Reforming the Self #05
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Channel: Tom Facchine
Series: Tom Facchine - Reforming the Self Selections
File Size: 38.18MB
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AI Generated Summary ©
The importance of worship, personal and daily activities, and the hierarchy of worship are discussed in Islam. The importance of education, passion, and mindful of one's material interests is emphasized. The importance of patient and mindful behavior is emphasized, along with the need for individuals to be mindful of their emotions and forbearance. The segment also touches on the concept of forbearance and its importance in achieving happiness and happiness is a fruit of practice.AI Generated Transcript ©
This one I have a handle on Amin salatu salam ala Ashraful NBAA. One was Amin, Naveen, awkward one sinner, Mohammed.
Ali awful Surah musket, a steam
along the aisle in Novi, Michigan, fentanyl and fentanyl is even there. And yet, I mean,
last class we talked about
a dog and also honey. Remember, he had put out kind of our three purposes for human life, the three purposes for human life. And the first one
should I test you? What were the three purposes of human life?
Very good model settling? Excellent. My brother worship Excellent. Two for two.
Excellent, thankfully, that representation. Excellent. Exactly. So he was zeroing in on the Latha. And making the argument that this is the pinnacle of human existence, this is the the ideal
that everybody is going to, by necessity, achieved the first level,
which is an email.
And a good number of people will achieve the second level the second purpose, which is a bad, but very few are going to achieve their third highest, truest in a sense purpose, which is CDF.
And so he zeroed in on field Alpha last class and talked about what type of refinement do we require, in order to obtain that level of theta alpha, where we're actually representing Allah subhana wa Tada on Earth, and bringing about the things that Allah wants to be brought about his divine attributes into being.
So today, he's going to talk about the relationship between these three levels, I should say that he mentioned also when he was focusing in on the left, that how does one get to that level of Khilafah, it comes through
what he calls McHattie machete, which is the title of the book, basically, elite qualities, excellence, refinements are the most refined qualities, the finest qualities of the city.
And so in this chapter, today, he's going to focus on what's the difference? Or what's the relationship between these qualities that we're supposed to be obtaining, in order to fulfill our higher purpose of zenith, and the other lower purposes, that we also fulfill a bad worship and devotion and a metal settling the earth. And what's his basis for,
like making a distinction between these in the first place, as we know at this point, have all been with us for honey, he backs up everything with the Koran. And so he has a couple of edits that he uses to justify this distinction. He cites in solids and nothing in the law yet mobila. Oddly, well, it said
there's an interpretive principle going on here. So a law says that, certainly a law commands at either justice and an accent.
Now, you could say, well, how do we know that those two aren't the same thing? Or those two aren't overlapping? In some degree? And it's true, it's true, they might overlap in some ways, but an interpretive principle that the legal legal scholars put out is that the default when it comes to interpreting the Quran, and the Sunnah is once they call Tet cease, rather than Toki.
What that means is, if you find two things mentioned, side by side, the default assumption is that those things are independent things that have different meanings.
And the secondary if that's not possible to interpret it that way, then the secondary interpretation is that the second is emphasis of the other. Why is that because there's something that if you assume everything is emphasis, then it can get redundant. And we know that being redundant is not a quality that is befitting of ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada.
So here we have in Allah yet and will be I believe
Well, except he commands with justice and Adam. And
so at all so honey, he says that an idol here is talking about your worship. It's just in the sense that it's your relationship with Allah, it's the, the, the proper, the fitting, just relationship that you should have with Allah, whereas disobeying Allah, not worshiping would be oppression against yourself, and also oppression against those around you.
Whereas a lesson, he says something different, or their sound goes above either, it goes beyond the level of worship, it's something that has to do with a further level of refinement, an elevated plane of existence, and demeanor. He also refers to sorta to hedge. Yeah, yo, hello, Deena. Amaroo. Bull Carol. Yeah, hello, Dina NeuroCare, who was to do a run back home, what found was higher, that I left home to flee home. So Allah gives these commandments in the imperative form, they all have to do with worship, make record, make sudo and worship.
And he says, Worship your, your Sustainer. And then after that, we'll find it, we'll play it all.
And do the good and higher.
And higher, it could have two meanings here, it could mean the good or it could mean the best, because the superlative form of claim as higher, also resembles the normal noun, good. So he's saying that this is further justification that there's a difference here, Allah is making a distinction between worship, which is an expected level that all of a laws servants should be at, even if they choose not to be. And then there's this further level, this higher plane, which is Zen, which is higher, which they
are destined, and created to aspire to.
So
but it takes work, and it's not automatic. So this is this is what he's talking about. So basically all this to mean, if we're going to ask, what's the relationship between a brother
and feel alpha, or a data and the McHattie machete are the elites qualities, the excellent refinements that Allah wants from us? It's general and specific. Right.
The first encapsulates the second, but the second is more specific than the first. So for example, every elites quality, every nakoma is worship. Remember that big list that we ran down when he says, What are the McHattie machete on wisdom, and justice, and forbearance, and
an excellent sand, and bouncy and fumble?
All these sorts of things, the author says,
are more specific than worship. They are worship.
But not all worship is these things. Worship
includes these things and other things besides.
So similarly, he says, If that's true,
also noticed that your worship your ADA,
has obligations and prohibitions,
that if you violate them, if you go against them, you don't pray. You don't give us a car, you don't give them charity, you don't fulfill your obligations. not fulfilling these is one. It's oppression is the one of yourself. It's oppression of yourself and those around you. And you are sinful. And the law is has the right to punish you for it. However, the McHattie machete, this like, elevated level of SN and excellence, the refined superlative qualities. The stakes are not that high. Yes, it's true. This is your highest level of aspiration. This is your destiny. This is what you should be striving for.
But they're not requirements. They're not obligations, per se. You're not sinful.
If you don't live up to them, or don't ever get there. They are praiseworthy, their desired.
They are the utmost extents of refinement and Human Development. However, you are you are not blameworthy if you don't get there.
And he says something in Arabic
which rhymes very well, but I'll just translate it, he says that one who is kept busy with the obligations, that a bad they, they're stuck at level two.
They don't ever go beyond that to level three,
and so on. So says that person's excused these models.
But whoever tries to flip it around to do the opposite, whoever thinks that they're going to skip to level three.
Okay, without taking care of level two, or a brother, that he is mob rule that he is deceived, he's deluded and he's crazy.
He says that there's no pathway to get to these excellent qualities, except by having your worship on luck. Having it down pat, you are somebody who is regularly
doing the things that the province of alojado Saddam was doing. And we're talking about beyond the
base level of what's required. We're talking about all of a sudden the prayers, we're talking about night prayers, we're talking about extra days of fasting, we're talking about a regular habits of charity that you budget for just like you budget in your electricity bill. Right? Like this is the this is the level of worship,
that has to be automatic,
before one can cross over into the plane of Sn
so that they can fulfill their role as a Khalifa of ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada.
Then he goes on, he compares the first level, the first level that he's talking about right now. So for those who have joined, late arrival, but also he says there's three purposes to human existence, and there's a hierarchy.
The first level is a Nettleton.
settling upon the earth. And the second level is a bed, that's a rock man, worshiping the Most Merciful and the third level is a ladder to walk
as being a representative of Allah on this earth.
And he's talking about the relationship between these three different levels
and the McHattie machete
that we have to train ourselves in, in order to get to that third level, that highest potential that we have of being a last Khalifa.
So he says that similarly, if you go to the back to the first level, a metal settling upon Earth, again, this refers to taking care of your basic needs, your food, your water, your shelter.
There's different sub levels within this kind of, within this broader level of a metal or this purpose of a metal.
You find people that are getting their risk in a hostile way.
And then others that are not.
So this is one of those basic things that you have to get down.
All of what RhoGAM and also honey is trying to get across is that you can't skip levels. You can't like have like, you know, a C, like we're gonna give grades, you can't be like a C on level one, and like, maybe a b minus on level two and then expect that you're gonna be on level three, he's like, it doesn't work that way. You don't get past the first level until you're a plus you don't get past the second level until you're a plus. So at the level of we're just talking about worship level two and how you have to not only be taking care of your football at their obligatory worship, but also have a regular automatic practice of supererogatory or extra worship that you're doing well the same
goes for your a matter for your basic sustenance, your risk, all the daily things your food, your clothing, your shelter, your job,
it has to be permissible, it has to be halal.
It has to be by you, which is a level beyond Hello.
And it has to be done with an intention
of compliance FDA.
So that it too is worship. And she had
we talked about this another time I think in another class, I think in the women's class about
the process
object. If you want to advance yourself spiritually in the quickest way, the thing that you should be focusing on is trying to rescue all the things that you do in your day anyway.
rescue them from habit and bring them into worship, rescue them from the realm of Ida and bring them into arriba.
When you go to the store, and get milk, when you heat up food for your husband or your wife, when you fold the laundry, things that you do every day just because you have to or because you're used to, or because today's Wednesday, and that's the day that you do that.
Well, if you take a second, and you have the NEA authority law,
then that thing that you've done now becomes worship. So this is what an audible offer honey is trying to get us to see is that to get to the third level, to gain the macadam machete on the excellent elites qualities that the city wants us to have, so that we can fulfill our purpose of the Latha, which Allah intended us to fulfill.
We need to have a sand in level one and level two.
We can't just be getting by with the bare minimum, doing what's fairly permissible, maybe some things that are doubtful on level one and getting by with the bare level amount of very bad
not really pushing ourselves at all at level two
then he goes into what are the foundations of the McAdams like Okay, so, what are we talking about? Here? We made a list earlier we said you know there was one of the macadam has said he one of the excellent. Most qualities that Allah wants from His servants, the elites qualities that not many people have. You talked about wisdom, and justice, and Sam and father, all these sorts of things, but we just mentioned them briefly. Now he's going to go into more depth, and explain exactly how you achieve them because some of these qualities lead to others or unlock others.
So he says that when it comes to purifying the self and your soul,
there's really four fundamental
see seeds that you plant
that can sprout
into these McHattie machete are these excellent qualities? He says the first is education.
And that should be obvious. We talked last night in the in the class about allowes names
about how in order to love Allah.
You have to know who Allah is.
And that loving Allah is not possible unless you know who Allah is.
So educating yourself
Who is Allah? What does he do? What are his qualities? What makes him pleased with me? What makes him angry at me? What does he expect from me?
This is the first level
or the first foundation the first task is education.
The second our author says is restraints
so what does he mean by upstream restraints? He means abstention just like with a Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said is had been dunya your handbook Allah
was had femur and the nurse you shouldn't book a nurse. One of the companions came to the prophets of Allah holiday of a sudden that he asked him out also the law. What is one thing that I can I can do? That will make a law love me.
I will make the people love me. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said
abstain
is had mean from Zuid from Zara had, write like, refrain don't take too much.
Be modest in what you take from this world and dunya
he said if you do that, Allah will love you.
And then he said, do the same thing. Restrain yourself. Refrain modestly take
from what belongs to other people.
And other people will love you too.
This is something that's obvious. Anybody who has children, this is something that we have to kind of train them on. Right because you go over to somebody's house. And I don't know maybe your kids find some
chocolate chip cookies or something
Maybe they're asked, you know,
do you want one? They say, Yeah, sure. And then there'll be so you want more?
And what is the child going to say? The reaction, or at least, the instinct, the child has to say, yes, I want more, give me more and more and more, right? They don't have the
the sensibility or the politeness or whatever you want to call it to kind of hold themselves back in restraint.
They just see something like, Ooh, what's this? I
have, because I mean, my own daughter does this, right? I mean, she's three. We were visiting one of the brothers the other week. And she loves toys. Oh, man, that she loves toys. Everything she sees. She literally says, I want it. And so it's a no, no, Sofia, you can't have it. No, no, that's not yours. It doesn't belong to you.
So we're in this house, and she sees this little figurine of a cat.
And the first thing she just looks at me is, I want it. Like, I'm embarrassed because, you know, this is something we wouldn't accept from adults, right? But we tolerate it from kids until they know better. Well, there's a big lesson going on there.
And the big lesson is that the adults too, they have to train themselves in this, to not expect to get anything from anybody to not kind of indulge neither in the world, neither in what belongs to other people.
So the author Augustus Mahoney, he says that this restraint is one of the foundational qualities, this is what's going to get you to your goal. So we have education, and we have restraints.
The third thing, the third foundation, that he says is patience with Sabah.
And this is something that's very, very well known.
There's three types of patients that the scholars often talk about.
The first type of patience is the one that comes to mind very, very, immediately, you've heard that
that when something bad happens, right, some sort of trial,
your car breaks down, you're I don't know, you stub your toe,
you lose your job, right? Something kind of external happens.
And you control your exterior, right? You don't scream and curse, you don't kind of throw a tantrum, again, things we accept from children, but we try to train them out of.
So this is patients but this is just one type of patients.
The second type of patients that they often talk about is patience in the worship of Allah.
Because worshiping Allah as he wants to be worshipped requires a lot of patience.
It's not easy to pray five times a day, consistently, in summer and winter, let alone to do the extra acts of worship that we were just talking about a moment ago.
It takes a lot of patience.
It's easy to want to give up or to backslide or to make excuses.
Oh, I have a test tomorrow.
I have this going on at work, things are really busy.
Next thing, you know, years have passed by and yeah, you were busy, but
you also didn't challenge yourself.
So this is the second type of patience to be patient
when you are
trying to establish a habits and a ritual of worship.
The third type that the scholars often mentioned is patience with refraining from what is haram.
For a second, this might seem strange to you, but there's an admission here
that the Haram is easier than the halal sometimes.
Right?
It's easier to make a ton of money to get a comfortable lifestyle
by engaging an interest in the river.
It's easier to go with the flow and society to not take on unpopular opinions.
These are all things that are very, very easy.
There's several things that Islam preaches or teaches or asks of us that are
inconvenient in modern society, praying, all the kids at school praying there, they'll have prayer, big thing
or once they become of age, if they're men, trying to find a way to attend Juma prayer.
Right these things aren't convenient
So it takes patience to refrain from doing haram. It takes patience to
kind of wear and own, that sticking out.
That being March, you're not going to be able to fly under the radar. No, because you do things differently. Your son or your daughter goes to college.
And everybody's drinking on Saturday night.
And they get invited to parties.
And they have to tell people that No, I don't do that sort of thing.
That takes patience, it takes a lot of patients to be able to proudly stick out.
We can talk about that all night.
So that's three types of patients. So patients is the third. So he's saying the foundational elements of purifying yourself of obtaining these McHattie machete on education, restraints, patience, and the last that he says is justice and either
as a law commands us to be witnesses to justice. And so it's an ESA and and sort of either, even if it's against our own selves, or our families, and certainly so.
This is something that's extremely difficult to do.
This requires that you care more about
what the law thinks, than what you're going to get out of the situation.
Because turning yourself in
being a witness against yourself,
is something that goes against all of your material interests.
A lot of people don't realize, you know, when we talk about the renewed right, the
Islamic punishments for in criminal law, right.
How many people I mean, it didn't happen very often in the life of the Prophet alayhi salatu salam, but it did happen a handful of times.
And many times the people who underwent the renewed actually asked to have established upon themselves.
This was their level of
trust and a lot. Faith and a lot sincerity. Yeah, they screwed up. Yeah, they made a mistake.
But they knew that they had to be witnesses for what was true, even if it was against themselves, which is why in the city either these produce, they're not like, we don't think that we're, you know, dispatching somebody to the deepest pits of hell, and we're doing them. This is actually an opportunity for people to come clean and purify themselves. It's,
it's
an exploration, we say in English.
That takes a remarkable amount of control, and selflessness.
So these he identifies as the four foundations of the mccadden McAdams study. These are the seeds that you plant to get to the goal that you want.
Education,
abstention or restraints.
Patience, and finally, justice.
What do they lead to? What do they if you kind of imagine like a garden, you plant these seeds? you water them, you eat around them, they're going to grow and grow and grow. And one day they're going to bloom? What are they going to bloom into?
These are the goals, the end results, the objectives of the city. He says wisdom, first of all, so each one has a corresponding fruit, right? The tree of education, the best fruit that it can bear is wisdom. And Heckman.
And wisdom isn't because it's not just about accumulating information.
It's about applying that information in a beneficial way.
Some of the teachers and professors that I've benefited the most from in Medina, were people who had served for the government like in the courts, because they always had very, very interesting stories of people who came to them with certain situations. One of my actually had one particular professor twice where it was sort of in my first semester, and my last semester.
He was a young guy, but he had spent some time working in the courts. And he told me a story one time that happened to him he said that there was a Moroccan woman
who
came to him when she was on jungle. And she lived in Spain.
And she worked in a factory in Spain that produced color that produced alcohol.
And she wanted nothing more than to send her father on Hajj
because her father had not made Hajj before.
And so she was asking him
what his Hajj counts.
Can she do this, she knows he feels guilty that her
her sustenance and her livelihood is from this haram source. So he knows it. She doesn't deny it.
And she wants to do this great thing, but she's conflicted.
And so my my professor, he told me, he said,
I know the Hadith.
In the law had bla bla bla bla bla bla, I know the Hadith. Certainly Allah is plenty of He's pure, and he only accepts that which is pure.
But he said, I know also that if I tell her that
I'm stopping someone from going on Hajj.
And so what I told her was, send your father on Hajj.
And tell him that when he goes on Hajj, to make dua, by the kava,
for Halal risk for permissible livelihood for you and for the whole family.
And so she did this, this is exactly what she did.
And by she came back, I think, in 10 years time, she had come on again. And so she wanted to thank him and she told him how that hij had been a turning point for their whole lives. That after it happened, they started noticing botica they started noticing blessing and a lot of things that they were doing. She got a different job out of what she was doing. That was permissible. She moved back in with her parents she was away and all these sorts of things were happening. And so the professor was telling me is like, if I had just given her the information,
it would have shut this door
to Toba shut this door to
repentance, or opportunity.
He's like so those are situations where
education finds its most beautiful
results in using wisdom, applying that information you have to achieve. If send the lesson you're trying to achieve a beautiful end.
Our Sheikh Abdullah even will have a ministry of TT, he used to always tell us that
that true understanding of the religion isn't knowing what's hot and what's hot on. He would say it's knowing a model name,
knowing what's the lesser of the two evils, what's going to lead to the best scenario.
So this is the first objective
education blooms into wisdom. The second he says is generosity. This has a direct correlation at blooms from the second Foundation which was restraints.
You can't possibly be generous. If you're too attached to things whether things that you have or the possibility of getting things whatever it is in this dunya
and so when you practice restraint you practices should you practice abstention it frees you up it unlocks your heart to be generous with other people. It's not yours anymore. It's just passing through hands.
This is another thing I saw over and over again, Medina from the Messiah. My face the same sex I mentioned from Ebola. One time we were sitting in the bottom and one of the because he taught at the province misdeed and he taught at the university. One of the older gentleman was with him. We're talking about things one of the employees from the province machine brought over what was like male Okay, so it was a Bish, it was a rope right. And he gives it to the shape
and the older gentleman sitting next to him he's like here shape Let me carry it for you.
And as soon as he said that safe out Bala said to him, it's yours I give it to you as a gift.
He didn't care. It wasn't his It was as if it was never his in the first place. And I saw this time and time and time again.
When you break your fast this is a really like this is like a critical like gut check moment, right? Because it's like you've been fasting all day. You're hungry, you're thirsty. And then what happens? One of two things is going to happen. Either you are going to just like
lose your
Self control in the moment of breaking your fast and kind of tear into your if thought, or you practice and this is the best time to practice restraint is when you're breaking your fast, slowly with very little give to others first things that are going to break this grasping nature that people have.
So that's the end result of restraint. The end result of restraint is generosity.
Not seeing it as yours, your property mine but something that Allah has lent to you to see. What are you going to do with it?
The next he says is forbearance.
Forbearance is the the fruits of patience the sub.
Because forbearance is a level higher than Patience, patience, you might be patient, but you might be like, let's say someone cuts you off on the road, right? You might be like, seething on the inside with rage and anger. But patience is like controlling your exterior. On the inside, you might be on fire, but you're controlling your outside.
Before Bed forbearance is a level higher than that,
where you are kind of not as bothered in the first place. I was riding with a colleague one time, and this happened and this guy just like below and down the road, left lane driving very dangerously very fast.
And I was like, What a jerk.
My friend was like, I hope he's okay.
I hope he his wife's not in the car, and he has to go the hospital or something happened to a friend or family member. Right. So this kind of attitude of forbearance is kind of a higher plane than just patience, because you're not just controlling your exterior, you're controlling your interior as well.
There's a lot more to say about this one. But we're four minutes away from the end of the class.
I'll skip to the last one. And then we'll double back next class and talk just a little more about it. The last one, the last one is excellence. Sn Sn is the fruit of Odoo. Of justice.
This is something that a lot of us have forgotten these days, especially in our marriages.
Almost every single marriage question I get, and my colleagues other Imams get is about rights, her book, her cookie, right? Like what are my rights, give me my rights. My rights aren't being fulfilled.
The rights and marriage are the base level.
They're the ground floor that the basement.
A marriage can't survive, if it's only going to exist in the basement, that level of rights. I want my rights.
If you take every single right out of your partner out of your spouse, and they take every single right out of you
it's likely not going to work. There has to be tenacity.
There has to be mutual, overlooking and tug off what
they say as a wedge Guney Allah
is name.
That's often what's known as
marriage is built upon these two principles, overlooking things, and then kind of coming down and giving up some of your rights
in order to make sort of, in order to make peace in order to move forward as a couple. And this doesn't mean that you let yourself be manipulated, or you let someone walk all over you. No, it doesn't. It doesn't mean you put up with abuse. No, it doesn't.
But it means that
each person in a marriage and in all their relationships should be trying to focus on
what they're giving and putting into the relationship and not only be consumed by what it is they're not getting what are their rights that are left unfulfilled
the Prophet sallallahu Sallam he said in the law has said adequately shape
that Allah has prescribed or sound upon everything and then the promise I said I'm give a couple examples, examples that are way more trivial than marriage
gives the example of slaughtering an animal sharpening the blade
and killing
so if they're supposed to be SN and those things that of course mean that Hola.
It's even more deserving that there'll be a sin in our most intimate relationship that we have
We are one minute away from the time running out in the meeting being closed upon us. So are there any questions before we conclude?
Next class I'll have some questions for you guys. Sorry. I just lectured all time
any final thoughts questions?
Okay, if not, then thank you very much everyone for your participation and attention. I will see you next week insha Allah
Alhamdulillah better coffee calm
hamdulillah wa salatu salam salam ala to Pannekoek I stopped the relatively late Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa