Yaser Birjas – The True Meaning Of Watchfulness
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Do you guys remember the new chapter we
started last night?
Huh?
You already forgot?
Al-Muraqaba.
Al-Muraqaba, which means to know that Allah
SWT is watching you and observing you.
That's what it means.
Like you always keep your heart alert that
Allah SWT is watching you.
And this hadith, the first hadith that he
started with, hadith number 60 in Riyadh al
-Saliheen.
Hadith Umar ibn al-Khattab radiallahu ta'ala
wa rida'a, qal.
The very famous hadith of Umar ibn al
-Khattab reporting on the story of Jibreel when
he came to Medina.
qal.
qal.
One day as we were sitting in the
company of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Out of nowhere, a man shows up and
comes in.
And this man, ironically, he had very beautiful
white thobes, very dark hair.
qal.
qal.
You can't tell he was traveling.
Like his clothes are clean, his hair well
combed.
And no one recognizes him.
Which means, where did he come from?
I mean if he's a stranger, at least
you could tell that he has the signs
of travel.
But this man is clean, he looks masha
'Allah beautiful, but no one knows who that
person is.
So where did he come from?
So it became a mystery to them.
qal.
Until he sat right in front of the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
Something the sahaba would never dare do.
Like the adab of the sahaba, they would
give the Prophet his space.
But this man coming from outside, he just
went straight to the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa
sallam.
qal.
Until he came, sat right in front of
the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
He puts his knees on the knees of
the Prophet or near the knees of the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
And his hand on his thighs.
So now, this position the ulema, they try
to describe in one of two ways.
And I'm going to describe this to you.
I want you to help me out over
here.
Come over here please.
Jazakallah khair.
So one of the two examples.
Yeah, sit like I'm sitting here.
So he came and he sat right here.
He put his knees on the knees of
the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
And whether he puts his hand on his
own knees or the knees of the Prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
The other way is if you sit like
this.
Like the shahad.
So he said that he came and he
sat like this.
Like he's now ready to ask and he
wants to get his thing done and leave.
Now whether he puts his hand on his
own knees like this.
Asking the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam face
to face closely.
Or on the knees of the Prophet salallahu
alayhi wa sallam himself like this.
He's kind of holding the Prophet salallahu alayhi
wa sallam.
Give me the answer.
Or teach me.
So this is one of the two ways
that describe the hadith.
How Jibreel came and sat before the Prophet
salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
By the way, if you look at how
many benefits of adab, the etiquette of seeking
knowledge.
The ulama, they inferred from this position.
Oh my God.
That's a lot to talk about.
Like how close you need to be to
the teacher.
How attentive you should be.
You put your hand, you know, you hold
yourself tight.
So at least always alert to receive many,
many different benefits.
But the point is, so he asked the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
He called him like the Bedouins do.
Like he dares ask the Prophet salallahu alayhi
wa sallam without using that respect, honorable title.
Ya Rasulallah.
He goes, Ya Muhammad.
Muhammad.
It's like anybody talking to him.
Which means he has an authority.
So this man has an authority over the
Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam.
To call him, Ya Muhammad.
Tell me what Islam is.
And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam says,
You bear witness there is no God worthy
of worship but Allah.
That I am the messenger of Allah.
You pray the five daily prayers.
You do the zakah.
You fast Ramadan.
And you perform hajj if you can.
So the man says, You told the truth.
So the Sahaba around him said, What a
strange thing.
He's asking a question and he tells him
when he hears the answer, You're right.
Which means he knew the answer.
So now the mysteries have been increasing.
Like who is this man?
How come he's asking questions he already knew
the answer for?
And he's now going to continue to ask
the questions.
So the mystery is continuing with them.
He says, Okay, tell me about Iman.
What is Iman?
He says, So he comes with all the
six articles of faith.
You believe in Allah, the angels, the messengers,
the books, the Day of Judgment, and Al
-Qadar.
And the man said again, That's true.
This is now the point from the hadith
that falls under the title of the chapter.
To know that Allah is watching you.
He says, Tell me about excellence.
Ihsan, perfection, Ibadah.
The excellence in Ibadah.
Now, before we give the answer the Prophet
ﷺ gave, We have to understand that this
whole universe was created with Ihsan.
From Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, All what
he asks of you when you do things,
Do it with what?
With Ihsan.
The whole purpose of you doing what you
do is to show to Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala that you can get to that
level of Ihsan.
Didn't he say at the beginning of Surah
Al-Mulk, Who's
going to be excellent in his deeds.
He says, all of it is about Ihsan.
And when you get your reward, How are
you going to get your reward, Jamal?
What is the reward for Ihsan in terms
of deeds other than Ihsan in terms of
reward?
So here, he's asking the Prophet ﷺ, Tell
me, what is this Ihsan?
When it comes to doing things right.
When you do Ibadah with Ihsan, What does
it mean?
He goes, Ihsan is when you worship Allah,
You're absolutely certain that you see him.
As if you see him.
Not you see him.
As if you see him.
You're absolutely certain about it.
As if you see him.
What does that mean?
As humans, We're visual.
If I don't see it, I start building
perception about it.
And in order for me to have that
absolute certainty, that perception has to be as
powerful as if it was tangible and physical.
So when you worship Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala with absolute certainty that he is watching
you, or at least as if you see
him, that's the highest level, or the second
highest level I would say, of Yaqeen.
Because Yaqeen is three degrees.
Certitude of knowledge, Certitude of sight, Certitude of
Haqq al-Yaqeen.
Certitude of experience.
So here, as if you see him, subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
Hadith Handala.
He went and complained to the Prophet ﷺ,
Ya Rasulullah, we sit around you and you
speak to us about Jannah and Jahannam.
And when we're with you, you put us
in a state of mind, in a state
of heart, as if we're seeing Jannah and
Jahannam with our own eyes.
But obviously, how do we see Jannah and
Jahannam in that moment?
With the eyes of our minds and heart,
not the sight of our eyes actually.
So we see it with the sight of
the heart and mind, not the sight of
the eyes in that moment.
Because we have developed that knowledge, that ilm,
that made us feel it's true, as if
we see it.
So that's the one level that is high.
If you couldn't get yourself to reach that
level of certainty, as if you see him,
then you have to be absolutely sure that
he's watching you, that he sees you.
And if you know that there's surveillance there,
you're going to behave better, right?
If somebody knows there's a camera in the
office, they're going to speak differently, they're going
to behave differently.
And that's an interesting thing.
Like even subhanAllah, as human beings, we all
have those kind of tendencies.
When no one is watching, no one is
recording anything, we speak freely sometimes.
So here's the Prophet ﷺ telling us, you
are absolutely sure that he sees you.
So how do you behave?
With ihsan.
There's a true level now of ihsan.
So if anybody is interested in truly, truly
making their ibadah perfectly, these are the two
levels that you need to aspire to get
to.
That when you worship, you worship Allah as
if you're watching him and you're seeing him.
And if you couldn't get to that level,
then you know that he is watching you.
SubhanAllah.
How do I get there?
That's a different story.
We covered that a lot in the series
we were studying with Imam Rajab.
Go back to the early recordings when we
were discussing this hadith in detail.
There are many ways of how you can
reach your level of spirituality to that level.
May Allah give us all the ability to
worship him with ihsan.
Finally, he said to the Prophet ﷺ, after
this he asked him, he says, He said,
Tell me about the Day of Judgment, the
hour, when is it going to be?
The one who's asking, the one who's asked,
doesn't have more knowledge than the one who's
asking.
Like we're both the same.
We don't have that much knowledge about it.
Tell me about the signs.
At least tell me about the signs of
the Day of Judgment.
The Prophet ﷺ said, He said, This is
going to come when you see that the
maid servant will beget her master and that
you will find the barefooted, naked, poor shepherds
will compete one another in the construction of
higher buildings.
Sounds familiar to you now?
As we say, We are at the end
of time right now.
By the way, that's not just in the
Middle East, it's even here in Texas.
Like if you go to downtown, just like,
whoa, where are these coming from right now?
They're new buildings, I don't know if you've
seen that.
I haven't been downtown in a long time.
Last time, just because I went to Isna
program, I'm just like, whoa, they're a new
building in Dallas.
I haven't seen them in a long time.
They're competing.
Who's going to be actually going higher and
higher?
Then the Prophet, Umar, he says, We waited
for a little bit and this man, he
just kind of like left.
Just like he came, he disappeared.
Everybody's just still confused.
They don't know what to do and the
Prophet did not give them any report after
this man left and just looking at him
from was he leaving?
Then he said, Ya Umar.
He says, Yes, Rasulullah.
There's multiple narrations.
One of the narrations, the Prophet told him,
Go bring him back to me.
So Umar went after him to look for
him and bring him back to the Prophet.
He came back.
Nobody.
So the Prophet told him, Do you know
who was the one asking him?
I don't know.
Allah knows best.
That was Jibreel.
He came to teach you your religion.
The value of this hadith, it's not just
that Jibreel came to teach us.
No.
It's the Prophet, Sallallahu alaihi wasallam, saying that
Jibreel exclusively came here to summarize what Islam
is all about.
Brothers and sisters, you're on a journey.
You are on a journey.
And that journey is hierarchy.
It's like a pyramid.
You start in the base and you live
your life to go to the top.
That top is called Ihsan.
The base is Islam.
But most of us are in the middle.
And Iman.
And the Iman fluctuates.
Goes up and down, up and down.
Sometimes we come so close to Ihsan.
We get the taste of it.
And then we drop again.
Because our good deed is not consistent.
We practice sometimes, the physical practice and Ibadah.
But we fail to practice with our heart.
And in order for you to reach that
Ihsan, you need to exercise the Ibadah of
the heart much more than the Ibadah of
the body.
Because the Prophet said, Taqwa is there.
It's in the heart.
If you exercise the Ibadah of the heart,
spirituality, reflecting, pondering, and always have the love
for Allah, the fear of Allah in your
heart all the time, that will elevate your
spirituality to the highest level you can until
you reach that level of Ihsan.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us
among the people of the world.
Wallahu ta'ala a'lam.
Subhanaka, Allahumma bihamdik.
Asharu allaha ila anta, astaghfiru, wa atubu ilaih.
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.