Zia Sheikh – Muhasabah

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

radiya Allah ta'ala anhu who said, حَاسِبُوا

أَنفُسَكُمْ قَبْلَ أَن تُحَاسَبُوا وَزِينُوا أَعْمَالَكُمْ قَبْلَ أَن

تُزَنُوا What does that mean?

Umar radiya Allah ta'ala anhu, he said,

evaluate yourselves before you are evaluated, meaning by

Allah subhana wa ta'ala, and weigh your

deeds before your deeds are weighed, meaning again

by Allah subhana 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 subhana 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 subhana wa ta

'ala did I fulfill?

How many obligations did I not fulfill?

How many commandments of Allah subhana 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,

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 a hundred

thousand 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 and 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 and making sure that we are

always aware of Allah.

But one of the most important things is

that when a person 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 gave an example

to the Sahaba.

And he said that if a person 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, 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 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 has been said and heard.

Jazakum Allah Khayran for listening.

Assalamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh