, you know, or apple pie.
So he was asking me all these questions,
right, to try to relax me.
And then afterwards he said, like,
it's time to take the exam now. Are
you are you comfortable? I said, yeah. Yeah.
I'm good.
Right? So like real real teachers,
one of the qualities I think that should
be asked of hiring imams or Islamic studies
teachers, are you an insecure person?
Because like if you're an insecure person you're
about to get pounded bro.
Like everyday someone's gonna have something to say
to you. Everyday someone's gonna be critical of
you. Everyday you're gonna be challenged.
And if you if you don't love the
ummah, and you're not secure enough even in
your mistakes,
you can't do this job effectively. You'll you'll
hurt people. You'll break people.
So, imam An Nawawi, he was known to
be very caring, like to his students.
Very kind. And that's what the Prophet taught
us
salallahu alaihi wasalam, malayurham laayurham. Who's not merciful,
doesn't receive mercy. And this is a mistake.
Shaitan sometimes tricks religious people
to make them so harsh and mean
that they think they can intimidate people
into the mercy of Allah.
That's not how it works.
That's not how it works.
The third thing that's very important is that
he took kind of like an oath from
his students
that they would not be troublemakers,
like they would not be like team Imam
Naomi.
Like,
they weren't going around
and destabilizing
communities
because of a celebrity sheikh.
But they were working for the unity of
the Muslims.
And they saw themselves posited very much as
being people who were meant to serve.
And there's one statement of Sayidina Imam al
Nawawi that we can mention that's like It
really lets you know sort of where he
is. He said, you should prepare your heart
to learn like you prepare
soil
for cultivation.
He's very interested in like how he how
he carried himself, how he lived his life.
And he died very young, but he was
able to like
use those short years that he was alive
to do a lot, man. He wrote some
very very important books.
Everyone here, I'm sure, most Muslims,
they have one of the books of imam
and nawi in their house.
Whether it's the 40 hadith.
Maybe like, I didn't know he wrote that.
Actually, he didn't write it. He started at
a hadith 23. We'll talk about that maybe
in the future one day. He wrote part
of it
up until, like, around the hadith 36.
He wrote some of the most important books
in the Shafi'i school later on.
And then this book that we're gonna talk
about today, inshallah, we're gonna start riadu salihim.
Riadu salihim
we say about the sheikh first, Raheem Muhullah,
The book Riyadh Sarihim is a collection, as
he's gonna talk about as we read through
his introduction,
and start the first chapter
of a hadith that have a specific objective
that he's going to identify for us
as we read his text.
The word riyad means a garden.
But what we should think about is, and
this is very important,
that the Quran and the sunnah are fertile.
I want you to think about that for
a minute.
The Qur'an and the sunnah are fertile. You
plant your life in them, you'll grow.
You plant yourself in them, you'll develop.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
Answer Allah and His Messenger when you're called
to what will give you life.
Most people looking for life in things that
are dead.
And as Muslims, Allah says in the Quran,
who created death and life. Death is dunya,
and life is akhirah.
So we
We live to die, we don't die to
live.
Most people, they die to live.
They will put themselves through all kinds
of torment, and hardship, and pain, and suffering
for something that's not gonna last.
But the Muslim is the one,
we live to die.
Because we understand that
as the Qur'an says, that the is like
real life.
What's with Allah will last?
So the word riyada means a garden, but
we should think about it as like, this
is a fertile opportunity for you. And I
want to say something about this class, it
might be a little bit hard for you.
So what? Nobody complains about doing Keto.
Nobody complains about,
you know,
doing cross fit.
That's why we say my teacher used to
say, when I was memorizing the Quran, I
said, I can't do it, man. I'm a
white dude from Oklahoma, man.
He said, If you love it, you can
do it.
If you love it, you can do it.
The Arabs, they have a statement.
It says, if the woman
is attractive to the guy, he doesn't care
how much the Mahar is.
Meaning like, he he likes her emotionally, physically,
everything.
If there's that connection for marriage, he doesn't
care. Don't get no ideas now.
And if the woman likes the man, she
doesn't care how small the mire is.
Right? Because love
empowers us to do things that we never
thought we could do before.
So
is an opportunity for you to try to
grow, man. I'm gonna challenge you a little
bit sometimes, I'm gonna make you think,
I'm gonna layer this class in a way
that doesn't approach Islam
as something which is docile.
Something that's experiencing a drought.
The deen is fertile.
But we have to have people who want
to cultivate it.
We have to have people who want to
engage it, who wanna live it,
who are inspired by it.
Because sometimes we come to these classes, I've
been there.
You know, like, I'm not good enough man.
I'm a bad person. I'm on the masjid.
I'm gonna come up this class is for
everybody. Even though it will be layered in
certain ways that
the way I put it together will
build your literacy, will build your functional religious
literacy. So in order to do that,
you have to be challenged. If you go
to the gym
and you want to build fitness literacy, you
got to learn how to dead lift.
You got to learn how to squat. You
got to learn how to bench.
You gotta learn what macros are. That's just
how life is.
So, there'll be moments where you find yourself
like, wow, man, like, this is kind of
over my head. That's okay,
because I'm gonna talk about why in a
minute.
But asarihin,
the word asarihin
implies
that before that they weren't righteous.
I have it here in my notes,
that
righteousness in this context
cannot come unless there was
evil before.
That's why the second chapter is a toba
out of the 20 sections in the book.
The second chapter is toba.
Why would he talk about tawba if nobody
needed to make tawba?
That's why Imam Abuhamad
Rahimullah in Manhajir Abideen,
The second, the second quality he says of
people who live a life of faith
is tawba.
Because we all make mistakes.
Well, at one time we're sitting with Sheikh
Ahmed in DI this is in nineties. You
know, generation x, we got a little bit
different than y'all did. We got it tough,
man. There was no
you could've you could've called anyone out. There
was no social media. You just had to
deal with it.
Sheikh Ahmed in the eye,
he said,
he was talking about repentance.
And there was one brother with us he
said, Sheikh, I don't feel I need to
repent. I haven't done anything wrong. And Sheikh,
he said, you should repent.
He said what? He said, from being stupid.
Because only a dumb person this is the
nineties only a dumb person
would think that they don't make
mistakes.
So are people who are working in the
form
is the active participle.
This form of this noun
implies that they're constantly doing this, that they're
constantly
working to improve themselves.
So now we'll begin, Riyadh Salihin. The imam,
he asked me to read it
from.
So imam An Nawawi talked about who he
was, like, a little bit about his importance,
the kind of person he was,
and then we talked about the title of
the book. Inshallah, we're gonna talk about something
very important about this book that I think
is is unfortunately sort of lost, that hopefully
we can benefit from. The other thing is
that unfortunately,
most of the translations I've ever read do
not have his introduction.
That's a big mistake.
You know, it's not easy to translate, so
I'm not by any means,
pointing the finger at anybody. But
years ago,
in the Azhar, we had one sheikh.
The only thing he taught was.
Like, if you read the of
Adusuki Alashak Kabir, and you understand it well.
You can understand the Khalil.
If somebody memorized the usul, khalas. So, like,
not to translate the introduction
is a problem because in this introduction, like,
it's a lot of really important things, alhamdulillah.
And most importantly is the reason he wrote
the book. So he begins
Of course, he begins
because
of the hadith of the prophet every
important
affair
which is not begun with.
This hadith, Laif.
But one of our greatest fitan
and I wanna encourage everyone to take your
class on hadith on Thursdays.
Yeah.
Usually on Wednesdays.
It's that people have confused hadith da'if with
hadith maldu'a.
This is a
fitna. Hadith mal'udur is different than hadith laif.
And there are certain usu for how we
use weak hadith, and the fact that we
have those usu
shows us that the scholars used to engage
them.
If they just you don't have usu like
from al Du'a, generally.
So it's a very important principle with a
weak hadith.
And that is
acts.
If you understand all that we say
with something which is authentic.
But something that's weak is the opposite.
So we have a number of narrations of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
Let's say any really important issue I'm going
to explain this in English. Any really important
issue that's not began with the Bas is
devoid of blessings.
But we have another narration that says any
important issue which has not begun
with the remembrance of Allah. So my question
for those of you who understand what I'm
talking about, which one is Muqayid and which
one is mutlaq?
The Muqayid is Basmala.
And the Mutlaq is what?
So with this kind of hadith,
when you have these different narrations, we go
with a general
meeting.
And we and that's what we
practice the amal upon it. So any type
of dhikr is sufficient. Alhamdulillah.
But also, Imam Anawi, he begins Bismillahir Rahmanirrahim
because the Quran begins Bismillahir Rahmanir
Meaning, he seeks the blessings of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala,
seeks the good from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
1 of teachers said this
is
bad. I seek, like, the blessings of Allah.
The basmalah is very important. It will protect
us from evil. Years ago, when I first
embraced Islam, we had a halakah of Quran
with Sheikh Ahmediye from Senegal, so we memorized
the the Quran with Masha'Allah.
And there was one brother, he couldn't stop
going to the club.
It's a convert halakah. It's a little different.
Because convert halakah is a halakah of transformative
change.
It's not jamud.
So the brother would actually come to the
halakah of Quran, and, you know, we knew
we were from that world. We could smell
that he had been in a place
other than the Zawiya.
So I said to him one day, I
said, man,
bro, did you last night because the halakh
was after fajr.
So that mean he came straight from the
bar to the minbar.
But the sheikh, he never stopped him. SubhanAllah.
The sheikh, he never stopped
him.
He said, what's the problem? You know, what's
the problem?
Nobody wanted to, like, tell on a guy.
So then he said, Sheikh,
I can't stop going to, like, you know,
bad places. I'm new to Islam.
I have certain attachments.
Very normal. It's part of life.
The Sheikh, he said, I know one thing.
If you say it brother, you'll never go
there.
He said, what? He said, the next time
you get there, you get out of your
car,
you're about to walk in and
say. He said, Sheikh, if I say, I
won't go.
Sheikh said, exactly.
You won't go in.
So next time we find ourselves being overcome
by
shaitan or nafs,
say Bismillah ur Rahmahin Rahim.
He says,
The whole thing.
2
weeks.
In America, that's hard.
But it's not hard to know when House
of Dragon starts.
If we love something, it becomes easy. In
business, they say, Usama can tell us, when
you when you when you love something,
it expands.
When you focus on something, you see the
the pixels.
Fasayni imam Anawi, he begins alhamdulillah.
Why Bismillah, alhamdulillah?
Because that's how the Quran begins.
Al Wahid
Al Qahar Al Wahid from Sifat al Ma'ani.
Subhanahu wa ta'ala, saydna sheikh al Marzuk, he
says
Sheikh
Ahmed al Mazuki was the Mufti of Mecca
for the Maliki
from Egypt.
They used to call him the Sheikh of
the Tuktuk. If you're from Egypt, you know
what is Tuktuk.
And the Sheikh, subhanAllah, in this poem, he
said that there are things things we have
to know
about Allah.
One of the attributes we have to believe
about Allah is that Allah is 1.
But Imam Razi says something incredible. He said,
not like 1 how you and I think.
Because if you say Allah is 1, isn't
that?
We say 1 like a physical one, isn't
that tashbi?
So one means here,
That's why you say.
Means I
can say
It means that the only man on the
earth.
There's no other man in existence.
There's no shabi, no nadir like him.
Means 1 man, but there are many men.
See the difference now.
So when you say
Allah says is the one that subjugates everything
to what he wants.
The next 2 he mentions in the book,
Al Aziz, is the one that nothing can
stop him.
So
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one.
Nothing can stop him. Nothing can overcome his
his decree.
Means to cover, but this form of the
noun is is a form that shows, like,
emphasis.
So not just like covers once,
but how many mistakes we made,
man? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala covered them. SubhanAllah.
Why would he do that though?
Imam Anawi, he's not just writing. As one
of, our teachers used to say,
every word has a meaning. Every word there's
like mantook and mahfum. Right? There's something going
on here. Why would he start his book
like this?
Alhamdulillah,
the 1,
the subjugator,
the mighty,
the extremely forgiving,
because these are the two foundations of the
'arifin of Allah.
The people who know Allah
as imam ibn Qayim, he said
fear and hope are like 2 wings of
a bird.
Two wings to the iman.
So when I think about Allah, subhanahu wa
ta'ala, being unique,
there's nothing like him.
Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
When I think about everything, everything is under
his control.
And number 2, that he's the mighty.
This is going to inspire me to, like,
have fear.
But then he says alghafar
to remind me that in that uniqueness and
in that oneness and in that might and
in that
power,
Allah is forgiving.
So as though the sheikh is telling you,
like, this text,
this book
is dealing with those things that we need
to understand
to have a healthy
fear of Allah
and hope in Allah.
That's why Imam Abuhammed,
again in Minhaj al Abideen, in his last
book he wrote, Abuhammed al Ghazari,
out of the 7 qualities
of a person who lives a fight, a
life of faith and devotion, one of them
is fear, one of them is hope.
Actually, he says something nice, like fear and
hope, then I put it in our language,
is like a personal trainer.
1 of my teachers used to say that
fear and hope are like antibiotics.
Like, you need them to treat certain ills.
Sometimes if I feel laxed and lazy, I
need to inspire myself with fear. Sometimes if
I feel I'm overcome by challenges,
then I should medicate that with hope.
Then he says, the one who causes the
night
to revolve into the day.
They said the verse
is a proof that the earth is round
in the Quran. Because we say, you
the turban
is wrapped. Thank you. God bless you, man.
So
But why would he mention night first? One
of our teachers said, because the night is
the is the season of the servants of
Allah.
That's why one of our teachers should say.
One of our teachers to say, like, you
find yourself at night, but we find ourselves
in the day. During the night, meaning the
light of Ibadah,
the light of worship, the light of tahajjud,
the light of dhikr,
the light of crying to Allah when no
one else is there.
Actually will
illuminate the night. Alhamdulillah.
That's why Saidna Al Hasan Al Basri
Rahimullah,
they asked him, why do people who pray
at night have such bright faces? He said
because they are exposed to celestial light,
Transformative
light.
This is the third thing.
That Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has made the
alteration in the day and the night as
a reminder for the people who have heart.
And their heart, al Basira,
as imam
Raghab Asfahani mentions,
is the aynuqalb.
Heights hearts are blind.
So here he says that these things, the
alteration of the day and the night, are
a reminder
for the people whose hearts
have perception.
And an opportunity to to gain
perspective,
to see deeper
for the people.
We say in Arabic and Egypt, lib.
If you know what is lib,
Lib is like what keeps you awake at
night. It's like a really salty
kind of like,
I think a pumpkin seed, man.
One time I got in a taxi.
I'm gonna write a book,
My stories with taxi drivers in Egypt.
My incredible I met some.
Those taxis.
I met some too,
but most of them were. Yeah.
One time I got in the taxi and
he was eating lip. I was so hungry,
man.
So I said, hello, Samat.
Excuse me. Can I have some of your
lip? I said, of course.
He had the big sack, you know?
So I started eating. I said,
But why
are they called the people of intellect because
a nut is seen as something pure? So
the idea here is, like, pure
intellect.
The Egyptian, you say
clean brains.
So this
is an opportunity the world around us is
an opportunity to move beyond the shallowness
of the gram.
I mean, if you're weighing yourself on Instagrams,
no wonder you feel you have no value.
And if you're wasting your time on
tick tock,
tick tock, no wonder you feel you're not
going anywhere.
And if you never heard on Twitter with
your tweets, no wonder you feel insecure. Man,
look at the names of this stuff. It's
right there in front of us.
It trains us to be shallow.
The
of Allah, they don't need filters.
Only thing they need a filter from is
to follow with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So
the will Al Bab Al Albab.
People who have deep perception and people and
this word is hard to translate because the
word,
means to travel.
Because the idea is the idea or the
thoughts or the things in the world
travel
to their mind and to their hearts and
then are, once again, metaphorically
traveled to their limbs.
So he is a
So literally, it's traveled through them.
Then he says,
He continues to praise Allah, saying the imam
Anawi in the book. He says,
Allah, the one who awakened
from his creation, those who he chose.
And his summary of that book, Madar I
Tisarik,
was the first
the first place to start is awakenings.
And awakenings come in different ways.
They come through success.
But most of us, you know, success just
makes us more intoxicated. Right?
So most of the time, they come through
loss.
That's why Imam Evolutemia
has a beautiful statement. He says
Allah
will continue to afflict a person with test
until he exposes to them the fragility of
this dunya.
And they will find that the only thing
they can rely on
is
What imam
called Maqama Tajreed,
to be peeled away. Everything has to be
peeled. And when when it's peeled,
my wife and daughter asked me to do
one of those peels one night. That stuff
hurts, man. Unless you got a beard.
You peel it, it hurts.
So it has to be peeled away from
us.
Allah said
that we are going to test you
with a loss on everything you have,
but give good news to the patient. And
that's why the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa sallam,
nobody models loss better than him. He lost
his father, his mother, his grandfather, his uncle,
his city. He lost everything. The beginning of
the sirea really is a lesson on how
to deal with trauma.
And what did he say?
Allah taught me.
Allah taught me with loss.
Praise be to Allah who awakened
from his creation who he chose. So that
means to have a concern, to feel some
guilt,
to feel the need to change, to be
a better person,
to to take inventory
of my sins.
Guilt, if it's directed in the right direction,
not used to
or to destroy people. It's used to motivate.
That's why Abu Hamid Al Ghazari, he said,
guilt is good as long as it leads
to responsibility.
And hope is good as long as it
leads to responsibility.
Who made them busy with.
There's a section in the text called
where
means to be aware, to always be on
the lookout.
Is a woman who lost all her child
children except 1. And if you took that
you know, have you ever met? Met? I
have some relatives like that. They ain't letting
you hold their baby.
Well, can I hold your baby? Nope.
Because they lost.
Because loss brings value.
So is
the person who looks after their relationship with
Allah
with the same
passion.
To worship Allah, though you see him, even
though you can't see him, you know he
sees you. And there's another another text.
The best of
is Darul Minhech,
for those of you who look in. In
English, there's a 3 volume set done by
a sheikh, I think, from Pakistan.
It's good because it hasn't been adulterated. It
hasn't been remixed.
You know, a lot of the translations get
remixed and nobody tells
you. Depending on the group,
they like to remix things. That's not that's
not that's not good. You should tell people
that we have a bridge to text, tahbib.
So there's 2
in the,
there's 2 words here.
Now Allah has made them busy constantly thinking
about their relationship with
Allah.
And kept them constantly looking for admonishment,
meaning that the world around them is always
an opportunity to learn.
Whether I'm
successful, whether I suffer,
whether I'm happy, whether I'm sad,
Everything around me is aayat. That's why I
say
mean. The word means from
is a flag.
Because everything around us is a flag,
metaphorically,
that directs us to the existence
of the creator.
So every every moment is an opportunity.
Those who think about the creation of
the
heavens
there. Those who look at camels, look at
the creation, look at everything around
them, they take lessons.
It reminds them of their purpose.
And constantly
keeps them
in a state of zikr.
And granted them zud,
indifference to the opulence of this world.
Allah inspired them not to have an unhealthy
attachment.
It doesn't mean that we don't have nice
things. Ibn Qayyim has a great statement. He
said, Sayyidina Suleiman, he had more wealth than
anybody, but nobody had more indifference to the
dunya than Sayidna Soleiman.
It's like they used to say, it ain't
where you're from, it's where
you're at.
So nobody should take this to me like,
oh, you know,
this is about a mentality.
Everything I have is from Allah subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala.
With all that in mind,
they stay consistent. They stay consistent.
They look after this. They protect this.
Regardless of the change of their circumstance
or the situations around
them. So they stay upright.
And he says,
So I praise Allah
an incredible praise.
Why does he say?
Why does he use a superlative because we
could never praise Allah,
what he deserves.
A pure praise, a sincere praise, a comprehensive
praise, praise,
and one that
will bring baraka.
He says,
He
says, I testify
that there's no god except Allah.
Al Baru al Kareem. Al Baru is the
one that will be good to us even
if we don't deserve it because of our
iman.
Al Kareem, the one that's generous.
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
The
extremely merciful, the mercy giving.
He says, and I testify that there's no
god except Allah
who will be exceptionally good to us
if we say la ilaha illallah Muhammad rasulallah
and generous with us.
Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
The
extremely forgiving, the mercy giving.
And I testify, and the Mohammed and
Abdul is his
and his friend and his beloved. The prophet
said, Allah wa ana Habibullahhi
Wa la Fakhr.
Prophet said, I am the one who's beloved
to Allah, the most beloved to Allah.
Allah, all of the prophets are beloved to
Allah, but the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasalam is
the most beloved to Allah.
Some people,
they said,
Maybe
Khalil is greater than Habib. Habib. Some people,
they said that.
One of our teachers, Masha'allah,
he said something nice.
He said in order to have a friend,
that requires, like,
intermediaries.
But in order to love something, it doesn't
require intermediaries.
And also he says, subhanallah, in the Quran,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
We showed Ibrahim the dominions of the heavens
and the
earth.
Allah brought him close to him without anything.
Without any need to see the heavens and
the earth.
The prophet, salallahu alayhi sallam.
And that's why, SubhanAllah,
Ibn Qayyim, he mentions in talking about this
on the night of Isra wal Mi'raj.
This hadith is related by
Imam Allah
will say to the prophet, ask,
you will be given.
Oh Allah.
You took Ibrahim as your friend.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will say to
him, I gave you something better, takhatu
habeeb.
I took you as my beloved.
Then he describes the prophet, the guide to
the straight path, the caller to the upright
faith.
And he says, peace and blessings upon all
the prophets, upon the family of
Whoever loves Hussein loves Allah and
all of the believers.
And he says
to proceed.
Verse says, I did not create
human beings, genuine human beings except to worship.
Me,
Allah.
I don't demand of them any
provisions,
and I don't demand that they feed me.
Said the imam
commented on this verse, I did not create
genuine men except to worship me.
To know me.
That's why according to the majority of,
the first obligation upon any person is to
what? Is to know.
Ma'am Ibn Aysir,
in his famous poem, we learn,
Said Imam Ibn Aishr said the first obligation
is to know Allah. That's what we should
be telling our young people, man.
We talk about obedience.
We talk about staying away from evil.
We should talk about knowing Allah.
There's a great argument. Why is the prophet
the beloved of Allah?
Because nobody knows Allah more than the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. So the more someone
knows Allah, the more Allah what?
He loves that person.
Ask yourself, what do you know right now?
What is it that you focused on?
What it is that you spend so much
time? Compare that. Let me compare that to
how much time I spent just thinking about,
like, one name of Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala.
One attribute of Allah throughout the week. If
I have children, I can choose every week
this name,
this name we're gonna do this week. Al
Rahman.
So, like, after, like, 99
months, weeks.
So he says,
This is a clear statement that they were
created for Ibadah. We're gonna talk about what
is worship in the future.
Then they they they it's an obligation upon
them then to take that seriously, to take
worship seriously.
And to be careful of the dunya.
To be mindful of it. Now we can
see why his introduction is important because now
we understand what is Riyadh Sadeghin going to
do. He's going to amplify and increase our
capacity for worship
and diminish our ability for disobedience.
That's what it is.
That's why it's called riada tunas.
Means to train. They do it to horses.
So the book's gonna train me. It's gonna
domesticate me.
It's gonna bring me back to fitra.
The fertile
verbiage of the Quran and sunnah
is going to resuscitate me
and awaken me
and allow me to align myself. Most of
the people who are Muslim aren't happy because
deep down they know they ain't living right.
That's why most of us Because we know
Allah demands more
than anything around us could demand.
But in a way that's merciful
and kind and caring
and supportive,
not destructive.
They did a study of 13 year olds
who spent 3 or 4 hours looking at
and TikTok. Most of them did it in
the restroom.
And they said most adults, they scroll in
the restroom.
So where you do it is where you
doing it.
And they asked these people after 3 or
4 hours of scrolling, do you feel better
about yourself?
Especially young women, they said no.
No.
But I can't stop.
That's why I said earlier, it's Islamic Studies
teachers, man, you're at the forefront. You're at
a very position, very important
place in the life of young Muslims
to inspire them to love Allah,
to have hope in Allah, and to be
responsible to Allah.
Here he identifies the 2 major goals of
the book.
He said this verse is very clear that
the purpose of life is worship.
So then it is incumbent upon people who
worship Allah to do everything they can to
increase that capacity for worship and to diminish
to turn away from it on odds to
be in opposition
to the evil of this dunya
by
exercising responsible
restraint.
And then he begins to describe the dunya.
He says.
He says because the dunya,
its place is gonna perish.
And that this dunya is a ship to
be sailed.
Not a permanent permanent destination.
In this place where all is gonna be
separated.
Not a permanent abode.
See why the introduction is important?
And if this is too difficult, be patient.
Be patient.
Step by step. Push yourself a little. Be
uncomfortable.
I'm here for you. I got you.
He says,
Then he says,
it's been a long time since I I
forgot this book, man.
Sheikh says,
Why do we have to identify as ourself
constantly with the political theology
of the left and the right?
It is a political theology for them. Conservatives,
they hate Muslims. Liberals, they hate Islam. Now
what you gonna do?
What you gonna do?
You thought Marvel was on your team.
I thought Marvel was down for Team Islam.
Rashid, he said
very nice
nicely. After everything he said about the dunya,
he says,
It says.
The most woke people
are the devotees of Allah. There's no activism
if there's no obedience to Allah.
There's hypocrisy if there's obedience without activism.
We have to have both.
Allah says in he marries the idea of
being the righteous activist.
You have to be very careful. As I
said, the right is at war with the
Muslims. The left is at war with Islam.
Look and so to my Ida.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala said to say to
Musa,
go into the holy
name.
There's some big people in there, bro.
We ain't going in there. That's basically how
they respond to him in
the and some humongous people in there.
We're tidy.
2 men
who feared Allah. So they have activism, but
they have fear.
Don't be deceived by activism that's untethered from
obedience.
But we'll lose allies if you can't be
your true self. They were not your allies
in the first place.
If you don't have asks that make people
uncomfortable, then why are you there? For the
left and the right.
We should not identify ourselves as being on
the left or the right. We should identify
ourselves as prophetic
moral
ists. We are a prophetic community, not a
political community.
Politics is our tail, not our head.
And why is it that we always have
to follow what America says is important? We
don't have an independent message?
What happened to the Dawah?
I was sitting one day in a park
in New York City.
This man came to me. He was
blazed out of his brains.
It was lit. Lit. Lit. On crack. I
haven't seen someone use crack in 30
years. But that's New
York. And he came to me. He's like,
man, can you give me, like, I need
to get a primo. If you know what
a primo is, make
tober. That was before I was Muslim. All
my bad stuff is before Islam.
That's my excuse.
Just don't ask my wife.
And I said, man, how old are you?
He said, I'm 48
years old. He was my age.
I said, man, what have you been doing
for the last 25 years? He said, living
in the streets.
So I started giving it to him, man.
I started giving him that old school, you
know, unadulterated
funk, man.
I start
And he said to me,
nobody has talked to me like this in
25 years.
I needed to hear this.
Thank you.
I said, man, get yourself together,
bro. So said Nashek, he says,
he says, the most awoken people in the
dunya are worshipers.
And so to, 2 people stronger than a
whole nation.
2 men stronger than a whole nation. Why?
They have activism,
but it's coupled with reverence for the sacred.
People will say, but, man, it's amazing. They
have all these cool things. What do we
take in the lesson
Nope. So what?
I got bigger things. I got bigger things
to do.
I have bigger things to do.
Then he said,
the most intelligent people in this dunya are
those who practice
responsible restraint.
And he says, and I know we're running
out of time,
So Nashik, he mentions the verse
that says the example of this world, the
life that we live in is like rain
that comes. It brings the earth brings out
beautiful vegetation,
and and people get enamored by it. Oh,
it's amazing. And then suddenly, boom,
it hits. The thunderstorm hits.
Everything's gone as though it wasn't there the
day before.
Allah says,
Thus, we make our signs very clear to
people who think.
And then he says,
So there's so many verses about like this
that teach us what is responsible zuhut.
Then he says,
then he mentions a line of poetry. This
is Beit Ramla, if you want to understand.
Some
people said this is Sayidina Imam al Shafi'i,
but there's like a question about did he
say it or not. That's not our discussion
now. But listen to this beautiful line of
poetry.
Quotes this line of poetry,
and he says that indeed
to Allah are some very intelligent servants
who divorced
the
divorce because they fear
What is the fitna they fear? When you
hear the word fitna, what does fitna actually
mean? I'm going to lose something in the
hereafter. I'm going to do something that causes
the pleasure of Allah with me to be
suspect. That's fitna. That's it.
We shouldn't say women are fitna.
That.
Men are fitna. I would be that. I'm
a fitna if I don't know how to
carry myself around women.
I'm the fitna if I don't know how
to carry myself around men. I need to
start with myself.
He said they left this dunya. They divorced
it.
It doesn't mean irresponsibility. We're gonna talk about
this later
on. What does it mean to be zahid
in the balanced way of Islam?
And he says, they looked at this world,
and when they understood that this is not
a permanent abode for the living,
they made it a deep
sea. They took their good deeds as the
sails by which they will sail over this
difficult
That's beautiful, man.
Let me try to finish it, Sheikh. Sorry.
The sheikh, he says, if that is how
the dunya is, if I had described it,
and our situation
And we are like, as I said,
in our situation, our purpose is like I
said, satan e imam.
Here's the purpose of the book.
Said that's how it is. Everything I just
said makes sense to you.
I remember because I was reviewing this, and
my daughter, she's funny because she knows what
is cucumbers.
So I was saying that's why it's important
you should read in front of your kids
really
loud. So I was reading it
Where's the cucumbers? I said,
Leave me alone.
Where's the computer cord? No. No. Not that
If that's how it is, then everybody should
try to emulate the ways of the righteous,
the good people,
the prophets,
and those people that the ummah
has
authorized as being examples.
And to follow the way of the people
of Anahi. Anahi means to prohibit. What that
means, he's a responsible people.
They know when to stop.
I was watching Peppa Pig.
You know, Peppa Pig? You got babies. You
know about Peppa Pig, man.
So my daughter Daughter, daughter, daughter. Shit. They
have they have this one on YouTube. If
you're trying to put your to sleep is
the best, like, 30 seconds long and it
ends. Okay. Tyler, go to bed.
She said to me, my 3 year old,
one more.
Hour later, man.
One more. That's not
that's not someone who knows where to stop.
The Sheikh is saying the people of Nehi,
the people who know when to stop themselves
will, Absara,
insight.
They have priorities. They have principles.
People
of. He says
a
person should pay attention
and prepare themselves for what I directed
them to.
And they should take seriously what I what
I what I warned them of.
Of. And the best way to do that,
the best path to take in doing all
of this,
at. That's why the imam's class here is
very important in hadith.
Because notice something. Imam Anawi, he's doing something
very important. It's called tasil afkar.
He's rooting his ideas in Sharia.
See, to root it
in an asl.
So Sheikh Sidi Ahmed Zruk
and Alqawah at Tasawwuf.
He
Any idea that you have, you should root
it in the sharia,
and then you will allow it to stand
up. Now people wanna stand up. What does
the Sharia say?
No. No. No. No. You root it and
then you ask as a says,
The first thing a person what is Allah?
What person what is Allah? What does Allah
teach me? What should I do? Then I
do it. Not I do it, then I
ask. I'm sure, imam, people come to you
all the time. They said,
I started this business. What's the ruling?
But you had to start a business.
Hey, forgiveness is either permission.
So we tell our
wives. Forgive me. Can we take a little
extra time, Shay, just to finish the introduction?
I'm sorry. People maybe need to pray. I
can stop. Just this very important point, and
we have to finish this introduction.
But he says
ah, thank you.
Sheikh, he says.
So the best thing to do is to
take what is authentically narrated from.
From the master of all creation.
Prophet I'm
the best of human beings. I ain't bragging.
Said, why did the prophet say
I'm the best of creation? Because he had
to. Because Kitman al im haram, the prophets
will not hide what they have to teach.
We're gonna talk about this later on because
as we go through the hadith, there's a
lot of practical things you can take. Don't
it's not going to be always the introduction
is hard. Right? After this, believe me, it's
going to be, masha'Allah, you know, a little
bit more easier a little
bit more easier. But the introduction is important.
Then he starts to mention verses to support
to seal his ideas.
Why did I write the book then?
He said, Allah says that we should work
towards good
and stay away from sin. So I'm I'm
putting the book together to help you.
And the prophet
the first hadith, he said
Then he mentions that Allah will help someone
as long as they help others.
The next hadith he mentions Whoever
directs towards good, they will share in it.
In the next hadith, he said all these
hadith
whoever
guides
to
good.
Whoever guides to goodness.
For that person,
he will have, masha'allah,
masha'allah,
the
Of the person.
Of
the
person.
Whoever guides to good, whoever follows them, they
will get the reward of those who follow
them, and it won't take any reward from
either of them.
That's an encouragement to do good. Now
we see so many young Muslims doing great
on TikTok.
On Instagram, seriously. Right? Trying to educate young
people. They they fall under this hadith
as long as they, you know, they base
what they're saying on on what's correct, and
they they have access to correct information.
Said, if you guide
one person to say nari,
it's better for you than everything.
Everything you can imagine.
Then he says,
So so I thought I would, based on
that, gather together a small summarized text of
authentic hadith. There's 2 important points I need
to make here. This is very important. Imam
Anawi in writing this book, he relied on
2 texts. You have to know this because
that allows us to appreciate what he did.
The first text is Al Jam'u Asahi Hayin
He died 477 after Hijri. He wrote a
book,
We brought together all of the hadith of
Bukhari and Muslim, and he,
he organized it in the in the names
of the Sahaba.
So like Abu Bakr, radiya Allahu Anno, every
hadith Abu Bakr narrated what Bukhari and Muslim
agreed upon.
Muslim. But unfortunately,
made some mistakes.
That's normal.
Now people are very impatient. It's very easy
to declare people irredeemable, but that's not how
Islam is.
Islam is very patient with mistakes.
Mistakes. That's why I say, in the end
of a he said, when
The end of, he
said, if you find any mistakes in what
I did,
fix it.
But fix it nicely.
And he fixed it with rama.
Because glorified is the one who has no
mistakes.
If you find any mistakes in what I
did, then Shatabhi was blind when he wrote
his reply. He's a blind person.
Said if you find any if you find
any mistakes
Be merciful to it.
But fix it.
That can
be with care. I mean, don't destroy me.
Nowadays, everyone destroy everybody. Because you know why?
No one's working for the.
Everybody's working for fame.
Sometimes he will say, for example,
And that has not been fixed in
because imam
out of his respect and love, and he
memorized
he followed him. So as you and I
go through the text, I'm gonna show you.
Here is
The second book that he relied on is
the book of Abdul Alim,
Abdul Kawi,
Al Mundri Al Tariba Tariq.
Usayni imam Al Mundri, he died around 6
75 after Hijri.
And at Tarib, Tarib is 4 Vayms. It's
a great book. Masha'Allah.
Oshak Albani, he did the tasih of this
book also. It's out. It's available, I think,
in one volume,
but it kind of took the spirit of
the book out of the book.
And also there's some critical
thoughts on what he did.
But imam
al Mundri
in in
and here you have to pay attention in
the.
For example, the hadith.
If you knew what I knew about being
alone,
nobody would travel by themselves for 1 night.
This hadith It's hadith, I think, 915
in
if I remember correctly.
If you go and look at Tarhib or
Tarhib, you see the exact same wording wording
wording wording. Because Imam Manawi, he he took
from them. There's nothing wrong with that. Those
are Imams.
Both of them are considered from the hadith.
But there's a problem. Because the imam Sahib
al Tarib al Tarib, the one who wrote
Tarib al Tarib,
he didn't just mention
Bukhari and Muslim.
He mentioned Ibn Abi Khozema,
other books on bazaar, Musadi,
Abi Sheba, other books that are not so
well known. He mentioned them. Why is that
important? Why is that important?
Because sometimes even if he said that it's
related by Bukhari and Muslim, he chose the
wording of someone else. The love of bazaar,
for example. The love of niseghi.
Imam Anawi
Rahimullah.
He doesn't mention all those other people who
just say
Sometimes he will say
the hadith, but the text is not from
Bukhari and Muslim. The text is from Bazar
or Nasai or someone else. Imam Mus Imam
Sayna Imam Nas, he finished inshallah.
He will say,
but it's not the it's not the narration
of Bukhary. It's the narration of someone else.
What can you learn from this? And this
is why the sheikh's class is important, that
the science hadith is not a sloppy
science man.
Look at the precision precision precision.
So say the imam
when he would narrate from these books, he
would follow
their small mistakes.
This has not been corrected in English.
That I know of.
What I know is very limited as we
can see now. But
but but inshallah, as we read the text,
I'm gonna tell you.
He said,
He didn't narrate this.
So did narrate this. He says it's it's
the it's the love of Muslim. It's the
love of.
So by the time we finish,
the book, and will I next time, I'll
do my best to finish on time.
It's no. He's he's also has his what
he's saying is correct too.
Yeah.
That we, inshallah, will have a complete, like,
edition of the book and your notes will
serve. And one day, hopefully, we can print
it inshallah. Next time, we'll finish the introduction.