Riyadh al-Saliheen and Women’s Q&A #32

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it's been about 1500 Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa Salatu was Salam, Ashraf, an MBA almost selling movie, you know watching a Muhammad Ali he of course sada was good his name, Allahu Allah, I didn't know the lion salmonella, and that nothing that LM panna was in Milan, I mean

I'll come back everybody,

to classes with MSG. And I'll say, again, we encourage you, if you are vaccinated to come and enjoy the class in person, we're doing all classes in person now for those who are vaccinated.

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But soon, we're going to have to undergo a weaning weaning process, where we accustomed people to coming back and attending the classes in the machine, and inshallah

So, and for those who were not here for last night's class yet, the prayer is at 630. So I will be just a couple of minutes late, as I'm setting up and, and conducting the prayer.

And let's get back to it. We're talking about Reatta Salah hain. This is the women's class Thursday evening, we have gotten to the chapter of patience.

And let me see if I can share screen

to get to today's D

There we go.

And I haven't received any questions.

Traditionally, we had done Riata solving and q&a. So if you have any questions, you can message me privately in the chat right now or during the course of the class or send it to me later.

If we don't have anything to cover as far as questions go, then we'll just keep rolling with

Rihanna Salim.

So we've reached a hadith. That is a very lovely story. It's actually a story that gives us more background information about the people that are being discussed in salted rouge, right recall sorts of Rouge. The message or the topic of the

of the chapter is a group of people unspecified, on purpose, that are believers and are punished for their belief. Okay, so this hadith is going to give us background information

into this group of people and it's going to give us a lot of food for thought.

So I have one

translation in front of you for your reference, if you would like to read along and I have a separate translation. Here with me that's next to the Arabic

so Hey, really, Allahu Anhu reported that the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, there lived a king before you and he had a CT magician.

As the magician grew old, he said to the king, I have grown old so send me a young boy in order for me to teach him magic. He's looking for a successor and apprentice. The King sent him a young boy to serve that purpose. And on his way to the magician every day, the boy

Boy, that's a monk to whom he listened to, and he liked, he liked what he heard from the monk. It became his habit that on his way to the magician, he would meet the monk and sit there and will come late to the magician. The magician used to beat him because of this delay.

He complained about this to the monk, who then told him when you feel afraid of the magician, tell him it was my family who delayed me or who kept me. And when you are afraid of your family,

being upset that you're late, then tell them that it was the magician who kept you and the lady.

so happened, that there came a huge beasts one day

that blocked the way of the people and the young boy said, today I will know whether the magician or the monk is better. He picked up a stone. And he said, Oh Allah, if the way of the monk is dearer to you than the way of the magician bring about death to the animal, so that the people will be able to move about freely. So he took the stone and he threw the stone and it killed the beast. And people were able to travel safely once again. The monk then he came to the monk and told them everything that happened. And the monk said to him, Son, today you are better than me. You have come to a stage where I feel that you would be soon put to trial. And in case you are put to trial, do not snitch on

me. Do not give me up.

Trying to keep along here the scrolling.

That young boy began to perform miracles he used to go out and he used to heal people he used to heal the lepers, and he used to cure people from all kinds of illnesses and diseases. When someone from the king's court, who had gone blind heard about him, he came to the boy with numerous gifts, and said, If you can cure me, all of these gifts will be yours.

The boy replied, I cannot myself cure anyone. It is Allah, the Exalted alone who cures and if you affirm faith and Allah azza wa jal, I shall ask Allah to cure you. This member of Court affirmed his faith in Allah subhanaw taala. And sure enough, Allah cured him.

He came to the king, this is the person who was just cured, and sat by his side as he used to sit before the king was amazed all of a sudden, this person who was blind could see, he said them, the king said, who restored your eyesight. And the formerly blind man replied, My Rob, my Sustainer, my lord.

The king was very surprised and shocked by this. And he said, Do you have another Lord besides me?

The man who had been cured and healed, he said, My Rob, and your Rob is Allah. So the King began to torture this person until he revealed who it was, who had helped secure him. And this gave up the boy. Then they summoned the young boy. And the king said to him, oh, boy, it has been told to me that you have become so proficient in your magic, that you cure the blind, and the lepers, and you do this and that on the other. He keeps going.

There upon the boy interrupted, he said, No, I do not cure anyone. It is a law alone who cures. And the king then took hold of the boy and began to torture him as well.

And he tortured the boy until the boy snitched on the monk. Then then the monk was summoned, and it was said to him, you should turn back from your religion if you know what's good for you. But he refused. The King sent for a saw, and he placed it in the middle of his head, and began to cut him into two parts until he fell down unconscious.

Then, a person from the court of the king was brought forward and it was said to him, turn back from your religion. He too refused. And the saw was placed in the midst of his head and he was torn into then the boy was sent for it, it was said to him, so they basically they kill the monk. They kill the man who was blind who was cured, and now they call for the boy.

They said turn back from your religion, and he refused. So the king instead of doing the Sol trick, he hands him over to a group of his henchmen.

And he says, take him to such and such a mountain, climb up the mountain and when you get

until the top asked him to renounce his faith.

If he doesn't do it, then throw him off the mountains kill him.

So they took him up the mountain but the boy said, Oh Allah, save me from them in any way you please. And the mountain began to shake. And all of the king's henchmen fell down dead. And the young boy came walking back to the king, the king said to them, what happened to the people that I left you with?

And the boy replied, Allah has saved me from them.

He again, the king handed the boy over to some of his henchmen and said, Take him, this time on a boat. And when you reach the middle of the sea, ask him to give up his religion, if he does not renounce his religion, then throw him into the water.

So they took him and they said, and he said, Oh, Allah saved me from them. The boat turned upside down, and all of them drowned, except the boy who made his way back and walked right up to the king a second time.

The king again asked him what happened to my my men. And the boy replied, a law has saved me from them.

And he said to the king, listen, you can't kill me until you do what I command you to do.

The king was now excited. He thought that finally he had found the the answer to end this pesky boy.

He said, What is it? Tell me what it is to do.

The boy said, gather all the people in one place, and tie me up to the trunk of a tree. Then take an arrow from my quiver and say Bismillah in the Name of Allah, the rub of the boy and then shoot me. If you do that, you will be able to kill me.

The king did as he said, he called all the people into an open field, he tied the boy to the trunk of a tree. He took out an arrow from the boys quiver, fixed it in his bow and said Bismillah, the rub of the young boy, the Lord of the young boy, and then he let his arrow fly, and it struck the boy in the temple.

The young boy placed his hand upon the temple where the arrow had hit him, and he died.

The people who are watching this,

they were very moved. And they exclaimed, they said, We believe in the Lord of this young boy. And so one of the courtiers of the king had to tell the king, do you see that what you were afraid of? By a law it has taken place, you were trying to prevent all of the people from believing and now all of the people have believed the kingdom then commanded and this is the part where the Koran picks up and sort of from the Buddha which the king then commanded that trenches be dug and fire let's in them, and said, He who would not turn back from his meaning the boys religion, throw them into the fire.

They did. So they were throwing these people into the fire until a woman came with her young child. She felt hesitant to jump into the fire. But her own child said to her, Oh, mother, endure this ordeal for you are on the right path.

This is narrated in Sahih, Muslim and authentic Haiti.

There's a lot to talk about.

In this particular hobby.

One of the first things that we notice is that there's a certain commonality between magic and revelation.

Yes, that seems strange at first, but we'll get there. There's a commonality between magic and revelation. Right? There's a commonality in the Hadith first of all, because the boy is learning both of them.

And second of all, because once the boy starts to produce miracles starts to heal people.

What does the king accuse him of the King accuses him of sorcery of magic.

And so we see that there is a very fine line between

prophecy, Revelation, divine assistance and magic.

And many people in the Muslim world and outside of the Muslim world confuse the two. So if you were asked that I'll turn this over to you. If you were asked to explain to somebody what's the difference between magic

and

let's say divine assistance

to people do the same action one heals a sick person the other heals of six for sick person

One of them did it through divine assistance the other did it through magic and spells and things like this. How would you explain to

an uninitiated person

the difference between the two and importantly more importantly why one of them has rights and one of them is wrong

I'm interested to see what you would say

if they're achieving the same effects both of them can heal people both of them can produce maybe

what we want out of life, why is one permissible even miraculous and the other is impermissible off limits out of bounds

both of them involve the unseen right this is the okay so we have one answer difference is the source of the power

same when people ask what is the difference in the Viva

are you talking about is the Bihar

like with food?

Yes. Okay, so the source of the power Wait a second and stuck for Allah? Are you saying that there's a power other than Hola.

Hola, hola, Quwata illa biLlah.

And someone could say that, just as

someone could say, I'm gonna pass you sister Asmat

because you're smart, Mashallah. Somebody could say that a lot of creative causes.

And one of the causes that Allah gave the jinn these powers

but now you are attributing power to other than Allah.

Okay.

Who gave the gym the power is Allah, okay?

That's true.

But then someone could come along, and they could say, well,

I asked people for help all the time. And I was the one that gave those people the power to help me. So what's the difference between asking a gym versus asking a person for help?

I see the problem we get into.

A, there we go. There we go. And that's where you're the visa.

Example is a very good example. What is allowed, and in the boundaries Allah has given, okay, so with every single thing, there's multiple routes to get to what we want, whether you want a spouse, whether you want a job, whether you want a child, whether you want wealth, whatever it is a promotion, there's a nice house, right? There's various ways to get there, with every single thing in this life, some of those means Allah has permitted us and other of those means Allah has forbidden us, right? So just as you know, usery and interest is a forbidden way of making money.

And buying and selling, being an employee, all these other sorts of ways, is a legitimate and sanctioned way of making money. So are there

approved methods for getting what we want? Do not relying upon the last time without

asking people whom Allah has placed for assistance, while still relying upon Allah? And then there's other means that Allah has forbidden us from such as magic. Okay, that's, that's one. That's one answer.

Yes, and do not justify the means. Right?

And we'll get to that in just a second. It's a very, very, very important point.

The other thing is that one of these two ways, divine assistance requires obedience to Allah isn't the boy in the Hadith obedience to Allah subhanaw taala

He relies upon Allah completely.

When it comes to the stone and the Beast, when it comes to all these sorts of things being thrown off a mountain going into the sea, he relies upon Allah. And so Allah grants him the ability to make miracles, ALLAH turns him into an instrument of his power.

Whereas with Jin and with magic, it's not obedience to a law that gets you there. It's actually disobedience to Allah.

In the first instance, by appealing to those forces, and in the second instance, because Jen never help human beings for free,

they always ask some sort of disobedience,

to be carried out as a test, in order to give the person what they are looking for.

And so that's why this particular means is cut off to us. But there's other reasons. And that's what is not indicated.

We should say that most people use magic and magic is not as much of a problem perhaps here in the United States as it is back home. And whether it's India or Pakistan, or Africa, or the Middle East, wherever it is, but it is here. Yes, it is.

And most people resort to fortune tellers, of course, yeah, we have different types. We have horoscopes, and these tarot cards and weedy boards, and whatever these sorts of things.

Most people resort to magic when they really, really want something from this dunya. Either love, children, wealth, things like this.

And so one of the sins of magic is that, and this is what exactly what Esma drew our attention to, when she was talking about the ends justifying the means. When you're resorting to magic, you are assuming that the thing that you are asking for has to be yours, you are not leaving room to accept the will of Allah that it will not be yours.

You're willing to do anything possible to get there.

So we see how this is yes, arrogance is there. Definitely. ingratitude is there also, lack of patience is there. And this is why it's in this chapter.

So this is the biggest sin. Because this shows our lack of reliance upon a lot and our lack of submission to his will, and his wisdom,

that we would be willing to throw ourselves at the feet of a magician, all these sorts of things that are built. You know, magicians often deal with blood and different parts of people or animals, things that are, you know, very, very apocryphal, and cryptic

and grotesque. And we're willing to throw ourselves at the feet of this person. Because we're so desperate to get what we want. We have not submitted we've sinned against the law in our hearts first, by not trusting His will and His wisdom.

And we come here also to notice how important it is to have a

robust

and precise definition of what prophecy is. Because if we look at our other, our brothers and sisters from other faith traditions, such as Christians, such as Jews, we find that this line drawn between magic and prophecy, magic and Revelation is much more blurry. And so we have a lot of people that masquerade as prophets and masquerade as healers. But in reality, they are magicians and they rely upon the unseen they rely upon the jinn in order to achieve what they do.

This is also the importance of applying the principles the general principles of what Allah subhanaw taala has given us, we should never trust the person who doesn't adhere to the city of Allah.

Right. And this is one of the easiest ways to distinguish between what is miracle and healing, divine assistance and what is magic and witchcraft. And these sorts of things. The witch, the wizard, the magician, they do not adhere to the Sharia of Allah, they don't obey Allah subhanaw taala.

And so it's actually quite easy to identify them if you know what to look for.

And there's a famous poem in Arabic to this effect, but or Shake Shack on village and PT used to tell us all the time, either it shuts and cardio to focus on that Ill battery cardio 01

then you have to do the shadowing in the homesteaded region over during

the meaning of the line is that even if you see someone flying, flying in the sky, or you see someone walking on water, if that person doesn't adhere to the city, they don't stop with the things that are lost that stop and they don't do the things that Allah said to do, then know that this person is he's no good. A lot is

testing this person, or he's an innovator or a magician or something of this sort.

So this is one of the this is one of the the benefits from this particular hadith is talking about that line between magic and divine assistance and what's permissible and what's not permissible. Another benefit from his Hadith is a reflection upon the pivotal, right we believe that

as opposed to concepts of original sin, which exist in Christianity, we believe that we have an innate disposition that is good, that Allah subhanaw taala created within us, that children, if they are not indoctrinated, if they are not subjected to propaganda, they can easily

determine and lean to and are attracted to

the truth.

Right, there's a natural quality to the truth.

And so we see the fitrah, the innate disposition, or the innate leaning to the truth of this boy, because he said to go,

learn from the magician, this is his culture, this is his society. And on the way he finds a monk, and quickly he determines right away that the monk is way worth way more worth listening to than the magician.

And he's attracted to the words of the monk and the things that the monk is giving him. And he's kind of just going to the magician out of duty.

And this is always a timely reminder for us in this time to try to protect as much as possible that sense of vipro for our children, to protect what is natural, and what is normal. Because today, we live in a society where

certain social movements have figured out

that if they want to change things long term within the society, they need to target the children.

And so particular movements directly directly target children to try to win them over to their site. They even spread their propaganda more to the children than they do to adults. Because they realize the value of children that children are the future.

And so they try to get there as early as possible, whether it's mandating that certain things be taught in public schools, whether it's certain things within major stores, visibility, television, media, movies, all these sorts of things. There are groups that understand how society works, and they are engaging in propaganda and social engineering and attempts to normalize certain things to our children. So

protecting that sense of what is normal.

And I always advocate for purposeful introduction, right? You don't ever want

these sorts of groups and special interests, this propaganda to be your child's first exposure to the concept and the idea of a certain sin, whatever it is,

you want to protect the fifth route, you want to protect their natural disposition, but you also want to be the one to introduce it to them in a way that they will understand that it's wrong.

Because when propaganda reaches your child, it reaches your child in a way that is beautified.

They try to associate it with all of these things that are just unquestionable good,

in order to make an emotional appeal

at and to achieve the aims of their propaganda.

If you are the one to introduce these things to your child, obviously in an age appropriate way, then you stand a much better chance with protecting your child's sense of fitrah that innate disposition that they were created upon, then letting them be indoctrinated into other sorts of things.

A couple very, very small points, we learned from the Hadith, that it's permissible to tell stories with haram things in them. Okay. The story, the Hadith has magic in it. Right. But the problem is, is that I'm told the story, right? It's not some sort of, you know, it has to do with what the moral of the story is, obviously, the moral of the story is something that's wholesome and good. We also learned that it's permissible to tell Little White Lies if there's an extremely important thing that is being achieved by them. Right. And they don't even honestly reach the level of Little White Lies they reached the level of simply half truth. Right. So when

The boy said to his, for the magician that my family kept me and he said to the his family that the magician kept me and stuff. This was for a religiously permissible end, which was trying to inculcate and learn the truth and trying to resist these kinds of satanic forces that were in his life.

But one of the bigger lessons than those two previous points, is reliance upon Allah subhanaw taala

reliance upon a law and reliance upon a law specifically as the ultimate cause of all causes.

So we see this at multiple points within the story, we see it with the beast, right? The boy comes up to the beast. And he's like, Okay, listen, I've been learning these two things. I've been learning magic, I've been learning from the monkey. If what the monk says is better and true, then let the beast die from the stone. And that's what happens.

It takes extreme reliance upon Allah, to have that sort of trust. And the monk recognizes it, which is why he says to the boy, when he comes back, he says to him, you have surpassed me, basically, the student has become the Master, you're now better than mean superior to me.

We also see it when it comes to his healing, right? The boy heals people, and heals people and heals people and all the time people want to attribute it to the person. This is a

bad habit or tendency that we have this is part of the devil's plot against us is to fixate on the causes that Allah subhanaw taala created, and not the cause, or of causes himself. So people keep wanting to attribute the miracles and the healing to the boy. And the boy keeps rejecting them saying no, it's a law who heals. It's not me who heals. But if you pray to Allah and you trust the law, and you accept the law, I'll pray to Allah.

And it was his piety and his righteousness, that Allah's power to audit gave him what he asked what

we can learn from this because in the Muslim community, we can develop a superstitious relationship with parts of our deen, especially with things such as Rokia and such as the hara, but even things such as Salah

and so on and so forth, we can start to put too much reliance in the sorts of means that a lost cause Allah has created and fixate upon them instead of trusting in the causer of causes Allah azza wa jal, and this is the same, this is the same

internal moral sin as relying on magic. Why? Because again, it assumes that what we want, we should have it.

And I'm going to instrumentalize and uses this tool, my Rokia or my Korean or my, it's too hot.

And I'm going to put the power in the ritual and not in the one who legislated and gave us the ritual, a Las Palmas on

every everything of this sort of sword is appealing to human beings because it leaves our once unchallenged.

Whereas Allah subhanaw taala challenges our once

he says, and so often Bacara and other places in the Koran, yes, you might want something and it's bad for you, you might not want something and it's good for you. That's what religion is for. That's what Dean is for, as an external authority to challenge yourself to challenge your wants to challenge your take on things.

Whereas in a more narcissistic era, such as the one that we live in, we would prefer to keep our own selves and our own wants and our own impressions and likes and dislikes intact. And then kind of build our religion around that so that it may stay safe and unchallenged.

We also see a common tactic. This is one of the King once the boy is performing miracles and healing people. He says, Okay, you're learning all this magic. This is magic. And so we should recognize that this is a familiar thing to us because this is what the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was accused of. And so it goes back to our point about the fine line and the difference between magic and revelation or prophecy or divine assistance. But it also shows us the common tactics that have been used for time immemorial, up until today, to delegitimize and to smear and undermine

the people of truth

And the people who are doing righteousness, so we should be prepared for that.

And finally, and this is what gets this heavy and entrance into this particular chapter,

we see the importance of being patient in a laws way, when it comes to the persecution that everyone was to experience due to their belief and the arrogance of the chain, and the importance of living for something that's larger than yourself.

This is something that so many moral issues come back to, at the end of the day, many, many, many situations require us to make a choice between our personal interests, or our personal wants and needs, versus the common good. And by the common good, we're not just talking about some sort of democratic, common good, that's good for all people, but in within an Islamic sense, something that Allah would want something that would support a law is Dean, something that was support Allah's truth and spread it on Earth, and bearing witness to the truth.

So many times we have a choice to make between these two things. Right? Are we going to get the deal? Are we going to make the profits? Are we going to get the position?

Or are we going to do something that's going to advance Allah's Dean?

Are we going to prove a point? Are we going to bear witness to the truth.

Some of sometimes these decisions are made every day. And society

deteriorates into chaos and violence, when people make decisions, based off of what's good for them as individuals and not what's good for the whole group, and especially with the spiritual dimension of what Allah wants.

This also shows us the difference between what's permissible, and what's best. And we've talked about that in the women's class several several times, because it would be permissible for anybody in this story, to pretend to renounce their faith in order to be saved from being slaughtered. However, not a single person chooses that way. In this particular instance, the better thing to do was to stand up for your faith and to be martyred. And that's something that while it's not a requirement of us, it would be permissible to rely on Sofia, the thing that the some people are so afraid of, in this particular instance, and

pretend to renounce our faith because our lives depend upon it.

It's not the best way to go. The best way to go is to, to bear witness to the truth, no matter how hard it is, and certainly we can appreciate the spiritual value of it, it's much more difficult, it's much harder and therefore therefore much more rewardable and spiritually advanced, to be able to put your foot down and bear witness to the truth and suffer what comes because this life is only temporary and the life of the hereafter is everlasting.

That takes us to the end of this hadith

does anyone have any questions thoughts, comments reflections?

Okay, then I wish everybody a good end of the week, and inshallah we'll see you, if not tomorrow for Joomla then sometime on the weekend for the other classes.

So I'm wondering what happened to law here.