Tom Facchine – Riyadh al-Saliheen and Women’s Q&A #36
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The transcript is difficult to summarize as it appears to be a jumbled mix of class time and everyone is busy. The conversation is difficult to follow and appears to be a lot of class time. The speakers discuss leadership and the importance of being present, and the importance of being present. The conversation is difficult to follow and appears to be a lot of class time. The participants discuss various topics, including data, data, data items, and leadership, and are not allowed to participate. The participants are not allowed to participate, and the participants are not allowed to participate. The participants are not allowed to participate, and the participants are not allowed to participate.AI: Transcript ©
Rahim
Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen
wa Salatu was Salam. Ashraful MBI almost saline Marina good listener Muhammad Ali he also said I was listening Allahumma LM Davina and fentanyl and fentanyl be my ILM tena was in many out of the land. I mean, Saddam when they come off to LA, everybody.
Welcome to
our Thursday night women's class. Glad to have everybody with us. Hope you're all doing well. And during the rain.
We left off in the chapter of patience and dealing with some hard hitting stuff, the last couple of weeks.
Really enjoyed the
back and forth about some of the things that we've been talking about. So
I encourage you to keep that up any sort of thing that is on your mind, or things that we're dealing with, I mean, these are
interesting times we live in. So
let it rip, if there's any sort of thing that's been weighing on your mind that you want to talk about, that's related to what we're discussing or not, as the case may be.
I'm always happy to as I tell your children when I teach them in Sunday school and the other programs that we have, I'd rather spend our time addressing what's on your mind, What's weighing you down, then getting through what I've prepared.
So please avail yourselves of that
just go live here live stream
Okay, let me share screen translation of
people with glasses when they do zoom, there's always that glare from the screen so
take my glasses off to reduce the glare
Okay, have you seen number 39 This is from a Google writer or the Allahu Anhu who said that the Prophet Muhammad saw him said, he whom Allah intends good, he makes him or causes him to suffer some affliction, something of affliction, right, like a certain amount of affliction or hardship we could say.
So this is a fairly straightforward Hadith, it's very short, but its meaning is important to our
orientation, towards life and towards suffering. Right. One of the things that I bring up probably, you know, you're probably
I bring up often is that
a lot of our society these days
encourages us to avoid
hardship, pain, anything of the sort, right?
Medicine and the pharmaceutical industry has been doping people for decades, right?
pain meds, these things are you know, prescriptions are in very, very, very easily. We don't like pain.
We don't like death. We don't like talking about death.
We don't like the idea of pain at death. Right when we want to console ourselves about somebody who's died we say Oh, well, you know, they passed in their sleep or they passed kind of
without any suffering or without any pain, right? We they whether in the nursing home or the hospital or whatever, they up the morphine or whatever, so that the person who's dying doesn't feel any pain.
This is
not a universal concepts. The Prophet SAW said him said that a believer dies with sweat on their brow.
Right. And there's this kind of sense within, within
Islam, that kind of the moment of truth for the moment that our lives are leading up to is kind of this parting of the soul. Right? Which is kind of like, you know,
the last, the last hurdle, right, the last big test, test. And both when it comes to the physical sensations of pain,
right, they call it Sackler to remote in Arabic, right, the throes of death.
Translated idiomatically right, both both spiritually and physically, there's something really intense going on.
Right. And we're not instructed in our tradition to try to avoid that. That confrontation.
We're not instructed to try to avoid that pain, or to minimize it, but rather to try to meet it head on and to try to be patient and to ask a lot of help and assistance and to get us through it.
Right. So
there's a certain orientation,
towards pain and towards hardship
that we have in the society that is somewhat at odds with the orientation towards pain and hardship that we have in a slump.
Right.
Our society is heavily influenced by the logic of capitalism.
And so lots of things are talked about or thought about or even felt about, according to how efficient they are, and how productive they are. Right? Anybody who's a stay at home mom experiences this, when they have that uncomfortable conversation with non Muslims. So what do you do? Oh, well, I, I just stay at home. Right, we always have to feel like we have to apologize and add the just as if the work of rearing children and raising human beings and being a full time
parent is somehow less because it's not monetized. It's not commodified, like other types of labor.
The way that this society treats children, it puts them up on a pedestal in a very interesting way that most traditional societies don't most traditional societies value the elders, because they're a repository of wisdom and guidance and instruction, experience. However, our society kind of has flipped it on its head. Why? Because people who are past their productive age, have nothing left to quote unquote, contribute to the economy.
Whereas the youth are tomorrow's wage earners. Tomorrow's you know,
producers. And so they're kind of
held up as the future, right, which is true in and of itself, but the balance is a little bit off.
Right. And so we hate sickness, and we hate
suffering, and we hate hardship
in our society, because it interferes with efficiency and interferes with productivity. Right? There's a joke that I saw, I'm sure you guys have seen it, if you're on social media, or it's like, somebody who's from Europe, for example.
If there, what an away message looks like, like, in Europe, it's like, I'm going camping for the summer, like, I'll respond to your emails come fall.
And then in America, like what an American away message would would look like, which is, you know, I'm going into the hospital for a kidney transplant. I'll have my cell phone on.
Right? And it's funny, and why is it funny? Because it's true. Why is it true, because we really are affected by kind of looking at everything through efficiency and productivity. And there's reasons for that, that's outside of the scope of this class, but it affects it affects how we deal with hardship and affliction.
We want to get away, we don't want it in our lives. And this hadith is telling us something slightly different.
That
first of all, we need to expect it right like things. It's almost as if
we expect our whole lives to go by, you know, with health is the assumption, right? Ease is the assumption productivity is the assumption. And then we're kind of like shocked when illness happens, loss happens, injury happens, etc, etc.
Right? We're kind of
led to believe that we should always be kind of at our peak.
Whereas a lost part of the other.
And the profit slice that I'm here in this hadith is setting up our expectations for something slightly different.
First of all that hardship is decreed. And a lot is a portion. It's a fundamental fact of life and human experience. Everybody has their share. And it's already written, yeah, it's already destined for you, it's not going to, there's nothing you can do. There's no pill you can take, there is no strategy that you can employ. No matter how many sun salutations you do in the morning, you're going to get your, your share of hardship, right, which is a very,
which is a message that somewhat contrary to a lot of other messages we receive in society.
So it's setting our expectations up, in one sense. And then the other thing that it's doing
is that it is showing the value of that hardship and affliction. The hardship and affliction is not simply an obstacle. It's not simply a detour. It's not simply an anomaly, right? It's not like, there's the rest of our lives, which is actually us living our lives. And then there's our hardship, which kind of got in the way.
Right? No, the hardship and affliction is very, very much the part of the living that we're supposed to be doing.
And then, the Hadith also in an extremely short amount of space, tackles the the problem of what's called theodicy which is, okay if Allah is supposedly good, all good, perfectly good, then why does He allow bad things to happen?
Especially to good people?
And the answer seems absolutely maddeningly crazy at first, before we think about it a little more carefully.
After which it starts to makes a little bit sense is that Allah does these things because he loves people.
What?
That doesn't make any sense. At first glance, how would the hardship that you're given be a sign of love.
And what's missing from the calculus of people that can't see hardship as love
is the reality of the afterlife.
This is something that we come back to time and time again, we see the essential nature of belief in the afterlife to any idea of morality.
And how if you remove or extract or subtract the belief in the afterlife, everything goes to
two pieces right away. All of a sudden life becomes brutal and harsh and nonsensical. How can someone make sense of hardship? Or value hardship if they don't believe in the afterlife?
Because for us, for people who believe people have faith, this isn't the real life. This is the game, right? This is the PlayStation or the Xbox. This is your character, right? This is your avatar, this body that you have. And it's like an RPG and you're like running around and you're talking to people. Can I buy this? Or should I sell this right? You know, that's what this life is. But except just building up your coins and buying little fun things, we're actually saving up for another realm another completely different existence in the afterlife after this one dies.
So for a person of faith who believes in the afterlife, it all fits together at all make sense?
The hardship is here for a reason. It's necessary, it's essential.
And it's a actually proves
the love from our Creator.
And it is an opportunity
it's an opportunity.
How is it an opportunity because
every as we had just a couple of Hadith ago, we were talking about, you know, every single little thing that somebody is patient with even with the prick of a thorn.
This is something that's going to weigh in your scale, that day of judgment is something that's going to make your sins and disobedience and and you know you're in decencies fall away in the afterlife, and it's going to lead to your salvation and your bliss.
So we see how everything is layered on top of one another.
And everything comes back to what you believe. This is something that we dealt with in the Sunday class or the are all
After the one book that we're studying, he made a provocative or what would be considered an hour time a provocative statement. He says that everything starts with believing in something beautiful.
And belief in the afterlife is one of the most beautiful things that there is.
And if you don't have belief in the afterlife, this can't make sense, this existence, the hardship that we suffer the tragedy, the separation, the loneliness, the mourning, the loss, the grief, it doesn't make sense, it can't make sense.
But when we know that there's something better, something different, something lasting, something eternal, that's around the corner, all of a sudden, that makes sense.
This is here for my edification, this is here for my own good, this is here for my
an opportunity to either prove what I have built up, up until this point, or as a reminder that I better start, yeah, putting away from my afterlife.
And so within that kind of network of meanings, or constellation of meanings or way of seeing the world, that worldview, that's love. If Allah didn't love you, he wouldn't even give you those opportunities.
It's like a parent, right? And many of us are parents, sometimes you have to be a jerk to your kids. Sometimes, because you know that you're teaching them a really, really important life skill, or you're doing something that's very, very important. If you wanted to give them ice cream every day. For dinner, you could you'd be a hero, you'd be like the most favorite parent ever. But would that be good for them? Would that be in their best interest?
No, of course it wouldn't. And so you have to fight with them about the vegetables and you have to say, okay, take three more bites of the green and then one more bite of the orange. And then after that you can maybe have some X, Y or Z. Right you negotiate you beg you do whatever, you know parenting tactic that you've that suits your predisposition, or that you think is going to work.
Because you see something the child can't see, you see a long term interest that the child can only see their short term immediate interest. It's the same thing with with Allah and us, Allah sees our learning or our long term interest. If he wanted, he could have made our lives free of hardship, he could have made our lives easy.
But that wouldn't be in our long term benefit. That wouldn't be in our long term interest that would only be to our detriment, we wouldn't have any opportunities by which to
earn our own salvation.
Or distinguish ourselves spiritually.
or
obtain the mercy of our Creator.
So very short Hadith, but there's a lot there.
Number 40.
The next Howdy,
the province, I said, check out the order of the author, Imam and know how he's balancing things out. Okay. So like, if you if you really internalize how the 39 you might get a little carried away, right? You might go out looking for hardship. Actually, there's oh man, there was someone who was, I knew that actually kind of did this, they made a DUA, and they actually kind of made things very, very, very hard on themselves.
When it was completely unnecessary, and so we have in the 40s, Hadith,
the kind of caveat, or the other side, bringing us back to equanimity and equilibrium and not letting us go to either extreme ins reports, or the Allahu Anhu of the messenger of allah sallallahu sallam said, Let not one of you wish for death because of a misfortune which befalls him.
If that person can't help doing so then at least let them say, Oh Allah, keep me alive as long as you know that life is better for me, and make me die when death is better for me.
So there's a couple of things here. The first is don't go looking for death. Don't go looking for that hardship.
Okay.
Allah has already decreed exactly what's going to come to you. You don't need to go looking for trouble. Right? It's not going to help you out.
And then secondly, what the prophesy Saddam was talking about here, he's talking about an internal aspect of worship.
Which is always at least as important, if not more important, than the external acts of worship, such as bowing down and such as you know, going down in our faces and etc, etc.
And the internal aspect of worship that the prophesy said I was talking about here is despair,
despair and its opposite
Help.
So why would such a person a person seek death? Okay, someone might seek death because they're looking for that hardship like we just kind of mentioned, or someone might just be, and this addresses sister Samira has kind of line of conversation are questioning last week,
somebody who's just tired of it all,
somebody who has fallen into such despair.
And this has become widespread these days, that they want life to end.
The prophesy Saddam is trying to inform us that our hope and our despair
is an act of worship.
And it's connected to the last Hadith because
a person who has fallen into despair, they have failed to see the love.
They have failed to see the love and the purpose behind the hardship that they experience.
Why me?
Everything always happens to me. This isn't fair.
Right, all of this kind of opposition to Allah's decree. And
what we learned from the last Hadith, Allah is doing it for that person's own good, but they can't see it. They have trusted their own assessment
over a loss
as for what is the best thing for them.
And of course, Allah sees the
the entire road, he sees the destination where we only see what's right in front of us.
But if we have this thing where we trust too much in our own assessment,
where to come confident, that this is bad, that I don't deserve this.
This shouldn't happen to me.
I never hurt anybody. I never did anything wrong.
If we're too confident in that sort of assessment, then we're we failed internally, more much more important than the things that we say.
We have a failure internally.
When it comes to our humble submission to Allah's wisdom, and his decree, and also our giving up hope, to imagine that Allah is not merciful. And he's told us in every single chapter, Why did Allah subhanaw taala say Bismillahi Rahmani Raheem? In every chapter except one 113 out of 114 chapters in the Quran.
Allah subhanaw taala could have chosen any of the other names. He could have said Bismillah hillage A battle kaha. Right in the Name of Allah, the Compeller the destroyer.
Right there, he could have chosen the
Shahidullah cob and you know the severe and punishment he could have chosen any of His Names any of his qualities. No, he chose our rough man or Rahim, what do you think he wants you to learn about him?
What do you think he wants you to realize is the most essential thing about him.
His love and His mercy.
So a person who has fallen into despair, they've stopped seeing the love and the mercy or they don't trust it.
They imagine a loss like a person
in the sense that
maybe this is out of negligence. Maybe this isn't what I need. Maybe this is abandonments, maybe Allah has abandoned me
when the reality is that Allah Spano, Tala is only trying to help you.
By giving you what we what you need, are giving us what we need and everything that we have is exactly what we need for the trip. It's all provision.
We're going to die.
All that stuff that you own.
Your relatives are going to be going through your drawers and going through your closets and divvying it up, given some goodwill, given some to your relatives.
And life goes on.
Allah knows what you need for that journey.
And he's trying to give it to us. And we're kind of like No, no, no, no, like the kid with a spoonful of broccoli, trying to reject it.
Allah tries, tries the people that he loves, and the Companions they used to be afraid. If things in their life in their in their lives were too easy.
If everything was going perfect, if everything was smooth sailing, they used to get afraid. They actually used to get afraid because they knew this
They realize that that's not what this life is for. That's not what this dunya is for.
The next Hadith that we have
from the companion of the Abdullah hubub in the Arab, or the Allahu Adho. He said that the that we can play into the Prophet sallallahu Sallam regarding the persecution inflicted upon us by the disbelievers while he was lying in the shade of the Kaaba. So here's the scene, we're in Mecca. The prophesy Saddam's in the shade of the Kaaba, because it's really hot. The early Muslims come to the prophesy said, I'm complaining about all the persecution that they are experiencing, because of their faith.
And he at that time, he had made a pillow out of his cloak, so he was resting.
We said to him, why don't you supplicate for our victory? For our
prevalence over the opponents? Why don't you just make dua and make this whole thing over?
The prophets I seldom replied to them,
among the people before you,
a man will be seized and held in a pit dug for him in the ground, and he will be sawed in two halves from his head.
And his flesh will be torn away from his bones with an iron comb. But despite this, he would not turn away from his faith.
I swear by Allah Allah will bring this matter to its consummation or its completion.
Until we get to a point where a rider will travel from sunup to have little mouths to places in Yemen, fearing none except Allah
and accept the wolf for his sheep, but you are in too much of a hurry.
And pretty intense Hadith.
The Companions, they come to complain about the persecution that they're enduring.
And the prophesy said, I'm pretty much told tells them quit your whining.
You all are too hasty.
One of the things we benefit from this hadith is that we should never expect to fit in
as people of faith. And we see this more and more and more every single day.
I mean, even 50 years ago, if you read the Hadith, that Islam came as something strange, and it will return to something strange in the end time, so give good good tidings or glad tidings to the strangers.
You know, even like 50 years ago, well thought, What do you mean like What's so strange, most of the world, fairly monotheistic, or at least nominally monotheistic,
right? Religious faith or faith in the afterlife, pretty much a given.
Even traditional society was something that
was considered, you know, an ideal, even if it was failing in some parts of the world.
Even in this short time, 2021 Everything's flipped on its head. We see things being questioned, that were never questioned before. We see things being uprooted
and destroyed. Tradition.
belief in the afterlife, belief and revelation, belief in the family,
belief in gender, belief and sexuality, all these sorts of things. Everything has come under scrutiny. Everything has come under question. And everything is being remade in a very, very radical way.
And so, one of the things from this hadith is that we shouldn't ever expect to fit in the prophesy. Saddam did not expect to fit in he expected the persecution to come.
So By what right do we expect to fit in here in the United States or in North America
this like everything else in Islam has to be
dealt with with wisdom and under the
the guiding principle of moderation, right, we're not belligerent. We're not provocative. We're not trying to offend or
these sorts of things.
The prophesy son, I'm actually condemned.
What's he called labasa chakra, which is kind of like
clothing that is so odd that it would make people like turn their head towards you while you're walking down the street.
And he said that the Sunnah of
clothing is the clothing of your people. So there is some sort of conformity or there is some sort of
blending in that is that is praiseworthy.
But there's other types of blending in that are not praiseworthy, or blameworthy, that has to do with truth and falsehood.
Right? Society is telling us that
gender can be remade from nothing. Biology has nothing to do with gender. Fathers are,
you know, non essential family members,
that
faith is really just about
being a good person being nice, right?
And community, these sort of functionalist, materialist benefits that people have admitted to that they can't get around from religion, as opposed to the things that we believe in, such as the afterlife, such as Tauheed, the oneness, the liberatory, oneness of Allah, these sorts of things.
We should expect to stick out.
And we shouldn't be afraid to stick out.
Especially when we have it so easy.
Right, relatively, relatively speaking.
We have a, we live in a nation where there are certain due process rights. And there are certain protections under law that we can avail ourselves of.
We don't have to worry about,
at least at the present moment, I'll at least speak for Central New York,
a pit being dug and us being thrown into the pit or sought into because of our faith. If you go back to
Spain, after the Reconquista, right. That's what people were dealing with. If you go back to, you know, this is the Inquisition, if you go back to other places and times in history, this is what people dealt with.
And us, we get shy, to ask to pray at work.
And we get shy to write a letter to our school asking to have our kids excused for Joomla.
Or for eat, or to be taken out of class where some sort of quote unquote health class is going to
teach our kids about
new, radical ideologies regarding gender and sexuality. We feel shy, we don't want to stick out.
What are we afraid of? The prophesy Saddam
is trying to set our expectations that if you believe in something,
and if you believe in
the truth that a law sent, you're not always going to be popular.
You're going to stick out.
And just like the previous Hadith when it comes to our relationship to hardship,
is this something that we should be belligerently seeking out? No. But it's it's something that we should be avoiding and issuing and kind of afraid and
turning away from now. It's something that
we should be aware of expect and prepare ourselves for, so that when it does come, we can meet it. We can meet it head on.
And we can deal with it with dignity, because there's no dignity. There's no dignity
in just simply being bullied into
whatever is conventional wisdom, whatever is the the group think of today.
There's no dignity in it individually, and there's no sustainability in it when it comes to our children and what they're going to end up believing.
But that sticking out. Again, it all comes back to belief in the afterlife. We're promised something. We're promised that there's going to be a payoff that whatever awkwardness, whatever we have to suffer in terms of glares and stares or comments or, or
let's say the prevention of access. Maybe you won't get the promotion
because you stick out
because you're a nonconformist, maybe you'll even lose a job or to
whatever it is that you give up in this life. We have a promise from Alaska to Allah that he's going to compensate us
multiple times over in the afterlife for whatever
We have given up
the second thing that we benefit from this hadith is timing.
Right? We said that we only see what's right ahead of us. Allah sees the whole road and so we have our own sense of timing we believe that it should have happened yesterday
and the Companions here they come to the prophesy Saddam and they want it done say look, and they suffered, you know, I boubakeur got choked out the prophesy, Saddam got stuff thrown on him, I was praying, they got beat up, they got all these sorts of things, threats to their lives. It's not a joke, right? It's not just about a microaggression, or being, you know, offended or whatever.
Like they real persecution and he's telling them
in a lost time, not in your time, you all are being too hasty.
Allah said Sparta Allah in the end of sort of the Toba, he said that the people of faith have purchased paradise with their bodies have purchased it, the unwelcome or unforeseen with your wealth and your bodies, our lives, our money, our resources, everything we dedicated towards, it's a trade.
It's just one big transaction.
We put it in the service of Allah, and we expect that allows going to repay us in full and then some on the day of judgment.
And then the final aspect of this hadith, and then we'll just open it up for any questions.
The miracle of prophecy, the prophesy Saddam in this stage of the Islamic movement, Islam was not clearly going to be victorious. Right. I mean, they were a small band of believers that were very, very persecuted. They didn't know where support was going to come from, they didn't know where safety and security was going to come from.
It was not a foregone conclusion, that they would even be able to survive, let alone spread. To the point where even far away Yemen
would be
the house of the faithful, or within the polity, the Islamic polity, was not a foregone conclusion. The other prophesy son, I'm here is chillin, in the shade of the Kaaba, relaxing on his pillow, telling us companions that this is going to happen.
It's a miracle because it couldn't have been known ahead of time. It's also leadership. Because leadership focuses on the vision and getting people to subscribe to the vision without getting lost in the how of things.
Let a lot take care of the how
it's not able to 100% ascertain how things are going to happen. You believe in the vision, you have a good intention, you work the things that are apparent to work towards and allows fall to Allah is going to find a way.
And I guess we should probably stop there. Because that's the
normal a lot of class time. But please, I would love to hear any of your questions, thoughts, comments, concerns?
Good. Excellent. Very good question. My sister Samira, You briefly mentioned that everything is already written. I've seen some Muslims go too far. Right? For example, they don't take precautions during this pandemic. How do we balance destiny and owning our actions?
No problem by accident.
Because Allah subhanaw taala created the universe with a law or with laws, multiple laws gravity, one of those laws like well, laws of thermodynamics, right? And cause and effect, cause and effect is one of these laws. Okay? So to not pursue
the causes that Allah has clearly created for something is joking, it's playing around, and it's blameworthy and lost power to Allah blames people for it in the Koran.
Right. What does the law say? And sort of a strat, he says that the people who believe
and act Satya Kuma school, right, and they're they act in the appropriate way.
Right, that their efforts will be their efforts will be
thanked or will be appreciated.
Right so somebody who and the thing is here's the other thing, if you're trying to to
dialogue with somebody
who makes this mistake, they're never consistent.
In all aspects of their lives, right when it comes to making money.
Try to tell somebody to not take the means when it comes to making money, tell them to just stay at home and raise their hands to the sky and ask for a lot to provide risk like he did from IBM. Right? They won't do it. Why? Because they know, deep down, they know that Allah created everything with cause and effect. Or when it comes time to get married,
who's going to be just sitting at home, waiting by the phone or waiting for someone to walk through the door? That's madness. No one does that. Everybody understands.
Everybody understands that the universe has to do with cause and effect. And the law expects you to take those causes. But people selectively all of a sudden, in an area where
they get a little lazy.
Or they don't want to be bothered by the work. Then all of a sudden, they say oh, it's called Allah, Masha, Allah, these sorts of things. Yes, go ahead. Oh, sorry, you're gonna say something.
Right. So hold people to consistency, you can't have it both ways. Right? If you're going to act like if you're going to claim everything is written, then I want to see somebody living like that throughout every aspect of their lives. I've never met anyone like that. Usually people when it comes to the things that they place importance on, they realize that yeah, you have to work you have to get busy you have to take the means but the things what they want to kind of absolve themselves of responsibility and avoid accountability all of a sudden now it's Oh, that's a law as well or it's not a law as well or whatever.
One is best hopefully I don't know if that's helpful or not.
Any other questions?
Comments?
Okay, everybody, remember that we have a potluck community potluck coming up. This Saturday 1pm. At Cheryl Brook Park in New Hartford.
In sha Allah, I hope you're able to make it it's going to be a good time in sha Allah. And thank you very much for your participation. A lot of data item, so don't want to come
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