Zia Sheikh – Muhasabah A Reminder from

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