Riyadh al-Saliheen and Women’s Q&A #06

Salam Rasul Allah.

It's been Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala Ashraful and Vi one Musa Nene Vienna, Latina Muhammad Ali he offered the Salah was good to sleep Allahumma Aileen IV million federal Nolan fatten Abby, Matt Ireland. And was it an element? Yeah, that I mean?

So last class.

Oh, very good. So someone asks, yes, we have, we have some unfinished business.

Last class, we mentioned briefly at the very end of the first Hadith, about kind of this idea of

converting our habits into worship.

Okay.

So he basically, there's only two, you know, it's a moving train, it's going either one way or the other. There's no real neutral ground when it comes to your actions. If you're to put everything just imagine for a second, a table in front of you. And you put absolutely every single thing that you do in a day out on the table in front of you, from the second you wake up to the moment you go to bed.

Now, imagine that every single one of those actions has some sorts of intention behind it. Right?

Those intentions can be lofty intentions, like maybe you want to help somebody else, or you're moved to pity. Maybe you're, for example, you know, your husband throws out his back and you give him you know, some sort of massage or you make someone their favorite meal, because it's their birthday, or all these sorts of things that you could do. There's, there's actions like that, where you have a lofty intention, there's actions that you do specifically for hoping for a reward and a purification from ALLAH SubhanA wa, tada. And then there is most of the other stuff, right? Or, you know, either you just do it because it's a habit or you do it because you have to you hate your boss, but you

have to go to work, you know.

So imagine that table with all those things, okay? Now,

subtract everything from the table, like imagine just going to clear it all the way. All the stuff on the table that's not for Allah subhana wa Tada

in some way, shape, or form, let's not even go into like 100% just like some way shape or form for a law, and we're going to just shove all the rest of this stuff off the table into the wastebasket. If it's me, okay, and I'm just being completely forthright and honest here. There you go, most of my actions, you know, and most of my deeds into the wastebasket, right.

And what's going to stay on the table is very, very, very few things. Right. So the process, you know, the scholars talk about the process of kind of waking up, okay, awareness, real mindfulness, like Islamic mindfulness, or Islamic.

You know, living in the moment awareness is putting those things from the wastebasket back on the table, they're the same action, but they have the, they have the a different intention to please Subhan, ALLAH SubhanA wa, tada. So, yeah, there are some things that are going to make more intuitive sense, to undergo that project with, right.

For somebody, for example, maybe you are, let's take the example of your move to pity, right to help somebody, you can easily kind of shift that over a couple of degrees and make it something that is for Allah subhanaw taala, because this is something that Allah loves to have mercy on somebody else who's in a hard situation. Okay? When you go down the list, though, you're gonna find that there's some actions that are that are harder to convert,

you know, giving your husband that, you know, rubber, that massage or whatever, because he threw his back out again, that's something you know, fair, as long as he hasn't done anything to make you mad recently. That's something that's fairly easy to put back on the table with the intention to please a lot.

But things where we have a internal conflict, or things that are entirely habitual, or we feel like they are in the category of drudgery, right? These are things that are much, much more difficult to do this trick with. So let's say for example, here's a real

World example.

Your husband hasn't thrown out his back, he's fine. And you have a certain allocation of chores or tasks that each of you does. And he did something that really upset you.

Right? Let's say that it's, it's your job to wash the dishes. It's my job to wash the dishes. So let's say it's your job to wash the dishes. Or I'll speak about myself, okay, it's my job in the house to wash the dishes. Okay? If, if my wife does something, or says something that really, really upsets me,

isn't it tempting to kind of let the dishes pile up, and kind of, you know, try to get back at that other person, try to get back at our spouses try to kind of show them that they kind of really rely upon us. And,

you know, it wouldn't be so easy if we weren't kind of working together and all these sorts of things, you're basically trying to rub it in their face, right?

Or then I could have another intention. It's like, okay, I'm gonna do the dishes like normal, but it's just, I'm gonna, like, be running her, you know, grinding my teeth.

And mumbling under my breath. You know, while I'm doing it, because I'm so angry

at my spouse, and I, I don't want to give them that satisfaction. Right? These are things that actually happen in marriages. Yes.

Okay, that is going to be something that's extremely difficult to kind of convert to

doing something for the sake of a loss Pousada alone. And with the increased level of difficulty comes the increased level of reward. If you are in that situation, if I just, you know, take a breath and just talk to myself and say, Okay, this isn't about me getting recognition, it's not about me trying to get my do or my rights or what I think I deserve.

Nor is it strictly this kind of, you know, corporate responsibility. But this is something that I'm going to try to harness my intention to do for Subhanak. For two, for a loss of power Tata, that the prophets Allah holiday was salam served in his house, he served his family, he was in the service of his family. And I'm supposed to be like the prophets of Allah de Sena. And I'm supposed to be doing things for other people, not because I expect something back from them. But because ultimately, I want something from Allah subhanaw taala. Right. Many of the good deeds that people do, they're not good deeds at all, in the sense that they're really just trading. For other worldly favors, whether

it's praise, whether it's recognition, whether it's quid pro quo, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours sort of thing.

Right. So the task is to convert all of those things to not business or trade with that other person, but trade with a loss, but I don't Donna, where you're the same, whether that person spits in your face, or that person thanks you and praises you and kind of flatters you, you're not doing it for them. And you're not doing it for

what you're going to get in return, you're doing it for a law. And if you're able to do that work, and it's hard. And it's not like once, it's not like there's no such thing as relapse, or, you know,

when it comes to it's not like once you've made it, it's all over and you're done and never have to think at any about it anymore. It's a constant kind of vigilance and maintenance and struggle. If you're able to do that, then Allah will give you a level of Aquaman, equanimity, and tranquility, that you haven't probably experienced before. Because your your emotional state is no longer dependent upon that reward that you're getting from the other person.

Your emotional state is completely tied to this other reason that you're doing it, you're doing it for Allah subhanaw taala. And that's, that's true freedom. That's true liberation. Now, a common thing that happens in these types of examples, you know, this doesn't mean that you let people walk all over, you know, you have rights, and you have

a certain bare minimum that you expect people to treat you with courtesy and you have definitely are encouraged to draw those boundaries, where people transgress them. We're not supposed to be silently suffering, right? But the

Good that you do

write the project is to convert as much as possible of that to being intended for Allah subhanaw taala alone, it will reduce your disappointment. It will reduce your expectations. And you will be pleasantly surprised and as we said, Truly kind of at peace with what happens from it.

I hope that's a decent example.

Let me know if anybody has any other things that come to mind or they want to talk about when it comes to that it's a rich subject, we could probably talk a whole lesson or three about that right there.

We were into the second Hadith, which was narrated by Aisha is a conversation between Aisha and the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam, he tells her a prophecy Eden tells her what's going to happen in the future. She's, he says to her, that one day an army will raid the Kaaba. And when it is done and reaches the desert, the earth is going to swallow everyone up. i She's reaction to the story is in true Aisha fashion to say, Wait a second, oh messenger of Allah. She's respectful. She's not. She's not disrespectful. But she's not afraid to challenge something that doesn't make sense. She says, why all of them.

And in the explanations of the Hadith, it says that, you know, back then, with armies, there were captives along with them. And there might be women and children. And there might be old people, there might be slaves that were kind of taken there by force. So these are all the people in ISIS minor. She said, Wait a second, wait a second. This army attack attacks the Kaaba. And then they're all swallowed up. They're all punished. That doesn't seem to make sense. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi salam, Exeter, and he says, All of them will be swallowed up by the Earth, but they will be raised for judgment according to their attention. intentions, excuse me.

So there's this is a very rich Hadith. There's a lot going on here. One of them is the disconnect between material success and success in the afterlife, right? It doesn't impugn, it doesn't detract from Islam, that the kava would be raided or even destroyed. We don't kind of worship the

worldly success, of the adherence of our religion.

Right.

Our successes and after worldly access, and other worldly success, and if something comes to us in the dunya, then we will welcome it. But we know that

most of the time,

the path of the believer is one of trial, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam said that this dunya is like a prisoner, excuse me, This dunya is like a prison for the believer. Whereas the he is set free or she is set free in the afterlife. And the vice versa is true for someone who rejects rejects the truth, that the dunya is their playground, that dunya is everything that they want. It's their paradise. And then when they get to the afterlife, it becomes a prison to them.

So we don't go into despair. And this is very timely, because the Muslims, if you look across the world, we are some of the most colonized and oppressed peoples in the world. The Muslim countries seems to be every day there's another one that has political instability and oppression and killing and genocide, all these sorts of things.

In this hadith, we have a reminder that our faith is not contingent upon the success of the Muslims in the political sphere or in the

in this worldly sense.

A perhaps bigger takeaway, and we just mentioned it is Ayesha's question that she just totally is willing to question the prophet will have its own law, how to send them respectfully, because something doesn't make sense to her. And if this isn't

a license, to allow your children to ask critical questions about their faith and your faith, then I don't know what will what will do the trick. Because

too many times too many times. We're so shocked and scandalized and perhaps afraid of where the question is coming from or what it might lead to, that we kind of tried to control we have a control reaction. We try to kind of shut down the questioning before it gets go.

going. And I can tell you from my personal experience as a questioning teenager, that that's the last thing that you want to do. The last thing that you want to do is try to discourage those questions is that you should, you know, know your know your limitations, not put yourself as forward as some expert or someone who is able to tackle things kind of out of your expertise, but that you should definitely be encouraging questions and encourage your children to find answers and to follow the truth. Because at the day, at the end of the day, if Islam isn't about searching for the truth, and finding the truth, and then following the truth, then if it's not about that, what is it about?

Right?

So, notice how the prophesised didn't react. He didn't say, not just this beta, or I'm not sure what the feminine of beta is sorry, I need I need to study or do. But you can't ask this question. It's no good, go sit in the corner. Right? It's, he responds very calmly, and reasonably. And he tells her, he actually responds to precisely her concern without her voicing it. She doesn't say specifically, that, you know, this doesn't seem fair, to me. It's an implication it's implied. And he responds right to the heart of her concern. And He does it by what we just said, By breaking kind of the relationship in her in her head between what's going on in the dunya. And what's going on in

the afterlife. He said, Yeah, they're all going to be swallowed up on Earth. And in some sense, yeah, that's a calamity. But your life on Earth is really very short.

And what really matters in comparison to that is the afterlife. And everyone will be judged individually, according to what they intended. So there will be no

injustice there will be will there will not be a miscarriage of justice for the people who were there against their own will or without about intention.

I'll ask a question and then we'll finish this hadith inshallah and move on to the questions that we have.

What's the relationship

between this hadith and the entire chapter?

What's the entire chapter about? And what's the relationship?

Between this hadith, and the broader chapter, that's a part of.

It

Good, excellent. Yes, the chapter is about intentions. being judged on intentions? Yes, it's pretty much

one to one, we could say that it's just a little bit more detailed, a little bit more information. Okay. So we have the first Hadith which was in the Met Armando vignettes that these are only going to be judged according to their attentions, and everyone's going to get what they intended. Okay, somebody could ask, Well, what about this scenario or that scenario? What if someone is the subject of some, you know, punishment of a lost pounds? Either he causes the earth to

cleave asunder and swallow up people as a punishment?

Does that mean that that affects their afterlife? Does that mean that it is a reflection, right every single time, every single time we have a tsunami, right? Or we have an earthquake or some sort of natural disaster, there's always a group of people that are like to just take this as punishment from Allah. Right? Now, it might be punishment in a worldly sense, right. But it's not a condemnation in an otherworldly sense, in the sense that there might be, you know, every single individual that parishes in a disaster, or something like this, even if we submit and it's up for debate, whether something is a reminder or a punishment from a law or not in this world, every

single person is going to be judged by their intentions when it comes to the afterlife. And this is something that a lot may very well put people into paradise. He knows best people's sincerity, and the opportunity that they had, and whether they wanted

to follow

or identify the truth or not.

So the principle that we get from the hadith is that this world is governed by what's apparent, whereas the after life, the hereafter, is ultimately governed by people's intentions. That's why in Islamic law, you find things, you know, we can't use

the intention argument to get out of kind of paying our do right, you know, and this is obvious if your son goes out and

is playing stickball and he breaks your neighbor's window. You can't say no, I'm not open yet and said, My son didn't have the intention to break your window. And so I'm sorry, we're not going to pay for the window. No, that's not how it works. Not in American law, not in any law, not in Islamic law, either. You have to pay for the window. Because this dunya is about what's apparent, it's about the external. Whereas what's going to happen in the afterlife as far as sin and reward as far as purification, and condemnation, these all have to do with what's internal, and at the end of the day, on scene.

So that's the second Hadith.

We had a couple of questions. We have one question about the older. Well, they didn't mention that I would have thought they wanted to ask about women's dress and kids dress. And I assumed from that question, that what was meant was, what does someone need to cover?

About dress? Okay?

This comes to

the concept in Islamic law that's called out Ah, oh has to do we could translate it as private parts, right. It's the it's the area of privacy that

that there are, you know, kind of like degrees of privacy

that some people can be led into, and some people can't let be, can't be led into some people

can be around you or exposed to you or, you know, in the same room as you have not a problem. Look upon this area of privacy.

And some people can't, depending on the context, depending on their relationship to you.

So

there's some general principles. First, we should say this, that when it comes to out or your private parts, what you have to cover, there's two large categories. There's an outro. That's just for the prayer. Okay. And there's an outro. That's just for everything else, your normal daily interactions with people. So they usually don't conflict. But we're just going to talk about this other one, because most people, that's what they're concerned with.

There are general principles that apply to covering your outer covering your private areas, in front of other people. One of those principles is opacity, right? This is obvious, I can't cover myself with a see through plastic bag and go out and go to the store and buy, you know, eggs and milk, they would call the cops, right? The material has to be opaque. It has to

conceal and not disclose what's underneath it. The second principle general principle of covering your private area. Before we talk about what is the private area is its fit. It has to be reasonably loose. You know, it can't be like, shrink wrap. Spanx. You know what I mean? It's like, it can't be like 80s exercise videos, it has to be loose fitting clothing, because the form of the body, the figure of the body is attractive, right? So you have to do a reasonable amount of diligence to conceal that figure from certain people. Now there's a certain amount of your figure that's never going to be able to be

covered, and you're excused for that that's not something that's in your power to cover in the first place.

The third concern when it comes to covering your private area is the area to be covered how much of the body to cover we're going to talk about that. We're going to put that on the backburner for a second because there's some

as you can imagine, there's a little bit of explanation or detail involved. And the fourth thing that

fourth concern when it comes to covering this private area is that it's not going to be covered in a culturally

attractive way such that it's a spectacle, okay? Because there are

a lot, I always come back to this word in English, the intent of covering yourself is not to allure, okay. Your allure should be primarily reserved, exclusively reserved, sorry, for your husband's, right. And so any clothing that in and of itself is alluring defeats the purpose of hijab. Now, there is no objective, quantitative definition for what's alluring. And so that is going to change from time to time and place to place. And this is a general principle of Islamic law that if the Shetty command something and then leaves the details of it, undefined, and it's not defined by the sun, then it's generally supposed to be determined by culture, what's culturally acceptable?

So

I can't think of any particular examples off the top of my head, but I don't know like, maybe

I honestly can't. But if we could imagine hypothetically, that there was some sort of clothing that yes, was opaque and yes, conceal your figure. And yes, cover the proper area, but in and of itself, somehow it was alluring, then that would defeat the purpose of hijab. Okay, so those are the four concerns. Now getting back to concern number three, the area that you have to cover, okay, it differs depending on what your what your gender is, what are the gender of the people around you? And what's their relationship to you? And also how old you are? So, starting with men, okay, because they're the easier one to cover. The older, the private area of the men is between the knee and the

belly button, the navel and the knee. We're going to talk about this more in a second, don't worry, because the conversation doesn't end there. Don't think that you can be going around looking at you know, I don't know. Who are the heartthrobs these days with their shirts off and things like that? No, no, we'll get that.

So that's for men, their private areas considered between their knee and their belly button. For women. We're talking adult women who have reached the age of menstruation. That's the considered now you're an adult biologically,

it depends on your audience.

If you are around men, who are not related to you, who are potentially marriageable men,

in some alternate universe,

then there are two major opinions and this is a famous difference of opinion that goes back to the Companions between Lebanon bass, and even miss erode. And it has to do with how you interpret a verse of the Quran.

If an abbess because the verse of the Quran is the verse and sorts of asset where a lot of talks about the theme of

the covering for the woman and says, to cover everything except that which is apparent and so there's a difference of opinion as to how do we interpret what is apparent in an ibis said that means that the woman has to cover everything except her face and her hands. I will Hanifa made an illegal analogy based off of the hands and set also the feet. Whereas the majority said no women still have to cover their feet.

If unless erode, interpreted the verse to mean that she has to cover everything, even her face and even her hands. And that the thing that she can't possibly cover up what's a parrot? Is the, the figure of her body that there's no way to conceal, even with loose clothing. So, you know, it's a hot topic, you know, the niqab to not niqab? Is it from a snap? Is it culture? Is it obligatory all the stuff.

The niqab is something that is recommended and rewardable. Depending on how it's done. It is from our tradition, but this difference of opinion went back to the Companions and any difference of opinion that goes back to the Companions. It's case closed, you're not going to solve it. I'm not going to solve it, you're not going to solve it. And no one has the right to be like, no you can't follow this one opinion. If a companion follow that

opinion, this is a goes back to principles of legal theory that I won't bore you with. But basically, if there's a difference of opinion that was valid, then then it's valid now, and you can follow whichever one you are more comfortable with.

If a woman is in front of a non marriageable man, meaning her father or uncle, her, her children, her son, all these sorts of things, whether her son is biological, or if it's from breastfeeding, or what have you, then it changes, her private area becomes now hurt torso and her upper legs, okay, so you leave the face and the head and the hair, and the arms, no problem, and the lower legs, your calves and your feet, not a problem.

In front of women, other women, the scholars differentiated between Muslim women and non Muslim women. And this is a juicy, juicy piece of information. So the scholars agree that in front of Muslim women,

the woman's private area is the same as a man's, between the knees and the belly buttons. So if you go to the spa, if you go to, I don't know, what you guys do, if you go to

a Turkish bath,

where the target the closest Turkish bath is, but if you're among other Muslim women, then your private area to be covered as between the base ruling is between your knees and your belly button. What about in front of non Muslim women? Is it the same or different? We only have seven minutes, so I won't take your your ideas, regrettably. But there's a difference of opinion on this issue.

Some scholars,

yes, good question. Can it be for breastfeeding purposes? You're talking about if you're in front of other women, or if you're in front of men, or if you're in front of non marriageable men or marriageable men.

Other women of course, yeah, of course, not a problem. When it comes to non Muslim women, the scholars disagreed. There's a group of scholars that said, there's no difference between Muslim women and non Muslim women. Its knees to bellybutton,

every single

scenario, no problem. Some scholars said no. non Muslim women.

The private area is the same as for your non marriageable men, your father's your brothers, your sons.

Some scholars even are of the opinion that in front of a non Muslim woman, your private area is the same as in front of a marriageable man that you should keep your full hijab on. What's the reasoning behind all of this? Because the fear here, the Prophet sallallahu sallam said, I'll start with what the prophesy centum said, is that a woman should not be described

to a man like her intimate parts, her private parts. And the fear is that among non Muslim women, they might not have as much discretion as Muslim women, when it comes to describing your hair, describing your figure describing different things about your body to other people, including men. So in reality, what you're really dealing with is a case by case basis here, if you know that this person is kind of a talker, and she's kind of a gossip, then you should probably maybe keep your hijab on. But if this is someone that you trust, and someone that you know, kind of doesn't engage in that behavior, then this is someone that you don't really have to worry about.

When it comes to children, oh, boy, is there a lot of differences of opinion, I'm not going to go into full detail because it's impossible to keep track of. But I will just say that the majority are of the opinion that

if a child is very young, there is no such thing as private parts in the sense that something that they have to cover. Some of them said until four some of them said until seven, some of them said until eight,

right? So when they're a very, very little kid, there's no concern they run around naked. It's not it's not a really big deal. Once they hit a certain age 567 depending on which School of Law you follow, then you should start to transition them into getting accustomed to covering their older as it will be as an adult. And there's all again, different kinds of

guidelines depending on your preferred legal school, but all of them agree that once the child reaches about 10 that you should start

accustoming making them accustomed to covering themselves like an adult. So that once they undergo puberty at something that they're already doing.

Okay. And this comes back to a different question, which hopefully Yes, three minutes and a half we have time for, which is every discussion about the old about the private parts, we're talking bare bare bare minimums here. There are other concerns that could make

the area that you want to cover or don't want to cover slightly different. Let's go back to our, our, you know, buff ripped, you know, Baywatch guy, example, you know, if should, am I, as the Imam allowed to walk down the streets of Utica with my shirt off, as long as I'm covering up to my belly button and kind of, you know, show off my muscles or stuff like that? No. Why is it concern about outta the private area in and of itself? No, it's not. But there are other avenues that restrict how people can and should cover themselves, there are cultural expectations. And if something is seen as alluring, or seen as sexualized, in a culture, then a Muslim is expected to not do that in front of

anybody but their spouse. So there is no license for our young men to go around strutting around, you know,

showing off their, their benchpress skills and these sorts of things in front of other people, they have to adhere to what's culturally acceptable, and what's considered sexualized and alluring. Under two minutes, okay. And then when it comes to children,

we have to keep in mind that this is about training, and everything with our data. It has to do with

bare minimums. And Islamic law is not always about bare minimums. There's just like a hospital just like a medical practice, there's bare minimums, that if you don't do them, you're gonna get sued. And then there's best practices that gets you on the number one top 10 list of hospitals in the area, right. And so, everybody, we have to be doing this stuff that's bare minimum. But we should really be doing more than that, when it comes to our children, you know, we should be, especially in the United States, where there's so much loaded, meaning behind the hijab, and there's so much loaded, meaning behind being visibly Muslim. We should start early probably earlier than other

cultures when it comes to placing love, and getting people used to our children used to enjoying covering themselves in an appropriate way. According to Islamic guidelines, we are under a minute, there's much more to say I really wanted to get to the last question, which was how to interact with non Muslim family members, and how children should interact with them. I have a lot of experience in this issue in this area and so to some of the people in this class, but we're out of time. So next class inshallah any quick questions.

If the video cuts off, you can send it through the women's group, you can send it to my personal WhatsApp number or anything like that. I'm not going to melt.

If I talk to one of you on WhatsApp, if you have a personal question, so I'm available to you and let me know if there's absolutely anything that you want.