al-Raghib al-Isfahani #45 – You Have To Do The Work

lineage and heritage is another one that a lot of loss for Hani talks about. And again, this is not to say that people without a certain lineage can't be virtuous or can't be ethical. But a lot of us find his point is that it might be harder, right? Just like the influences that you have around you, who's kind of in your self concept, your father or your forefathers or your you know, your ancestors has to do with your self concept and can oftentimes affect the possibilities or the likelihood that you're going to turn out a certain way. And this is evidenced by the fact that a lot of kind of movements and revivalist movements try to latch on to some sort of identity of lineage, right? You

have, like the last tribe, like the last Hebrew tribe, or this or this last tribe of that people, oftentimes, they want to connect themselves to an ethnic identity, that is empowering, it's empowering to them, it kind of saves them the, there's a drawback of this sort of tactic, and that it kind of removes the responsibility, or it can maybe not always, but it can remove the responsibility from the individual for doing the work, right. And some people can use it as kind of a shortcut to being a righteous person, it's like, well, I'm descended from this, and that, and the third, and so, you know, that's, you know, we're all kings, and we're all queens and whatever. Um,

it's not that easy, right? Like, you have to do the work, you have to be virtuous, you have to be ethical, you have to develop yourself. But it's also true that if you know that in your ancestry, or in your lineage, you had someone that was a major, you know, force of ethics and virtue, they were Muslims, you know, it changes, you know, your sense of who you are, and it changes, it changes your sense of who you can possibly be. And that's why I was finding says that this is a tool, it's a tool to use, right? It's not, it's not like a foregone conclusion that you're going to end up to be that person. No, we already said that. You know, you have the wife of Lulu, and you have the son of Noah

Alehissalaam. And you have different sort of proximity to guidance is not the same as guidance, but just like there's a resemblance sometimes between the Father and the Son. Sometimes there can also be a resemblance in, in virtue or in demeanor or in temperament. Sometimes, you know, you see kids and it's like, wow, he's got a short temper, just like his father, or wow, this person is really patient just like their mother. Right? And so there is some sort of connection between the possibilities for who you can become, or at least the, the, you know, the initial hand that you're dealt, what you're working with, and your lineage and so on. Also, honey, he's just trying to say

that, yes, these things aren't determinant. But if you have that in your corner, that's a good thing. We don't have to reject. We're not anti lineage. We're not anti ancestry. We're not anti heritage. No, if you have those things in your corner working for you, you have virtuous people in your ancestry, then this is something that's going to help you to be a virtuous person.