Reforming the Self #31

Last quarter.

The book is called a very dilemma Academy show. Yeah, but it all got us hanging.

And he was someone who was considered head of Oz Ali's shake. Okay, so everybody knows because he's a big famous one. Well, he used to carry this book around with him wherever he went. Okay, so the author of this book is not nearly as well known as a student.

But it was Ali borrowed Many of his ideas, especially the ideas regarding purifying the soul. How to develop yourself from this author is finding any entitled his book of Vidya Illa, macadam, Sharia, which basically means, like, the path towards virtue, right. And the main point, I guess, if we're going to summarize everything we've done so far, the author's two main points, were the first of all,

I'll pose it in the form of a question. And anybody who's on the Zoom meeting can also reply, why are we here? Why did Allah create it?

Because if we're talking about reforming the self, right, okay. It's not an issue of information. Right? It's not like, smile more,

you know, and, you know, say good things, right? Because if it were that easy,

everybody would be amazing, right? Everybody would be the best person because all the information is out there. What we lack is motivation.

And so a lot of us are having, he wants to tie this is a different from most books about reforming yourself. It's not just about the techniques for how to become better, but he tries to tie it all back to our purpose as a human being why we're here in the first place. Right? So why are we here?

What are we doing here? Why did Allah create us?

Oh, wait for an answer.

Huh?

Yeah, you should participate. Was that a question? Yeah. I'm not just, you know, just taking up space. Yeah. Why?

To worship him? That's the stock answer. Right? That's the answer that everyone gets. That's the good Sunday School answer. Mashallah. And it's technically correct. Is that the only reason that Allah created us?

What do you think?

So

okay, that's another good Sunday School answer, right. So we worship him to follow the rules, beta, you must follow the rules ready? Right. You have make sure you don't step out of line or

upside the head to anything else?

No.

Okay, so at all. So how many he identifies from the Koran. And by the way, a lot? Well, so he is a master of the Quran. Right? Some of the books that survived to this day, from his time, he wrote a dictionary of difficult vocabulary words from the Koran. It's called a Siraj. I have it in the office, small book, but it's just words, vocab words, vocab words. And everything he does in this book, he backs it up with court and court and grant and grant. Because he is that's one of his areas of specialty. So

why are we here, he identifies three reasons from important and he puts them in levels. Okay. The first most basic level for why we're here is to what he calls an email tool out, is basically settling upon Earth.

Okay, this is why the law will that Adam and Eve did what they did when they came down from Paradise and they're on earth. Why, to settle and live on Earth, this has to do with all of our bodily needs. Right, you know, making a living, you know, having families this sort of thing. Very, very, very basic. That's right.

The second level is what you guys all mentioned, that's the Sunday School answer. Worshiping Allah. That's the next level.

worshipping a lot following the rules, right? Making sure you don't break any of the rules. But there's a higher level than that. According to law wells for honey and he brings He justifies it for the Quran.

Well, he calls he laugh at Allah.

Being a laws.

Philosopher is translated in many different ways. Khalifa is a steward. It's a successor. It's someone that you leave in charge. Somebody that is supposed to carry out

The will and desire of the person who left them in charge, right? You leave the house, maybe you have an older sibling, or you know, an older child, you say, Okay, you're in charge. Right? They know that they can't let the younger kids break the windows and, you know, draw over the curtains and all these things, right? They know that they have entrusted in them, the authority to make everybody else behave according to the people who left the rules are the people who left not the last about out of the left, of course, he didn't leave. But he gave us this role, this special role because the animals even the animals worship Allah, right. But human beings have a higher degree of

responsibility, and that has to be a laws Khalifa on Earth. And that entails more than just following his rules. It also involves embodying the things that Allah wants embodied, Allah is merciful. And he wants mercy on in the creation. So that means we have to be merciful. Therefore we need to develop our mercy. Right? Allah is the most loving and we're dude, he loves that quality. He wants us to bring that quality into the creation, and a look gentleness, gentleness and all these sorts of things. Justice, right, the odd the

last panel Tala is just, he loves justice, and he wants justice in his creation, and He has left us in charge to bring about that justice in his creation. Right. And so everything that also Hani talks about in this book, ties it back to this purpose. He's like, this is your destiny, your destiny, you're not just here to, you know, make money and watch Netflix and, you know, whatever, have a good time. And you're also not just here just to you know, do what you're told and just, you know, focus and just do you know, your responsibility and your destiny is much broader than that you're supposed to uplift everyone. You're supposed to, that's why the prophesy said I'm said that the island, the

scholar, the person who knows their Deen, every creature on earth asks a lot for that person's forgiveness, even the fish in the sea,

even the fish in the sea,

why the prophesies that I'm saying this because this is what the you know, many of us, many scholars explain this hadith, they say, because the person who knows they're Dean, they're going to give everyone their fair share.

They're going to stop people from polluting the environment, right? They're going to stop people from wasting resources, they're going to uplift every living creature from the ants and the termites, to the children, to the old people, that everybody, everybody's going to benefit. And so this is the higher purpose of a human being. The higher purpose of a human being, is to fulfill this role of the Khilafah or the Khalifa of Allah, the steward of Allah, the person who's left in charge,

you know, to enact a laws, desires or wish within the creation.

How do we do it? Are we ready? Are you ready? Me? Are you ready to uplift every creature on earth?

Inshallah, okay, well, okay, we all have like, skills and talents and benefits, but we all need some work to write. Yeah. Okay, so that's all of us. ohanaeze. Big point. He's like, if we're going to reach up here, maybe we're right here, some of us are here. Some of us are down here. Some of us are maybe closer up here. We have to develop ourselves

and develop these virtues that allows power to Allah wants us to have for our own good, and wants us to have for the good of every other creature in the universe

in order to

establish this justice in order to fulfill this role. And that's exactly the point of the book.

So we're in the second section of this book. And the second section is

specifically about a lot about intellect.

And I will also Hani, he spends a lot of the book defending the intellect.

And this is, I think, relevant to a certain strain within our community of Muslims.

Which kind of, you know, within some of our brothers and sisters, the community or the attitude that they have back home is you do what you're told. You don't ask questions. Right?

Again, don't ask questions made that much. You know, you get smacked upside the ear the head or slipper? You might get the slipper? Right. We're told to not ask questions.

And this is a shame because it goes against things that are lost by the artist says in the Koran,

how we should be interacting with his rep.

relation and how it should be interacting with his creation.

In social milk, what is the regret of the people who entered the fire?

are called Lulu Hakuna

Ness Metro, oh, Matthew, two regrets. They say the people the fire say If only we had either listened and obeyed.

Or Matthew used our reason,

then we would have been saved. So Allah subhanaw taala shows us that there's two ways Yeah, some people Masha Allah, all you need to do is tell them, hey, look, do this. Okay, and they'll do it.

In America,

that's not how we're raised. We're not We're not raised that way. We were never raised that way. Even as students in Medina, with our professors, we would ask very, very controversial Frank questions. And sometimes the professors who had traveled and been around a bit, they were like, Okay, I understand you guys are from the west. Some of the other scholars would never left. You know, they were like, kind of surprised. Like, like, Whoa, you're asking this kind of question. Like, it's kind of bold.

But that's how we're raised. And that's the culture. And so it's especially this book is especially relevant to us today. Because the author defends this aspect, that is our tradition, that is our religion, which is developing the intellect, looking at things critically, being able to engage with the court and being able to engage with the signs that are yet that the last minute the otter placed in the creation around us. Right, because everything was placed here in order for us to, to benefit from it, not just in our worldly terms, or dunya. But the benefit from before asking, right there. Things to remind us of the truth or to remind us of the glory of a last bounce out.

And so, we had gotten Okay, so this particular second second, second section of the book,

but also honey, he zeroes in on. Okay, everybody, am I coming through? Clearly, I'm seeing that my video is starting to slow down as the video alright.

You give me some feedback in the chat. So he's focusing in on the ACO. He's focusing particularly on the intellect. What is it? How does it work? And this is things that we've gone through in the last couple of lessons. He told us last class, how do we know that a profit is true?

How do we know that A prophet is true? Man?

Let's imagine that we live before the Prophet Muhammad.

Some guy shows up who claims to be a prophet.

How do we know if he's if he's the real deal or not?

You don't know. Okay, so anything?

You want the answer to that question? So give me something.

Nothing, okay. All right. So he breaks it down into two categories. He says there to every profit ascent with two types of signs. Because there's two types of people. Just the first is logical signs. Right. And these are signs that are aimed at the intelligentsia, right, the intellectuals, the academics, and these include something that says the Hani said wisdom, right? Purity, right.

Pleasant appearance, like I was not going to send you somebody that's like discussing, you know,

expansive knowledge,

their manners, and their rationale, the things that they're able to use to convince you. And the prophesy said, I'm often used the PFC use analogies use examples in order to convince people, right, we brought up the one story of there was a companion who had a child, and that child was darker, much darker than either him or his wife. And people being people, they were gossiping.

And so he came to the province, I said, I'm not because he doubted the faithfulness of his wife, but because he was upset that people were gossiping about about them. And he wanted, you know, you would be upset, right? If you were in that situation, so he kind of was looking for some sort of answer. And the Prophet SAW they saw them. He answered him by saying, hey, look, do you have animals? I said, Yes. He does. Like, okay, you have, you know, like camels or whatever. Every once in a while, do you get a camel? That's just a different color than the rest of them? Like, yeah, yeah, that happens every once in a while. I said, Okay, why does that happen? He says, well, because you know,

there's like a recessive gene and every once in a while it comes up. Okay, well, this is your recessive gene that that comes up. Many other times he gave the Companions examples that the companion of the believer is like a a certain tree, right. And he loved them guess which tree wasn't the remember the believers like a tree? Which type of tree it was a date tree. They treat because back then they benefited from every single part of the date tree from the fruit from the leaves from the trunk from the roots. Every single part of the date tree had benefits. Right so the prophesy son was using analogies and

examples to convince people convince people rational. Right? He gave examples of four different types of people. He said, The person who is like a believer, but doesn't read the Koran is like a date.

It tastes good, but it has no smell.

We'll get there. The believer, the believer who leads who reads the Koran is like Reihan is like basil

tastes good and smells great.

He said that, the disbeliever

who, I can't remember exactly the rest of the hadith of sports types with people, but the idea of we'll just take the first two right hand and some, right, the one who

has a good taste, but doesn't have a good smell. It benefits itself. It doesn't benefit anyone else.

The believer who believes but doesn't read the Quran, whereas the believer who believes and reads the Koran,

they not only benefit themselves, but they benefit everybody else, like he's passed by something that smells nice. And it spreads the goodness to everybody. So the problem is, like Saddam use this style of intellectual, you know, rationalization and getting to people. Right. So this was part of the the first type of signs that we had the second type of sign, or empirical signs, just like the shape family said, and this is for the masses of people who can't necessarily they're not so academic, and they're not really looking at these sorts of things like WhatsApp, WhatsApp groups, right, what are all the what all aunties forward?

What are they forward?

Events? And like what, like the watermelons that like have a law written in them? Right? And like the clouds that are in the shape of Allah? Right, right. That's what most Yeah, that's what most of the aunties and uncles on WhatsApp, they send those board messages. Is that a particularly intellectual sign? No, it's not. That's like a, that's an empirical sign that's like a, an observable miracle. Right. And so the, all the prophets were also sent with these kinds of observable miracles that were meant for everybody that everybody could appreciate. And the prophesy Saddam had so many, like the splitting of the moon, right, and the Israel and Mirage, the the night

dream. And, you know, the predictions like the Romans,

that were getting their butts kicked when it came to fighting the society and Empire and then looked like they were about to just completely get wiped out. And then just some years, completely turn the tables, and of course, right, et cetera, et cetera. And so, all these prophets have these two types of signs. So this is also dealing with, with the intellect, yes, easily understandable. Exactly.

Okay, so the next thing I'm also having, he talks about, and this is something he mentioned earlier, but we'll, we'll reiterate it briefly before moving on to something that's really, really, really a nice, juicy lesson is types of ignorance. So often, as we've seen in this book are all around us Rouhani, the author, they'll deal with something, and then he'll deal with the obstacle to that thing. Right? So it's like, okay, we want to be generous. Okay, what are the obstacles to being generous? Or we want to develop ourselves, or develop our intellect? What are the obstacles to developing that quality? Right? So if we're thinking about developing, or we like the idea of

developing our intellect, and recognizing a lot of signs all around us, and recognizing being able to interact in a meaningful way with the signs in the Koran, okay, there's different what's the obstacle to that the obstacle to that is ignorance. Right. But not all, ignorance is created equal.

There's different types of ignorance and a lot of us for hunting, he shoots through some of the the main types real quickly. So the first type that he says, somebody who is ignorant, but they don't necessarily have any convictions one way or the other. Right, he compares them to kind of like a blank slate, somebody who's ready to be approached with anything. They don't have any commitments either way. It says this type of ignorance is the most innocent type of ignorance very, very easy to deal with such a person, you give that person something of substance, you give that person something that's convincing, and they're going to be committed to it.

Other types of ignorance are not so easy to deal with. So one of them is somebody who has chosen false convictions upon maturity, right? Not somebody who was raised with them, somebody who chose them later in life.

So he says that this person is slightly harder to convince to convince. He said, it's like, you've bought a notebook. And you thought it was going to be empty, but there's some scribbling in it. Right? It's like there's there's some some things that have to be undone. And there's a lot of Muslim youth these days that are in this exact scenario, because they have

In a decent upbringing, but then somewhere along the way, due to some cultural reason, or due to some doubt that they had, they, in their after they became mature, they kind of rebelled against this man. Right. And they, they like to style themselves as these different things like a feminist or progressive or they support LGBTQ or they support this and that, right. But this isn't what that person like is completely made up of. Right? They're reacting to something. Most of the time, maybe they're reacting to their parents and their uncles and their culture, not engaging their intellect enough. That happens, a lot of kids that are here, they're raised as Americans, they go to public

school, they're taught to question they're taught to ask, they're taught to not be shy to talk about lots of things that we would just blush. About, right? They're talking about these things in school, don't think they're not talking about, right, they are talking about them in school.

And then their family, they live like this double life and at home, they're told no, you know, and they know that at home, they shouldn't say anything, and they shouldn't talk about it, and they whatever. But there's this kind of tension that builds up, builds up builds up.

And then at some point when they become a teenager, especially guys, because men tend to be a little bit more,

let's say, confrontational, right, then they want to rebel. They say this thing isn't satisfying my doubts, this thing isn't really engaging with my intellect. You're just telling me to obey, obey, obey. And I don't see the point.

You know, and so this is the type of person that then they start looking for other things, then they start getting involved in whatever it is they find. Maybe it's atheism, maybe it's evolution, maybe it's, you know, progressive politics, whatever it is feminism, whatever it is, right. So this is the type of person that our author is talking about, as this person is a little bit more difficult to deal with than the first type. But it's not that difficult, because the person still has that.

That base level, like you'll find, you'll find a lot of Muslims like that aren't practicing, they will never eat pork.

Right? They will never till the day they die, they will never eat pork. Why?

Not Oh, they don't care that it's haram. We're talking about Muslims that don't practice. But they still won't eat pork.

Because they grew up with it. It's so into their being, it's into their upbringing, it's into their emotions, they just like, oh, they can't even imagine, like eating pork. Like, they might smoke, they might drink, they might have a girlfriend, they might, you know, go to the club, but they're not gonna eat pork. You find it? You find it right. And so you see that there's something left over of upbringing that they have. And so there's something there to work with. Right? They just have to be engaged in the right way.

Harder than that is the third type of person, right? Somebody who was raised upon false conviction, right? We're talking about now, your your Christian family or your whatever, you know, your Hindu family or your Buddhist family. Somebody who,

you know, was taught these things from a young age. Right?

We have a lot of Italians in Utica, and the Rome area, right. And my family heritage is Italian. All you eat growing up like Italians, it's like, half of the diet is pork. It's like such a natural thing to them. Like, and they love themselves from alcohol. They love it's like the two things that like muscles like, oh, that's like, that's like their half their diet. Right? Yeah. And so we, when somebody grows up with something, now it works. The same thing as last time, it works in reverse, right? So now you have an emotional attachment to these things. You have nostalgia attached to these things. And now it's harder to deal with such a person and you have to be smart, you have to be

careful, right? You if you're trying to approach someone like this, or convince someone like this, you can't disrespect those things, that they have that kind of emotional attachment to write, you can't see them eating like, you know, a hotdog and be like, That is disgusting. Get that out of your mouth. Like how could you eat that? Like, you know, like to them? It's like, like, this is like, this reminds me my grandma, I've been eating this like since you know, right? No, they have an emotional attachment. Nostalgia is involved, you have to be very careful, right? You have to come from a different angle.

So it's much difficult, much more difficult. And then the last type of person and the hardest, I'm personally convinced and probably someone you're not going to convince someone that you're just wasting your time with if someone who has false convictions, but they know that they're false. Yes, they know that they're false, but they're simply following them because they have a material interest that is being served by adhering to those false

that those false beliefs and this is, this is why we say tech fee of Canada. You know last time I thought we were talking in Arabic class

just the other day about the difference between the abueva. So, we have a verb and Arabic kellisa on the form one and it means somebody who lies and then it'd be double the middle letter Canada mean somebody who denies right it's much stronger. And so a lot about the artist says so much in the Quran can never whatsoever that he denies which implies that he knew it was true. He knew that the Prophet Mohammed slave Saddam was a prophet. He knew that tough he was the truth. And yet, he's thinking about the money. He's thinking about all those tourists who come to Mecca and the Kaaba and worship the idols. He's thinking about his status. He's thinking about these things. And he decides,

nope, I'm not going to believe in that. I'm gonna go the other way. And we have testimony from people who fought against the Prophet Muhammad slaves on him for a very long time that that was what they were doing. Apples again, right? I was with Yun accepted Islam rather late. And he explains basically, the whole rationale behind him fighting against like he was, you know, he led the hijab, in the Battle of the Trench, he led the coup fought in the Battle of jihad against the Prophet Muhammad slay center. Right? Why? Why did he go through all these, you know, all this hardship? He explained it and we have the Hadith he said that his tribe, and the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad,

slaves were always competing, right? So he said that the prophets tribe started giving water to the pilgrims. So they had to now give water to the pilgrims.

The other tribes started carrying their bags instead. So we started carrying their bags. And they said one day they come and they say that they have a prophet who brings revelation from Allah. He literally said, How are we supposed to be like, match that? He's like, we decided right then and there, we're not going to admit that he's a prophet. We're going to all it was a conspiracy. They all said like, Nope, we're gonna deny it. Why? Because if we admit it, we can't possibly win.

That's cool. That's, that's something that is technique. He knows the truth, he decides against it. Because the guest has material interest, you're usually wasting your time with this person. Right? Very, very, very difficult to try to convince someone like that.

Okay, good.

There's one really short thing, another lesson he points out, and then we're gonna get to something that

I think is really, really relevant. Okay. Um, he has a brief aside where he talks about how do we know what knowledge is beneficial or not? Let's go back to our wonderful participants in person who we love. And we also love everybody with us on Zoom, and the live stream, but particular honor to those who are in present.

Mir

we hear this term in that English Islamophobia, so much beneficial now is beneficial knowledge, beneficial knowledge, how do we tell what knowledge is beneficial and what knowledge isn't?

That's fine.

We can work together, you just throw out a little bit and we'll finish.

Okay, very good. So she said, it's something that will work to your afterlife, so maybe what we could say the results? What does the result of the knowledge lead to? Right? I could study how to play fortnight,

you know, every day for years and years and years? What is that going to benefit me? I mean, the kids will really like me, probably, but like, it's not going to help my afterlife. It's not even going to get me money actually is going to take my money because you could buy all these things important, right? So not very, not very important. Not very beneficial. Okay. Um, medicine,

medicine, knowledge of medicine.

It helps people relieve their pain. It helps people live healthy lives. That's good. So if we're going to compare the two will saying that knowledge of medicine is more important and more beneficial than knowledge of fortnight, right? uncontroversial. Right? uncontroversial statement. And then what system here was saying, Okay, what about now we take knowledge of something that's going to lead to our afterlife.

Now we have something that benefits our dunya our bodily material life and something that's going to benefit our eternal life. Which one's more important? Right, it's obvious. So we can tell which knowledge is beneficial or, even better yet, how beneficial it is, by looking at the results. What's it going to produce? What's it going to help with

If, at the very, very top and like the sheikh family said in the chat, yes, anything that's going to touch on that afterlife eternal life, salvation, obviously with the top takes priority over everything else.

And then anything that serves that goal in the dunya, because, okay, if you have longer to live, you have more opportunity to worship. Right? If you have, you know, a lucrative career, you might have more opportunity to give charity, right, these sorts of things. Anything else that can be put in that in the service of that larger goal has benefits might not be as beneficial as what's going to directly impact your, your eternal life, but it has benefits. And that which doesn't do either, then you couldn't really say that it has much benefit at all.

The author points out another thing, how you can tell another another way to look at it, how can you tell which what's beneficial and what's not?

He says, by how trustworthy are the process by which you get to know that thing? Right. So to explain, when it comes to our afterlife, our salvation, everything to do with the afterlife? How do we know about that stuff? through revelation?

And Revelation is certain that comes from Allah. Right? Whereas medicine, for example, it has to do with experience has to do with, you know, trial and error and astute observation. Right, it's more subject to doubt, it's more subject to mistake, because it's a human endeavor. And so if you're going to compare the two, which one takes priority over the other than the one that comes from a law, the one that is unassailable, Revelation is more important.

Okay, next thing, and so I'll end with this. Okay, so he says, the author says that everybody needs to constantly develop your intellect, okay. And he actually says that, if you have the ability to learn something, you should learn.

If you have the ability to learn it, he said, You should learn. And he mentioned way back in the very, very first chapter,

a line of poetry,

which the meaning of it was that there's nothing more blameworthy than unfulfilled potential.

There's nothing more blameworthy than unfulfilled potential.

And that's because for every person that has the ability, but doesn't do it, there's people without the ability that wish they could. Right. And so if we want to be grateful for the gifts that are lost, found to Allah gives us then if we have the ability to do something, you see, especially you guys do like potentiometer, CT and something like that. There are some people and I saw when I was in Medina, in the province, Mesquite, all types of people who come to learn Korean people there for Hajj, people there for Umrah, some people, they're in their 70s and 80s and 90s. Trying to learn Korean, there's some people

they will never be able to pronounce the ball correctly. Never picks up the ball wheels. They're gonna try sit there from Vegeta Isha try, and they can't get it. Right. So if somebody is able to pronounce the letters correctly and able to learn them, they have more of a responsibility to do it. Right? What how do you think that person would feel if they saw you? And you have the ability to do it on yours? Like,

I'd rather watch Netflix.

Right? That person be like, yeah, lately, I wish I wish I had that ability. If I had that ability, I would use it. This person hasn't they don't use it.

Right? The same goes with everything. Right? Anything that you have the ability to do, you know, that's beneficial, you should do it, you anything you have the ability to learn, then you should do it. And that is how we are grateful to Allah through what he gives us. The law gives you the ability to learn that thing. Learning it is your is your gratitude. And is your thankfulness.

And then, you know, because we said that the author he likes to give us like, here's the thing that we're striving for, and here's the obstacles and he has a really, really interesting section after this about obstacles along the way. And if I had to title this chapter myself, I would, I would title it snakes and fakes.

Because he talks about the different types of people

that stand in your way to living this life to learning what you can to, you know, developing your intellect and stuff like this. And I gotta be honest with you, as somebody who has gone abroad and studied and been parts of, you know,

lessons with shakes and different stuff, you see every type of this person. You see every every type of this person, right, there are people that try to dissuade you from learning at all.

There are people that tried to tell you, you don't have to do that come on. It's like, just take it easy. You know, it's like, come on, we're watching the game, or come on, or watching Netflix, or whatever it is, whatever it is to try to distract you.

And in reality, they feel guilt. There were students in Medina that they, they actually like what they did was play video games. Like seriously, like they live in Medina in the dorms, and they go back to the dorms and play video games. So can you imagine, right? How many people in the world wish that they could be doing what that person was doing that they're playing with you? Right?

So, such a person, if they see you busting your hump, and working and try, come on, come on, right? Because they feel guilty. Deep down, they know that what they're doing is wrong. And so they try to bring people down to their level. That's one type of person to look out for.

Another type of person to look out for are the gatekeepers, right? The people who are really after power,

and leadership.

We see this a lot in the Muslim community and in North America. I see it a lot. How does it happen? Okay, there's there's some people that

the scholars say this, the scholars say that the scholars, okay, which scholars?

All

all of them, you tell me all the scholars, I, you know, one of my friends from this community, they forwarded a they forwarded a video just the other day where this sort of thing happened to some great some person saying, the issue of Duma, Mubarak, can we say do Mubarak is that innovation or that not? All the scholars say,

the scholars,

how many of them

the five, you've heard of

the 10 that you listen to on YouTube. You know how many in Medina in the province misdeed,

you can't turn around without running into a scholar. There's 1000s of scholars, in Medina alone, in Mecca, in Rio, in Philistine in Yemen, in Bangladesh, in every Guyana in every way, there are so many scholars, for somebody to say the scholars, the scholars, the scholars, this is dishonest,

it's dishonest, what they're really trying to do is they're trying to appeal to the authority of the small group of scholars that they're aware of, and that they follow and make them seem like that's the only opinion out there. And this is dishonest. It's a way of gatekeeping. And it's a way of saying, I have access to the scholars and you don't. So now you have to trust me.

Right.

And this happens a lot, this happens a lot.

And there's a lot of people and students of knowledge that will go to great lengths to make it seem like they are the true interpreters and translators of what the scholars say.

Right? And so you need to trust them.

And anytime you try to go to the scholars, no, no, no, no, whoa, whoa, hold on. All right, we have to go back to the skeleton. I'll go back to the scholars. And then I'll tell you,

I've seen this many, many masajid. Across the United States. I've seen it lots of places I even saw it in Medina, there's a lot of people, you know, and a lot of times even the sheikh doesn't know what's going on.

No, seriously, a lot of especially when it happens across languages, right, you'll have a say, an elderly, She only speaks Arabic. And you'll have a nationality of students, whether they're from the UK or from the US or from Belgium or someplace. And they work very hard to control the narrative, right? That comes from the shape. In reality, they use the shape as the authority to push whatever they want.

Right?

So you need to be careful about this type of person. You need to be careful about these type of people. Right? I think you guys know this. Most of you guys have asked me questions. I try to I try to eliminate mistakes. I'm the first person I make probably the most mistakes.

I try very hard. I May Allah help me to

also reveal the limits of what I know when I reveal what I know.

Right?

So someone was asking me about mortgages. Right? Okay, there's a group of scholars that says this. And there's another group of scholars that says this and there's a third group of scholars that says this as far as

right or you want to know about Juma Mubarak, okay. Oh, well, if the intention is this then etc, etc. And if the attention to this then et cetera, et cetera, right. Most things are subsea most things. There's Topsy there's

not just one

you know, one opinion

And that's it door shut, right.

So you have to be very careful with the people who are really out for themselves and their own power and their own status, their own control, but they cloak everything that they do in this aura of religious authority. It's very, very toxic. It's very, very dangerous. And I've seen communities in the United States stuck in neutral for decades, because of this sort of stuff.

But anyway,

um, another type of person to look out for, the author tells us is the, the ignoramus who's very impressed with themselves. All right, with the little bit that they know. Right? Our shape, he's to say, fit the shape on the seats shape, right that you might have memorized something, but how much didn't you memorize? Right?

And that's the thing, you know, like, okay, I can anybody can open a book and find one thing. Where's your evidence? Bring the de Lille. Right. issue is not about having to leave. That's easy. Everybody has to leave. Everybody has evidence, even the craziest. heretics have evidence? Right?

The real issue is making it all go together.

Okay, so if I want to say you know, Allah spies, Allah says in the Quran, Hawayo Lin mousseline.

Woe to those who pray? Why are you praying? Allah said well, to those who pray

right? Ah, I have to lie. That's evidence. Bring the ability to live your good. Are you against the Quran? That's what the Quran says. So for Allah.

No, but you have to make it jive and combined with everything else in the Quran and everything else in the sun.

Right, you have us it's specified, but the next verse that comes after people who are far from their prayers, right, not every type of will suddenly. So it's not an issue of a lot of people they go they come about it wrong. Bring your evidence. What's your evidence? No. It's about making sure all the evidence fits together. And then finally,

the last thing he says, I can't believe like reading reading this chapter was really funny for me, because it's like, wow, it's like he he's living so that, you know, the different types of people that I've come across in my journey. And may Allah keep us awesome fear.

He says that anybody who has any even a little bit of jealousy,

they're going to try to

take shots at the people above them.

Right? So

you'll find this guy, why is it relevant to this whole discussion, because he's talking about obstacles, that they're going to prevent you from learning more

happens every day, and the

student wants to go and learn with a certain shape. He makes the mistake of mentioning it to another student, like, oh, well, that shape, you know, he, he gets this wrong. You know, I don't agree with everything. He says, you know, and that's that's the that's the humble brag. That's the fake humility. I don't agree with everything. He says. I don't agree with everything my wife says, How much just agree with everything that Sheikh said. It's not possible. Right? What someone really is saying when they say that I don't agree with everything, he says that I have criticisms of this person, I'm trying to bring this person down. But I'm, I'm not going to really go into it. Why? I'm

going to leave that to you, you know, to fill in the blanks in NUENDO.

Right, this stuff happens all the time.

So there are people that try to turn other people away from progressing. There are people who do not want you to develop your intellect that don't want you to study. And so many students have knowledge. And regretfully emails will do this. And he finishes this with what's the true test? How can you tell if you have a sincere teacher, or you have a sincere like, colleague, like or person studying with you, if they're rooting you on?

If they're rooting on and cheering for your success? If they're happy with your accomplishments, and they're happy when you surpass them, that person is sincere.

If you find that the person is always trying to tell you to take a step back, oh, here's another thing that people do all the time, when they try to make it seem like you can't learn anything about us, then you want to study fifth mirror? Well, you have to study for 10 years, just one school of law one book for 10 years. And then you have to do the second book for the next 20 years. Right? And then by the time that you're 80 years old, you know, maybe maybe then you can go into like a middle text. A lot of people do this. It's not fair. It's not true. They're gatekeeping. They're trying to discourage people. This is jealousy. It's not sincere. Right. Then there's scholars and

traditionally the husband and other people that started studying very late, very late. And Allah put Baraka don't doubt the blessing of Allah. Allah can put blessing anybody studied. A lot can make for you what takes 10 years for somebody else take one year for you. A lot can do it. If he wants to.

All right, so everyone has to be careful when it comes to these types of people. You know, one thing that I learned studying abroad, not everybody wants good for you. Not everybody wants good for you. And so I learned to be very careful with who I shared information with. Because you tell people that you're doing this or whatever, they'll try to skirt. No, no, you shouldn't do that. No, you're not ready for that yet. That's beyond you know, I don't know, you know, this sort of thing. You know, a lot of times that's just people's jealousy speaking.

Okay, that's, that's a lot. Anyone have any questions about anything? This class? previous classes, anything not related to the class?

Yeah.

Why you're, what people

do

last fall to Allah, he said in the Quran that the prayer prevents.

Right?

Would you say that he was

that the prayer prevents indecency and sin. Okay.

Is that any prayer?

If I just go up and select,

you know,

what I'm going to eat for dinner, that prayer prevents and decency and said,

you know, yoga, prayer, packing like a chicken that prevents indecency and sin. No, that's sort of the Salah lacets disorder. That's not real prayer. That's not the type of prayer that Allah promised us, Allah promises that if you do the Salah, the way that he wants you to do it with kosher with all with reverence with humility, then it's going to prevent those things. Right. Just going through the motions. Doing the outer technical things correctly, five times a day is not enough to prevent that sort of stuff. So you're right, there's a connection. If somebody finds that they're doing that, then there's a problem somewhere else in the prayer. Maybe the prayers are not very sincere in the

first place. Well on those best

questions

come on, so you gotta have something

there is so many things, right? So some people

Yeah. Why? Why?

Good.

When you pray five times a day,

the prophesy Some said that there's some people who when they pray, they take away, maybe 90% of the reward from their prayer.

And some people 50% And some people 10% And some people

don't tell me, but in your head, assess yourself, how many percent you take away from your prayer.

If you can say it's 100 Man, every single time, but bam, bam, then you don't need to make to speak and you don't need to make anything else. Right. But the last time I thought I gave us opportunities to fill in our gaps, right? That's why every act of worship, there's something immediately that we do right after to plug in our gaps and make up for our deficiency. Right? We have a fasting Ramadan, 30 days Ramadan, then we have the Catholic.

Right, because nobody has a perfect bath. Maybe you gossiped about somebody, maybe you said something mean to somebody, maybe you live, right?

We have the prayer. So I'm like going after loss, and I want to grow up. So that was the first thing we say, Stop Loss. Should you say a stop for love your prayer is not the law. Right? Culturally, we say like it for bad things. Why would we say it for the prayer? Oh, I pray it's

it's because our prayer is not you thinking about work. You're thinking about biryani, you're thinking about whatever, you know. Yeah. So Allah gives us the opportunity to make up for it with something right after.

Yeah, I forgot that. So we're

talking about your finger wagging? Yeah.

There's different ways to do it. There's no one way to do it. You can keep it straight. You can keep it closed until you do the Shahada. You can wag it up and down.

It's not a problem. All right. Well,

now

we have to do

on

while you're in Cebu

Yeah, you can distribute Yeah, you can do that while you're in Cebu.

If you can, it's like, you know, do is

obviously there's there's blessing in the prophesy center made, not just because it's an Arabic but because of the language she used and the things that he asked for. Right? There's a hadith where somebody is out there kind of like humility. They were making you out to a law for like, a house like, right in the entryway of paradise.

Right? Like, right, like the lowest level of house, I said, I've heard of making this flat. We said Don't, don't make

don't limit the Mercy of Allah. Maybe you think you only deserve something, you know, if you ask for this specific thing, maybe Allah wants to give you more.

And you're now preventing it, because you're asking for something so specific. Right? So when it's about making sure that there is benefit to the type that actually do out of the promises that are made it because of this kind of thing, the scope of what we're asking for how to ask for the process that I'm asked for great things, but also usually very general things that left the how open ended. They weren't like overdetermined. It's like I want a Oh Allah, I want a blue house in Utica, with two French doors and you know, terrace and, you know, a white picket fence. Right? That would be maybe I'll have something better for you. You just limited yourself.

Ladies, any questions?

Here, you look like you have a question.

It's not about not supposed to, it's about better and best. Right? The best is to everybody's going to have some things, that there's time for specific policies that are made for specific things sometimes. Right? When it came to when he was cursing the Kure shoe through, you know, stuff on him and stuff like that. That's a specific, you know, when he was asking for help the Battle of better that's a specific. Right. So it's not about you know, but but in general, general, we want to

leave it open ended, especially when it comes to

just not putting ourselves in a position where we're kind of like, limiting the amazing ability of Allah. Right, because a lot can do whatever he wants, and he can solve things and write in beautiful ways that we can't even anticipate what is Oklahoman hype today after seeing the losses, right, but like a lot, Whoever fears Allah, Allah will provide for them in ways that they can't expect. They don't even expect.

Right? So if we asked a lot for in a way where we're limiting, you know, kind of

his amazing power and ability and creativity. We're not doing ourselves any, any, any, any favors.

Okay, I'm gonna end the recording here. And if anyone else has questions, you can keep going. So, okay. Thank you very much.