Yusha Evans – Dawaah Traning Program Week 4
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
We will continue
with our weekly,
dawah training series, insha'Allah.
Every Wednesday night except for next Wednesday. Next
Wednesday I will not be here inshallah. I'm
leaving on Wednesday to go to the United
Kingdom for a weekend of conferences in
Birmingham and in Manchester. So I will be
gone,
most of next week and I'll be back
the following Wednesday. We'll start again.
Last week we left off with Husnul Khuluq,
having good manners. This is one of the
we're going through the the attributes or
the,
the attributes that the need to have in
order to be good at their
occupation. You should see as an occupation. We
talked about this in the very beginning that
we should see it as an obligation and
an occupation,
and the whole goal of dawah the whole
goal of dawah
is not to be able to pat oneself
on the back and saying, you know, that
I'm doing a good job helping bring people
to Islam.
None of that ever matters. The whole job
of the is to understand
and our sheikh recited the in in in
the first raqat of
of of, salatulmagrib today that there are 2
types of people in the world.
I mean
And then he said,
Allah says that they're the people of *,
and then they're the people of paradise. And
it's the people of paradise who will be
successful.
We are trying ourselves, all of us to
get to be as.
We want to be the people of Jannah.
And while we're on our way there, we
want to try to pick up as many
people as we can along the way. Does
that make sense? See yourself as like a
bus driver. Now you're trying to get to
Jannah, and along the way you're trying to
pick up as many people as you can
and hopefully take them with you or
they might take you. You you see what
I'm saying? They might end up being the
bus driver at some point and taking you,
which we will we which we will talk
about inshallah
the rewards
of Jannah.
Today we're gonna start with one of the
rewards of Jannah before we get into the
attributes inshallah because
when you understand this concept,
you will understand why dawah is so important
for yourself. Not only is a command from
Allah
but we briefly discussed this, but I want
to remind you, and I'm gonna remind you
many times throughout this,
is that
when you bring someone to Islam,
you receive all of their good deeds. You
remember me talking about this. When you bring
someone to Islam, the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam, and this is in, Abu Hurair in
the collection of Imam Muslim, Whoever guides
someone to Islam, whoever guides someone to Islam,
meaning
you help them come to Islam because Allah
is Al Hadid. Right? Allah is the guide,
and but upon us is what is known
as
the the the guidance of conveying the message,
of conveying the message. Message. Allah upon him
is is
giving the ability for someone's heart to be
open to Islam, but our job is to
convey the message. And so if someone comes
to Islam because of our conveying the message,
Allah opens their heart to Islam,
then the prophet
said,
then that person receives the reward of the
guided one without the reward of the guided
one being lost.
Meaning that every time that person
prays,
Allah counts it as if you prayed.
Every time that person fasts, Allah counts it
as if you fasted.
Every time that person does any good deed,
an equal good deed goes on your scale
of good deeds. Now that is multipliable
infinitely.
For instance,
if that person goes and brings 2 people
to Islam
after you've brought them to Islam,
that person receives the reward of those 2
people,
and you also receive the reward of those
2 people because you were at the top
of the chain. Right? And that can go
on, and what if they give 2 and
2 and 2? At the bottom end of
that pyramid could be a million people. A
million people could have come to Islam
before the end of time because of that
one person you gave dua to. And if
that is the case, those million people
will all be getting good deeds, and every
one of their good deeds will be filtering
up each level, each level, all the way
back up into you. You will be getting
all of these good deeds.
This is why the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
cannot be outdone
in goodness. He can't be outdone in goodness
because every good deed you do as a
Muslim goes on his scale goes on his
scale because he is the top of the
pyramid for this ummah.
Every single good action that you do, he
gets a reward for it sallallahu alaihi wa
sallam. So you can never outdo him because
you even if you do things, you're giving
him an equal amount of
measure on his scale. So
you never know
what person
you call to Islam
that could be the catalyst
for you entering into paradise.
It could be that on the day of
judgment,
you go before Allah subhanahu wa
Allah And I've always said this about
the young man who gave me the drug
dealer, who was not, you know, the best
Muslim, and I've never
I don't think he's ever watched my video
and ever found me or figured out putting
2 to 2 together, but I hope one
day, reach out to him or he reaches
out to me. But
I pray that if he stays upon guidance,
and he dies with the shahada on his
tongue, that Allah gives him Jannah for what
he did for me, and hopefully every good
that I've ever been I'll do everyone I've
ever helped to come to Islam. I never
kept count. I don't know how many there
are. I hope all of those rewards will
go to him because you never know on
the day of judgment, you could come in
front of Allah
thinking
that you don't have enough and you don't
have enough personally. You don't I personally do
not believe I will have enough good for
my mizan to tip in my favor.
But then
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala could just start putting
deeds on your scale. Deeds after deed. Deeds
that you know you didn't do or you
couldn't have done. Like, there's no humanly way
possible I could have done this.
And it will be said to you it
could be said to you that because that
person you remember that one person you talked
to in the grocery store line, or you
remember that one person that coworker you had
that you talked to about Islam, or you
remember that one young man or young woman
that you brought to Islam? They went on
to do all of this good for you.
They went on to carry the the the
the message of Islam and and help so
many people become Muslim. And because of that,
all this good belongs to you today, And
that could be the tipping point for you
to go to Jannah. This is why dawah
is so important. It is
one of the quickest way to earn good
deeds because you're commit fulfilling an oath, a
command from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. You're following
in the greatest sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wasallam, and if someone comes to Islam,
then you start receiving their good deeds. You
could be sleeping in your bed at night,
and this person could be up praying,
and you would be counting as if you
were
up praying. Does that all make sense to
you? This is why it is so important
to to be involved in this work of
dawah inshaaamahu ta'ala. That is the goal is
that we're hoping that we become the people
of paradise
because after this world is over, there's only
2 categories of people.
That's it. When we're going to be
one of those 2. One of those 2.
There's no third option. There is no
purgatory. There's no going into extinction. There's no
there's none of that. That's for the animals.
But for us, we will people of paradise
or we'll be people of hellfire. May Allah
make us the people of Jannah, insha'Allah.
Now
the next quality I want to discuss is
coming back. It's coming back
to remind us of the first quality.
And I do this, I think, 3 times
in here for a reason. The first quality
of the dua, the first sifat of the
dua was what?
Sincerity. That no matter what principle we're talking
about in here, it has to be done
with sincerity.
Your dua has to be done with sincerity.
You have to be doing it for the
sake of Allah alone. I tell many young
duas who I've helped train or they've come
to me for advice, give me some advice.
I say, keep your sincerity.
Always keep your sincerity because if you're not
sincere about this work, you won't make it.
You won't last. And we've seen it time
and time again, brothers and sisters who have
come on the Dawah Wasin, and then they're
gone. They come and they leave. They come
and they leave because sincerity is is at
play. If you're not sincere in this, you
won't survive. This is not this is not
an easy field to be in. To say
that you're going to follow in the footsteps
of the NBI who were the most persecuted,
they were some of the most hated, they
were some of the most people who were
fought against. To say you're going to follow
in their footsteps, then you have to be
ready for some of the things that they
went through.
Chaitan is not going to like you. You
are going to become one of his public
enemies. You know how they have a most
wanted list. Right? The FBI has like this
most wanted list. The du'aat are on shaitan's
most wanted list. Why? Because while he's out
trying to misguide people, you were out trying
to overdo him and bring people to Islam.
You were out there trying to make his
job much harder. And he knows that if
he can get
you, he can stop you from what you're
doing, which means you'll stop conveying the message,
and also you might take down a lot
of the people who were encouraged by you.
If you fall, you might bring some of
the people that you brought to Islam with
you. That's just the way person it works
with personalities, etcetera. So Shaitan will make you
a public target for sure. There are 2
types of people in this world that I
have no envy for and except for what
is waiting for them in next life. But
in this life, I don't have envy for
them, for what they have to go through.
Number 1 is the du'at.
The du'at and the imams, etcetera,
they have a huge burden. The scholars beyond,
etc, they have a huge, huge task and
a huge burden, and Sha'an
spends a lot of effort on them.
Number 2
is
the people of Ruqiya.
The people who do Ruqiya, the rockies.
Why? Because they do battle with the dark
forces of
of shaitan, then shayateen, and the jinn.
And when you become someone
who becomes a raqih,
you have to be very strong
because when you start fighting against these jinn
and the,
they start fighting against you. They make you
their target.
It becomes very hard on you. They if
they can't get you, they'll go for your
family.
They'll go for your wife. They'll go for
your children. They'll go for your for your
animals. The whatever they can get to to
harm you, they will harm you. This is
why I know many, there's many scholars who
I've met who are very qualified
and could do very well, but they won't
do it because they say they know that
what this type of world brings, that you're
messing with the world now of of darkness
and it will come after you. So I
have no envy for those 2 people and
the work that they do, but may Allah
bless them in it and make them successful.
The
next category or the next, qualification, the next
sifat, the next attribute
is that you must be a person of
sabr.
You have to have patience. If you want
to be involved in dawah work in any
capacity,
you have to learn to be a patient
person. You have to learn to be a
patient person because this is not gonna be
easy. People are going to call you names.
People are gonna laugh at you. People gonna
reject you. People are gonna mock you. People
are gonna call you this, that and the
third.
You have to be able to be patient.
Allah tells us,
This very short surah in the Quran
talks about
by the passage of time, mankind is rarely
lost. Most of mankind will be lost. But
in the 3rd verse, and this is what
I studied with under one of my first
teachers, Sheikh Mohammed Saad Ali, may Allah bless
him from South Carolina,
he taught us that the 3rd verse of
this,
of this surah talks about dawah, even though
we don't necessarily generally think of them because
he says
Those who believe and do good deeds and
what?
Means they call one another to the truth.
This is giving dawah. This is what dawah
is. They call one another to the truth.
They perform dawah in some form of fashion.
And then they call one another to be
patient. And he said they go together because
if you're going to do
you better be ready to have what wasawbih
sabr. You better be ready to have the
sabr. If you're gonna give the dawah and
you're gonna call to the truth, you better
be ready to have patience in that manner.
Imam al Shafi'i said,
had this been the only surah revealed to
mankind, it would have been sufficient.
If the only thing that Allah had ever
revealed to mankind
was this chapter of the Quran, he said
it would have been sufficient.
It would have been sufficient because it lays
out everything. It lays out the the loss
of mankind and the,
If you can call to the truth and
have patience in matter, you'll be a person
of Jannah. You'll be a person of paradise.
The were fought against. The were put into
difficulties. But let me also give you one
small advice,
is that if you want patience,
a lot of us ask Allah for things,
but we are not willing to go through
the things that are necessary to have what
we ask Allah for.
We will ask Allah for patience.
Allah doesn't just give you patience. Right? Patience
is not something that's just
like granted to you like that.
If you ask Allah for patience, what do
you think usually he gives you?
How do you get patience?
Tests,
difficulties,
hardships,
trials, tribulations.
So Allah is not gonna give you patience,
he's gonna give you the difficulties. He's gonna
give you the trials and the tests, and
then when you get to the other side
of those, you find patience. You find that
if I can get through all of these
things,
then I can get through most things.
Patience comes through hardship and difficulties and trials
and tribulations.
It's like asking Allah. We make dua for
Allah to give us
financial stability.
You can't just sit in your home and
wait for the checks to come, can you?
That's not how it works. If you're asking
Allah
who is the one who provides,
the one who is rich without need, increase
me in my sustenance.
It does not gonna happen by you just
sitting in your home. You're gonna have to
go out and put in some work. And
if Allah is answering your dua, then your
work will be successful. Your work will be
successful. You will be better at your business.
You'll be better at your job. But will
Allah increase your provisions. But it's not gonna
happen
just by doing nothing, doing nothing. You can't
make dua and expect things to come from
nothing. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has a system
and the sunnah of Allah,
the Quran says in the sunnah of Allah,
there's no tilaawah. There's no change. There's no
change in the sunnah of Allah
The next quality, and I've given a khutba
about this, so I'm not gonna have to
go too deeply into it, is Istikamah.
We've talked about this in in.
Is one of those principles,
especially in the world we live in today,
that I do not think if if I
wanna and there is a lecture that I'm
working on and it's also a it's also
a book that I'm working on. I'm working
on, like, 4 of them at the moment.
But the Muslim survival guide.
And one of the things that must be
in a Muslim survival guide is this principle.
This principle, this concept
of Istakamah,
which basically is the concept that I will
not quit.
I will not quit.
I was talking to a young man this
morning
in one of my counseling sessions. This is
what I do in the mornings,
and
he was at the end of his rope.
Right? He had had enough. Like, he literally
was
fed up and done with life. Like, he
you could just tell from seeing him, talking
to him, he was done,
and I've been there before. Most of us
have probably been there before,
and he asked me if I'm at the
end of my rope, what do I do?
And I tell him to tie a knot
at the end of it and just hold
on to that knot. Hold on to that
knot until you find the strength that start
start crawling back up again. But the one
thing you cannot do is let go of
the rope. That is the one thing the
Muslim can never do even if they get
to the bottom of that rope. They have
to hold on to it. Tie a knot
and hold on to it because the Muslim
can be and I've and and I've been
very
I've been very,
much an advocate for this
for many, many years, but in the pandemic,
it became
popular.
So my
opinions became more prevalent, if that makes sense.
The algorithm
favored my opinions more, but I've always been
of the opinion that you can be
a good Muslim and still be suffering
super stressed out. Out. Like just because you
say that you're trying to be a good
Muslim doesn't mean that everything's going to always
go your way.
The difference
is that the good Muslim
will not quit
no matter how dark it gets. No matter
how
dark it gets, the one thing they will
not do is they will not give up.
That is one commitment that I have made
to myself and to my family,
and and so many people come to me
in my sessions because they've seen my life
story, they've seen my podcast, they've seen the
things I've been through, and they've only seen
like a fraction. I haven't even shared most
of it yet, and of which I plan
to do in more podcasts.
But they asked me, how did you get
now to where you are? And I just
said, I never gave up.
That was it. I never quit.
I refused to quit.
It is very difficult. It is very difficult
to beat someone who won't quit.
It is very difficult
business who won't quit, who will outwork you.
It is very difficult in a fight
to beat someone who won't quit. I don't
care how good you are.
If they won't stop,
you eventually are gonna give up. You one
of you are gonna quit. You're gonna get
tired. If you know the other person will
not quit, it it will take the air
out of you. For
Shaytan, Shaytan
eventually gives up on people he knows won't
quit.
People that he knows won't quit, he will
give up on them
because he knows that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
will always be on their side. We know
this from the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam
where a man committed a sin and he
repented to Allah, and Allah forgave him. He
went back and committed the same sin, repented
to Allah again, Allah forgave him. He did
it again and again and again, but every
time he came back and repented to Allah.
And then finally, Allah told the angels that
are writing his deeds,
let him do whatever he wishes.
I've already forgiven him. Why? Because Allah knows
this one's gonna come back to me. No
matter what he does, I know he's going
to come back to me.
Knows this concept as well.
Knows that if he watches a Muslim fall,
he catches him, trips him, stumbles him, but
he gets back up. He watches him fall
and he gets back up. He Every time,
shaitan will finally realize that I will not
beat this person.
I won't beat them.
Shaitan does not win
when you fall. He does not win when
you slip. He does not win when you
make a mistake.
He wins when you quit.
He wins when you give up. When you
give up,
failure is guaranteed.
That's one thing I tell people in my
sessions that
when you give up, failure is 100%
guaranteed.
And if you are someone who will never
quit,
success is 100% guaranteed.
It's all about which one of the 2
you are deciding to do.
Never ever quit. We know the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam told the man, he gave
him the advice.
Say that you believe in Allah and you
remain steadfast upon that. And we know that
based on that, if you listen to my
khutbah on that day,
that Allah says in Surah
Those who say they believe in Allah and
remain steadfast,
that Allah will angels to them upon their
death and they'll tell them
give you glad, do not be afraid, do
not be sad, but have glad tidings of
paradise that was promised to you. That was
because of meaning they never gave up. They
never gave up all the way to the
end.
And if you don't know the story of
Barsisa,
Barsisa was a monk at the time of
Bani Israel.
If you don't know his story, go and
look at his story tonight.
Barsisa was known to be a very wise
and pious and righteous and humble man, and
sheitan slowly, slowly, slowly tricked him into not
only,
you know, committing Graves acts of disobedience, but
eventually he committed shirk
shirk akbar. He eventually made sujood to shaitan
and died upon that and ended up in
hellfire.
It was because he slipped and slipped and
slipped and didn't come back. He eventually, at
the end, gave up. He gave up.
You have to hold on till when? Till
the end. That's what people ask me a
lot of time. But brother Yusho, I'm tired.
Oh, trust me. I've been there.
I've been at the point of life where
I'm just tired. I've been at the point
in life so many a number of times,
a number of times that I can vividly
remember, where my mind was ready to give
up. My mind was ready to give up,
tired. I'm just done. Mentally done. But my
heart wouldn't let me. My heart wouldn't let
me because I made a promise to myself.
I made a promise to my family. I
made a promise to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
that I would not quit. I've been there,
so they asked me,
you know, like,
how do you like what do you do
when you're done?
I tell them you just take it day
one day at a time one day at
a time. There's nothing more than today.
I found I was reading a quote this
morning
from Hassan Abbas
Hassan Abbas said
he said, oh son of Adam,
do not over your overburden yourself with the
worries of tomorrow.
He said, oh son of Adam, do not
overburden yourself with the worries of tomorrow.
Let each day have its own worries.
You if you are destined to live tomorrow,
its provision will come to you.
So this is what I tell them. Forget
about
yesterday. Forget about tomorrow.
These are our our frameworks and concepts of
time. Right?
Yesterday is gone. We can't go back to
it. We can't reverse it. Tomorrow
is a concept of time that we use.
We use the word
tomorrow,
tomorrow. But it's a it's it's a concept
because
it never really comes. Right? Like, we live
each separate day by day. When you wake
up tomorrow, it's today. It's just a reality.
So let each day have its own worries.
I tell them if it's not something you
can solve today, then don't worry about it
today. Why are you stressing yourself
over tomorrow's problems or yesterday's things that you
cannot fix? The things that were done in
the past, if you feel sorry for them,
repent for them. Try to make up for
them. Tomorrow, worry about it when it comes.
Focus on today because this is all that
you have. Let today's problems be today. Because
when you realize that I can only focus
on what's in front of me today,
then it's not really the biggest of deals.
You can get through it today, and then
tomorrow do the same thing, and then same
thing and the same thing and the same
thing.
The goal is to carry on. It's to
carry on to the very end.
Imam Ahmed's son,
Imam Ahmed's son asked his father one day,
when will we rest?
When will we rest? You know, we've had
a hard life. Imam Ahmed was
tortured many times for his for his stances
and his beliefs following the sunnah of the
prophet, alayhis salatu, wasalam. He fought very hard
against certain principles,
which if they had become
prevalent, would have destroyed the fragment of what
we believe as Muslims.
He told his son,
when we put both of our feet in
paradise,
that's when we'll rest.
Not just 1, when both. When they when
you put both our feet in paradise and
we know we're a people of Jannah, then
we'll rest. Until then,
we carry on. We carry on and we
fight against ourselves. We fight against Chetan until
the day we die.
This fight never ends, by the way. And
I know that's a very
morbid thing to say to some people, and
I've had to say it to some people
in my counseling sessions. If you think that
this fight with Shaytan
and with your inner self is ever going
to end, you've been fooled. It won't end.
You don't ever get to a place to
where you've made it so great that you
don't ever need to do any more good
deeds. You know, like some of these concepts
in Islam, these pillars, etcetera, they're so good.
They don't they don't even need to pray.
No. No. No. You never get to that
point. You will struggle against shaitan and your
own low lower base self till the day
you die. It's just a reality. So that's
when we finish the fight. We finish the
fight when Allah takes our soul. Until then,
we keep going. But guess what?
A lot of people and a lot of
people that come to me, my counseling sessions
that are at the end of their rope,
they're young. Right? They're in their twenties,
and I look at them and tell them,
you haven't even lived yet. You know? You
haven't even lived yet. You know, I'm double
your age. You haven't lived yet. Trust me.
There's gonna be a lot more to go
through. You know? There's gonna be a lot
more to go through, but the point is
that
when you get to towards the end of
your life, as you start getting older, and
I'm not saying I'm an old man, 44
is not old, but as you get older,
you start realizing how short life is.
When you're young, you feel like life is
just like things are just lasting forever. Right?
But at the older you get realize it's
gone like this.
I remember when I was 27 in my
prime in martial arts
and had my 3 black belts in the
most peak shape of my life taking out
anybody they put in front of me.
That to 44
happened like this.
That to 44 went in the blink of
an eye. Literally, it feels like it was
last week.
I remember
just a few
years ago, it feels like all my children
were babies.
They're they're they're almost all grown now. It
happens so quickly,
And this is based also on the hadith
of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
When we're asked on the day of judgment,
how long did you stay?
Meaning how long did you stay in the
earth? Even if we live the whole life,
we will say it was like the the
an afternoon,
part of a day. That was it. The
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said that this
life compared to the next life,
the length of this life compared to the
length of the next life is like a
writer who's on a long journey
and he stops for just a moment under
a tree to take some rest in the
shade, and then he gets up and continues
his journey. That is your life. That is
the entirety of your life. So it happens
very, very, very, very quickly. So the fight
that we think we have to fight for
so long doesn't end up being as long
as we think it is. Doesn't end up
being as long as even if you live
to be a 100, it is still a
very short amount of time. Especially when you
start realizing that akhirah is forever. That concept
doesn't make sense to us, but
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said that
when we make it to Jannah,
we will look at our wife. When we
meet our wife for the first time, we
will look at her for 40 years. We
will stare at each other for 40 years,
like just staring. Can you imagine? It's hard
to stare at our wives now for 40
minutes. She'd probably think you'd lost your mind
or something's wrong with her.
40 years because that's a that's a blink
of an eye in when when when forever
is is is into play. So we have
to have istaqamma.
You have to be willing
to never give up. Never give up no
matter what the situations are, no matter what
the odds are, no matter what's stacked against
us, the legacy of the Muslim Ummah is
that we won't quit. We will not quit.
The next quality,
and I put these in order for a
reason because they they kind of go in
in kind of a theme.
After having all of this, because if you
look at the way we did it,
number 1, you have to have sincerity.
Then after sincerity, you gain knowledge.
Knowledge. You have to have the knowledge to
give the dua. After that, you have to
have actions. Knowledge is preceded I mean, is
a a a knowledge is succeeded by action.
After you have actions, you need to have
khusnul khuluq. Meaning your actions must be with
good manners. Your actions must be with good
manners.
Then you have to remind yourself of your
sincerity, because Allah might start blessing your actions,
and he might start people might start praising
you for your good manners. Oh, you're such
a, you know, an amazing person. You've done
so much good things. Oh, he's such a
You have to remind yourself
that you are nothing. You are nothing. And
if the people knew
about you, what you knew about yourself, they
would not praise you the way that they
praised you. That's something you always have to
remind yourself. If you knew about me, what
I know about me, you wouldn't praise me.
So sincerity.
Once you do that, you have to have
patience in this dawah. And if you're
patient, patience is
in in a nutshell. In nutshell,
brings patience.
After this,
you have to have the quality of not
losing
hope when encountering evil.
Not losing hope when encountering evil, Because if
you're involved in the dua, you are going
to encounter evil. You're going to encounter evil
people because the dua is on a path
of evil.
You're not doing dua
to people who are on the path. Right?
You're not doing dua to people who are
already good muslims. That doesn't That's a wasted
effort. They already are there. They're good. Your
daw is going to be on the path
of darkness.
You're going out into the darkness to look
for people to bring them into the light.
Right? Allah says that this Quran brings people
for what
that this this this brings people from darkness
to light. How can you go get the
people in darkness if you're not willing to
walk in the darkness? So sometimes you're gonna
have to go into the darkness,
and you're gonna run into evil in the
darkness,
and you have to not lose hope in
encountering evil.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
says in Surat Al Furqan,
and thus we have made for every prophet
an enemy from amongst the criminals, but sufficient
as your lord is a guide
and sufficient as he is a helper. So
Allah says that for every prophet, we gave
them enemies. We made them enemies from amongst
the mujulimoun, the criminals, the wrongdoers. So if
every prophet had enemies, you don't think you're
gonna have enemies?
You don't think you're gonna have enemies? The
dua are gonna have enemies. The Muslims have
enemies. We have enemies. We have to accept
that fact that we on the right path
are going to have enemies. There's always gonna
be enemies of the truth.
The story of the day of Ta'if is
a beautiful example of this quality of not
losing hope and encountering evil, and I've told
you about the day of Ta'if in one
of my that it was the saddest day
and the worst day of the life of
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. He had
no help. Khadija had died. Abu Talib had
died. He took his atop to Danzayd
to Ta'if. He encountered evil people who threw
him out of that city, but it did
not it did not cause him to lose
hope because when the angel Jibril came with
the angel of the mountains and gave him
permission to take revenge on his enemies, he
said
no. He said no.
Why? Because he had
hope in Allah
He had hope in the victory of his
mission. And to destroy people would cut them
off from that hope. To destroy people would
cut them off from that hope. There's no
more hope for a destroyed people. They're done.
So he said, no. I was not sent
to destroy,
but to guide. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
says in Suratul Al Fahl,
and certainly
messengers were denied before you, but they were
patient over their denial. And they were harmed
until our victory came to them. And none
can alter the words of Allah. They will
certainly come to you some information about these
previous messages. So Allah is telling his prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam
that before you, there were messengers who were
denied. There were messengers who were turned away.
There are going to be messengers on the
Day of Judgment. There are going to be
prophets. There are going to be messengers, and
then this is coming from Sounda Hadid.
And our prophet salallahu alaihi wasalam was informed
of this, that there will be messengers and
there will be prophets on the day of
judgment who will have no followers.
They will come with no one. No one
listened to them. Did they fail in their
mission?
No. They didn't fail in their mission. They
did their job and Allah decided not to
guide anyone. It's as simple as that fact,
but they did their job. We look at
Nuh alaihi salam.
How long did
Almost a 1000 years.
How many people accepted Islam because of his
A couple. And his own son was not
one of them. Right? Look at
And his own son was not one of
them. Right?
Look at this. Does that mean that Nuh
failed? No. He is known as one of
the greatest of the Anbiya.
He did his job.
It's just that Allah did not see fit
to guide people
through his dua. It's as simple as that.
So Allah is telling him the messengers before
you were denied, and they were harmed
until our aid and our victory came to
them. Or they were harmed. So you might
involve you might encounter harm. You might encounter
harm in this.
It is what it is. It's it's it's
what what do they what do they say
about
hazards of the job. Right? That's what they
say. Hazards of the occupation. One of the
hazards of the occupation of that was that
you're going to have enemies. You're gonna create
enemies
and you're going to be harmed because of
it.
And don't think it's always going to come
from
the enemies of Islam.
Sometime it'll be your own brother or sister.
Sometime it'll be the brother praying right next
to you 5 days a week. It's just
reality. Sometime And that's the hardest test is
it might come from
your family, your own family members. It might
come from them. It might come from your
spouse. It might come from your children.
One of the things that I have realized
and I have seen,
not only through the lives of the prophets,
but I've seen in my own 20 plus
years of being involved in dua and knowing
many of the major dua'at throughout the world
that are still around and that were around
before and not around now, is that they're
tested very, very severely with their family.
They're tested with their children. They're tested with
their spouses. It's just a reality. This this
is their this is one of their testers.
They'll be out giving dawah to the rest
of the world, I've seen some of them
lose their own children.
Lose their own children.
There's nothing, you know, it's not like you
can say that they didn't do their job,
but this became a test for them. It
became a test for our Prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam.
When his uncle,
Abu Ta'zi, one of the people he loved
the most in this world, I don't think
he had put more effort to any one
human being than he had put towards Abu
Ta'ed. But did Abu Ta'ed accept Islam? No.
This was a reminder to our prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. And Allah told them, you
cannot guide whom you will or whom you
wish. You can't guide whomever you wish. I
guide whomever
I will and I know best those who
are guided. So it was a hard lesson
for our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam to learn
is that he had no
power
over the effect of his dua. No power.
He had the most pure da'wah that could
ever exist on the planet.
No one that has ever walked the face
of this earth has ever given more pure
dua than our prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
He could not even save his own uncle.
Could not even save his own uncle. This
is a lesson to him. And this is
what the du'a have to understand
is that
guidance
is out of your hands except for delivering
the message,
and the analogy that I use,
and I've used this quite frequently, but I
will use it once again,
is you are a delivery
man or woman. That's it. Let's say I
work for UPS.
Right?
I'm not giving it this is not a
promo for UPS. I have just as much
problems with all the delivery services sometimes. They
do they sometimes they work, sometimes they don't,
But let's say I'm a UPS driver. What
is my job?
Deliver packages,
But how am I supposed to deliver those
packages?
What what what is it about those packages
that is important for me as a delivery
driver?
To deliver them exactly how they were given
to me. Right? One of my biggest frustrations
with delivery is you order something,
it's supposed to come in a nice, you
know, pristine box, and when it gets to
you it looks like it's been, like somebody
played rugby with it. Right? It looks like
they they they
played a game of soccer with it. Like,
that's not how I that's not how the
package came to you. Right? The job of
the postal service, UPS, DHL, FedEx, their job
is if I bring a box to them,
they're supposed to make every effort to get
that box to its recipient exactly as it
was given to them. Yes or no? Anything
else is a failure of their job.
That is the in
the most
bold down nutshell I can give you is
that we are to take Islam
as it was given to us.
We don't play with it. Right? We don't
change it. We don't open the box and
remove contents.
We don't add contents.
Right? That is the dua. We don't mess
with Islam as it is, and we take
that dua, that box, and we deliver it
to people exactly as it is. What they
do with that box
is none of my business. Right? As a
UPS driver, once I've handed you the box,
am I responsible for what you do with
it?
Do I care if you throw it in
the trash?
Nope. I don't care what you I don't
care if I hand it to you. And
the moment I hand it to you and
I'm walking away, you set it down on
the ground and stomp on it and jump
up and down on it. It's not my
problem anymore. Once I've given you the package,
I'm going to be paid. Right? I'm gonna
get paid. That is da'wah. Once I've delivered
the package, my reward is with Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala. What you do with it is
up to you. And this is what I
tell people when tell them about Islam. What
you do with this information
is up to you. It it has now
become
between you and the one who created you.
Right? I've done my job. I've given you
the information.
Now it is between you and the one
who created you. I am free
of of any responsibility
in this matter as long as I've done
it correctly and properly with good manners, etcetera.
I'm done. That is my job is to
deliver it exactly as it was given to
me. That's all you need to see yourself
as. And when you see it like that,
it's not as scary anymore. Right? You know,
let's see. I'm just handing the person the
dua and giving them the package. Whatever they
do with it, they do with it. That
is our job as du'a
is to hand over the package. And the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam's dua was very,
very simple.
Say that you'll believe in Allah and you'll
be successful. You'll be successful. Of course, we
live in a society where people want to
know, well now, why, how, what, when. We
need to be a little bit more,
a little bit more
rounded in in in our terms of how
we give our dua, which we'll talk about
the ideological dua. We'll talk about the we're
gonna get to that later on, but our
job is simply to convey the message to
them and then leave it between them and
Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala.
Upon encountering evil
and not losing hope and encountering evil,
comes you have to have
tawakul.
The dua'at must have tawakul in Allah
Tawakul means that you rely on Allah
without measure.
You rely on Allah without
comprehension even. That you put your
your your your trust and your affairs in
the hands of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Whatever the outcome is, you're okay with that.
That you've left your affairs to Allah. Whatever
the in outcome is,
is absolutely fine. I put my affairs in
the hands of Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because
I've said it before here
as well,
is that in the circle of free will,
right? We have a free will,
but that circle is limited.
We have limited free will. We don't have
ultimate free will. We have limited free will,
which is the free will of choice. We
can choose to do whatever we want to
do, but after that comes tawakul.
Because
after I make that choice, whether or not
that choice is going to be good, bad,
or successful or unsuccessful is with Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala.
I can make a choice to open a
business, but it is with Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. I could put all my effort into
it, but it is still with Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala whether it be successful or not.
I can decide to get up and leave
this room. Only Allah knows whether or not
he's going to allow me. If Allah has
decided I would never leave this room, the
moment I get up,
I could drop dead. So we have the
freedom of choice, but after that
we have to have to walk within Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala.
Allah says in Suratul Ali Imran,
those to whom the hypocrites said indeed a
great army has gathered a great army has
gathered against you so fear them. The Asbaab
al Nuzul of this ayah is during the
Battle of Ahazab, the Battle of Khandaq,
where the munafiqin
came into the Muslims and said there's a
great army that's gathered against Jews. You should
be afraid. Right? Like what are you guys
doing? Like you're outnumbered. You're outmanned. There's no
way you can win this war, so be
afraid.
Allah says, but it merely increased them in
their faith. It made their faith go up
because the Muslim knows that the stronger the
opposition,
if they have faith, the stronger the opposition,
the more Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going
to support them. So they responded to the
Munafiqeen by saying,
Allah is sufficient for us and he is
the best of both depose of our affairs.
Now,
had they made their preparations,
Yes. They didn't just, you know, sit in
their homes and say, Allah is sufficient for
us. They made preparations.
They had dug a trench. Right? They had
dug a trench from the most exposed side
of Medina.
The prophet
had said every man, woman, anyone who can
carry a weapon, get a weapon to defend
yourself. Like they were ready to defend Medina
to the death. So they had made their
preparations.
Did they think that the trench was sufficient?
No. They knew they would eventually get over
the trench. Know what I mean? Eventually, that
trench is gonna give in and they're gonna
find a way over it. That's not gonna
None of that. That's not sufficient. Did they
think their numbers were sufficient? No. They knew
their numbers were sufficient, But one thing they
did know,
hosmanullah,
Allah is sufficient for us. They did know
that Allah was enough. That if Allah supports
us, Allah is with us. He is sufficient,
and he is the best disposer of our
affairs.
So as a dua'at, you have to have
that reliance on Allah
That Allah is sufficient for your affairs. You
do what you're supposed to do and leave
your affairs in the hands of
Because when you do that,
it helps with worry. It helps with anxiety.
It helps with
because you understand that you've given your affairs
over to he who holds the kingdoms of
the heavens and earth. He who controls the
affairs of all the universe with no effort.
I have taken my affairs,
which I'm limited. My power is limited. My
capabilities are limited. Right? I'm doing everything I
can. I have now handed these affairs over
to he who controls
everything,
and he
can change my situation in an instant, if
he wills. So those affairs
are in the best of hands. Right? I've
taken them out of my hands and I
put them in the hands of Allah
This is
learning
what are the things that you can control
and what are the things that you can
control.
This is something I've advised you on guys,
and I think very early on in one
of the khataras I did,
was advise you to always know in your
life when you come across difficulties, when you
come across stresses, when you come across things
that are keeping you up at night,
ask yourself, are they things that I can
control
or are they things that I cannot control?
If there are things that you can control
then you should make a plan on how
to deal with them and not worry about
them because you have a plan. Just enact
the plan.
If the plan works, alhamdulillah, if it doesn't,
just pivot and come up with another plan.
But if there are things that you cannot
control,
you have no control over them, then those
are things you should not worry about. They
should be things that you get up in
the middle of the night and give to
Allah
because you can't control them. They belong to
Allah, and for you to stress over them,
you are now the one harming yourself.
If you stress over things you have no
control over, then you also need to take
self accountability
that your stresses are self induced.
Your worries are self induced. It's no longer
anyone else who's harming you. It's you who's
harming you. It's you who's harming you. That's
like me being stressed
or or or or or or anxious or
worried about the weather
here in Texas. It's been hot lately. Right?
Like, it's been hot, and this heat really,
you know, gets to me sometimes. It causes
me migraines, etcetera.
It takes a beating. I go out in
the sun for 10, 15 minutes. I can
get a massive migraine.
I could stress about that,
but what is that good stress going to
accomplish? Am I going to change the heat?
No. I'm not going to change the heat
until probably October. Right? So I just leave
it to Allah
and ask Allah give me the ability for
my blood to thin out a little bit.
I think living 12 years in Minnesota is
sticking my blood up a bit too much
for this Texas heat. Maybe a couple more
years, it'll it'll thin back out to my
southern roots. But these are things that I
I I can't stress over. Like for instance,
the way other people treat you.
Do you have any control over that?
No. None whatsoever. You cannot dictate how other
people treat you.
You can only
dictate how you respond to how they treat
you.
Your response is the only thing that's in
your control, but if people are
treating you a certain way, that's it. You
have to leave that to Allah
You have to remain
the way you are. Don't let people change
you and leave the rest to Allah
So we have to have that tawakul
and reliance on Allah. Because without that reliance
on Allah,
we don't have anything else. Who you gonna
rely on? We, us, we're weak. We're weak.
Human beings are weak. Allah even says I
created mankind weak. I created mankind weak. I
don't think we realize how weak we are,
and I've said this before. I don't think
we realize how weak we are. Even the
strongest
human being on the face of this earth
can be killed in a week by a
microbe.
Can be killed within 48 hours by something
he's not even able to see,
by something that you would have to get
out a microscope
to see can kill the strongest man on
this planet.
That's how weak we are. We literally are
barely here.
Like, our
existence in this world
is is is so fragile. It's like it's
it's super fragile. We are here by the
thinnest of threads.
Well, you can be here one second and
go on the next. How many people have
we heard over the past few years? Healthy.
Super healthy. Nothing wrong with them. Like, they
work out there that you would think that
this person's in better shape than most of
us.
They're gone in an instant. Drop dead. We've
seen it happen in this community over and
over and over and over again. Here in
Plano, here in Texas, here in Dallas, worldwide.
People, they would think that these people are
gonna outlive us by a 100 years.
Gone.
We are fragile, and we are weak at
any moment.
Could be our last moment. So we always
have to be ready for it. And lastly
and then we'll take some q and a
inshallah wata'ana because we wanna try to always
keep this to 45 minutes, Binyin Allah Haqq,
is that organization.
This is something that is
I have not seen this in a lot
of books of the scholars, but I know
this from my own personal life and as
well as something that is this is very
much a stickler for me. This is one
of my
my wife calls it an OCD. I don't
really think it's that that far gone, but
organization.
We must seek to be organized not only
in our dua, but in as well as
our personal and professional lives. Our deen teaches
us to be organized and disciplined. If you
want to be a you should be organized.
A Muslim should be organized. Our religion is
organized.
It's not just wishy washy. We don't get
to pray whenever we want to pray. There's
dictated times to pray. There's dictated times to
fast. There's dictated times to do things. Our
dean is very organized. It's very disciplined,
and if you can become organized and disciplined,
you can beat almost anyone in any field.
If you can learn the mastery of organization
and discipline,
you can beat almost anyone in any field.
You know, there's there's a big thing about
motivation. Right? Motivational speakers. Motivational speakers are very
popular because they motivate people or being motivated.
Let me tell you something, brothers and sisters.
That way this is how we're gonna finish.
Motivation is overrated.
It's overrated, overhyped.
No one can be motivated all the time.
It's not it's not humanly possible.
Someone who lead you into believing
through social media or their videos or whatever
that they're always motivated, they are lying to
you.
They're lying to you and they're faking it.
You cannot be motivated
every single day, and if you're only going
to do things when you're motivated to do
them, you're going to rarely do them. You're
going to do them and not do them
and do them and not do them, and
the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said that
the most beloved deeds to Allah are the
regular deeds.
Deeds, consistent deeds, even if they're small.
It is better to have consistent small deeds
than one good big great grand deed that
you only do once and then you leave
it. So discipline and consistency is the key
to success for the believer, and you cannot
be disciplined without being organized. Let me tell
you that right now. There's no way for
you to be disciplined
without being organized. That's one of the things
I'm gonna teach later on in our Saturday
sessions for the youth is the art of
discipline.
The art of discipline from the Islamic perspective.
Discipline
is what you need more than motivation.
Discipline means you are going to do what
you need to do
regardless of whether or not you feel like
doing it.
Those are the people who win. Those are
the people who succeed.
I'm gonna do what I need to do
today, even if I don't feel like doing
it. That is how you succeed.
There are plenty of days, if like for
those of you who might work out, and
I I do work out regularly and I've
been doing so for most of my life,
just my martial arts background.
I have a set workout schedule, and unless
I'm injured, which I have been lately, I
have been doing, but unless I'm injured, I'm
gonna work out. Doesn't matter how I feel.
There are certain days where I'm just like,
I
the last thing I want to do is
go and pick up some weights or do
some push ups or do some I I
just I don't, but I will do it
anyway.
Even if that day, I do a very
light workout. Right? Like I'm not going very
hard. I just do a very minimum workout.
But I do it to remind myself of
my discipline. Right? That no matter what, I'm
going to do it anyway.
When you do that, that's such a victory.
Trust me. When you do something you don't
feel like doing, you're you you you have
no desire to do it whatsoever, but you
do it anyway because you know you need
to, you have such a mental victory. You
know that you can do things even on
your worst days.
That means on my good days, I could
do even more. I can go harder. I
can push harder. I can push farther. That's
discipline.
That's
discipline.
And just a small real quick advice on
discipline.
One of the things that you should do
is schedule your life. I've said it,
But one of the big things you should
do
is, I know because of salah time, etcetera,
it's hard to go to bed at the
same time every day. You should go you
should try to go to bed at a
similar time every single day, but one thing
you should always do is get up at
the same time every single day.
Every single day. That will change your life
dramatically.
I don't care what time you've gone to
bed. Get up at the same time every
single day. If you and guess what? If
you stayed up too late, you'll pay for
it the next day, but it will be
a stark reminder to you why you go
to bed on time. Because I'm gonna get
up at the same time every single day.
And once you do that, you don't even
have to set an alarm clock anymore. Like
for me,
it's it's I try to make it 445,
430, 44 between 4:30 and 5 o'clock every
single day. Boom. I'm out of bed awake.
4:45,
4:30, when my eye when my eyes wake
up, I get out of bed. It's the
first thing I do. I say, 1, 2,
3, 4, 5. I put my feet on
the floor. Because people ask me, how do
you do that? I say, set an alarm
and do this for a month, and you'll
see how it changes. Set an alarm for
whatever time it is that you want to
get up every day, and as soon as
that alarm goes off, count down. 5, 4,
3, 2, 1. Put your feet on the
floor. Get out of the bed. Even if
you don't know what you're about to do
next, get out of the put your feet
on the floor and get out of the
bed. Do that every single day. That will
be the first key to your discipline. And
if you learn to start your days early,
which a Muslim should a Muslim is supposed
to. It was the sun of the prophet
sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. If you learn to
start your mornings early, 4:30,
4:45 in the morning,
you will find
that you have more time than most other
human beings on this planet. You'll find that
you get so much more stuff done. I
remember when I was living in Minnesota, especially
in the pandemic, when I was self when
I was self employed, I did not work
for anybody or anything. I used to get
up at 4:30, 4:40, 4:15 to 4:30.
I used to have most of everything I
needed to have done for my day by
10 AM.
By 10 AM noon, I had done everything
I needed to do for the day,
and I had sessions throughout the day and
other but other than that, whatever I needed
to do reading, my my writing, my book
writing,
videos that I needed to make, what whatever
it is I needed to do for that
day was done by 10:30 noon.
The rest of the day, I had a
lot of time to do what I wanted
to do. And when my sessions were done
at 6 o'clock, I had nothing else to
do for the rest of the day. I
had a time for my family. I had
time for myself. I had time for my
spouse. I had time for my children, and
I still went to bed on a regular,
decent time.
Every single day, that's how I live my
life. That was and that is the most
successful you will find yourself as because we
as human beings are are creatures of routine.
We're creatures of habit. We whether we like
to believe it or not, we are creatures
of habit.
Your habits decide your future.
Your habits decide your future. That decides what's
going to be the future you and the
future tomorrow is the habits that you're creating
today. So create good habits,
Have discipline.
Have organization skills. Set a time you get
up every single day. Have a plan for
your day and you will find that you
will be successful. Will be successful. You'll find
they'll be successful. Alright.
We will continue on next week with, some
more of this ifeht, of the du'at, and
then they will go on to the next
section. Any questions about what we covered so
far today?
Okay.
Yep. One of my biggest advices, right, when
it comes to doubt, and we're gonna get
to this later on in detail, so I'll
give it to you brief now, but we're
gonna go into detail.
Is for far too long, our ideological dao
has been to tell everybody how wrong they
are.
Right? That's where we started, how wrong you
are. That is a bad way to start
a conversation.
If if you want
a good outcome to a conversation,
starting it with telling someone how wrong they
are
is not the smartest idea. Right? Rather than
telling people how wrong they are, we should
be telling them how right Islam is.
How right Islam is. Because if you show
them the light,
the darkness becomes very evident.
If you show someone the light, the darkness
becomes very evident. But people who've lived in
the dark so long, it's become normal to
them. Right? It's become comfortable to them. But
as soon as you show them the light,
they see clearly how dark their world is.
But if you just try to explain to
them how dark their world is, they've lived
in it their whole life, they're like, I
don't see anything wrong with this. I've become
very comfortable with this. There's nothing does not
bother me. Right? But as soon as you
show them the light, they realize how dark
their world really is. So we should start
with the conversation of what can Islam do
for them to make their better.
Right? How can Islam make the world a
better place? How can Islam positively
impact a person's life? How can Islam positively
impact the world we live in? Because when
you show them that,
that this is what Islam teaches and they
see what the world looks like, they'll realize,
okay, well, that's a much better option. Right?
That's a much better option. But if I
come to you and say you're wrong,
immediately, there's something in your brain that turns
yourself, it turns off to everything else I
have to say. The only thing you're gonna
remember is this guy said that I'm wrong.
No.
They will realize they're wrong if you show
them what's right.
They'll realize what's wrong if you show them
what's right. Right? If you give them the
alternative, if you show them the grass is
greener on the other side, right, they would
realize that my grass is pretty dead.
Right? Like sometimes I've looked at my own
grass in my front yard and be like,
it doesn't look too bad. And then I
go up into my top balcony where I
can see my whole street and I'm like,
oh my gosh. I need to I need
to water this grass. Because when you see
everybody else's yard, you're like, yep. This is
not looking really good. So it's it's all
about perspective. Right? If we give them a
better perspective, then they'll see the beauty of
Islam. Don't start by telling him everything's wrong.
You know what I mean? That's that's not
a way to do it, and that's unfortunately
what we've done for too long inshallah.
Alright. It's time for,
adhan in literally like 45 seconds. So we'll
break here inshallah.
I will see you guys,
Saturday evening. Saturday evening, we will start with
the life of Uthman ibn Affan inshallah. I'm
giving the khutbah both of them this Friday
inshallah.
And then,
tomorrow we're having some meetings with some youth
organizations and we're meeting with the youth this
weekend. So youth programs will be starting when
I come back from the UK in in
in