Zia Sheikh – Muhasabah A Reminder from
AI: Summary ©
The callers discuss the importance of evaluating oneself and learning about the meaning of muhas offline. Prayed daily prayer is emphasized as it is crucial to avoid bad deeds and is the way of life. Different topics, such as evaluating oneself and practicing what is being said and heard, are emphasized. Ultimately, it is crucial to pursue good deeds and ensure that bad deeds are eliminated slowly but surely.
AI: Summary ©
Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salam wa rahmatullahi wa
barakatuh.
This is Imam Zia speaking to you from
the Islamic Center of Irving.
And what I'd like to talk to you
about is the issue of muhasabah.
What is muhasabah?
In loose terms, the meaning is evaluation.
And just like we have evaluations for ourselves
at work and in our daily life, similarly,
it's important to have a constant spiritual evaluation
of ourselves too.
And how do you do that?
First of all, before we get into the
method, let's talk about the saying of Umar,
who said, حاسبوا أنفسكم قبل أن تحاسبوا وزينوا
أعمالكم قبل أن تزنوا What does that mean?
Umar, he said, evaluate yourselves before you are
evaluated, meaning by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
and weigh your deeds before your deeds are
weighed, meaning, again, by Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala on the Day of Judgment.
So, how does one evaluate oneself and how
does one weigh one's deeds?
Many people think that Islam and practicing Islam
is very, very difficult.
And many, many people, because of maybe some
hadith that they've heard or verses that they've
heard or talk of the hellfire or talk
of the punishment, they kind of lose hope
about their future with Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala.
And what is important to understand is that
Islam is really very, very easy to implement
in one's life.
It's not difficult at all.
On a daily basis, a person simply needs
to do more good deeds than bad deeds.
Very, very simple.
It cannot be much simpler than that.
And that is why this concept of muhasabah
is so important.
A person, he, before going to sleep, thinks
to himself, how many good deeds did I
do?
How many obligations of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala did I fulfill today?
How many obligations did I not fulfill?
How many commandments of Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala did I break today?
How many sins did I commit today?
How many major sins?
How many minor sins?
How many people did I hurt today with
my talk?
How many people did I ridicule today?
How many people did I backbite today?
So, when a person does this on a
constant basis, next time he does it, he
will check himself, he will stop himself, and
he will prevent himself from doing that bad
deed and falling into that sin.
And then slowly but surely, he will find
that when he evaluates himself at night before
going to sleep, he will find that his
good deeds are indeed outweighing his bad deeds.
And if a person feels that, for example,
that he didn't pray Isha before going to
bed, immediately he will get up and pray
his Isha prayer.
And in the morning, he will make sure
that he sets his alarm for the Fajr
prayer.
And so on.
There are many, many hadith that talk about
this concept of kind of doing good deeds
to counter bad deeds.
According to one hadith of the Prophet ﷺ,
أَتْبِعِ السَّيِّئَةَ الْحَسَنَةَ تَمْحُوهَا Follow up a bad
deed with a good deed, and this good
deed will delete the bad deed.
And it's mentioned about the angels that are
writing down our deeds on the right and
left shoulders, it's mentioned that when a person
intends to do a good deed, the angel
writes down a good deed immediately, whatever he
intended to do.
And then when the person actually does that
good deed, the angel writes that deed tenfold,
minimum.
And it can increase depending on the situation,
like in the month of Ramadan or the
place, like if a person does it in
Makkah in the Haram, it is multiplied 100
,000 times.
So different situations make that deed multiplied many,
many times over.
However, in the case of the bad deed,
if a person intends to do a bad
deed, this is not written as a sin
against him.
But when he does the bad deed, he
is the angel who writes the bad deeds,
he is instructed not to write the bad
deed until the person has had an opportunity
to actually make tawbah and repent and ask
Allah for forgiveness for the sin.
So this is actually so important for us
to understand the importance of relevance of the
salah itself.
Why do we pray five times a day?
There are many, many reasons and many, many
wisdoms, and one of them is getting a
connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and
making sure that we are always aware of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
But one of the most important things is
that when a person, he prays his five
times daily prayer, then the sins that are
committed in between the prayers, they get deleted
and they get forgiven.
And that's why the Prophet, peace be upon
him, he gave an example to the Sahaba.
And he said that if a person, he
has a running stream in front of his
house and he bathes in that running stream
five times a day, would there be any
kind of dirt left on his body?
The Sahaba said, of course not.
So the Prophet, peace be upon him, first
of all, he said it's a running stream.
And a running stream, it has clean, fresh,
running water rather than a stationary lake or
a pond which has stationary water which can
become stagnant and smelling and have like algae
all over it.
But the running stream, it is always fresh
water.
So the person is bathing himself in fresh
water five times a day.
So is there going to be any sin
left upon him, any kind of dirt left
upon him?
The Sahaba said there's not going to be
any dirt.
So the Prophet, peace be upon him, said
that this is the example of the prayer
that a person prays.
So if a person, he did commit a
sin, then he prays the next Salat, his
sins will get omitted because of that.
So basically the summary of what I'm trying
to say is that we need to constantly
evaluate ourselves and make sure that we are
doing the obligations and the good deeds that
we are instructed to do and slowly but
surely, the more we do the good deeds,
the more we develop a connection with Allah
SWT, the more we continue to evaluate ourselves,
we will find that slowly but surely, those
bad deeds are being eliminated from our life
and we are becoming a better, more pious
person, getting closer and closer to Allah SWT
and this is the ideal thing that we
are supposed to be doing before we leave
this world, to have this deep connection with
Allah SWT so much so that when the
time comes for our death, we are ready
and willing and eager to meet our Creator.
So this is, in a nutshell, the purpose
of Muhasaba, evaluation for ourselves, so that slowly
but surely, our bad deeds are eliminated from
our lives and the good deeds outweigh the
bad deeds and we do more good deeds
rather than the bad deeds.
I pray that Allah SWT gives me and
you and everyone the tawfiq to understand and
practice what is being said and heard.
Jazakum Allah Khayran for listening.
Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh