Riyadh al-Saliheen and Women’s Q&A #35

Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala Ashraf an MBA almost Celine maybe you know called watching them Muhammad Ali he offered a salah I just got this meme Allah him that unlimited be May and founder and founder of the mountain antenna was in there in many other anime Santa Monica everybody welcome to Thursday night woman's class on Riyadh the Saudi in the gardens of the righteous

and we are in the chapter of patients

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and as always, you know we've been thin on questions lately so you're always always welcome to send me questions while they can sit down with us assuming you're welcome. Good to see you here.

So, if you have questions, please send them along either via chat or some other means and we will get to them Inshallah, at the towards the second half of the class.

So, we have reached

Hadith number 36. I believe in necessarily about the Allahu Anhu said, I can still recall, as if I am seeing the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi salam resembling one of the prophets whose people scourged Him and shed his blood. While he wiped blood from his face. He said, Oh, ALLAH forgive my people, because they certainly do not know this is in a hottie and Muslim.

One of the takeaways that we have from this hadith is that the messengers and the prophets of Allah, Spano, Tata all have a common plate. And that common plate is that people despite the miracles that they're sent with, despite the rational proofs that they're sent with, despite the emotional proofs that they are sent with, such as the fact that they are always well known to the people to whom they are sent, and they are trusted, right? Every single situation of a prophet being sent to people as somebody who was trusted just yesterday, as a very honest and upright person, and now all of a sudden, because they are preaching something that is disagreeable or difficult or inconvenient,

especially for the elite of a society. Now all of a sudden, there are allegations of falsehood and lying and etc, etc. Right? So despite, despite all of these miracles and signs, the plight of messengers is that they are scourged. They are rejected. And that rejection has many shapes and forms. Sometimes that rejection is through mockery. Sometimes it's through accusations and allegations. Sometimes it's through violence. And sometimes it's all of the above, and it simply happens in stages. And this is exactly what the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu I said, I'm experienced. So this is this hadith is of the love and mystery, recalling, right? The days of old, long after

Islam was successful and spread over the world and

You know, the prophesy Saddam had passed away and the Islamic empire or civilization had been had spread its wings and taken off.

Abdullah bin Massoud who was there from the beginning, said You know, he can, he can imagine it just like it was yesterday, he can see it's as if he can see the Prophet sallallahu Sallam looking just like the other prophets of old with blood on his face. And despite that, despite that, praying for forgiveness for his people,

and this shows the and demonstrates the sincerity of the messengers. And this is something obviously, we take as a point of doctrine that Allah subhanaw taala would not send a messenger except that they were sincere. However, this is a proof of their sincerity.

Simply put, if you're not doing things for the sake of Allah, you are going to have a very, very hard time continuing what you're doing.

If you are not

responded to with thanks and appreciation,

this is true. In the real world. This is true with our spouses, Oh, yes. Oh, yes, with our spouses. Right. If we are, for example, let's say that, it's my job to wash the dishes and to take out the trash. Okay, now, Allah subhanaw taala wants us to worship Him through every dependency that we have, right. And with a relationship with a spouse, we have a dependency or a complementary relationship with another human being. Right, we we, the idea behind it is that we complete each other. At least that's the way it's supposed to work.

So if I'm doing my dishes, and I'm doing my trash, right, you're taking out my trash. And I'm, you know, doing what other sort of are my responsibilities, and it doesn't have to be things that we normally recognize it as chores, it just has to do with division of labor and what each of us is responsible for.

And I don't find that I'm getting the recognition

that I want from the other spouse involved, then I need to perhaps admit to myself, that I'm not doing this thing for Allah subhanaw taala. Because if I were doing it for Allah's patata, then I wouldn't need the recognition, I wouldn't need the praise, I wouldn't need the thanks, or the vindication or any of these sorts of things. And that's not to say that every relationship doesn't require

this type of recognition. No, we do need recognition in relationships. But if you're going to aspire to a higher level, or perhaps the highest level, where the things that you're doing or for a lot, know that this is the sign of it, right? That it's the same to you, whether the person rejects what you're doing, or thanks you for what you're doing or, you know, criticizes what you're doing.

Very, very difficult. I'm not there, I don't know about you guys.

I want recognition for the things that I do, you know, in my life, and it's very, very difficult to break through to that other sort of realm where you're not

engaging in trade with other human beings, which means that I do this thing. And so I expect you to do this thing for me. Right? Even if that thing is just simply praise or recognition or gratitude, right, that's the arena that most of us operate in, it's hard to break out of that realm and break into the realm of doing

business with a lot, right, whereas the reactions and of people don't matter, hardly anything to you, but you're simply concerned with Allah's reaction or allows approval or not.

Very, very, very difficult to do.

Another example will be with charity, right? So a way to know and the it's always a very sticky situation that we get into where there's this thing where some charity is better, given secretly. Right, and then other forms of charity are better to be given publicly, right, such as a cat, a cat is better in general to be given publicly, because first of all, you're demonstrating to the poor of your community that you are giving yours a cat locally. And so when they're standing next to you in prayer in the line, and they know that you live in the suburbs, and you have a very nice house and you have, you know, a 401 K and you have all these other things, and they're basically you know,

they're

struggling to get by. If they know that you pay yours, a cat in the community, they're not going to have anything in their hearts against you, because they know that you're paying your fair share. If you're sending here's a cat abroad, and not to say that there aren't worthy causes abroad, but there is sadaqa and there's no limit to sadaqa whereas a cat is designed to be something for within the community.

If you're sending your cat abroad, then that person might

harbor ill feelings towards you.

Right. And so it's, as an aside, it's better to give and the vast majority of scholars support this opinion that it is better to give us a cat within your community, and even to announce it. Right so that nobody has any doubt, and nobody can harbor any ill feelings or suspicions towards other people. So, but still, but still, anytime that you give something away,

in public, there's a risk, there's a risk that

you will not be greeted with praise and gratitude, and thank you so much, Oh, you're so generous, but you will be criticized. Right? Maybe even by the very people that you're trying to help.

Right? Maybe the person who you give your cat to, you know, they say, Well, I've never seen you around the Masjid. You know, or, you know, What's this supposed to do? For me? This is nothing. This is not much, right? It could be anything.

And that's the moment where the proof is in the pudding? Are you doing things for Allah? Or are you doing things for the recognition of other people, if you are doing things for a loss power to Allah, it doesn't matter if the person you're giving to spits in your face, you're going to keep doing it.

But if you're doing things for recognition, for praise for reputation for these sorts of things, you're not going to be able to handle that. You're going to, you're going to only be doing things when you get something in return whether that thing is material or not.

So the prophets were sincere. And we can tell this because they were given this sort of treatment. They love their people. They wanted nothing but guidance for their people. They weren't just coming and smugly condemning everyone to hell, they cared so much the province a last thought I told the province I said I'm how many times in the Koran, don't despair. Don't be sad. Why because it weighed heavy on the heart of the province is that um, that his family, his cousins, his uncle's, his people, his tribe, were rejecting his message.

And yet, he continued despite that, you know, ingratitude despite that condemnation, despite that,

you know, utter rejection, the humiliation that he received the violence, the threats that he received, he kept on going because he was sincere. He wants her to sincerely their salvation. And so he was able to be patient with it.

This reminds me of a hadith of prophesy Saddam where he compares himself to, or he compares, I should say, the people that he was sent to, to moths around the flame, and the flame is the fire of hell.

And the prophecies have been compared himself to somebody who's trying to hold back these moths from flying into the fire.

But they despite his well, you know, his good intentions are trying to throw themselves into the fire.

So this was the purity of the intentions of the prophets.

And this is demonstrated by his asking for forgiveness, because he also knows his people's situation. Right? It's not about him. He's not taking it like, oh, they reject me as a person. Well forget them. I hope they all go to hell, right. That's what you and I would say, we would take it personally. He's not taking it personally. He's so sincere. And he wants the guidance of His people so bad, that even when they make him bleed, even when they attack him and threatened his life, he's still asking Allah to forgive them.

Why? Because of their ignorance because their delusion, they're misled by their base self, their attachment to the dunya their attachment to who they think they are.

Etc, Etc cetera.

Now, this type of

amazing mercy that we don't see very much of these days does not preclude things like anger doesn't preclude things like warfare. Right? The prophesy seven got angry at them, the prophesy centum

went to war with them. He fought them, he killed them. Right? But, but it should tell you something that he did these things, even despite his feelings of sadness, and wanting to guide them, that everything that he did was for their own good was intended for their salvation.

And the final takeaway, perhaps from this hadith is that whenever you call to the truth, you're going to experience hardship.

And the prophets lead the way in this regard as examples for us. Right? It's too easy to choose the path of comfort and convenience. It's much much more difficult to choose the path

have righteousness, and candidness. And we experienced that as a minority in the West, probably every day.

Right? It's much, much easier to fly under the radar to do things that people expect everybody to do, than to have to explain why we do things differently, why we dress differently, why we eat differently, why we worship differently, why we marry differently, right? All these sorts of things.

So we should expect, right has to do with our expectation, some people, some people, they expect the wrong things. And so it sets them up, it actually is a challenge or a trial for their belief.

They expect to not be ever have to sacrifice anything, they expect to have it too easy. And so then when the world kind of

questions that

things get a little uncomfortable,

they start to question their faith.

Well, why is Islam so restrictive? And why does it say you know this about women and this and that, and the other, some people ask these questions simply out of

a love of convenience.

Because they would rather not have anything to differentiate themselves from broader society, they would rather be able to drink the alcohol, they would rather be able to take out the loan, they would rather be able to

have a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

Not wear distinctive clothing.

And so when a society is calling all towards one direction, which is not modesty, which is not faith, right? Society is calling to pretty much everything else except that

it becomes easier to interrogate the faith and to interrogate the society.

Well, why is it so I'm like that. So why do I have to do this? So why is it so restrictive? It's so you know, this is so backwards. This is Oh, this is just a tradition. Now, times have changed all this, all this all this.

It's very self serving, because it goes against your what's convenient for you.

This should not be taken to the opposite extreme either, though, because there are individuals and movements and communities and groups within the American Muslim scene that have taken this idea of the prophets experiencing difficulty and opposition in preaching the truth. They've taken that as a carte blanche or as a blank check, to act harshly

to act in an overbearing and insufferable manner. Right, this hadith, you cannot use this hadith to paper over your poor manners,

right? people

out of their own fitrah out of their own innate disposition, rejecting your poor manners is not the same thing as enduring hardship, because you're speaking the truth. No, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not.

And so we have a conception within our community of Dawa as this kind of announcement, I've announced the truth, and whether you accept it or not, I don't care. It's got nothing to do with me. You've heard the proof and Allah is going to judge you accordingly. Right?

Things are a little bit more complicated than that. The prophesy said, I'm said best Sheetal what a tuna Pharaoh.

Well, yes, you know what to ask you. He said, Make things easy for people and don't make things difficult.

And give glad tidings give good news to people and don't chase people away.

Right, this is the proper method of thou according to the prophets all the sudden, and we can't have any excuse for poor manners. We have to treat people with compassion. We have to treat people with mercy. We have to treat people with understanding, you know, people are coming from many people these days are coming from a an internal worldview that's so far away from Islam. You know, you have to

prioritize things. You have to do one issue at a time you have to be patient with people. They're inundated with media that portrays us as barbarians and you know, spousal abusers and everything else on Earth. So you have to be patient. We know that you have to go into the conversation knowing or expecting that people are going to have these misconceptions.

The following Hadith

I will say I read an Abu Huraira Nabila and Omar said that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Never a believer is stricken with a discomfort an illness an anxiety a grief, or mental worry or even the prick of a thorn. Accept

Allah will expiate his sins on account of his patients, Al Bukhari and Muslim. This is a very famous Hadith and it's a very foundational Hadith within our tradition.

It draws our attention back to the fact that patients, and this is what Imam Minogue is trying to teach us through this chapter, that patience is worship.

There is external worship of the body, and there's internal worship of the heart and the soul. And patience is worship from

the soul. It is internal worship.

And the consequence

of that worship is relief from sin.

Right, to be patient, to be able to endure something that is discomforting and difficult in this world,

no matter what it is, results in the relief of sin. Why? Because as just as we had in the previous

Hadith, this is a transferable skill, right? Being able to patiently endure something like an injury or a calamity or the loss of a loved one or a prick from a thorn,

is a transferable skill to be able to tolerate and endure the mistreatment of other people for trying to contribute and spread the truth and

be a good Muslim. They are transferable skills. And so if you build that skill, Allah subhanaw taala is going to reward you by extinguishing thereby, some of your sins.

It should also set our expectations and expectations are so important.

In this world last fall to Allah says in the beginning of sort of the anchor bolts, he tries to set our expectations, do the people think that they would be left so just say that we believe without being tried and tested, of course not.

Allah sponsor told us that the purpose of the creation labor, LUCAM Yocum axon or Amira, in order to test them to find out which of you is best, indeed, the only way to have this

or to have this separation or this distinction is through hardship.

And so we need to expect hardship we need to expect suffering to expect and anticipate these sorts of things in our lives, the small and the large, whether it's our health, our family,

even our religion, right, even our faith, we go through ups and downs. Sometimes we feel less committed, sometimes we feel more committed, sometimes we feel less short. Sometimes we feel more certain.

This is all part of life.

We need to set our expectations accordingly. And if we expect it, if we anticipate it, then the rational person, the smart person, the wise person will prepare for it. Right? They'll put away they'll work on their patience when it comes to the thorn prick. So that they build up that reservoir of patience when it comes to having to tell your daughter that she can't have a boyfriend. Right or having to tell your other you know, women in your circle, that maybe you're allowing that sort of thing that you're not going to allow certain things for your daughter or your son etcetera, etcetera.

The following Hadith

back to Abdullah ibn Massoud are the Allahu Anhu. He said that I visited the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam, when he was suffering from a fever.

I said, you seem to be suffering greatly. O Messenger of Allah, the prophesy. centum replied, Yes, I'm suffering as much as two people.

I said, is that because you have double the reward?

He replied,

that that was true. And then he said, No Muslim is afflicted by a harm, be it the prick of a thorn or something more painful than that. Except Allah thereby causes his sins to fall away, just as a tree sheds its leaves.

So a very, very similar Hadith, but there's a couple differences here.

One of the things that we observe is that it does not contradict patience, to observe or to remark about your suffering.

Right, we see the prophesy Saddam, he's asked by Abdullah Massoud is like, Are you Are you suffering, you seem to be suffering. And he doesn't just say, no, no, no, it's just the flesh wound. Right?

Or it's, you know, it's really all right. Hamdulillah you know, not that this is wrong. But we the province, like Saddam is teaching us here that it's okay. to remark and to observe. It's a fact what he says, Uh, yeah, I'm suffering. Yep. He's not despairing. He's not upset at Allah's decree. Right. This is internal worship. This is the thing that contradicts patients.

But to make an observation

is

perfectly fine. Especially when it comes to other people suffering.

Right?

We have a problem with this in the Muslim community, somebody confides in us and they tell us their problems. And we want to say the first thing is what be patience is to be patient.

Right? And we mean, well, oh, we mean, so we mean, like, we have such good intentions. Intention is not the problem. But, but it doesn't always leave room for the people to actually feel what they're experiencing. Some people need that recognition in order to process pain and move, move on.

To be able to say to somebody, it does not contradict patience, it's not wrong, to sell someone's like, Wow, you're really going through it. You are suffering, it's you're going through a really, really hard time.

And especially one thing that I try to coach the men of our community with, and this is something that's more difficult for us to engage with the suffering of our of our women in this way. Because we tend to want to jump to solution mode, well, you should just do this or this or that. Or you should know that this little fact about you know, this is going to be in your scale and the day of judgment. And we think that we solve the whole problem, right? But it's not like an appliance that needs to be fixed. That's not a nail that needs to be driven into the wall or a screw that needs to be turned, is a human being and their feelings, right. And so it requires a couple more intermediary

steps where it'd be we have to recognize sometimes like, Wow, you're really really having a hard time. Allah is testing you, this is really difficult. You're gonna feel sad, like you must feel so sad. Right? This has to be tearing you up inside, right? These sorts of things. We learned that from the Hadith, this is perfectly fine. There was no problem with it. This does not contradict patients. It doesn't contradict to what color reliance and Allah subhanaw taala. This is part of comforting other people. And I'm delighted when a surgeon says it. He says Prophet, you seem to be really suffering. And the prophesy. Someone confirmed just said, Yeah, I'm really suffering. I'm really

suffering over here.

But, but the important thing is that the prophesy centum maintains his internal reliance and his internal trust in Allah's plant. Right, that's the important point. That's the thing that Muslims are guarding against contradicting when they tried to move it along to the OB patient, Inshallah, it'll be over soon, or if this is your reward in the afterlife, etc, etc.

We also see that no one has given anything more than they can bear.

And this is something that's a very famous tenant of our faith that Allah has promised us time and time again, that he is going to give us what we what we need.

And that happens in a couple different ways. One of the ways is that the trials and tests that we experience are not

too much that we can't bear them. That's step one.

So the province lights on, um, he's given double

the pain and double the hardship, double the

the strife, because he can handle it.

But also, because these things are actually what we need.

They are opportunities and they are gifts that are given to us with purpose. Not just, you know, to see us in some sort of

crass way or cruel way. It's not like a child like torturing a bug or something like that. Last fall to Allah gives us hardship,

as opportunity because he knows that this life is going to end rather soon.

And we need it in the afterlife.

Great question. What about our youth with suicide? One of the best series of articles I've read on the discussion about Islam and suicide is written by Sheikh Joe Bradford, Chico Bradford is a graduate of South Korea, University of Medina with both a bachelor's and a master's in Islamic law, and he's been an imam in Florida and in Texas, and he's on some shorter boards. He's mashallah someone I look up to and respect very much. So.

He has an article on his website. I think it's Joe bradford.net. about suicide

and flushing it out in a

very detailed way, because we know obviously and this is something that's

emphasised by kind of the

the things that are more on the tongues and minds of Muslims, right? Particular Hadith about somebody who kills himself, they're going to be killing themselves that way, you know eternally in the afterlife, etcetera, etcetera, which, which

seems to me it seems to indicate the prohibition of suicide and its

potential consequences in the afterlife.

But Schaffer Jo brings other narrations that are less less known

to kind of fully

flesh out the discussion in a very, very nice way. So it's not so straightforward, right? It's not so straightforward. And everything has to be subsumed and subordinated under the general principle that a law does not give someone more than they can bear.

Now, you might be wondering, like, well, what does that mean, if someone's going to kill themselves? And doesn't that mean that Allah gave them more than they can bear? Well, what I'm trying to say by that is that a lost power to Allah knows best what people have to work with.

Right? And he knows best, what people are,

what is motivating them?

Right? If you've talked to people who are suicidal, you know, sometimes it's a mix of things. There's different motivations to commit suicide. Some people are doing it out of despair. Some people are convinced that they are bringing relief to their families, or other people in their lives by doing so some people are

or we should say that there are issues of mental illness involved. Right? And so all of these things are factors that need to be taken into account.

So I'm not sure if you know, our youth was suicide, you know, that's a

I'm not sure if I understood exactly which angle you wanted to talk about that phenomenon. But those are some of my

initial thoughts or recommendations, right.

And the discussion about suicide brings us to another topic, which I'll talk to anybody who's willing to listen, and that has to do with media, and normalcy, and how important it is to control or to at least influence what seems normal to your child. Right? Children should not have smartphones.

Children should not have

unrestricted access to the internet.

Or unsupervised access to the internet.

A lot of media today, especially a lot of social media glorifies glorifies suicide, and self harm.

Especially social media, things like Tumblr, and Twitter and etc, etc.

Right? So

a lot of times parents are behind the curve, right? I know that when I was growing up, technology, that was the first time when computers started moving into the household. And I knew how to use the internet and AOL Instant Messenger back in the day, and my parents didn't know anything about it. And I know that I did things that I shouldn't have done and was doing things that they wouldn't have been happy with. Right? Because they didn't know any better. Well, it's the same now.

Your kids know what they're doing and you don't, right. So you have to be extremely careful. You have to be extremely careful. And you have to guard what is normal to your child.

A normal child who has

the proper support the proper ecosystem,

of care of affection of

influences, you know, suicide is not really going to be on the map in sha Allah, unless there's issues of mental illness in place. What happens is when there's a sort of acculturation process, either through the schools, which many of us can't really avoid, but especially through especially through media,

where this sort of thing is, is glorified. It's seen as edgy, it's seen as cool, it's seen as

commendable. It's a vehicle for attention and pity and sympathy.

And so, somebody who feels the needs for those things, those emotional needs, have psychological needs, which are very real.

Everybody needs pity everybody needs sympathy.

Sometimes it becomes a subconscious thing where those are the methods by which young people attempt to gain that type of sympathy or

or pity or attention, etc, etc

was there anything else specifically in mind that you wanted to discuss related to suicide and the youth?

It's also a reminder as parents

it's also a reminder as parents to provide for our children's emotional health and mental health as much as we provide for their physical health, and they're kind of like careerist aspirations right? on our radar, right in the crosshairs is often the college education, the good grades, you know, etc, the extracurricular activities.

But making our child our children feel loved, making them feel understood, making them feel supported, giving them enough attention,

right.

Making them feel like they can have difficult conversations with you. This sometimes is much more important

to children than their career path.

And Sad to say, if your children don't find those sorts of things, or that kind of attention from you, or from a trusted adult, they will go looking for it elsewhere.

And they will find it elsewhere, sometimes in places that we would rather they not find it.

There's other things too, talking about

the general phenomenon of hopelessness. We live in a society right now, America in 2021, that has a lot of mental issues, a lot of mental suffering. And it's a result of a lot of factors. We don't need to get into it, we're nearing the end of class. But it's important to

build up your child's sense of who a lot is, and

not just who Allah is, but the scope of life on Earth.

Right.

When we don't have the proper perspective,

we kind of can slip into feeling like this is all we have this world.

And anybody who feels or experiences that this life is the only thing that we have this dunya

then they're going to be subjected to some hopelessness, a lot of hopelessness unless there's some one of the very, very few who's got a very, very easy life.

But even then, not a guarantee.

Because there's so much oppression in this world, there's so much inequality, there's so much ugliness, there's so much selflessness, there's so many wrong things that happen.

So someone who doesn't have a very robust belief, and I'm not talking about intellectual belief, like I think that's true. But like an awareness, and an embodiment of that belief that this world is meant to perish. This world, this life, this body is meant to die. It's all meant to be temporary.

And that thing inside of us that science really has no idea what it is called the soul

is the thing that's meant to endure.

And the afterlife is the real life.

That's the most grounding thing that we can give ourselves and our children, this kind of

awareness and lived reality moment to moment, because anybody who puts too much stock or loses their imagination for the afterlife and is too preoccupied in this life

is going to be subjected to despair and hopelessness.

These are very heavy topics and you know, they also if I can stump for another sort of thing, they also show the necessity of having a very robust messaging.

Right.

I am not a trained counselor. I'm not trained in counseling or mental health issue.

Use or things like that, right.

And so some of what I say might be insightful and some of what I say might be completely off.

And the healthiest religious nonprofit organizations are able to not just put up buildings, but also to staff them

with different types of professionals that are able to have different skill sets, those that have knowledge of the religion, those who have knowledge of psychology and have knowledge of counseling, and those sorts of services, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So

the more we build up our communities

and the people within those communities, the more we're going to be able to

absorb

these types of pressures and these types of things, the better we're going to be able to deal with them

anyone have any other questions?

I mean, the last part of the hadith is very self explanatory. You know, it's the same idea just put with another beautiful imagery, imagery, this time of leaves falling from a tree. So the one who was able to endure their sins will fall away, like the leaves off of a tree.

We ask a lot for aid and assistance and to make us

beneficial parts of our community and to come together and to

put ourselves and our children in a position to succeed not just in the dunya but in the afterlife.

Okay, thank you very much everybody. Insha Allah I'll see you next time said I'm welcome to the Hebrew Academy.