Walead Mosaad – Session 3 Beautiful Islam
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AI: Transcript ©
Sam
Smith from Elohim hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen Allahumma salli wa
sallim wa barik ala negocio Rahmatullah. Let me say you didn't
know or have you been a karate you need to call it golden hygiene.
What's your favorite most new been?
Well saw her beloved Mahmoud would have loaded so you did Hamid in
Abdullah while early was hobby one after the other we had to he was
telling me sooner to medium. Tara can Mahajan by law LELO hochanda.
Hurry her learning as you on her Illa Halleck, we're back. So thank
you, CDU for helping us commence this third session of beautiful
Islam. And in the past two sessions, we touched up what we
thought were some points of context that would be important
for where we're going with this. And we had mentioned I think a
little bit about
some of the difficulties in practicing Islam today
that many of our spaces, as it were, have become
free fraught with difficulties stemming from different
interpretations of Islam and sometimes even to the level of
polemics and sectarianism.
There seems to be sometimes a gap between our ability to
take the pristine teachings of the prophets, I send them and then
apply them for our own purposes and our own context. The dearth of
qualified teachers doesn't help that either.
The rigors of our life that are driven by different factors,
though technology technologically driven, but we find ourselves kind
of losing a little bit of our ability to be basically human, I
think, in many of these instances. But we know the promise of Islam
is true. And we know that
Islam, you must not have localism. And again, that Islam can rectify
the last of the Ummah, just as it can rectify the first of the
ummah. And so these principles are timeless. Yet, Allah subhanaw
taala also acts access to exert fish the head. In other words, we
have to do a little bit of work in order to see and to apply these
principles and how they relate to our specific circumstances. And
the this fish the head, or this exertion of effort, will not be
without facing challenges, our predecessors face challenges,
perhaps different sorts of challenges. But nonetheless, they
did face challenges, and we too, will face different types of
challenges. So
this life was not meant to be a cakewalk, or something just quite
easy that we can stroll through without any pain without any
suffering without any difficulties. But rather, these
things that we do find us in our lives of difficulty and suffering
and pain, both physical and emotional, perhaps even spiritual
is all part of the design the divine plan behind this higher
dunya right, and it was not called dunya, except minute DUNU was not
called dunya meaning and it's the lowest
form of existence. And we were created for the higher form of
existence that the life of the afterlife, but
we are put here as a means and as a test so that we can make it to
that afterlife. And so, if we feel uneasy if we feel out of place, if
we feel that like a stranger in this life, then those are actually
signs of Eman.
Their signs of belief, to the degree that the Prophet SAW Selim
even told us
confront dunya cantilever ibcp Okay Mark also be in this world
like a stranger or someone just passing through and ideally, we
see this passing through as an opportunity, we see this passing
through as a gift from Allah subhanaw taala and one that was
given to us specifically, each single one of us could have been
given to somebody else, but it was given to us specifically. And so,
one of the most important motivators then and drivers for us
to make it through inshallah successful in this life will to
was to show our gratitude towards Allah subhanaw taala. And he
accords us many opportunities by which we can do just that. So he
did not leave us to our own devices. He did not leave us to
try to figure things on our own. But he revealed his words to us
and He will
wield his words to us, via people who are like us, but at the same
time, not like us. So people who resemble us in form, but in
meaning, and in their abilities to,
to convey the divine meanings and the divine words and to hold
themselves to task for those divine commands and prohibitions.
They're not like us. And of course, I'm talking about the
messengers and the prophets. And of course, the greatest of them
all, Muhammad Sallallahu. wasallam is very, his name means praise.
His name means the one who is the most praised. And so,
you know, our dean really centers around praise and gratitude, and
muhabba and love, and mercy. These are the main themes
of the teachings, and they do not center around anger and intercom
and revenge. And
even our concept of justice is important. But it is measured as
compared to divine justice. Divine justice is exacting. It never
fails. It is precise,
it will always hit its mark. But human justice or justice that is
sought by humans is none of those things. It will always be
relative, it will always be flawed, it will always be missing
the mark somehow. And so Allah Spotify doesn't ask us to seek or
to try to
enact divine justice, he has left that task for him. But what he has
asked us to do is to try to embody as much of the Divine Mercy as
much as possible of his Rama by even the way the manner by which
we invoke his name. When we say Bismillah he in the name of Allah
al Rahman Rahim, we don't say Bismillah al Jabbar alcohol, we
don't say Bismillah and Monteith him, and we'll talk a bit and
these are also Divine Names of Allah subhanaw taala. But that
which we usually start any act that is of any merit, of any
worth, as mentioned in the Hadith. We begin it by Bismillah R Rahman.
r Rahim.
So
this is central, I believe, and and essential, Central and
essential to really practicing
Islam. And you know, we call it beautiful Islam, but to me, that's
almost it's not almost it is redundant.
Islam is beautiful. We don't have to call it beautiful. But
due to our circumstances, and due to, I think the misconceptions and
misinterpretations and sometimes misconstruing of the beautiful
aspects of the deen and turning them to something else, then it
became I think, necessary incumbent to at least tried to
point these things out.
So
Allah subhanaw taala, sent the messengers, and he made them
people like us, and He sent them to not only be
messengers and carriers of that divine message, so not just
carrying it to us, but actually showing us how to implement it,
showing us how to live it, showing us how to be the best version of
ourselves. And in those in that scripture, specifically the Quran,
Allah subhanaw taala has shown us how to go about
discerning the reality around us. And the ultimate reality being
that Allah subhanaw taala our wives who have had our Mo Jude
bellewholesale worship will route the ultimate reality being that
Allah subhanaw taala x one, and he is
existent, and that he is necessary and not just necessary is not just
existing, but his existence is necessary, there would be none of
this, there would be no cone without an Mooka when there would
be no Hulk without alcoholic, there will be no Surah without an
MUSAWAH. So there'd be no forms without the one who made the
forms, there would be no creation without the Creator. And there
would be no cone there will be no existence or being of any kind,
except for the one who puts things into existence and will call when
then Allah subhanaw taala. And so, if all those things are true, and
we understand that, then Allah subhanaw taala also has given us
certain tools by which we can discern that certain tools by
which we can go about understanding that. So
you know, if we look at the let's call it the crisis of knowledge
that we have today, in the era of what some are calling post truth
and false news and
And
relativism and nihilism and
all of these things that the academy talks about that seem to
be ever increasing.
I think the main issue is discerning truth from falsehood.
So determining what this person is saying, or what this particular
group of people or institution, or what have you, what is what
they're saying, Is it true? Can we put any trust in it? Or can we not
trust it? And the second theme would be discerning the real from
the distorted and manipulated? Or what we're seeing, is it real? Or
is it not real? Is it imagined?
can it only be real if we have physical access to it? Or can we
discern it to reality, by other means, and these are kind of the
the big questions that we struggle with. We were talking about
discerning reality.
And the crisis of knowledge today affecting believers and non
believers alike, namely, discerning truth from falsehood,
knowing what to believe and what not to believe, especially from
whether a source is trusted, or, or is to be trusted, or not to be
trusted? Or should I trust my instincts? Or should I trust what,
whatever particular
I derive with, with my intellect? Or should that not be trusted, I
think people have issues with that. And also discerning the real
from the distorted and or manipulated. So also, not just the
truth of things, but the reality of things to that level. And we
had mentioned that,
you know, people have all sorts of words to describe the crisis, as
it were, that we're facing today with relativism and post truth and
fake news. And now this thing called Deep fakes, and,
you know, what is one how is one to contend in the midst of all of
that. And I think these are issues that are important to think about.
And we have the tools
as believers, and as followers of Muhammad SAW, I send them he has
given us those tools. And he took great pains on our side limb to
even point out the distortions that would come later.
And
he said that the model would become Munkar and amonkar, would
become model or in the eyes of people, that people will see that
which is good that which is pure as the opposite, as monka as
contemptible. And they'll see the key contemptible as something that
is pure, and something that is good.
In a sense, I believe the prophets are certain was was telling the
Companions at the time, who really probably did not have a frame of
reference for understanding how that can even be possible. And
then on more than one occasion, they asked him, you know, like,
when he said that, we would be like,
we would be affected by one, right by great weakness. And the
Companions asked him, Are we going to be a small number? You know,
how's that going to be possible? You know, we're going to be weak,
and we're going to be like,
like the dinner table, and there will be different parties and
others coming for us. They couldn't imagine that.
So he said, No, we're not going to be a small number, we're going to
be like, what that is saying, we're going to be like the, the,
the waves that crash along the the beachhead, and then the, you know,
the suds that are left afterwards, after the wave retreats. So that
type of weakness. And that's very important. You know, we often talk
about
the hadith of Gibreel. And the three aspects of Islam that are
mentioned in it, namely Islam, amen, and SN but there's actually
four aspects. Amen is them SN Well, ultimately sash about the
signs of the hour. And this was so important that Gibreel
Alehissalaam asked the Prophet so I said,
and even asked him what I say I said, Man, Massoud Adam, Lena
said, I don't know any more than you do, about what is going to be.
Then he said, when young Emirati tell me about the signs of it. And
then he went on and gave a few of the signs and led me to a better
then you find the the barefoot, destitute, naked
Bedouins building tall buildings and so forth. So
all of that indicates that this was an important aspect of the
dean and remains an important aspect of the deen because people
then might tend to question the reality and might tend to question
the
the truth pneus of the deen of Islam because we're under the
assumption that if we do all these things, right, if we practice the
deen faithfully, then these things should line up.
But nevertheless, the prophesy centum informs us No, not
necessarily so. So then what is left to say what is going to line
up and what is going to feel right
And we looked at the other Hadith of the Prophet sorry send them one
of the others anyway and he said, let is L for everything Almighty
vahidi And I don't have law you have a Google Allah, you're the
Roman Yeah, hello, oh chemical source and there will be a group
of the believers, Vahid ina either hack, they will be upholding the
hack. In other words, hack could mean the real and the true. So
they'll know what's real, and they will know what's true. And they
will not be harmed by those who don't.
They will not be harmed by those who don't. And this is similar to
the verse in the Quran. Yeah, who knows Dena mo Alikum enforcer who
lie I don't recommend Allah, either if the data is after data,
yeah, you will Edina Mn O who believe
lie at the local members, you will not be harmed by those who go
astray, either after day two, if you are upon guidance, if you are
upon guidance. So I think this is extremely, extremely important
critical for us. To be aware of that it's critical for us to teach
that to our children.
We cannot just, I think hand our children some sort of utopia that
we think how things are going to turn out they should be critically
aware of, of the failings and the shortcomings of the modern world.
And all that means and definitely of our culture and
the pressures that we find ourselves, specifically, you know,
in the realm of education, whether it be public education, or
university education, and many of the themes now that are being
emphasized that clearly pose some difficulty and challenges to us as
Muslims. And as believers, these are important things, and these
are things we have to teach our children and at the same time, not
to be spiteful, not to be angry, not to be resentful, but rather,
to uphold these teachings to the best of our ability to remain
compassionate, to prepare to remain merciful, not to judge
people for what they're upon, but to think about their guidance and
to think about how we can help them come to that guidance. And if
we emphasize these themes, in our gatherings within ourselves, with
our children in our education systems, then I think the beauty
of Islam as it is, and as it always was, will definitely shine
through
in sha Allah. So
the question then remains the gap, right, and we named this this set
of sessions, bridging the gap between religious practice and
spirituality. And we live in a time now where many people are
hesitant or even lows, to think about religious practice or piety
or traditional religion, or being beholden to a set of standards
that will be used as criteria to measure themselves up in terms of
how they're doing with their Lord and how they're doing in life.
People want to be free, what have they think of our of the shackles,
and part of the problem here is the elevation of the individual to
the level where then the individual then becomes the one to
be most
qualified in their eyes, individuals eyes to discern all of
these things. And so what you find and I think I read an article the
other day, I read it somewhere, that in the West, for example,
there is this sort of
buffet style approach to
spirituality. And so you'll find people taking certain elements or
aspects of Buddhism, or taking certain aspects of Taoism, or even
taking certain aspects of Islam. And you know, sometimes people
even go to the degree that they'll call themselves an aspect of Islam
but won't call themselves Muslim. So we have the phenomena of people
calling themselves Sufis, and somehow loving Sufism and so
forth, but at the same time, not really identifying with Islam. And
you have also the phenomenon today of people reading Rumi Giada De
Mola, and becoming, you know, versed in it and reading
translations of it by people who don't even know the original
Persian. And then somehow, the message gets lost, that this man
was not just a poet and said pithy things and was a great forward but
he was a hottest Biller, right, he was someone who embodied and was a
Mohammed in air. He was an Arab commissar said them, he was a
knower of God, he was agnostic, he was able to embody these eternal
truths. And then he was able then to disseminate them and to talk
about them in a way that was quite appealing to everybody. So people
got that that feeling part, but they didn't see all the work.
Right. They didn't see kind of the
The foundation underneath that wasn't discernible to them. And
even if you just take a kind of a casual visit to his McCollum and
his
what was his area in cornea, you see that there was a lot of work
that went into this, you know, those small rooms that they have
around the Sahar around the
the outdoor courtyard area, which are now have been turned into like
little museum exhibits of his support and his book and things
like this. But actually, those were, those were rooms of
spiritual rigor, people would go in there, and they would make a
vicar of Allah subhanaw taala. And they'd spend days at a time or
perhaps even more, maybe weeks. And, you know, they had, at the
end of the courtyard, you saw the huge kitchen area, and it was said
that people would spend at least a year 300 days in the kitchen,
before they would even think about letting them do something else.
Right, they were taught to serve, they were taught to slay their
egos, right, slay their desire to be praised, and slay their desires
to be known and slay their desires to be a somebody and accolades and
all this in the eyes of people by working in the kitchen, by serving
people. And then if they were able to serve faithfully in that place
in the kitchen, then they could move on, and then they can do
other things, then perhaps they would be participants in some of
the Majelis some of the gatherings that will be held in in this area,
or in the mosque itself, and so on. So it was a whole program
behind it wasn't some sort of, you know,
individual
quest for success. Right? What we're, we're trained in the West
in this culture, you know, everybody's kind of the hero of
their own story. Everybody's a superhero in their particular
narrative, right, and they have their own origin story. And then,
at the end of the day, they're going to wind up in some sort of
whatever they think, superhero that they're going to be in their
particular story. But really how it's been done for centuries, if
not millennia, is that there have been institutions, there have been
programs there have been, there's inherited wisdom, right? There's
inherited traditions, there are people who embody these
traditions, there are people who carry it. There are people who
dedicate their whole lives day and night
relentlessly, to acquiring this knowledge to embodying this
knowledge and then trying to disseminate this knowledge in the
best way possible for their generation. And the generations
after I'm preserving this knowledge. So
I don't know of any shortcuts. I don't know of any easy access off
ramps that one can take to find themselves in, kind of, I think,
this thing that we're looking for, but it takes some effort, it takes
some hard work, it takes that you want to dedicate a part of your
everyday to it, it means you study means you take notes, it means you
review your notes,
it means that you avail yourself of any opportunity, by which you
may be able to learn something, it also means that you may have to
sacrifice something, something of your free time, something may be
of
a hobby, or even something that may be not that important, but it
takes Mujahid right, it takes putting effort and, and, and
resisting the temptations of the lower soul or the ego.
So all of these things are there, and they're still preserved, and
they haven't gone anywhere. And, you know, Hamdulillah, that,
despite all of the things we've seen, and heard, and that have
happened to this OMA that were very devastating and traumatic, in
many ways over the past few 100 years. Nevertheless, our tradition
is there, it's preserved. And it's accessible, maybe not as easily
accessible in some ways as before, but nonetheless, that is there.
So, I beseech myself on all of you to, to avail ourselves of that to
apprise ourselves of that and Sharla.
So,
if we look at
how we are to begin, and originally when we were talking
about
the set of classes or or sessions, there was a request that we do it
upon creed or athlete. And I did not disagree with that notion. But
I think we talked about in the previous two classes, how the idea
of creed or athletes that can be used in different ways. And
traditionally in the books of
athlete or Kalam or solidi. In it was they talked about tools that
were there to more or less dispel misconceptions about Islam.
So our Muslim scholars early on realized that people brought their
theological baggage when they came into Islam, and the different
ideas about what divinity looks like and what prophethood and
messenger Hood looks like, and what are the things and hype? What
are the things out of the unseen world and what they look like and
how do they relate to one another and so forth.
work. And so there were these different questions came about
that really weren't there in the beginning. But
for our purposes, it's important to be acquainted with that, but at
the same time to use that as a point of embodiment, not to be
mired in it. Yes, some specialists have to do that and have to know
the special terms and you know, is is the name of God the same as God
is the name of Allah the same as Allah and and these sorts of
Messiah alien issues that come up? And what is a Joe Hara and what is
odd, you know, what is a substance and what is an attribute and how
they relate to one another and much of the Hellenistic frameworks
were brought into them, they were synthesized into the alignment
column into the science of theology, but they were there for
a specific process, specific purpose for a specific time. So we
still need to know some of that, and hopefully, I'm going to go
through a little bit of it. But more importantly, I'm going to
focus on practically speaking how, what does that mean for
spirituality, how to go about doing it. And I think one of the
first things we need to talk about is to
rectify, if need be our way of looking at the world, rectify, if
need be our way of determining, as I said, discerning reality from
non reality? Or in other words, in other words, discerning what is
actually possible and what is not actually possible, and what is
necessary, and what is impossible. So, Aristotle said that the, you
know, the main activities of the mind, as we said, are thirsty hot
water. So what are the salt? What does the fourth which is
conceptualizing things and then determining if, if given a
statement, if that statement is true or not true? So how the
concepts that we put together? If we put them together in a meaning,
like a meaningful sentence, can we determine this truth or not
determinants truth? How can we determine the validity of a truth
claim of any specific statement? And that's one of the activities
of a mind. Right? So if I said,
you know that, that man is six feet two inches tall. And while
you need to know what a man is, and you need to know what the
measurement is the height, what six feet or what's one foot, and
what are inches, and then from there, you can determine if that's
a true statement, or not a true statement, or you can kind of
eyeball it, and then figure out how much you truly want to give to
it. So these activities of intellect are quite important, and
they seem actually self evident. And generally, they are self
evident. However,
there's kind of a lot of manipulation going around and
different
definitions of what's a rational idea versus an irrational idea. So
the three things that I want to focus on right now are these
concepts of possibility, necessity, and impossibility.
And your intellect has the ability to determine if given any
particular concept, or statement, whether it can be possible or not
possible or impossible. And this is important, because when we talk
about Allah subhanaw, taala, its attributes, these things are going
to be one of the basic things we need in order to understand that.
So when we say something is possible, we mean something is
conceptually possible, the fact that you can imagine it makes it
possible. So
is it possible that I can have a
lion in my room here, as I'm talking to you? And he's chained
back there? And he looks like he's hungry, we'll have to feed him.
Is that possible?
Possible, you won't believe it. But if you can imagine it, right?
If you can imagine it, then that means it's possible, conceptually
possible.
But if I were to say, I'm actually sitting here, right here in my
study room, and at the same time, I'm also physically sitting
wherever you're sitting in your living room, or wherever it might
be. At the same time me the physical entity is in both places
at once. You would say that's impossible.
Because the same entity cannot occupy two spaces at the same
time, I can either be here or it can be there, but it can't be in
both places. And then what is what is there is a Surah, where is an
image on the Zoom screen that you have in front of you, or something
like that, but it's not actually the person. So the actual person,
the entity can only be in one place at one time. And the actual
entity, the person, if it's a physical body can only occupy the
space that it's occupying right now. And you cannot occupy another
space simultaneously. So that's kind of one of the laws of non
contradiction, like two things cannot be true at the same time,
so I can't be here and I can't be there at the same time.
The part will never be greater than the hole. By definition,
right? You have like a hole of something and break off a piece of
it. Well, this piece that's there is it can ever be bigger than the
whole thing that it began with. That's impossible.
And so this is the definition of rationality. So we don't say,
well, it's completely irrational to think that there are angels
that we can't see. And I will say, why is that irrational, because we
can't see them. So how we know that they're there, then our
response to that would be, just because we can't see them doesn't
mean they're not there.
So Adam, in wish, then, law, you didn't leave out Adam and we
shoot, as they say, so adamant, which then means my ability, my
inability to sense them by my physical senses does not mean that
they're not there.
That's not a that's not a sound logical argument. Because I could
not be aware of someone standing behind me.
Right, and they could be standing behind me, that doesn't mean that
they're not there just means I didn't see them. So your inability
to see it or to perceive it doesn't mean that it doesn't
exist. And this is very important, because it requires a bit of
imagination. You know, I always tell people, you need a little bit
of imagination to really worship Allah Spinal Tap, not imagine
something true. But you have to put yourself in a place where your
senses are not going to help you where it's beyond the sensory
perception.
So when the Prophet SAW said until Gibreel, about Santa Barbara de la
que en Nica, Tara, to worship Allah subhanaw taala, as if you
see him. So this Cafetiere should be as they say, in Arabic, this,
like, as if there should be means try to imagine, right? It's a
simile. It's not actually you're not actually seeing him, you're
not gonna see him with your physical eyes. But you will be
worshiping Him as if you could actually see him with your
physical eyes. So that means you have to imagine if I could
actually see a law, right? And then the second part of that
hadith, and I'm aware that he sees me, how would that reflect upon my
actions? How would that reflect upon my every day? How would that
reflect upon how I speak to people, or how I act towards
people, or how I drive, or how I treat my family, or how I treat my
friends, or how I treat my colleagues and so forth. So that's
the bad right that some of them are called Obaldia. So a brother
is actually doing the acts of worship and other things. I'm a
rudia is the state that one is in. So what the Prophet SAW Selim was
describing was a modality. He didn't mention a specific act of
worship. You mentioned that was his lead. Right? He's talked about
Islam, he talked about justification of faith and prayer
and fasting and second Hajj. And when he talked about humanity, he
talked about the things that we we are know are true, even though we
can't see them. But when he talked about Zen, right, which is, again,
a modality, how do you do things with Excel, how you do things with
excellence, then he said, use your imagination a little bit. Tableau,
the law can Nikka sorrow. So
we have to be able to imagine that, right? And some of the
techniques that we use, even in prayer, imagine the cabinet is
right in front of you. When you say Allahu Akbar, imagine when you
put your hands up like this, and you have the back of your hand
this way that everything of the dunya and everything that you were
is distracting you, you throw it behind you,
every single act that we do, both physical, and the things that we
say in every act of worship has a significant spiritual meaning
behind it, whether we can discern it or not. So a law kebab, right?
And why did they say Allahu Akbar, so that you say, Allahu Akbar,
while you're moving your hands? Right? You don't say Allahu Akbar,
which is incorrect, it's valid. But it's not the best way to do
it. Along with a coupon,
you say it the whole time as coinciding with the beginning of
the movement, towards the end of the movements, because there's
significance of the two together of what you are saying and what
you are doing. And then that directly reflects on the
particular state that you're in as you are doing it.
So you have the words, you have the movement, and you have the
heart, the state, that's all three, there's nothing left after
that. That's who you are. at any one moment in time. That's all
what you're about. You could be saying something, you could be
doing something or you could be thinking about something or having
you know, that state of what it is that you're thinking about. And so
every aspect of the deal works in that way. Every aspect, there are
a Sarada or secrets to even what we think to be the most trivial
movement moving your finger like this. In the prayer there's a
signal
If it means to write the report, obviously in the frustration, and
so forth the lens, right, this is not the purpose is not so that you
remove wealth from yourself. But it's it's to remove stinginess. So
it's a spiritual state that's that, that is trying to address
right Zacky, somewhere like, right to purify your wealth. And it's
actually purifying yourself by removing the hide the state of or
the vice of stingy focus of not wanting to part with what you
think is your money.
But it's actually not your money. Allah gave it to you as a trust.
So you're a trustee over it. And so the one who has granted it to
you is asking you to give some of it a small amount, because you are
the trustee over it. So it's really a gift to be able to do
that. And then it also will affect your spiritual state. And we can
talk about all of all of the different periods like that, we
can talk about fasting, and we can talk about
even the mama that how financial transactions work, we can
definitely talk about
marriage and divorce. So within the what seemed to be kind of the
just the basic rules and legal rulings behind everything that we
do. And when we study it from a fifth perspective, we think, is it
obligatory? Or is it so no? Or? Or is it permissible? Or is it
disliked? Or is it forbidden or haram? That's from the outside
view.
And that's what it is concerned with, with assigning rulings to
these things. So we know whether to do it or what not to do it, but
it does not address we said this, I think the first week first
session, it does not address what you actually do, how do you go
about doing it? Right? And what should you be feeling, when you
are doing it? What are the meanings that may come so you can
read about these meanings? And or, if you are sincere, Allah subhanaw
taala can put meanings in you and understandings for you, that he
may not have given to others before you. Although they are kind
of like the ICS. This is not difficult for Allah subhanaw
taala. But it all we take, take it back to these very basic building
blocks of training our thoughts, right training, the way that we
think,
you know, they throw this word around a lot critical thinking,
which basically means today,
anything that you inherited from thinkers before you just throw
that out and think for yourself, or if that's my understanding of
it. But that's how that's how we understand critical thinking.
Critical thinking is the one that you have to be most critical of,
and accusatory of is your own thoughts, is yourself not other
people's thoughts. These are thoughts that have been vetted,
that have been
studied by many, many people before us for centuries, if not
more than that. So they're less apt to be wrong than your own
thoughts. Right, because your own thoughts are not only new, and
but they're also affected by other stuff that's going on inside you.
Right? Your desires, your whims, your Caprice, your ego, your
desire to be praised.
Maybe you have misgivings about something, something in your past
could have been something traumatic, something that was
hurtful and affects the way that you see things now. So these are
all things that are going to affect how you see things and your
and your discernment of reality. So
from my perspective, it's better to put our trust in thoughts that
have been vetted, that have been studied that have been
safeguarded, that have been vouchsafed for centuries, and then
presented to us because I mean, we have to accept all of them. Right?
If they're if they're words and thoughts of people like us, but if
they are authoritative in their own right, based upon
understanding of what Allah subhanaw taala seeks from us, and
then there's a majority or a plethora of people who are saying
the same thing, then this is one of the things we consider to be a
trusted source. This is what we consider to be authoritative
source. We don't have to go about figuring out the deen all by
ourselves. We need indicators we need people to help us we need
people to show us the way certainly. And then once we find
our way then we ourselves can take it from there but to
to kind of just trust all the things that come to mind for us
without being able even to discern the sources of my own thoughts.
This this is a discipline in a snap. And we'll have
to be able to discern where your thoughts are coming from.
Whether it comes from Shaytaan whether it comes from your ego,
your neffs whether it comes from the angels, the guardian angels
around you, who will seek to help you
or whether it comes directly as inspiration from God from Allah
subhanaw taala. And then there are signs to look for. And there's,
you know, a way of training yourself and of using certain acts
of remembrance and vicar by which you can help to discern these
thoughts. So the true out of below may not be able to completely
remove all of the whisperings of the Igor of Satan. But what they
can do is identify them when they do happen.
Like the shaitan came to grenade, say the thought if, as they say,
is related Baghdadi and he told them I think, in your will do you
missed your arm or something or you missed a spot. And that's what
shaytaan does. He likes the Westwater likes to get people in
the Sahara, and then we'll do and things like that until we didn't
do it right. Then you just get mired and doing it over and over
again.
Junaid said no actually did wipe my head or I washed my arm and
your straight line your line and get out.
Right Get out of my head. Because I know that that didn't happen. He
was able to discern where that particular thought came from, or
when they sit up taller Giuliani when he was
wanting to just be free of everything. And he was leaving
back that and he didn't like what he's found in people in the manner
that they were frivolous and the manner that they were not being
very pious. So he went to the gates of the city and he's
walking, he's going on his way out. And he's on his way. And then
he sees like what he thought to be a vision. And it said,
called agenda and you have reached the pinnacle of knowledge and
knowledge. And you need that burden yourself with when everyone
else burdens himself with now like that that can leave like the
Sharia. He said I want to be law.
That can't be right. There has to be from Schaefer that's not
something that's not a pure thought, because the sheer
certainly is always going to apply to me, no matter what particular
elevation or MACOM, I'm going to reach that's always going to fly
to me. So he turned back. And then he heard another voice that was
pure that told him your MACOM is with them is with teaching the
peoples with being the people not being by yourself. Well, I can so
these are the foods these are people that we look up to who, who
who trained themselves in this way in, in this regimen and spiritual
rigor and these are the things that they came to. And you know,
people talk a lot about karamat and, you know, flying in the air
and walking on water, most of the comments of this ummah, of the of
Muhammad wa sallam are spiritual and meaningful, not physical.
Previous Oman was different than the 300. And the Saville calf. You
know, the young men who fell asleep in the cave for 309 years.
That was a very physical type of karma because they weren't
prophets, but they were Siddiq. Right, they were they were true
and there are fewer parts and Allah smart Allah gave them that
miracle and relieve them of, you know, living on the auspices of
that difficult society that they were in. But most of the Quran,
Mata Ahmed Mohamed Salah Salem, are meaningful and spiritual in
nature, being able to discern your thoughts, for example, that's a
karma, right? That's the type of saintly miracle, being able to
consistently pray five times a day and not miss a prayer. And people
have done that for decades. Literally people alive today, will
pray for decades in the mosque without missing a single prayer.
That's a type of karma. That's why they say Akbar karma is the karma.
That is the karma to Akbar karma that to be
was the theme to be uncertain was the theme to be motiva to be
obedient to Allah subhanaw taala This is the biggest karma. This is
the biggest type of central miracle. So they can come in the
form of realizations and the thema. And the fruits of it will
come outwardly in terms of people's character in terms of
their benevolence in terms of their gentleness in terms of their
ability to absorb even people who are hurt and damaged and bring
them to Allah subhanaw taala those are karamat right those are those
are incredible things and we have you know, our, our Muslim scholars
and oviya and others who are doing that every day. They're doing that
for people every day and as we speak so this OMA is a is a
weighty OMA it's a beautiful aroma. And it has a lot a lot to
offer. And within the tradition of the Ummah, we have a lot to offer
now a lot that we can learn from.
So, again, I digressed a little bit, and our hour is just about
over we're going to leave time for
question and answer. So I think I will.
I will stop here and then next time we'll begin and talk a little
bit about
About Marika and a little that align has attributes and then the
Divine Names and how we relate to that to spirituality and then from
there we will go into some of the hicom which are the,
the wisdom sayings of people. Secondly, that you saw described
in the course. blurb Insha Allah, so, Baraka Allah if you come here
as part of Baraka mafia fie Oladipo move beautiful So, Allah