Zia Sheikh – A Presentation on Muhasabah
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AI: Transcript ©
Be aware that
Malakul Maut actually just passed your shoulders to
get to somebody else.
Malakul Maut, he just passed by you right
now.
I talked about the Khatir-Riqaab in one
of my lectures.
What is the Khatir-Riqaab?
The Khatir-Riqaab which the Prophet ﷺ actually
prohibited is when people are sitting in a
line and you see a space in front,
you jump over their neck to try to
get to that space.
So the Prophet ﷺ forbade that.
So in this saying of Umar ﷺ he
said, Malakul Maut basically just jumped over your
neck.
Just jumped over your neck and took somebody's
Ruh.
Somebody who you knew.
Somebody who was your neighbour.
Somebody who was praying with you.
Somebody who was your relative.
And then the saying goes on to say,
وَأَنَّهُ قَدْ يَتَخَطَّ غَيْرَكُمْ لِيَصِلْ إِلَيْكُمْ And the
time will come that he will pass by
other people to get to you.
So once a person realises that Malakul Maut
is just going around everybody and taking people's
souls and passing by us and we don't
even realise it, a person really will think
to himself that I need to improve myself
so I can meet Allah SWT after my
death and I'm ready to meet Allah SWT.
Otherwise if a person is not doing that,
then when Malakul Maut comes, he will say,
No, I'm not ready.
Give me more time.
Allah says in Surah Al-Mu'minoon, حَتَّىٰ إِذَا
جَاءَ أَحَدَهُمُ الْمَوْتِ قَالَ رَبِّ رِجِعُونَ لَعَلِّي أَعْمَلُ
صَالِحًا فِي مَا تَرَكْتُ When the Malakul Maut
comes to each one of them, he will
say, Oh my Lord, return me back.
I want to go back to the world
so that I can do some good deeds
in the life that I've just left.
And the answer will be from Allah SWT,
No, it's not going to happen.
The time that you were given, it's passed.
إِذَا جَاءَ أَجَلُهُمْ لَا يَسْتَأْخِرُونَ سَاعَةً وَلَا يَسْتَقْتِمُونَ
When the time comes, it is not brought
forward, nor is it put back, meaning the
time that Allah SWT has allocated for our
death, it is going to come, and when
it comes, there is no going back.
So saying of Hasan al-Basri, he says
that, يَبْنَ آدَمْ إِنَّكَ إِيَّامٌ Oh son of
Adam, you are but a collection of days.
إِذَا مَضَى يَوْمُكُ ذَهَبَ بَعْضُكُ One day passes
of you, a part of you has gone.
So if you can just imagine, that each
one of us is made up of, say
for example, 10,000 days.
If one day has passed, so now I
have only, myself, I have only 9,999
days left.
Another day passes, I have 9,998 days
left.
Another day passes, 9,997.
So part of me is disappearing, slowly and
slowly.
Until when the time comes, that when my
days have finished, then I am finished.
And I will have disappeared, of the face
of this earth, and I will be underneath
the ground.
So we need to think of this from
that perspective.
So once a person realizes that he has
to leave this world, then he will constantly
do what he can, to prepare himself for
the hereafter.
And this is such an important thing.
And that only comes with مُحَاسَبَةٌ نَفْسٌ So
there are different levels, and different aspects of
مُحَاسَبَةٌ نَفْسٌ Like I said from the beginning,
that how we are from a personal level.
So from a personal level, we should be
constantly trying to improve ourselves.
And first and foremost, in the things which
are most important.
And that is the فَرَائِط, the things that
Allah SWT has obligated upon us.
According to a Hadith Qudsi, the Prophet ﷺ,
he said, مَا تَقَرَّبَ إِلَيَّ عَبْدِي وِشَيْءٍ أَحَبُّ
إِلَيَّ مِمَّا فَرَضْتُهُ عَلَيْهِ That my slave doesn't
get closer to me, through anything, quicker than,
the things that I have obligated upon him.
Okay, so this is first and foremost.
Where am I in terms of my فَرَائِط,
my obligations, my Fajr prayer, my Isha prayer,
and the rest of the prayers when I'm
at work, during the day time.
Am I fulfilling this obligation or not?
And if not, then this is the first
step I need to get, get through so
that I can get closer to Allah SWT.
This is the best and the most important
thing that we need to do.
And it's just like, if you can imagine
a house, that you build.
And you, call the alarm company, to put
an alarm system, inside the house.
Alright, but yet you haven't put any doors
or windows in the house yet.
There are no doors, no windows, and you
tell the alarm company, I need a burglar
alarm.
What is the alarm company going to say?
Well what about the doors?
What about the windows?
Aren't you going to put those in first?
So obviously, those need to go in first.
So these windows and the doors are, the
first, protection against the Shaytan.
The Fara'i.
These are the Fara'i.
That are the first protection against the Shayateen.
And then the second step, is the Nawafil,
and that is, the burglar alarm.
Okay, then Nafil comes second.
There are so many people, what they tend
to do, they say, well I'm having nightmares,
and I feel that somebody is doing black
magic on me, or I'm being possessed by
a jinn, or I hear noises in my
house.
The question you ask them is, are you
praying your five times daily Salat?
Are you fulfilling the obligations that Allah SWT
has put upon you?
No, I'm not.
I'm a little bit lazy, but please tell
me some kind of Dhikr I can do,
or some kind of Ayat that I can
recite, so that I can protect myself from
these things.
So, you haven't installed the burglar alarms, you
haven't installed the windows and doors, you haven't
fulfilled the Fara'il, and you're asking for
the burglar alarm.
Okay, so this is the thing that we
need to understand, when it comes to self
-evaluation, the first thing should be our evaluation
of our Fara'il.
And then, not only the completing of the
Fara'il, but the quality of the Fara
'il too.
That, since last year, okay, I've been praying
my Salat for so many years, and I've
been praying it five times daily, but has
the quality improved or not?
Has my concentration improved or not?
Has my recitation in the Salat, has it
lengthened or not?
This is the question that we also need
to ask ourselves too.
Just like we are always, you know, thinking
about improving ourselves in terms of our household,
okay, that I had this furniture, this furniture
has been here for three, four years, now
I need to make an improvement to this
furniture.
So, when we upgrade the furniture, we buy
new furniture, it's usually a step up from
the furniture that we had before.
It's usually a better quality, okay, it's more
expensive.
So, similarly, when we are thinking about our
Salat, and our Fara'il, they always need
to constantly improve in terms of quality too.
So that's the second level of evaluation.
The second thing is, obviously, am I engaged
in any type of Haram?
Any kind of disobedience of Allah SWT?
And if so, then what am I doing
to stop myself from engaging that disobedience?
That is the thing that we need to,
the second thing that we need to keep
in mind.
So, just like the obligation, the second thing
is the Muharramat, just as important to stay
away from, and there are so many things
that, you know, are prevalent nowadays, we don't
need to go into them.
We know the sins that people are committing
in this day and age, so we need
to make sure that we are staying away
from all this type of disobedience of Allah
SWT.
And then, after that, we need to focus.
That, okay, I'm doing my Fara'il, and
the quality of my Fara'il is improving,
and I am staying away from Muharramat, and
now what about my Nawafil?
Have I increased my Nawafil?
And is my concentration in my Nawafil?
And my enjoyment in the Nawafil, is it
increasing or not?
Okay, so this is a level of, another
level of Muhasabah.
The Adhkar of the day, the recitation of
the Quran, all of these things, they fall
under the Nawafil, the Nafil Ibadah.
Okay, so, we need to think about these
things.
So, when we think about this, when we
make Muhasabah on a daily basis, then we
will find that our, our lives will improve,
our deeds will improve, our connection with Allah
SWT will improve, and we will, on a
daily basis, we will do, Inshallah, more good
deeds than bad deeds.
And this is basically what the target of
our lives should be, that on a daily
basis, am I doing more good than bad?
We all do sins, we all commit sins,
we all slip up, and we all make
mistakes.
But, Allah SWT, He is so merciful, that
when we do good deeds, Allah SWT multiplies
them, and He looks for excuses to multiply
them, and He gives us so much more
than we anticipated and hoped for.
For example, a person prays at home, he
gets the reward of one Salat, but he
comes and prays in the Masjid, it's multiplied
27 times, 25 times.
So, Allah continues to multiply the reward for
us.
We go to Makkah al-Mukarramah, that same
Salat is multiplied 100,000 times.
One dollar we give in charity over there,
it's equivalent to 100,000 dollars.
In Ramadan, when we do good deeds, those
deeds are also multiplied many, many times over.
So, Allah SWT looks for excuses to give
us more when we do the smallest of
deeds.
But when it comes to the sin itself,
the sin is only counted as one sin.
That is not multiplied.
So, we need to be thankful to Allah
SWT that He has enabled us and He
has given us this thing.
Otherwise, if it was just a case of
Allah SWT taking us to account for the
blessings that He has given us, then our
deeds are nothing in comparison to the blessings
that He gave us.
Just the blessing of the eyes, for example,
the blessing of our feet, the blessing of
our hands, the blessing of our bodies, our
digestive system, everything that Allah SWT gave us,
these are true blessings.
Allah SWT says that وَفِي أَنفُسِكُمْ ponder into
yourselves أَفَلَا تُبْصِرُونَ Are you not seeing how
Allah SWT created you?
So, that's basically our own evaluation and every
night we should try to do this kind
of evaluation that how many good deeds did
I do, how many bad deeds did I
do, how many people did I hurt, and
so on, and then we'll find that slowly,
slowly, with this evaluation, we will continue to
improve.
Let's go to the next slide, inshallah.
Allah says وَأَسِرُوا قَوْلَكُمْ أَوِجْهَرُوا بِهِ إِنَّهُ عَلِيمٌ
بِذَاتِ السُّدُورِ Whether you openly say something or
you hide something, He is fully aware of
what is going on in the hearts.
So, outwardly, we can be as pious as
we like, but if our insides are not
clean and we have, you know, all these
bad attributes within us, then that means we
really need to work on ourselves.
And internally, as well as externally, we need
to be clean.
What we call تَزْكِيَةٌ نَفْسٌ purification of the
nafs.
It is that a person inside, he is
also pure and clean from all types of
bad attributes.
What are those attributes?
Allah SWT has, you know, summarized them into
just one word in the Quran, which is
called غِل.
غِل Allah says that people, when they're in
paradise, they will be enjoying themselves.
And Allah says, وَنَزَعْنَا مَا فِي سُدُورِهِم مِّن
غِلٍ And we would have removed from their
hearts غِل.
What is that غِل?
The impurity of jealousy.
The impurity of arrogance.
The impurity of, you know, hating other people
for whatever reason, for no reason whatsoever.
So these are bad qualities that we have
within us.
Jealousy and hatred and arrogance and looking down
at other people.
These are all summarized in this word غِل.
And Allah SWT has said, or the Prophet
ﷺ has told us that the person who
has these bad qualities within him, he will
not enter paradise.
لَا يَدْخُلُ الْجَنَّةَ مَن كَانَ فِي قَلْبِهِمْ إِذْ
قَالُوا ذَرَةٍ مِّن كِبْرٍ The person who has
an atom seed or a mustard seed of
kibr in his heart, he will not enter
paradise.
لَا يَدْخُلُ الْجَنَّةَ قَاطِعٍ The person who breaks
relationships with his relatives, he will not enter
paradise.
Why does a person break relationships?
Because he has arrogance in him and he
thinks himself better than everybody else and therefore
he doesn't feel the need to maintain those
relationships.
That's why, because of this impurity in his
heart, he breaks the relationships with his relatives.
لَا يَدْخُلُ الْجَنَّةَ قَاطِعٍ The Prophet ﷺ said,
the person who breaks relationships with other people,
who doesn't talk to other people for, because
of enmity, he will not enter paradise.
Again, all of these things are boiled into
the impurity of the heart.
And if a person has humbleness, humility within
him, he will find that he is not
going to be engaging in that type of
thing.
He keeps his heart clean.
You know the story of the Sahabi who
came and the Prophet ﷺ had said before
that the person, the next person who's going
to come through the door, he's a person
of paradise.
So, the Sahabi came, not a very famous
one, not a very prominent one, and the
Sahabi wondering, you know, what is the thing
that he does that makes him a person
of paradise?
And then one Sahabi followed him and stayed
with him for three, four days, didn't see
anything special.
He didn't see him doing any special worship,
just doing the basics.
And then he asked him, he said the
Prophet ﷺ said this about you, but I
don't see you doing anything special.
So, the person, he said, no, I don't
do anything special.
And as the Sahabi was about to leave,
he said, okay, come back.
I think there's one thing that I do
on a daily basis and that is that
before I go to sleep, I forgive every
single person that has done me any type
of wrong and I clean my heart from
this impurity.
So, just imagine if we were to do
that every single day.
You know, we'd have a very pure interior,
pure insides, and we would not lose sleep
over something that somebody has done to us.
What is the main reason that we lose
sleep and we stay awake at night?
That person, he took my right.
That person, he did me wrong.
That person, he, you know, I invited him
to come to my house, he didn't come.
I invited him to my son's wedding, he
didn't come.
So, these thoughts keep a person awake at
night.
The person cleans his thoughts, he will actually
sleep better at night.
So, the point is that cleaning our hearts
from these impure thoughts, it is important and
this is actually part of muhasabah also.
Next one, inshallah.
This surah is something that we've probably heard
many times in our life.
وَالْعَصْرِ إِنَّ الْإِنسَانَ لَفِي خُسْرٍ All of the
humanity is in loss.
Allah SWT swears by time, He says all
of humanity is in loss.
Every single human being is in loss.
And then, Allah SWT makes an exception.
People that have four qualities within them.
إِلَّا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا وَعَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ People that have
iman and they do good deeds.
This is about oneself.
وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْا بِالصَّبْرِ And they do تواصي
بالحقِّ meaning they advise each other of the
truth and they advise each other of sabr,
of being patient and perseverance.
So, if you look, two of these qualities
are personal and two of these are related
to people around us.
So, this is again, this will only come
when again, first of all, we evaluate ourselves,
our deeds and we evaluate our environment around
us that how is our environment?
How are the people's deeds?
How are people, our people, is my community
coming for the salat?
Is my community attached to the masjid?
Is my community doing what they're supposed to
be doing?
So, this is, this concern will be within
him also and he will, when he gets
the opportunity with wisdom and in a gentle
way and with love, he will guide people
and advise them.
Okay, so this is a second level of
muhasabah, meaning that evaluating the environment around him.
Go ahead.
This hadith is a very famous one, Abu
Hurayr radiAllahu ta'ala narrates that Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
does not look at your faces, meaning the
beauty of your faces and the beauty of
your clothes, your attire, but he looks at
your heart and your deeds.
So, internally, what are we doing and what
are our deeds like?
This is what we need to be focused
on.
It doesn't matter how beautiful a person is
on the outside, if internally he is corrupt
and internally he is impure, then this is
something that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
aware of.
So, we need to improve ourselves.
This hadith, first of all, the verse of
the Quran, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
They should be amongst you people who order
people, other people to do good and they
forbid them from evil.
This is an important aspect and again, evaluation
of our community and to see where our
community is going, what is needed within our
community in terms of improvement, this is highlighted
in this verse of the Quran.
That we need to make and there needs
to be a group of people amongst the
community that takes it upon themselves.
Actually, it's everybody's responsibility, but also, specifically, a
group of people should take it upon themselves
to guide people towards Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
And the next hadith, the Prophet ﷺ said,
All of you are guardians and all of
you are responsible for their subordinates.
Each one of us has people that are
under our control.
The husband, he has the wife, he has
the kids that are his responsibility.
The father, he has to, he is responsible
for his kids.
The mother, is responsible for her kids and
the welfare of her husband and taking care
of him.
So, each one of us has subordinates and
people that we are going to be questioned
about on the Day of Judgment.
So, what are we doing in terms of
improving their lot and improving their actions, improving
their connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala?
This is a question we need to ask
ourselves.
The word Mas'ul, Mas'ul means questioned.
We will be questioned, we will be asked
by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you were
a father to your children, what did you
do to teach them about Islam?
As a husband, what did you teach your
wife when she was not praying and she
was spending hour upon hour watching these dramas,
okay, from Pakistan and India?
Okay, what were you doing?
Did you tell her that stop wasting time,
recite Quran, take time out for the Quran,
take time for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
don't miss your prayers?
Did you bring her to the masjid when
there was a lecture going on and when
there was a khutbah going on?
Did you take it upon yourself to make
sure that she has the right education to
make sure that she is, first of all,
a pious slave of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala and also by extension becomes a good
wife and a good mother to her children?
So, this mas'uliyah, this responsibility, in Arabic
mas'uliyah is responsibility but mas'ul again
is questionability is actually the word.
Questionability.
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala holds people to
account because of the responsibility that has been
given to them.
So, from different levels we are responsible for
the people that are under our control and
we need to be aware that we will
be questioned about them so we need to
make sure that we evaluate ourselves from that
level also.
Now, there are certain things that we should
try to do.
There is a big problem that we have
nowadays with technology.
Everyone has their gadgets and everyone is checking
their email, checking their WhatsApp, checking their Facebook,
checking their Instagram and all different kinds of
apps that are actually wasting our time and
ironically what is called social media is making
us more and more unsocial.
Right?
It's called social media but we are not
being social with the people around us.
We are unsocial with the people that are
sitting in front of us and we are
social with the virtual world.
So, it's not social.
It's unsocial media.
Right?
So, I'm not saying that you need to
cut it out completely.
There is, you know, maybe a need of
the time that we are involved in this.
You know, a lot of good is spread
through social media.
Good projects, awareness of projects, awareness of what's
going on in the world.
Revolutions have taken place through social media, right?
And governments have changed.
So, it's a very powerful tool and, you
know, we complain about the media that, you
know, we cannot control the media and it's
controlled by such and such people and they
are always have a propaganda against Islam.
Well, social media is the people's media, okay?
And we can propagate messages about Islam, about
wrong that is being committed in the world
and, you know, it has its benefits.
But at the same time, there are drawbacks
too.
And the drawbacks are that we are taking
the time away from our families, from our
children.
The children are taking their time away from
their parents and wasting time.
So, there has to be some kind of
limitation to these things, okay?
So, what is the limit?
We need to set a maximum time that
we are on these things, okay?
And, for example, at the dinner table, all
the gadgets have to be off, okay?
They have to be off and we are
only going to be talking to each other
while on the dinner table.
It's a fair deal and the same thing
applies to the parents.
If the parents are fiddling with their gadgets,
the kids are going to take their gadgets
out too.
So, we need to make sure that we
are spending time with our children socially, truly
socially, not text messaging each other, but truly
socially, face-to-face, talking to each other.
We need to make sure we're doing that.
After Maghrib or after any Salat, reflect upon
your actions of the day, that how did
you spend your day today?
How much of it done was in good?
How much was it in bad?
How many Fara'at did you fulfill?
How many Nawafil did you do?
Did you learn anything new?
Did you practice what you learned yesterday?
Did you put it into practice?
All of these things we need to reflect
upon, as I've already mentioned.
And at least 15 minutes a day, have
a one-on-one with the kids and
talk to them.
Have a talk with each other, and again,
that should be a gadget-free zone when
that happens.
Helping each other to do good, advising each
other, and this is within the family and
outside of the family.
Reminder is beneficial to the believer.
Okay?
What is a reminder?
A reminder is something that we might even
know about.
Okay?
Every single one of you knows that you
have to pray five times daily, right?
This is something that we've been taught as
a child.
So why do I need to repeat it?
Why do I need to tell you?
It's good to kind of refresh that self,
refresh that responsibility, and to tell each other
that this is an important responsibility and we
should not forget about it.
It's narrated about the Sahaba, Rizwanullah Ali Majma
'in, that they used to say to each
other, Ta'al, Ijlis Bina Nu'min Sa'atan.
Come sit down.
Sit down and let's have Iman for a
while.
What does that mean?
Having Iman for a while means that let's
talk about Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Let's talk about His greatness.
Let's talk about Jannah.
Let's talk about Jahannam.
And by doing that, let's increase our Iman.
So sitting with each other, talking to each
other, advising each other, and this is again
a person who is advised by somebody should
not take it personally.
Many people, you know, if you go to
them or if you are sitting in a
gathering and you are talking about something, they
will say, well, why don't you go to
the non-Muslims?
They need Islam more than us.
No, we all need Islam.
We are all weak.
We are all weak and we know what
our weaknesses are.
So if somebody is telling you and reminding
you, then a person should not take it
personally.
This is part and parcel of being part
of a community, taking advice, giving advice, all
of that is part of the evaluation process.
So now, finally, this is the final slide.
I believe that this is, this lecture is
the initiative of the ICIF Culture Committee.
What does the Culture Committee mean?
Don't misunderstand the wording, all right?
It's not a cultural committee that, for example,
Pakistanis, they talk about their own culture, the
Indians talk about their own culture, Hyderabadis talk
about Bagare Baingan and Dum Ki Biryani, not
that culture.
The purpose is creating a culture within ourselves,
within the community, culture of advising, culture of,
for example, we've had recent initiatives, add one
minute to each prayer.
This was the goal, and creating a culture
of adding one minute to each prayer.
Unity, creating a culture of unity, saying salam
to brothers as you see them, to a
stranger, to a new brother, and today's lecture
was the issue of Mahasabha.
So every month there is a new theme
that is being initiated, and there will be
like a poster outside telling you what the
month's goal is.
Lectures will be taking place in the masjid,
for example, like today's lecture, and after Fajr,
for example, I give a five-minute talk,
so the talks will be directed at the
theme of the particular month, and the purpose
of that is to create a culture of
bringing that into practice.
One from the brothers is to try to
volunteer to do these things.
For example, Brother Tanvir, he's volunteered to film
this, and this is probably going up on
YouTube, and it's going to benefit maybe hundreds,
thousands of people that are going to benefit
from this lecture.
So each one of us is requested, first
of all, there's a survey form to try
to fill in, and truthfully, fill in the
survey form related to yourselves, related to your
families, and then there's a volunteer form also
that we request everybody to try to volunteer,
and then you'll be contacted by the committee
to see how you can help, inshallah.
May Allah give us the ability to understand
and practice what Allah has