Why We Blame Others & Remedies herefore by Yasmin Mogahed
Yasmin Mogahed – Why We Blame Others And Remedies
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the difficulties of a mountain climb and the importance of putting one's hopes in a task, including the impact of a recent disaster on their health and career. They also touch on the negative impact of a person refusing to do something and losing their job, leading to a victim of a crime. The speaker discusses the actions of Adam alehissalaam, who refuses to do something and apologizes for mistakes, and the concept of transformation into an angel and avoiding sin. They also mention a law that rewards effort and the importance of remembering to avoid sin.
AI: Summary ©
Our relationship on origins smilla rahmanir rahim Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah Juana and he was at the edge mine of the strategy surgery. We are certainly Omri Washington doctors I'm in dystonia only. I whenever I speak, I always like to begin with the star. And the star is actually the daughter of Musa alayhis salaam. And as we know masala Salaam, was charged with a really, really difficult task. And that is that he had to take his people and he actually had to approach the greatest tyrant that walk the earth. And that was Pharaoh, of course. So when he asks God he asks a lot of destruction is suddenly Oh, my Lord, expand my chest, rubbish roughness. Suddenly, were
suddenly Omri and make matters easy for me.
Wash Lula oak determine Missoni of cocoa Foley and take the knot out of my tongue, so that they can understand my speech, my words. So I asked Allah subhanaw taala for this. And you know, there's something within these words, which I think is relevant to the topic that I wanted to talk about today, which is the topic of hope. And, you know, when it comes to hope, we put our hopes in a lot of things. And in this case, musala sallam, he had a really heavy and very difficult job. The question is, you know, how was he going to fulfill his mission? How was he going to carry out this task? It's a very difficult task. He had to face the worst tyrant to walk the earth, and a tyrant
who killed babies as a policy, a tyrant who, you know, tortured people, and this is who he had to face. So he's asking God for that help. But when he's taking on this difficult task, where does he put his hope? This is a really important question, because we put our hopes in a lot of things. And the main reason why we end up falling the reason why we end up becoming broken, the reason why we end up becoming disappointed is because it's like a person who's climbing. Right, you know, if you've ever seen, you know, pictures, or videos of a mountain climber, or someone who's climbing a cliff, and when you're climbing a cliff, there's, there's something very important in that in that
whole equation. And that's what, what's the most important part of or what's the most important thing for someone who's climbing a cliff.
Say it louder.
The equipment, specifically what what part of the equipment?
It's basically the rope that's holding that person up, right? Now, imagine if that person just got rid of that rope completely, and instead said, You know what, I'm okay with the twigs.
Right? I don't need that rope anymore. Because along the way, I see a lot of twigs. I see a lot of little branches, you know, connected to the cliff. And I'm just going to use that to climb. Well, what will you guys don't have to be professional, professional mountain climbers to know what's going to happen. What happens if you do that?
Well, what's gonna happen to the twig?
It's gonna snap.
Is that the twigs fault?
Is it like you can go and like sue the twig be upset at the twig? Is it the twig fault?
It's not a hard question. It's like, it's like a quiz that y'all can get 100 on. No, it's not the twigs fault, right?
Whose fault is it?
The climber, right? Because a twig, a twig, everyone knows cannot hold my weight. Right? And if I'm going to hold on to a twig with all my weight, then I'm the one who's to blame, because it's not the nature of the twig. It's not the creation of the twig, not the purpose of the twig to hold me up. We agree.
And if I do that, and I hold on to a twig with all my weight, what happens to the twig? We said, what happens it snaps it breaks. Okay, now what happens to me?
Yeah, that was a good illustration. Right? I fall I crash. And that's because of something called gravity. Can I curse gravity? Can I be upset with gravity that I felt this is just the nature of the world. This is the nature of
The creation, why am I talking about that? Because this is what we do. This is a metaphor, right? what I just talked about, because this is what we do in life. This is what we do in life, we go through our lives, and we're climbing, I mean, we're going through a journey, as the shakes that we're on a journey. And in that journey, we have to climb, we have to struggle, we have to strive. And in that journey, we're gonna have to hold on to things. So what we do is we hold on to the wrong things, what we do is we put all of our weight, we put all of our hope, for example, in our money,
in our money to keep us secure. And so long as I have that money, I feel like I'm secure. And if I lose that money, I feel insecure. We put our hopes in other people, we put our hopes in our efforts, we put our hopes, you know, in our, in our, in our careers in our degrees.
And when we do that, we get to a point where it snaps and we become disappointed we fall. But the problem is not again, you know, for example, if I'm going to put all of my hope and all of my dependence in another human being. Now when that human being cannot hold my Wait, for me to then blame that other human being is like me blaming the twit.
Right? Because it's not, it's not the twigs fault, that's not the nature of a twig, you can't expect the twig to be something that it's not. And in this case, for me to expect a human being to be something that only a law can be that only God can be is to expect it to be something that it was never created to be.
So when I put my hope now a lot then says and then contrast to this whole scenario that I just described. Unless doesn't suit us and Bukhara that whoever turns whoever disbelieves in savute, heaven forbid Taguchi why you remember Larry, the causes stem circa bellota Watson was call and phenomena that when a person does, truly believes, here's what they've done, they've held on to the trustworthy handhold that never breaks. So in contrast to these twigs, which is which is what people go through life doing, going from one twig to the next, and our and our you no false attachments, the things that we depend on the things that we hold on to, to to keep us up, right to support us to
hold us. They change, you know, as we as we go through life, they kind of evolve shaitan will come through different doors, depending on our on where we are, you know, shaitan doesn't got anything else to do.
Right?
You guys understand that? Right? He's got only one job. Can you imagine if you only had one job, like literally 24 seven, if you want to understand if loss, study, study shaitan.
Alright, loss, if loss is like, complete, like removal of any other purpose, any other intention, except that one, to take us to *.
That's all he's got to do. That's all he has to do. And he's got a lot of practice,
you know, a lot of job training.
So he's good at what he does, but he's not that good. But he does know what he's doing. Now. I'm telling you, he knows what he's doing. But I am also going to tell you that, that he is also extremely weak, and even his plots and his plans are also extremely weak.
But I'll tell you this one, he says shaitan he said to Allah subhanaw taala when he was being removed from Ghana, and he was upset, like, it's interesting to know, actually his response. Because when you look at what did shaitan do when he made a mistake? And what did Adam do when he made a mistake? You do know that when Allah gives us a lot gives us the story of both of them. And they're kind of put like, within the same context, the story right, Adam was told not to eat from the tree right.
And, and what happened What did he end up doing?
Eating from the tree, right? it bleeds was told to do what?
To bow to Adam, and what did he do? He refused. Okay. So here you have a blease was being told to do something and he refuses. And you have Adam his was being told not to do something and he does it. We good?
Let's look at what they did after. Let's look at what they did after. That's where they completely Park
Pass, because it bleeds his response after he makes a mistake is what?
It's arrogance. And it's despair, actually. Because he says in First of all, what he does is he blames a law for his mistake.
Does this sound familiar? Do we ever do this like to blame other people for our mistakes?
This is actually dates back to
this idea of nothing's my fault. Right? And it's always someone else's fault. This is nice. Because it bleeds, he made the mistake. But he says, because you have kicked me out, like blaming Allah, you know, because you have kicked me out. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to attack them. I'm going to attack your slaves, your servants from their front and from their back from their right and from their left.
You know what he's vowing? You know what he's doing right there. He is promising to try to come in from any door he can to get us.
All right. So he blames Allah. He doesn't humble himself, and what else does he not do?
So okay, let's go back to his mistake. What's his mistake?
He didn't make such duh. Yeah. So he's basically refusing to make one such that.
Can you imagine
if we all went to * for missing one such that?
Do you guys understand what that means? Like fetch itself is how many searches
for
to each truck. All right. So that would mean that if someone missed even one said they couldn't go to genda.
You understand the issue here. It isn't just that he missed the, you know, he refused to make such that. Every single one of us has missed, probably more than one such that in our lifetime, and maybe even refused to make that when someone's not Muslim. Aren't they refusing, just like he did? Aren't they actively refusing to make such that?
So wait, then what? What is it that that he did wrong?
He didn't repent.
Because you know, what, if every one of us were banned from Jenna for missing one such that who would be in genda? Exactly.
Right.
Fair enough. There is something called Toba. There's something called Estefan there's something called repentance, and that is what's saving us. It's not the fact that we're perfect. It's not the fact that we're never going to slip up. It's the fact that we have something from the mercy of a law called repentance. And Iblees did it use it, it bleeds didn't humble himself, and he didn't and he didn't have hope enough in Allah. He didn't have he just spared essentially, and instead, he became a rebel against Allah. He rebelled instead of humbling himself and repenting.
Now contrast that with Adam alehissalaam.
What did Adam do after he ate from the tree?
Rob bene alumna and fusina were in Lambton, Lana, what's her handle? And akuna Minal Casa de Look at his response as compared to because you've done this to me, you know, you blaming Allah. Adam, on the other hand, he said, he says, Our Lord, and notice this this is this is very important. Our Lord, we have wronged our own selves. You notice he's not blaming anyone else? Well, bene will alumna and fusina.
Like how easy would it be for him to blink shipe on at least.
Right.
I mean, shaitan is the one who deceived him.
But he didn't even bring up shaitan. He's taking full responsibility, because he knows that at the end of the day, he had free choice. Right? Even though shaitan deceived him but he's taking full responsibility and saying that our banner alumna and Susana, I'm not gonna blame anyone else. I'm going to take full responsibility. We did this to ourselves. We wronged ourselves. We're in lentils Filipina. What's our Hannah then? akuna Minal Casa de and if you don't forgive us, and have mercy on us, we will indeed be among the losers.
You see, when you have that kind of response after you slip, what happened to Adam? He became a prophet.
You understand? He asked her slipping he became a prophet.
Do you understand how powerful that is? I mean, talk about redemption. Right? He was not only was he forgiven, he was given such an honor, and such an honorable position. This was after the slip guys after.
And that's the power of Toba. I mean, that's the power of this default. That's the power of repenting and humbling yourself is that Allah can honor you and raise you up even higher than before you committed the sin.
Right. But look at the difference between Iblees and Adam.
It please didn't have hope in that repentance, it blaze was arrogant. It leaves didn't repent.
Adam had hoped and Allah Adam repented, Adam humbled himself, and Adam took full responsibility.
That is hope in Allah subhanaw taala. And it believes doesn't want us to have that. It believes what he wants is for us the moment we slip to do what he did, right? The moment we slip, which we will, like I said, we're human, not perfect. But when we slip, he wants us to do what he did, which was despair, in the mercy of Allah, and to just give up. So that is why when we mess up, he comes to us from the door of despair. And he says, Look at you, you do XYZ, and then you're gonna go pray, you're such a hypocrite.
Look at you, you do XYZ and you're gonna keep that hijab on, you're such a hypocrite, go take it off.
Who are you to walk around with hijab? When you do these things? Just take it off. What is he really saying to you? He's saying give up. He's saying despair. He's saying you're not even worth the struggle, just give up. You're worthless.
And when he says to you, you know, yeah, but you're, you're just not good enough to put on the hijab, you know, this idea that like, hijab is only for angels.
You know what I mean? It's like this weird concept, that first you have to transform into an angel and grow wings, and then put on the hijab.
And so there's this idea, because there's that idea, we hold hijabs to like a superhuman standard, compared to others, like, she did that and she's a hijab.
Like, I didn't know that I became an angel, once I put on the hijab, I'm still human.
But you know, there's this weird idea that hijab is something for angels, hijab is like, it's like the crown you put on once you become perfect.
And it and and once you have that on, you better stay perfect.
Right?
That's just
listen, to jab is like Salah is like, it's like. So it's like fasting. It's like, it's like zeca. It's one of many other acts of worship, it doesn't mean that I'm perfect, because I'm doing it, and no one is going to tell you, Hey, you know, the other weird thing we have about hijab is this. There's this weird concept that it's better to never wear hijab, than to wear it and take it off.
Where does that come from?
It's like this made up concept. When in fact, the reason we feel that way is because of what people will say.
That's the reason. So what people do is, and this is also shaitan. Like I said, every door, he can find he'll go right. So he'll deceive you in these really strange kinds of ways. And one of them is no, no, no, don't put on the hijab, because you might take it off.
Well, that's really weird. So basically, logically, you're telling me it's better to never wear it, than to wear it and possibly take it off. So in other words, it's better to disobey Allah for 100 years, then to obey Him for 50 and disobey Him for 50.
Does that make any logical sense? But he makes us believe it? Do you understand? I'm saying? So he's basically saying you're gonna fail, so don't even try. That's what he's saying. He's gonna he's he wants us to believe that since we're not perfect, or since we can't be perfect, we might as well not even try.
And Allah tells us the opposite. A law rewards for effort, you know, A for effort.
A law rewards us for efforts. He's not asking us to be perfect. He's asking us to keep trying. He's saying kuliah iva de la nostra koala and pasta him la takala toman Rahmatullah. He's addressing who in this area. This is an A and sort of the xoma. Who is he addressing? He's not addressing the
disbeliever he's not addressing the hypocrites. He is addressing the believer. He's addressing the slave. He says cool. Yeah, and bezzie all my slave. But wait a minute, wait a minute, but what comes after that? Seems to be a contradiction, because he says, oh, say oh my slave who has what? Wrong their own selves? In other words, he is addressing the sinning slaves.
Right? Yes or no? Which means Wait a minute, you mean even slaves have a lesson?
Right? We had this idea in our head that no, no slaves of a loved mean they never sinned. Right? They're sinless. But no Ally's addressing his slave and saying, who have wronged their own self they have sinned. And what does he say to those people? Let cannot human Rahmatullah do not despair of the mercy of Allah. This is the opposite message of shaitan. Anytime you start to feel like you should give up, you know, that shaitan Allah will never ever tell you to give up along will never push you to give up, Allah will never close the door. The door of Allah is always open until when,
until the day you die until the moment that you die. And that's when that's when you no longer can repent.
But until then, until then, anytime you hear this voice in your head, literally a voice in your head, that tells you to give off, that tells you you're not good enough, that tells you you should stop trying that you're a hypocrite that you're this, that's shaitan that's checks on trying to make you do what he did. Which was give up, give up and not continue to have that hope in Allah subhanaw taala. What Allah wants from you is not perfection, but he wants you to keep trying and when you slip, to get back up, to get back up, and to go and to keep going. And to repent.
A lot tells us that if we were not to sin, and then repent, he would remove us from the earth and bring the people that would sin and repent.
This is something alone, not only does he forgive, get this, get this, he loves to forget. So it's actually a pleasure, it's actually makes a lot pleased when we repent. It's not like you know, when you wronged someone, and they come in apologize, and you'll be grudgingly forgive, you know, like, fine, you know, your sibling, they like punched you. And then they came and said, Sorry, you're like, you know, you're like, you're like upset like you don't you're kind of begrudgingly forgiving. This is not a law. Unless high above any analogy a lot actually loves that process. It pleases Him. And there's a hadith that talks about this. The example that's given is a man in the middle of the
desert, who has his entire livelihood on this camel. All right, and all of a sudden the camel goes away, like just runs away. You know what this means for the man right? certain death. Okay? I mean, your food, your water, everything's gone. So he's gonna die. Now this is serious. But then he finds that same camel just coming back on its own.
And the Hadith says the joy that that man feels. That's the analogy of the joy that Allah feels when one of his slaves repents, comes back.
It's not just acceptance of that repentance, but it is actual pleasure and joy. It's actually pleases Allah, he becomes pleased. He loves to forgive doesn't just forgive, but he loves to forgive. So this is something we have to reject this idea of, I'm not good enough. I'm too far away from a lot to come back. I'm not like those people in the masjid Who are you know, perfect. I'm not part of that club, you know. And, you know, sometimes people make us feel this way too. And may Allah you know, protect, but you have to keep focused and realize, realize that this is a slam, that this path is not a path for perfect people. It's not a path for perfect people because there's no
such thing. Perfect people don't exist, but but it is a path for those who are striving to purify themselves, striving to keep going even when they mess up, striving to not lose hope. There's one of my favorite quotes of inoculation.
And he says that shaitan rejoice when Adam was kicked out agenda or mean sorry when Adam sorry, not kicked out. But when Adam was taken out of genda and came to the earth shaitan rejoice when Adam was taken out of Paradise and taken down
To the earth. But what he didn't realize was that the diver sinks to the bottom of the ocean, gathers pearls and then rises again.
And this is exactly Subhanallah that path where we yes sometimes we slip sometimes we get really low, but it is when you're really low that you have a choice. You can either stay there you can stay there and you can drown. Or you can actually gather pearls from that bottom and come back up actually better than you were before you fell down to the ground up Cody Cody had I was stuck for a long time when I come in our photo Rahim. subhanak Hello behind duck eyeshadow en la ilaha illa and as Dr. akua tubo like salaam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.