Suhaib Webb – Stations of The Seekers Part Four Repentance and Accountability
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So, we'll continue now,
finishing up the chapter on repentance.
But I I wanna remind you of something,
that this station of repentance is one of
those
experiences that
are constant.
So like,
Imam, Ibn Qayyim said,
He said like, you know, repentance is always
there. Well, what a cute baby.
And like, if you have kids, I have
no problem. Like, I love to see kids
here, so I got a kid coming next
month Insha Allah.
So I definitely gotta make sure kids can
come, you know. Maybe it's a conflict of
interest
or just being smart.
But,
like like, your kids are our kids.
And we we we we treat children, unfortunately,
sometimes, like, with disdain, man. Like, we treat
them like the makalafi.
So like, we kick them out of the
mosque or we ask them to leave. Like,
no doubt, like,
of course, we don't want unruly children. That's
one thing. But,
hamdulillah,
honey. General hamdulillah.
So the sheikh, he says that,
Then he says like the
the subtleties of Tawba, the secrets of Tawba
are 3 things.
He said the first is another
Like, you should look at this mistake that
you we should look at the mistakes we
made and then think about what is the
ruling
of God. Like, so I backbite someone. What's
the ruling of God? I
stole something, God forbid.
Like, what's the ruling of Allah in that
situation?
And then I should understand that Allah's will
has been manifest in my life that I
have
sinned. And we talked about this before, the
commandment of God is different than the will
of God.
Allah's commandment is faith, but Abu Jaha was
a kafir. That was the will of
Allah. So there there's the the idea of
agency and choice.
The commandment
is to believe. Abu Bakr, he believed, so
the commandment and the will aligned.
That's why in our in our winter retreat
or spring retreat, whichever one it was,
we talked about
how if the will of Allah
manifest in opposition to the commandment of god,
then go to the command,
the commandment.
So if I see like everything around me
is bad, but the commandment is to be
good,
I shouldn't confuse the 2. Understand?
So here, it's been manifest in my life
that I'm a sinner.
So he said,
that should lead you to conclude 2 things,
like, when this happens.
Because people tend to blame god for their
sins.
So he's saying, no. Don't forget your agency.
And within that agency,
you should recognize 2 things. Number 1,
that at the end of the day you
have no true power.
Like, how many of us we said, like,
yeah, I'm gonna, like, go on keto, man,
and I'm gonna change my life, or, you
know, I'm gonna
get this promotion. I'm gonna, like, do this.
Right?
At the end of the day, sometimes we
don't achieve what we say we're going to
achieve to remind us not to trust in
ourselves.
So he said, like, out of that, there
should be
an increased awareness
that you need Allah. What?
Exactly.
You need Allah.
Right? That I need Allah.
The second thing
is to realize that all the sins that
you and I have committed before
that were hidden and even that sin.
Like, Allah hid that sin even though I
became aware of it. So I became aware
of it. How did I become aware of
it?
Some kind of internal
switch clicked on. I was down by 31.
The switch clicked,
but subhanAllah no one else became aware of
it except me.
So it's like a sign of Allah's mercy,
like, that there's this intimate relationship.
That Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is awakening you
up, but not exposing you.
She said at that moment, there should be,
like, this tremendous sense of gratefulness and reliance.
And then like feeling responsibility,
like a sense of agency.
Then he says,
the second
component of the reality of Tawbah
is that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has established
the fact that
we've made mistakes.
So I've
I become aware aware that I have wronged
myself. So that's that's called the station.
I acknowledge, like, I have made myself in
a situation
where I'm potentially eligible for Allah's punishment
because of what I've done.
And for those of you who are, like,
first time here, I've always tried to kind
of,
remind people that this text is like a
really distilled form of spirituality.
It's very distilled. And it
of course, each and every one of us
are gonna practice it according to where we
are. Like, I'm by no means anywhere near
this amazing stuff, man.
Yes? What do you mean by that? By
what?
Meaning that it's heavy.
This is not like pop Tasulph.
This is like Indy Tasulph in a basement
somewhere with Pete Rock DJing and Premiere getting
ready to jump on the set. Like, this
is deep.
It's not like, okay, let's, like, have fun.
Like, he's, like, no. Boom boom boom boom
boom boom boom.
So it's very distilled.
But I like the pop stuff too. Don't
get me wrong. You know what I mean?
But
it's hard to translate even. Like, sometimes I
was translating, I was like, man, I got
I took a nap today. And I was
like, dude,
his language, man.
Okay?
And now he moves on to where he
stopped and he talks about
the types of repentance.
And he says there's 3 types of repentance.
The first are delusional.
Like and if anyone hearing this, you get,
like, too depressed and you start beating your
off yourself too up too much, like, don't
do that. Don't do that, man.
That's not the purpose.
Because we all we all,
like, struggle, man. Like, you know?
So the first is he says is the
repentance of the Ammi.
What he means by that is a delusional
commoner. That's
rough language, man.
Who thinks that it is merely done by
increasing good deeds
while committing the sin.
So, like, I'm still gonna do my dirt.
You know what I mean? But I'm gonna
increase
other acts of worship.
So I'm not gonna take responsibility for it.
I'm gonna
like, for example, someone who abuses their spouse
and prays in the mosque,
Or someone that does something really evil.
And what he means here is like deliberateness.
Not because maybe someone's weak,
maybe someone's struggling, that's different. One of the
scholars was asked, like, what about a person
that, like, continues to sin because of their
weakness? But they're like trying. He said
Like that's a form of jihad nafs. We're
talking about now someone that just doesn't care,
man. So they're like, you know what? I'm
gonna keep doing what I'm doing.
I'm not gonna take any responsibility for it,
but you know what? I'm gonna do like
charity, and I know that charity is gonna
fix it, or I'm gonna
be nice to people.
So I'm not taking responsibility,
but the condition of Tawba is
to stop.
So he's he's saying, like, that's a state
of delusion.
I know when I read that I was,
like, I've been there before. Like, when I
was translating this, I was, like, man, I
have a lot of problems.
Right? Because, like, oh, yeah. I did that
once. Oh, yeah. I did that once. Right?
So he said, this is someone who thinks
that it is merely done by increasing in
good deeds
or taking without taking any responsibility
for their actions.
And he said that attitude
really causes three things to happen which are
a total disaster.
He said number 1
is forgetting that Allah blessed you when he
hid the sin from everyone else.
Number 2, laziness
and thinking that the sinner has a right
on god. Like, so if I do this,
god will take care of this. God has
to.
And he said the third, and he says
this is the root of all evil,
is that the person assumes they're autonomous of
Allah.
Like, I set
the parameters of the relationship.
And that god has to repay that person.
The second type of toba, which is also
deli delusional but in a different way
is that instead of doing good
and keep in mind there's deliberateness involved in
both of these people. Right? Again, this is
not someone that's struggling. It's not someone that's
trying and slips. That's very different.
This is someone that's just like, it's all
gravy, man.
It's all good. Let me rob this bank.
I'll just pray fudge you tomorrow. Right? This
is crazy. Right? So he said the second
type of repentance,
what he called alwusta,
the middle
is to reduce the sin without leaving it.
So I'm not not even going to replace
it, like, with something good or try to
do something good to counteract it.
I'm just gonna reduce it.
While in
while saying to myself,
Allah so merciful.
Allah so forgiving.
And he said, this is being bold with
God.
Like this is a form of being bold
with Allah.
Which means to be bold and, like, blatant.
And to be, like, open with sin, like
like I've accepted it. Like, right? We said,
like, repentance is to feel like I need
to stop. I need to distance myself from
it. I need to leave it. Here it's
like, it's alright. I'll just keep doing it,
but I'll reduce it.
Again, we said earlier
with people that have psychological challenges or chemical
dependencies, that doesn't apply here because that's a
process.
Right? We have to we have to look
at sins as either being processed based
or event based.
But there's a general rule that any sin
that's hurting others cannot be it it should
not be treated as a process,
because I'm harming people, in general.
But
here,
he's talking about those sins that I can
stop, man.
So I I do what's
like I reduce ikhlalu
al ithim, like I reduce it,
but I continue it, and then I say
to myself,
No problem.
No problem.
And, again, he said that's a problem because
it's a form of being bold with God.
It's continuing in sin. Allah says.
The Quran says, like, they don't continue the
sin,
meaning with some deliberateness.
Right? And they know.
He said also the other problem of this
is, like,
there's a form of complacency in the relationship.
Like, I'm not doing my part.
And he said the challenge of this is
if someone continues this way,
they're going to cut themselves off from
Allah's the relationship with Allah.
Yes? Are these
theological problems? It seems like to some extent,
the person has dictated that, you know, I'm
gonna practice religion as I did fit,
And it's not about knowing who applies. It's
about, like, this is what makes sense to
me.
Yeah. And that's the challenge. Right? That's why
he said autonomy's idea being, like, Islam versus
Islam.
Or her Islam versus Islam.
I'm now telling God how I
it's like the satanic challenge. Right?
You created him out of this, you created
me out of this, like I'm better than
him. Let me set the parameters.
So, yeah. And that's that's the beauty of
this book. That's why I said it was
distilled earlier,
is that he does I have problem when
we don't study Islamic Sciences thematically.
So we study, like, tasawaf without aqidah. Like
how do you study tasawaf without aqidah when
the foundation of tasawaf is Ikhlas?
And the foundation of this Ikhlas is tawhid.
So, like, we did this even with
when I studied before like we we took
all the rules of hadith. We didn't read
1 hadith.
So then we went to the class, the
Sheikh started reading from these big books of
hadith. He's like this rule, this rule, this
rule, this rule. We're like,
I don't remember any of those rules. But
if we had studied the text with the
rule so when people study Arabic for example,
they don't study literature.
So then they find themselves like I know
Arab, Marfuh, Mansoor, Madzum. I know all the
rules,
but I can't read. Why? You didn't practice
reading.
Tisauf cannot be divorced from aqidah.
Because the process of Tisauf is to travel
to Allah.
And the only way to travel to Allah
is la ilaha illallah.
Muhammad rasawallah. So yeah, it's good good you
you picked that up.
And there's no aqeedah without Tasawf.
That's why I say nomadic used to say,
who studied
who studied for that Aqidah will leave Islam.
And who studied aqidah without
will become a sinner. They'll become harsh and
tough. Sayyidina Shaif used to
say Shaif used to say
or a scholar. Don't a Sufi or a
scholar. Don't be either or.
I'm advising you this. He said
the scholar,
like the academic
that hasn't had the internal sciences
is harsh hearted, never taste in
And the person that has all these inner
experience without foundational knowledge is ignorant.
And how can an ignorant person fix anything?
As we said earlier, that
balance is so important. And, again, like some
of us may lean more towards something than
other people, like that's normal.
One time one man he wrote to Imam
Malik, he said you're not Sufi enough to
Imam Malik, man.
Because Imam Malik used to dress really nicely.
He came from a good family, like as
far as financially.
He so he was someone who like had
a little mashallah swagger, you know?
And he dressed nicely.
So he wrote him that letter, and he
said, you don't fast enough. You're not zuhid,
blah blah blah blah. Right?
You teach too much.
Right? So
Malik wrote back he said, In Allah
Like Allah disputed actions like he distributed rain.
So you're doing good, I'm doing good, hamdulillah,
it's all gravy.
But like never to the point where we
sacrifice
our own
practice. Right? Our own balance.
He said the second type of toba,
the delusional type is where I reduce the
sin while invoking Allah's mercy to justify continuing
to do it.
We all been there, man.
When I read that first time people were
like,
ch. Right? Well, I almost did it myself,
and I'm reading it.
And that is, he said, a form of
being bold with God God. It's a blatant
c in committing sin and complacency.
It's a form of just the soul justifying,
as you said, like what's halal, what's haram,
what's good, what's evil.
And that leads to eventually.
Right? Where I separated myself from Allah.
The third type of tawbah is that of
those people who are focused on God.
And that is to repent. And he's just
these aren't the only types. Right? So he
can't write a novel, so he's just going
to give you a few of his opinions,
maybe what was important in his time.
And he said, but these are people who
one of the things that they repent for
is wasting time.
Because it leads he said wasting time leads
to the worst evils.
Prophet said that there are 2 things most
people lose blessing out on. It's like one
is free time.
One of the challenges of a capitalist driven
society
is that leisure is something to be achieved.
So everybody's chilling. I'm chilling.
I'm chilling.
I'm chilling. We had this teacher, Marshall. He's
from Brooklyn.
We used to say like, Sheikh, I'm gonna
chill. He's like, you're gonna chill till you
fall in *.
That was the nineties, man. What can I
say? It was we took it to the
jaw, like, woah, I'm not chilling. I'm burning
up.
But the point he was trying to say
is like, use your time, man.
But there is, of course, like,
we need time to relax, of course. We
need time to
recalibrate. That's different.
But here it means to waste time,
not to use my time.
He said because that leads to some of
the worst evils,
it extinguishes the light of awareness and mindfulness,
and it corrupts true companionship. And what he
means here is the companionship with Allah.
When the prophet Muhammad salallahu alaihi wa sallam
would travel, what dua would he make?
Oh, Allah, you are my companion while I
travel.
So the idea of suhbahma Allah.
So, like, if I'm not,
you know, like, I don't hang out with
people who do, like, generally do things I
don't wanna do.
You know, like, I'm not gonna hang out
with someone who, like, wants to do something
I'm not into,
like, all the time. Of course, I'll sacrifice
a little.
So what about my relationship with Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala? What's called
Am I
harvesting those times?
And now, masha'Allah, the month of Ramadan has
come in. So it's like a great opportunity
to, like,
take
some of the blessings
of the time.
So I said,
meaning, like, I corrupted
that companionship with Allah.
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Then at the end,
he basically
takes it to another level, masha'Allah.
The sheikh, he
says,
He
said that
complete, true tawba,
you won't taste it until you turn away
from everything except Allah.
That's not easy, man. It doesn't mean good
stuff. Right? So don't go home and be
like, I can't hang out with you. I'll
turn away from everything but Allah.
That's not what he means, man.
He means like,
you become so aware of who Allah is
that you forgot the sin.
You just turned to Allah.
So you see it in a in a
macro way like
I turned away from God.
Yeah.
Is that the same people
that I become for the Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala Exactly. The eyes and ears and hands
and people.
Because remember, the goal of the book is
to teach Ihsan.
Ihsan. And towards hapalaas though you see him.
So he's saying, Abdur Haim is saying, isn't
that like the hadith where Allah says
I'll become the hearing by which they hear.
The vision by which they see.
The hand by which they grab the feet.
Exactly. So he's saying at that moment
I just turned to
So I acknowledge I've done evil,
but instead of like getting
I'm at a place where I've I've acknowledged
I've done I've turned away from haqq.
So I turned to Allah.
And he says, and that means that at
that point,
this is kind of deep, man,
that that person
when they turn to the haqq,
That means that they
examine the cause of the repentance.
Like, what triggered the sin?
We talked about in the very beginning. Not
only the sin, what triggers it?
Like, for example, my wife is here. If
I buy a bag of chips, man, it's
gone bro.
Buy buy buy, like, especially like, Masha'Allah. You
know what I'm saying? And Trader Joe's joints,
it's gone. Right? So I need to be
aware of what triggers the sin.
Jim Jim Carrey used to say between paradise
and * is the sandwich at night.
Right? The idea of like
what triggers me.
So to reach that point, I go So
now he takes it backwards.
So I recognize, I turn to Allah, then
I recognize what triggered the sin, and then
I recognize the sin itself.
Exactly.
Of course. Because, like, the prophet said
when Hosefa came to the prophet, said, like,
I'm not always able to keep that high
station of iman. I became a hypocrite. He
said, no. It's normal.
Awareness goes ups and up and down.
Right? That's gonna happen.
And what does it mean by the hands
by which you grab and the eyes will
it means that I'm going to be fulfilling
the the obligations, the commands.
Right? I'm going to be observing
the faith as it should be observed. And
the best way to do that is the
sunnah of Sayidina Muhammad,
The balance of Sayidina Muhammad, salallahu alaihi wa
sallam. No one is a greater Muslim
than Sayidina Muhammad, salallahu alaihi wa sallam.
Yes, sir? I think sometimes I think about
the scales of the day of judgment towards
weighing deeds, good deeds versus bad deeds, but
I feel like from this discussion it's about
it's not as much the deed as it
is your attitude towards Allah and where you
are when you're dying. Right?
Yeah. I mean, if I do evil, it's
evil, but God knows the intention. Like, was
I was I forced to do that? Like,
did I have another choice?
Did I have a way out?
Like, those are all taken into consideration,
unless it's harming someone else.
I'm trying to understand, like, the language related
skills, you know, like weighing your d. The
actions, but this says the efah. Right? The
the actions will be weighed. We understand, of
course, like
the intention is there.
But,
yani, only Allah knows
what's in the hearts of the people.
But both are there.
Internal, external.
You know, the Yes, ma'am?
So I said if it's a process based
sin, that's different. Right? If it's a sin
that's rooted in process,
Insha'Allah,
one of the scholars said that a process
like drug addiction, for example. Right?
The process of of
reaching that point is in itself a form
of tawba.
But we're talking about sins that I could
stop
immediately.
Yes, ma'am.
Yes.
Anyone else?
Yes, sir.
That's alright, bro. Don't worry about that, man.
In terms of, like, looking at, like, you
mentioned, like, time wasting.
And then also,
we live in a day and age where,
like, leisure is the goal. How do you
balance that with,
like, the ambition of getting to a state
where that is your hands, your eyes, your
ears? Like, is it
is it to the extent of, like,
when I go home, I'm not watching the
Clippers, this Warriors game. Oh, no. No. No.
No.
No. Yeah.
It may be for certain people.
Right? Go ahead. But, like, not some of
us commoners, you know what I'm saying?
What he means about wasting time is either
when I'm doing evil or I'm not doing
good when I should be doing good, when
I can do good. Right? But we know
the process when he went home, and his
wife said he used to serve us, used
to
spend time with us. So the idea
of balancing leisure. Right?
But we need leisure moments. Right?
But if it comes to the point where
it's consuming my life, and it's taking me
Like, think about it in the form of
like a clinical issue, where if I'm so
anxious that it
it kind of like threatens my ability to
function as a normal person.
So if I'm going late if I'm late
to work every day because I'm playing Fortnite,
it's kind of a problem.
You see what I'm trying to say? So
losing that balance.
But again, not going to extremes.
Yes,
sir.
And people have and that's subjective. Right? Like,
there'll be different levels of balance in people's
lives.
Other
question? Yes.
Because it's the word that he's using in
the text.
Crime.
Not evil.
Could be evil or wrongdoing as well. Yeah.
Any other question? Thank you for for that
question. Any other questions before we
Yes, sir. You gotta pay it this time.
In the beginning, you said the first one
was,
or
I might be misremembering, but, like, at one
point, it's, like, acknowledging
the sin and then tying it back to,
like, the implications of what that sin is.
Yeah. Is there, like, a good way of,
like,
like, if we're not, like, opposite, have the
ability of, like, understanding, like,
Like, what would be the way of understanding,
like, okay, here's the implication for that.
Yeah. I hurt somebody. I mean, that's first
and foremost. If I'm backbiting someone, usually I'm
hurting them. That that in itself is like,
you know, Allah says, would you like to
eat laha ma'ahi himeita? Would you like to
eat the flesh of a dead person? Right?
That's backbiting.
That in itself should be enough to make
me like I've hurt somebody. Right? That, first
and foremost,
I've dishonored somebody.
You know, I've said something about them that's
not acceptable.
That should weigh on my conscience
as a believer.
Is it is there like a need to,
like, tie it back to,
like, the specific chronic implications?
I mean, the chronic implications in general is
that it's bad. So, like, I think for
the person that's not a Hafiz or hasn't
don't doesn't know all the texts, like,
just apply to general evil. The other thing
is there's a great book, Rial Salihin, The
Gardens of the Righteous. It's a great question,
man. Stop being self deprecating. Don't say you're
not articulate. That was awesome,
All the questions are really good, And always
feel like,
you know, feel motivated to ask. Like, if
we make mistakes I made mistakes. I guarantee
you I made mistakes. Like, that's that's how
we are. Like, our community, I don't we
shouldn't expect perfection from each other.
So may Allah bless you, man. But like
there's a great book called Gardens of the
Righteous, 2 volumes.
Has little chapters backbiting,
slander,
saying nice things, standing up for justice.
Right? Hadith versus the Quran. They're like super
easy
for people to read. So I I encourage
people to have that book. It's 2 volumes,
Gardens of the Righteous.
You can get it.
Anyone except the one that came out of
Saudi Arabia
would be probably really good because that one
actually has been changed.
They took out chapters.
They pulled a biblical move.
Yeah. I mean, I hate to say that.
I mean, but other people do it too.
Like, don't don't just not not the publications
from there, but
unfortunately when you have dictatorships and other things
like,
not just in Saudi Arabia, but
texts get changed.
So, for example, in that book he has
a chapter on the virtues of visiting visiting
the grave of the prophet, sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. That's gone, bro.
That chapter's gone, man. But, like, that's in
the original book, like, leave it there or
at least tell people, like, we took this
chapter out, you know. The chapter on loving
Al Abayit. It's like it's gone. Like why
is it gone? Right? That doesn't mean also
all the students who go to Saudi Arabia
or study are bad people. We should never
say that. A lot of great students came
from there. But sometimes the official political line
that's taken
influences the translation. Like King James version, you
know? You got the King version of Riyadh
Saudi.
Strange.
Right?
Let's quickly go to the next one and
then we'll just read through it and then
we'll stop, Insha'Allah.
The third station is Al Muhasaba.
Halabab al Muhasaba.
Muhasaba
is a word which means to audit oneself.
Account, accountability. The the hasub is a computer
and fusha because it counts numbers.
So they call it hasub, not computer.
But if you say hasub, nobody's gonna know
what you're gonna talk about what you're talking
about.
The hasib or the hasab is the accountant.
Just like to give you an idea. Right?
So muhasaba
is like taking
inventory
of myself.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran
in Surat Al Hashar,
believers
be dutiful to Allah and let every soul
look to what it sends for tomorrow morning.
Like, I'm gonna translate it literally on purpose.
Let every soul look to what it sends
for tomorrow morning.
Tomorrow morning means the day of judgement. Why
do you call tomorrow morning?
To show how close it is.
He's taking grammar. So I'm just explaining it
to my grammar rule,
which means every soul must look to what
it's
sending for the hereafter. So the idea is
I'm auditing myself, like what am I sending
forward? What are my investments for the future?
And of course, the statement of,
Sayidna Omar and also Sayidna Adi, they both
said this.
Audit yourself before you're audited.
And the Imam Hassan Basri used to say
like the people who are most
rigorous in auditing themselves now will have the
least auditing in the hereafter.
So like
mindfulness and awareness of where I am in
my life.
Here's a question,
shouldn't that come before repentance?
Like shouldn't I audit myself?
Then I'm like, oh snap, I did this
wrong. I did this wrong. I did this
wrong. Now I need to repent. Like why
did he put
almuhasaba
auditing
after repentance?
Yes.
That's a good point. I
didn't think about that.
Anyone else? Yes.
No. That was original. That was an original
bar. Mashallah.
That was great, alhamdulillah.
And that, you actually touched on the point.
I mean, I said it earlier just to
like
give people an answer. Yes, sir?
Yeah. Yeah.
Good. Masha'Allah.
Remember we talked about repentance as constant.
So the initial repentance is like through Hidayah.
Like it's very powerful. Anyone that's ever been
in those positions, you know, like those are
very powerful moments.
I remember, SubhanAllah,
when I converted,
I went to the mosque by the university
to pray,
and I heard this lady, like, screaming, man.
So I thought, like, something happened to her,
you know.
Stupid white convert guy.
But then, like, Asar answered Jude and she
was crying to Allah.
So I left.
You know, I don't even know who this
person is, by the way. I don't even
know I don't know her. I don't know
who she is.
But, like, those moments are powerful, man. So
often, like, those aren't moments where we're, like,
calculative, and we've thought about this and that.
We're just like coming
back. Like he said,
Like, I'm going back to the truth.
Then after that,
I start to learn like,
to be more nuanced. I start to see
clearer. I start to have the opportunity
for auditing.
So Toba will always be there. But this
is like the outcome of that process. Now
I have.
Now I see.
Now I'm honest.
Because the conditions of
are the following. Number 1 is
honesty with myself.
Number 2, feeling a sense of empowerment to
Allah. Like I need Allah to help me.
Number 3 is a strong supporting cast.
People I can ask, like, did I do
that? Did I do that? Really?
They're, like, yeah, you did it. Where you
did it is where you get it.
Right?
And then number 4 is
being constantly dedicated to it.
Because if I'm not in the state of,
I may be in a state of.
Yes?
That's why it's a constant.
So it's this is the process. Right? Remember
what we said earlier? It's not linear.
Sorry guys, I gotta I gotta finish. So
forgive me. Habibi.
So he said,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in the Quran,
Oh, believers,
be dutiful to Allah and that every soul,
it must look for what it's sending to
the future.
Then he says,
He said that
the auditing, the self auditing has 3 foundational
pillars.
The first one is
is that you become aware of Allah's blessings
and your shortcomings.
That I become aware of God's blessings in
my life and then my crimes, my sins,
the evil I've committed.
So I compare, and I'm like, man,
how could I do this
when I have these blessings?
And of course, then he says
He loves threes, man. So he says like,
and this will be difficult for someone unless
they have three things. Number 1, Noru Hikma.
They have the light of wisdom.
Wisdom means experience, also
knowledge, but experience.
Number 2, we're going to unpack these more
next time. Wsu'a'avun
binafs, that they don't trust their soul.
So they have a suspicion when their soul
says, it's okay. It's okay. No problem. No
problem. They're like, no. No. No. No. No.
No. No.
And number 3 with Tamiz, that
they're able to distinguish between a blessing and
a trial.
How do I know the difference?
Sheikha Lakhami,
great scholar, Madikhi, explained this book. He said,
you know the difference between a namah and
a fitna? Fitna
fitna, excuse me? A nema is something that
takes you to good.
Fitna is something that takes you away from
it.
The second
foundation of muhasabah
is that you know the difference between what
god has commanded to you to do
and what you failed to perform of those
commandments.
So I recognize, like, these are the things
I should be doing,
and then here's my failures in doing it.
It makes sense. Right? Like, if your job
if your boss my boss asked me to
do something and I failed to do it,
then I'm gonna be evaluated based on what
he told me to do and what I
what
failed to perform.
And the last he said,
that you should should know that every act
of obedience which God is pleased with
is something that can potentially be held against
you if you fail to do it.
And every evil that I may fall into,
right, is the opposite.
That he's not pleased with
will also be against me.
So we'll unpack this next time,
But just to give you, like, a little
bit to think of. I'll repeat them again.
But I'm gonna skip that part where it
says
because we're gonna get lost in threes threes
threes. Like the whole book he's like, 3,
3, 3, 3, 3. Number 2, 3, 3,
3, 3. Number 3. It's like, man,
stop doing that, Sheikh.
God bless him.
So he said,
to Orkadin.
Mo has three foundations. The first, to
think about God's blessings and my my failure,
my crimes, my evil.
Here he didn't use the word sin, by
the way. He used crime,
evil.
What? Okay. We're gonna skip that. Then he
says, the second
is that I become aware of God's commandments
and how I failed to
perform those commands.
And that at that moment, I understand the
like
when god has blessed me to perform something,
that's a blessing.
And when I've failed to perform something, that's
a test
that I need to work on.
The third
is that I know that every act of
obedience which God is pleased with could be
potentially held against me.
And every act of disobedience
that God does not approve of could also
be held against me.
So I look at my life and I
see those two things.
What commands have I failed to fulfill?
What evil have I performed?
So then I'm able to evaluate myself. I'm
able to audit myself.
Yes, ma'am?
I failed to perform it.
So Allah ordered me to pray and I
didn't do it. So
so like I I have something I'm supposed
to do, and I'm not doing it. I
know I'm supposed to do it. So that
potentially so that should cause me to wake
my I should go, woah, I need to
work on that.
That's what I meant by distilled.
Any other questions? Next week, I'll be out
of town. So we may have someone here.
I'm working on it. And then the week
before that will be Ramadan, so we'll be
here.
And then, of course, Ramadan is gonna start.
Ramadan. Any questions or dua requests? Everybody, I
hope you're okay. Yes, ma'am.
I really appreciate that. My grandmother's been very
well. She's in Jordan, and she's in her
school condition.
What's your grandma's name?
So we ask Allah and Yashfi, Sayda Fatima,
Inshallah, Shifa and Kamal Shaiman, Inshallah,
to make,
this And may Allah bless you. And I'm
sure it's hard to be away from your
your grandmother,
So
we're here for you as a community inshallah.
Yes, sir.
That's different. Right?
He's saying now if your soul is
in general, the approach of the soul should
be like al al Boseiry said, al nesukatifli.
He said, you know, your soul is like
a child. If you don't stop it from
breastfeeding, it will never stop.
So the general approach toward the soul is
one of suspicion,
unless it's telling me to do something good.
So there's always that exception. Right? Like, if
my soul is, like, hey,
be nice to people. No. I don't know
about that, man. I don't trust my soul.
Like, be nice to people, man.
It means here
if it's encouraging us to be lax,
right, or
so the soul is encouraging me to do
something wrong or justifying something evil,
then I need to look at it in
a suspicious way.
Good question,
Just that you inflict guilt
deliberately?
You inflict guilt deliberately? What do you mean?
Like
nafsah,
lawwama. Are you supposed to Nafsah Lawwama, of
course, is gonna come into play when I'm
doing
something wrong. It reminds me, like,
holds me accountable.
So
an outcome of that may be indeed guilt
inshallah. Like a healthy form of guilt.
A healthy form of guilt. Yeah.
Is everybody okay, inshallah?
So we pray for our students. This is
the, home stretch.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make things easier
for you, all of you. And,
for those of you who have doubt requests
and maybe you're too shy,