Tom Facchine – al-Raghib al-Isfahani #11 – The Importance of Focusing On Yourself

			So at this point, we understand who we are as human beings, we understand our purpose, or at least
the multiple layers of purpose that we have. We understand our capacity, we understand the tools
that Allah gave us, and the potential that we have to fulfill the question then is okay, now what do
we do? How do we get there? How are we going to develop ourselves? How are we going to refine
ourselves so that we become eligible so that we become deserving of this amazing station and
responsibility that he left over last panel to honor that the the managerial role, right, the
successor or the stewards for all of creation? It's a process and so the author wants us to consider
		

			what are all of the potential obstacles to embarking upon this path of reforming the self refining
the self so that we can get there and one of those obstacles sometimes is getting too busy with the
faults of others trying to focus too much on reforming other people. So the importance of focusing
on yourself and reforming the self before you start to try to be a guide for others or reforming
others is because as Sheikh Abdullah used to tell us, in Medina, a sick doctor can't heal anybody,
right? If somebody tries to go fix somebody else, then if if you're sick, if you have disease, you
might end up spreading your disease to the other person. And that doesn't hold true for every single
		

			situation. And doesn't mean you have to be absolutely perfect before you start giving advice or
helping anybody but let's just say that the temptation and the usual scenario is that people become
so busy concerning themselves with other people's faults and problems that they neglect themselves.
And this is something Allah blames us for in the Quran, Allah says, Are you going to command the
people to do something that you yourself don't do, right? And then that sort of stuff, allows power
data says Kevin, I'm not gonna turn in the law, he enter kolomela tough, I don't know, he says that
it's an enormity for a loss power data or in the sight of a loss amount of data that you would say
		

			something and not do it. So this is blameworthy, we have to make sure that we are at the very least
we are fixing ourselves as much as we are concerned with the faults of others, and preferably that
we should probably be fixing ourselves a little bit more than we are paying attention to the to the
faults of others. And so we have this balance and a slam between we have on one extreme we have like
okay, the proverbial quote unquote haram police people who are we could say that that represents one
extreme of focusing excessively on the faults of other people to the point where you're being
blinded from your own faults, and you're neglecting your own self perform the project of refining
		

			yourself. But there's another extreme as well. And that's the Mind your business extreme, that's to
imagine that there is absolutely no accountability in Muslim social spaces that everybody can just
act however, they want to do whatever they want. And nobody can call you out or hold you accountable
for anything because well, you don't know me and you don't know my heart and you don't know my
actions. And what I do, and I do all this other good things. But besides that, you don't even see
both of those extremes, right. And so Islam is right in the middle in between those two extremes, we
have to have some level of mutual accountability between each other, you don't get to act however
		

			you want, right. And this goes for the lay Muslim, and this goes for this give us the scholars and
the Duat and the big speakers and stuff like that, right, you don't get a pass, you're going to step
out of bounds. Sometimes I'm going to step out of bounds, sometimes I'm going to do something wrong,
I'm gonna say something I shouldn't have said or get involved maybe in something I shouldn't have
gotten involved in, and I've got to be ready for people to hold me accountable. That's just what it
is. It comes with the territory. I can't be all allergic to people, you know, telling me Well, you
shouldn't have done that you shouldn't have done that. It comes with the territory at the same time.
		

			At the same time. Everybody needs to understand that their primary responsibility in this world is
reforming yourself. Right? It's like it's actually the shaytaan doesn't care if he drags you down to
the left or he drags you down to the right. If he can get you busy with the dunya he'll get you busy
with the dunya and if he can get you busy with worrying about other people's faults and up these
people over here, they do that and they do this and they do that a lie the May Allah guide them
right Sheikh Abdullah used to really criticize us for this sort of attitude. He said, he used to say
a lie, he can't like May Allah guide you. Now you focus on yourself, what are you doing? You know,
		

			you can't control them at the end of the day, but you can control yourself. So the primary focus
always has to be reforming yourself first, until the point where you're able to take it outside of
yourself to other people.