Stay Spiritually Afloat

Yasmin Mogahed

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Stay Spiritually Afloat _ Yasmin Mogahed _ 16th MAS-ICNA Convention #MASCON2017

Do you struggle remembering your creator? Our faith increases and decreases, which affects our dealings with others. Therefore, we must engage in contemplation, continually striving to perfect our manners in our relationship with ourselves, others, and our lord. How do we stay spiritual in a turbulent and materialistic life?

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I will let him in a shape on the regime. smilla rahmanir rahim salatu salam ala rasulillah while le Sufi edge mine, rubbish roughly Saudi Arabia Siddeley Omri, Washington, Dr. Melissa Annie of Gohan Coley.

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There's this thing about fever.

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There was a story I read a few years ago and it always stuck with me.

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It was a story about a man who went to the dentist, because he was in excruciating pain.

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And when he got to the dentist, the dentist told him that he had an infection. But this man did not have health insurance. And so when he was given two medications, one was a painkiller. And one was an antibiotic, he could only choose one of them. And so like many of us, he chose the painkiller. He just didn't want to feel the pain anymore. He wanted to be numb. And so what happened is he took the painkiller. So he didn't have to feel that anymore. But what happened to the infection? Well, the infection wasn't being addressed. Because he did not address the infection, it actually spread to his brain, and this gentleman ended up dying of the infection.

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Now, why did this story stick with me so much, this is a true story. The reason it stuck with me is because it was so symbolic of what happens to us in our lives. When we are in pain,

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either individually or collectively as a community, or globally or as an oma.

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We tend to just try to treat the symptoms, we just want the pain to go away, but we don't actually treat the root cause of that disease. See, there's a thing about fever when you have a fever. And this is something me and my husband have recently been experiencing a lot of when you have a fever, you can take a lot of fever reducer, you can take Tylenol, you can take ibuprofen, but the fever itself is an indication of another problem. It's one thing to try to numb our pains in life. And it's another thing to actually go and look at why are we sick.

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And that's what I want to talk about today. As an oma, we're sick. And the prophets I seldom said that they're almost like one body. And when any single part of that body is in pain or is sick, the entire body breaks out in fever. The fever is an indication that there's a sickness. We are in pain as an oma, we are in we are in pain all over the world. We are in pain here. We are in pain individually in our lives. We are in pain collectively. We are in pain, politically.

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But the question we have to ask is why do we have this fever? Why are we in pain? What is the sickness that is causing this pain? Now I've divided the causes of sickness into two kinds. One, the body gets sick and weak when it is deprived of its ultimate needs.

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That's one of the reasons why the body becomes sick and weak is when we deprive the body of its most essential needs, it becomes weak and it becomes sick.

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The second reason why the body becomes weak and sick is when a disease hits.

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Now when I address the first reason first, and that is the deprivation. Now just like the body,

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our hearts become sick. When we deprive our hearts of the most essential need that the heart has, and that is the spiritual oxygen. What is our spiritual oxygen that we are collectively being deprived of? That is the remembrance of Allah vipkid our Salah we have deprived our hearts of the oxygen that the heart needs to stay alive. If a person isn't praying, it's like a person who isn't breathing. We have deprived ourselves of the remembrance of Allah in our lives and as a result, we have become sick we have become sick as individuals and we have become sick as an oma.

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the remembrance of Allah is the oxygen, the food and the water of the heart. And so because we are depriving ourselves of that our hearts have become sick collectively.

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Now the other reason why the heart is

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becomes sick and weak and eventually can die is when diseases hit the heart. Now what are some of the diseases that we are being plagued with as an oma as a community, and as individuals?

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The first sickness I want to talk about is a sickness that the prophets I send them warned us about more than 1400 years ago.

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In a very, very profound Hadith, he says to his companions, there will come a day your enemies will soon gather one another, to attack you, like people gather one another to eat from their dish to share from their dish.

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And they asked Is it going to be because we're weakened number or, or small and number.

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And he says, No, you will not be small in number. In fact, you will be large in number.

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But

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you will become like the frost on the ocean, you know, they'll just those, those little the bubbles, the froth, the scum, that happens, that builds on top of the waves, it doesn't have any weight, it goes wherever the tide takes it.

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And he says that the fear will be taken out of the hearts of your enemies, and in your hearts will be put a disease something called weapon.

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And he asked him what is what happened and he he defined it as hobbit dunya. Or Cara here to mount it is the love of dunya.

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Now the reason why this hadith is literally prophecy, is because it describes the weakness that will come to our oma.

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And he says the enemies will gather one another to attack you. And these attacks that we're seeing right now. They're all different forms. In some places in the world, they're physical. And in some places, they are spiritual, mental psychological. Islamophobia is a machine.

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These are the types of attacks that we are seeing right now. You know, it's become cool, it's become acceptable. In fact, it has become something that will give you political capital to attack Islam and Muslims.

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It has become an acceptable social capital type of bigotry.

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The prophets I sent him diagnosed this issue he said, Hope it dunya will crawl here to mouth the love of dunya is a disease that's going to make us politically weak. That's what this hadith is saying.

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It's a disease but what kind of diseases it it's a spiritual disease? What is hobbit dunya the love of this life? What does it mean to love dunya? What does it mean to love dunya? Does it mean that we're not allowed to have nice things doesn't mean we're not allowed to to have jobs and get married and have nice houses. Of course we can. In fact, there were many companions who were extremely wealthy. But the problem is that the dunya has taken over our hearts. Hope it dunya becomes a disease.

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When you don't own your stuff, your stuff owns you.

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You don't own your money, your money owns you. You don't own your status, your status owns you.

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You don't own your power, your power owns you.

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Allah subhanaw taala tells us in the Quran,

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Allah ma enamel hyah to dunya la ibon wala Hoon was Xena to waterfowl from Bay Nicole, what a castle on Finn and Wally well outlet know that the life of this world is play. amusement. You know what's very interesting about this area is when you break down this area.

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You when you break down this area from Suzanne Hadid you find that this area is a is a chronological timeline

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of our life in this world, of the things that matter most to us in this world. Because when we first come into this life, what's the most important thing to us as a child, it's play. If you want to get a present for a little child, and you spend us and you drop $1,000 on a Armani suit, they're really not gonna care.

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But if you spend 50 cents on a rattle, they'll be happy. And this is because what matters most when you first come into this dunya is just I want to play live demo and nemaha to dounia ly Voila. And then you get a little bit older and now you're kind of like in in late elementary, middle school. And now the most important thing to you

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Anyone who has people in that age, any children in that age group, what's what's their favorite thing to say? I'm bored.

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And the reason for that is because at that age, they want to be entertained, constantly stimulated and entertained. And that's because at that point, the most important thing to them is entertainment amusement. This is called Lao in the Quran. And Allah says after live, he says LAO, Lao baboon, wala Han was Xena, then you get a little bit older. And what is hoping dunya about when you're in high school? Well, pretty much it's about what you look like what you're wearing. This is the time when people are so concerned about what they look like that this is when you see spikes and things like eating disorders, because what you look like becomes of utmost importance. And so here Allah says,

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Xena, Xena is adornment, looking good. Lie boom, voila, when was enough? What fell from a knuckle now you get a little bit older.

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And now it's not so much about your rattles and your video games or even your brand names. Now it's about proving yourself. Now it's about how do I stack up next to someone else? What medical school are you getting into? How are your grades and now it's tougher Haroon Bay knuckle, now you're trying to show off, you're trying to compete, then you get established. You get a big house, nice car, and children. And now what is it? What's up, Catherine, Phil and Wiley will outlet now, it's about getting a lot or competing in the accumulation with regards to money in your children.

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But what's so interesting here is that Allah says all of this, all of this, he gives us an analogy. See, all of these are Hillel things. But these are the things we get caught up in. And each person is at a different stage in that dunya but all of it can mess le lice in Agia belco, Ferran abeta, who familia Hebrew for Torah, homeless for all of this stuff that we get so caught up in, it's like a heavy rain.

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That makes the farmer super excited for a while, because what happens, it brings vegetation. But then what happens to that vegetation, these things that we chase, what happens to it, it starts to crumble becomes dry, and yellow, and then it just becomes nothing.

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Allah subhanaw taala is teaching us that the life of this world isn't meant to be chaste. It isn't meant to be loved in that way.

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And when you take hotbit, dunya, and you fill your heart with it, it actually causes all types of other spiritual diseases. The second disease, which actually comes out of hobbit dunya,

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is the disease of envy, that disease of envy is destroying our body as an oma.

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And now we have social media, right? So that we can really, like really express this disease. And the reason why we have the disease of envy, is because we have lost focus of what matters most. And so our competitions and our, our comp, our our comparison comparisons are all about dunya. What does that person look like? What is that person wearing? What kind of car do they have? What kind of house do they have? And so our comparisons are all dunya dunya dunya, we've lost sight of what actually matters.

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And what is the cure for these diseases? Well, the first disease, disease of hope adonia, the disease of Hope it dunya is to refocus on the final home. I mentioned this earlier, every single one of us are moving. And anyone who's ever moved before knows that in order to move, you have to furnish the home you're moving to you have to prepare it. Every single person is moving into their grave. And that's without a shadow of a doubt. But the question is, have you furnished that home, some of us are going to get to that home, and it's going to have no furniture. Some of us are going to get to that home and in fact it's going to have been burned down. And so the question becomes not

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whether or not we're moving, it's how does our home look once we get there, and so the cure to hope it dunya is what Allah subhanaw taala says, Yeah, you have lady and I am an otaku. La

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Thunder Neff Samantha. Dammit, liquid water. Hola. Oh, you have believed, have Taqwa of Allah be conscious of Allah and let everyone know. Let everyone be be aware of what they're putting forth for tomorrow plan for that home, because you're going there. The question is only how furnished will it be? What condition will that home be in when you arrive?

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The cure to hogberg dunya is to shift your focus back to the final tomorrow, and to have some plan for that.

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What is the cure for the disease that is plaguing us of envy, this constant social comparison, I never have enough. But they're but they have more. There are studies that show that the more people use social media, the more they are dissatisfied with their own lives. Part of the reason for that, of course, is that our social media is our photoshopped version of our lives. And of course, we're comparing my real life with that person's photoshopped life. It's fake, it's not real. And so as a result, I become less and less satisfied with my own self, my own figure, my own clothes, my own home, my own spouse, maybe. And that's because of these constant comparisons with something that

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isn't even real, because there's always a filter.

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And so the cure to envy

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is gratitude.

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What is the SNR a Bukola in Chicago to la vida. nutcombe. Allah tells us that if we are grateful, he will increase us, He will give us more. The cure to your envy is be grateful for what Allah has given you.

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The next disease that is plaguing us individually as well as collectively

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is the disease

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of doubt.

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Many of us are being plagued with this concept of doubt. Some people are even being pushed to leave the dean because of doubt. But I think we've made a mistake when we when we characterize or rather, when we look at the root of doubt. See, we need knowledge we need information. But realize that check doubt is not a disease of the intellect. It is a disease of the heart. See, you can sit and give all this information to a person who has the disease of shaking their hearts. And it won't make any difference because you're talking to the mind. It is not going to cure the problem until you fix the heart. One of the reasons why we suffer from the disease of sheck of doubt is because of our

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sins. It is actually a spiritual disease. And sometimes we are trying to heal that disease in the wrong way by just talking to the mind, but the heart is still sick. And Allah and His Messenger told us the prophets I said Lim said in the film Jessa de moda in the body, there's a lump of flesh is a sort of hatzolah algester dokolo. If it is set right, the entire body is set right? When he first said that faster than just Sudoku, Allah he'll call and if it's corrupted, the entire body is corrupted. Allah Al called, indeed it is the heart. See when the heart is corrupted, that's when you see these diseases.

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That's when you see things like the diseases of check of doubt. If you want to cure that you have to go and cure the heart. And one of the most powerful cures of the heart is to

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see our hearts become sick by our sins. And one of those sicknesses is doubt. I don't know which way to go. I'm not sure about this. I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure about anything. That is a symptom of our sins. It is a symptom that our hearts have been covered by our sins and have not been cleaned.

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Just like if we don't clean our bodies, we're going to start to get symptoms of that disease from the dirt. And the end the cure is to clean the heart through its default through repentance to Allah subhanaw taala.

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Another disease which has has has inflicted itself upon us is that individually and collectively, we have learned

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This concept of good character,

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there are certain qualities which we have lost. One of them is the quality of honesty.

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One of them is the quality of mercy for one another compassion, empathy. We've lost these qualities that that make a person have that beautiful, beautiful manners that the prophets I send him said in NEMA boys to leotta Mima macadam and I have been sent to bring about to perfect good manners. But we've lost these qualities and as a result, we've become diseased as an oma,

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what is the cure? We have to go back to unconditional honesty. If you're talking to your children, be honest. Don't think because their children it's okay to lie to them. If you're talking to anyone, be honest, be in the habit of being honest. Because until we go back to these beautiful manners, we will not fix our condition. See, we complain a lot about the type of leadership that we have, don't we? leadership in our masajid we sell it's not it's corrupt leadership in our countries. It's corrupt. Do you know why we have corrupt leadership? Because our leadership is a reflection of us. It's a reflection of what we are inside. If we want the leaders to be better, we have to become

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better. We have to be come honest, if we want our leaders to be honest, because they are a reflection of who we are inside.

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Changing ourselves in the law. Hello, America, Coleman Hatoyama B and footsy him Indeed Allah will not does not change the condition of a people until they change what's inside themselves. If you want just leaders, be just in your own families, be just in your organizations at your schools, in your massage it we can't even have a proper board in the masjid and we're going to talk about justice at the at the state level.

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We have to start to change ourselves. Going back to that beautiful character, to stop being harsh, to stop having a hard heart. You know, one of the problems we have is we think that when you become religious, it means you have to be really mean, right? You have to be harsh. Sometimes people as they become more and more religious, they become more and more harsh with their families. All of a sudden, everything is head on. And now they just did they've actually become more hardened. That's not what it means to be religious. The prophets I seldom was the softest of people. He had the softest of hearts, and he said, hydrocodone hydrocodone, the best of you are the best to their

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families. It's not that the best of you are the best to those in the masjid or the most polite to the people at the cash register. But the best to your families. That's actually the litmus test of your righteousness. How do you treat your family when you get home?

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That is the litmus test put down by the prophet size send them we have to go back to good character in NEMA boys to Leo 10 Mema macadam Allah club I have been sent to beautify to perfect beautiful manners and character.

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We have to go back to mercy between one another compassion empathy.

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Now you may have had a Buddha ASCII he may have said that none of you truly believe until they love for others what they love for themselves. We have to be a people who care about one another.

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We cannot have this Neff CFC attitude. And if we do, it's a sign that there's a disease internally.

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Finally,

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one of the diseases that is plaguing us as a community, both individually as well as collectively is the disease of despair.

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I believe that we have fallen into despair.

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Many of us feel as those who came before us felt

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a lot more Allah

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that Allah subhanaw taala actually asks us rather and has septum and tadpole Janata Wallah, Maja Tikka Masala Latina Holloman publikum Do you believe Do you think that you will enter Paradise without going through that which those who came before you went through my set toolbelt said Dada was Zulu hatay akula Rasulullah levena, Amano ma who met Nostromo

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Those people who came before us, they were tested, they were given adversity, they were tried, they were so shaken, that even the messengers and those with the messengers asked metternich through law, when will the help of Allah comm I think that we feel like that right now. And many of us have fallen into despair. But Allah subhanho wa Taala does not want us to fall into despair. Allah subhanaw taala reminds us at the end of this a

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Allah in nostril la here corrib indeed the help of Allah is near apulian Callie Heather was stuck for a long you welcome in Nova funa Rahim, subhanak columbium, deca shadowclan, La Ilaha Illa and istockphoto to bow Lake wa Salam alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh