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How To Change Your Desires | Khutbah
The Prophet ﷺ used to seek refuge from a self that is never satisfied. How do you change your spiritual appetite from what is sinful to what gives you salvation? Are all desires meant to be changed? Dr. Omar Suleiman shares the answers in this khutbah.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. We begin by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for him. We bear witness that Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him, the prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him, and those that follow in his blessed path until the day of judgment. Allahumma ameen. Dear brothers and sisters, there is a du'a from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that is narrated in multiple forms. And one of the things about the du'as of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that get narrated through multiple companions and in multiple forms is that you can take a sense of priority from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and derive a deep sense of understanding just from the things he used to ask Allah for and from the things he used to ask Allah to be protected from. And in this particular du'a, I wanted to focus on a portion of it insha'Allah ta'ala that I think speaks to an interesting question that I was actually asked some time ago, which I hope insha'Allah this khutbah can be a part of answering. And a few weeks ago I'd given a khutbah about the hearts and how the hearts can have a true sense of khashiyah, a true sense of awe and fear of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and how to move the heart, how to diagnose the heart and then make it a fit heart, a healthy heart. But in this du'a from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he used to, as is narrated by Abu Huraira radiyallahu anhu say, Allahumma inni a'udhu bika minal arba'a. O Allah, I seek refuge in you from four things. Now these four things, this du'a will have different sequences sometimes, but the four things are always the same four things. So the four things that he used to seek refuge in Allah from,
he said sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Allahumma inni a'udhu bika min qalbin la yakhsha. Allahumma inni a'udhu bika min qalbin la yakhsha. O Allah, I seek refuge in you from a heart that does not fear you, from a heart that has no humility. Allahumma inni a'udhu bika min qalbin la yakhsha. wa min nafsin la tashba'a. wa min nafsin la tashba'a. And I seek refuge in you, O Allah, from a soul that is never satisfied, a self whose cravings are never met, an unsatiated self. min nafsin la tashba'a. wa min ilmin la yanfa'a. wa min ilmin la yanfa'a. And from knowledge that is of no benefit. wa min du'a'in la yusma'a. wa min du'a'in la yusma'a. And from a supplication that is not heard. From a du'a that is not heard. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, once again, he would say, and I'll use different orders to convey the point. In this narration, for example, Allahumma inni a'udhu bika min al-arba'a. min ilmin la yanfa'a. wa min qalbin la yakhsha. wa min nafsin la tashba'a. wa min ilmin la yusma'a. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would say, I seek refuge in you, O Allah, from four things. From a heart that does not fear you. From a self that is never satisfied. From knowledge that is of no benefit. And from a du'a that is not heard. Now, put qalbin la yakhsha aside, and insha'Allah ta'ala over the next three weeks we'll break down the other three components of this du'a. And at the minimum you memorize this du'a insha'Allah. And you start to seek refuge in Allah from these four things, constantly, bidnillahi ta'ala. I wanted to focus on the one that's least obvious, and the one where you'll find the ulama try to decipher quite a bit more, because its meaning is not as obvious as the others.
And that is min nafsin la tashba'a. From a self that's never satisfied. A self that is constantly craving. And in some narrations, and none of them are authentic, the Prophet ﷺ mentions min'in la tadma'a. From an eye that does not shed tears. And while it's not a hadith that can be attributed to him, some of the salihin, the righteous, used to seek refuge in Allah from that as well. The point is Allah gives you these faculties, Allah gives you these tools, by which you are supposed to know Him, to long for Him, and to work for Him. To know Him, to long for Him, to work for Him. Allah gave you that heart, not so that you could beat, you know, that heart could beat just so you could breathe. Allah gave you a self, a nafs, with desire, so that you could channel that desire into prophetic passion, into passion for good things, and use that energy to choose Allah ﷻ over the lower self. Allah gave you that dua'a as a weapon against your enemies, and as a means by which you connect to Him. Allah gave you that knowledge to guide you in this life, so that you could have the best path to paradise in the next. Allah gave you these things. Allah gave you the ability to cry, so that you could cry for noble things, and in ways that are noble. And Subhanallah, here you find, in particular, من نفس لا تشبع Allah gave you a spiritual appetite. When the ulema talk about disciplining the self, they never talk about negating the self. See, Islam is not unreasonable. Tazkiyah is not unreasonable. Our spiritual trajectory is not unreasonable. Allah does not tell you to live like a hermit, to live a celibate life, to live a life where you deprive yourself, to choose poverty, to choose any of these things. No. Allah teaches you to tame yourself,
and causes you to channel those desires into something that is far greater than what those desires could fulfill for you in this life. And so the question that I was asked, which is a very interesting one, is, can you actually change your shahwa? Is it possible to change your desires? How do you actually make those desires for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, rather than for things of this world? And is it always a bad thing for you to crave something of this world? Is that something that's sinful for you to have certain cravings of this world? And there's something very interesting that you'll notice about us. What usually causes us to become despondent, to become disconnected from something of this world, is a trial or a tribulation. Something really harsh that unveils the dunya for what it actually is. Shows you this world for what it actually is. So if I was to ask any one of you, how do you feel after you go to a janazah? How do you feel if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has allowed you the ability to wash a dead body? What connection, what appetite do you have for life when you engage death that intimately? Any of us that have been in that close proximity to death will tell you that the moments that we felt most disconnected from life were when we were in that proximity. Washing a dead body, praying janazah on someone that we know, seeing the lifeless face of someone who we used to know, full of life. These are things that really strike us deep. And subhanallah, I was thinking about the Messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And he saw something, you talk about like removing your appetite for life. He saw something that none of us have seen. And he specifically connected it to a loss of appetite.
And that is that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam saw Israfil alayhi salam, the angel, with his lips puckered on the horn, staring at the throne of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, waiting for... And that's everybody. Can you imagine that? Everything came into being with kun fayakoon, be and it is. And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam saw Israfil, with his lips puckered on the horn, looking towards the throne of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And he described, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he said his eyes were fixated like stars. Like he is alert, waiting for Allah to say to him, blow. And when he does, kullu man alayha fan. Everything goes. Everything goes. And we believe in that. We have ilm al yaqeen, the certainty of knowledge of that reality. Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam saw it, ayn al yaqeen. He saw it, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And look at how he described that. Qala sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, kayfa an'am. How could I have any appetite for this life? How could I really be deceived or get into anything of this dunya? Wasahibulqarni qad iltaqamalqarna wastama'al izna mata yu'maru binnafkhi fayanfukh. And I saw Israfil alayhi wa sallam, with his lips puckered on the horn, looking at the throne of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. His head tilted, his ears attentive for him to receive the order from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to blow. And he will blow. It's overwhelming. And you know the sahaba, their hearts were different. When the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told them about these scenes, they felt like they were with him. That's where their hearts were. So even Abu Sa'id radiallahu anhu, who's narrating this incident,
he says, fa ka'anna thalika thaqula ala ashab al-nabi sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. That was too much for the companions of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Like they were overwhelmed. And obviously even the way the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is describing that, that this is what I saw. I didn't just see the death of one person. I saw the death of everybody in moments of a blow. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, qulu hasbuna Allah wa ni'ma alwakeel ala Allahi tawakkalna. Say, Allah is sufficient for us and he is the best disposer of our affairs, and upon him we place our trust. Because he saw that they were shaken by what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had said in those moments. Now that's when a strike happens. That's when you see something. And in our lives, we come across these moments where the sweetness of this dunya, the supposed sweetness of this dunya, isn't all that it's been made out to be. Right? You get there and it's not all that great, or you lose something and it's a blow, and you lose your sense of attachment to that thing. So what did the ulema mention here in regards to wa min nafsin la tashba'a? A self that does not get satisfied. There is a major difference between not being able to taste something because you're sick, and prohibiting yourself from something because you're striving for something greater. Let me put it to you this way. You got sick so you don't have an appetite, that's one person. And that's usually something temporary. Once the sickness wears off, you'll get right back to it. Or, you're someone who has a determined path to where you purposely don't consume certain things, you don't have an appetite for certain things because you're focused on something greater. So the person who's exercising and who's fit,
they don't have an appetite for certain things because of something entirely different, and that's usually longer lasting because they know exactly why they're withholding from certain foods, they know exactly why they're not indulging certain things, and they're doing it very intentionally, and they're doing it with a desired outcome. Whereas a person who's sick, it hits you for a moment, and maybe that's an opportunity, where, you know, just right now I don't taste the sweetness of it, but as soon as the immediate effects of that sickness wear off, I'll go right back to consumption. And that's not what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants from you, because that's a temporary condition. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants a permanent strive from you, where you determine a trajectory, so you wean yourself off in terms of appetite. And this is where the ulama mention when it comes to things that the self desires, that are not necessarily sinful, but if you try to fill it too much, then you'll become spiritually overweight. And that's where the Prophet ﷺ said, ليس الغنى عن كثرة العرض، ولكن الغنى غنى النفس. The Prophet ﷺ said, wealth is not the acquiring of many possessions, but wealth is the self-sufficiency of the soul. When you have غنى النفس, self-sufficiency inside. Like this is exactly how much I wanted from this particular element of dunya, I'm satisfied, let me move on, because I have a greater goal. And that's when the Prophet ﷺ said, لو أنّ لإبن آدم واديا من ذهب أحب أن يكون له واديان، وَلَن يَمْلَأَ فَاهُ إِلَّا تُرَابٌ. The Prophet ﷺ said that if the child of Adam is given a valley of gold, he will not be satisfied until he gets another valley of gold. And nothing will stop him until he has dirt in his mouth. Right? So your appetite is uncontrollable, you keep trying to get more, more, more, more, more.
You need to discipline that a bit. Allah never told you not to pursue wealth. Allah never told you not to eat and enjoy your food. Allah never told you these things, but discipline it. Discipline these desires. And the cure the ulema mention is the remembrance of death. That's why the Prophet ﷺ said particularly, he didn't just say remember الموت, he said remember هادم اللذات, the destroyer of pleasures. So that you don't try to get too much in this dunya, to where you lose yourself in that pursuit of this world. And your appetite is too large. And so when it comes to these things, it's discipline not disgust. And I'll explain what I mean by that. Allah is not telling you to deny your desires. Allah is telling you to delay them and to discipline them. Delay them وَلَكُمْ فِيهَا مَا تَشْتَهِيْ أَنفُسُكُمْ You will have in Jannah what yourself desires. Jannah is a place where you don't have to worry about proportion. You'll have all that you desire there without limits. And it's okay for you to have these desires, delay them. And here discipline them, keep them within halal. Try to make sure that you're not letting it get out of hand. Put a limit on yourself. You know, subhanAllah, one of my teachers, he gave this advice to someone who was investing. And I just want you to think about this. He said, you know, I'm putting in this much money, I'm trying to get this amount, right? He said to him, you could approach this one of two ways. Either you promise yourself, if Allah gives you this much, you'll give this percentage in sadaqah. Or you can put a ceiling. You can say, you know, what right now would be amazing for me is if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allows me to make out of this $50,000. Anything over $50,000, whether it's $55,000 or $500,000, I'm going to give the rest in sadaqah. He actually chose that option, right?
And he thought it was, you know, an exaggeration. And Allah opened the doors on him. Opened the doors for him and subhanAllah, it went $600,000, $700,000, $800,000, right? And he gave all of it in sadaqah. Because $50,000 was amazing back then, why is it not amazing now when you saw the numbers grow? Because, نفس لا تشبع. النفس لا تشبع. أصلاً, the soul, the self, constantly will get more until you put it in its place and say, enough, enough. This is what you need, and this is what's going to make you happy, and this is enough for you for now. Stay in here, stay within these bounds. Now the second thing, dear brothers and sisters, is when it comes to appetite for sin, نفس لا تشبع من الحرام. A self that does not become fulfilled when it comes to haram. And the scholars say that on top of the remembrance of death, what you need here is to be able to visualize the disgust of that sin. What do I mean by that? أَيُّحِبُّ أَحَدُكُمْ أَن يَأْكُلَ لَحْمَ أَخِيهِ مَيْتًا Who, when they're backbiting, actually takes a moment and visualizes that I'm eating the dead meat of my brother or sister? Allah wants you to be disgusted by sin, not just discipline your appetite for it, be disgusted in terms of your appetite. And in order to do that, how has Allah created us that we have to visualize it to where it's no longer pleasant, otherwise we're going to be just enjoying the outward sweetness. What do I mean by that? Why do we gossip? It's fun. Why do we backbite? It makes gatherings go by. People laugh. People are full of joy, right? There's an outward sweetness to it with an inward poison. And you have to be able to visualize it. And subhanAllah, to visualize it will allow you to disconnect from what the apparent sweetness of it supposedly is. The same thing when it comes to lowering the gaze,
looking at something that's haram for you. If you think about the metaphors that are given from the Prophet ﷺ. And I give you this example. You know, I was reading the research on tobacco, cigarette smoke. And you know how now you got on the packages, those pictures of people's lungs and death on those cigarette boxes. And I was reading research, subhanAllah, on the effect that that had on decreasing tobacco consumption. It was very interesting because what I read, and Allah knows best, is that it was far more effective. And actually this is across the board. Far more effective in getting people not to start smoking than getting people to quit smoking. Meaning what people that were already addicted to cigarettes, they just picked up that box and they said that's nasty and they just don't look at the picture, they keep smoking. But it stopped people from starting the habit in the first place. And that's exactly the same thing when it comes to sins, right? You get desensitized. An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. Disgust yourself first. Like I'm not going to backbite. And that's what the Prophet ﷺ, when he walks by and he sees a rotting, bloated carcass and says, for you to take your fill of that is better than to take the fill of your brother's flesh. يُحِبُّ أَحَدُكُمْ أَن يَأْكُلَ لَحْمَ أَخِيهِ مَيْتًا فَكَرِهْتُمُوهُ You would hate to do these things. Imagine if when you pass by sins, you know, thinking about the person that's got that trajectory, just like you have calorie counts on really good food, sometimes you walk into a restaurant and you see something that looks really good and then the calorie count is astronomical. And if you're on a diet, you go, no way, I'm not touching that. You would take a bite of it and as sugary and as sweet as it is, you'd be disgusted by how much is in it. Put a calorie count on your sins. Put a calorie count. Is it worth it? I'm not going to indulge that. Because it's نفس لا تشبع
Myself has to be disciplined a bit. So before I write that message, before I look at that thing, before I engage in this, I'm going to consider the sin count on it. So that I don't fill my appetite in that way. Finally, dear brothers and sisters, the ulema mentioned that the goal is for us to go from the sweetness of sin to the sweetness of worship. And subhanAllah, you'll find there's a deep connection between the Prophet's ﷺ saying, the person who gossips for the sake of Allah, for example, fills themselves with a bloated dead carcass of dead meat. That's what they're consuming. Verses, what Uthman radiAllahu ta'ala says, that if the hearts were pure, ما شبعت من كلام الله If the قلوب, if the hearts were pure, they'd never become full of their appetite for the Qur'an, would never stop. You want to move from the sweetness of sin to the sweetness of ibadah. But you can't get to the sweetness of worship from the sweetness of sin until you're willing to endure two forms of bitterness. From the sweetness of sin, you have to be willing to endure the bitterness of withdrawal from that sin. It's never easy to cut off a sin. It's going to hurt. There's withdrawal. But you know what, if you know you're doing it for something greater, you're like that person that's healthy, that's disciplining for a greater purpose. And you say, alhamdulillah for what this is unlocking for me. So you cannot get away from the sweetness of sin without the bitterness of withdrawal. And you cannot achieve then the sweetness of worship without the bitterness of practice. Yes, reading the Qur'an is amazing. Yes, you have people that used to love to read the Qur'an for long days. Yes, praying tahajjud is sweet. But in the beginning, trying to fight your body with sleep, it's going to hurt. It's going to be bitter.
In the beginning, when you're trying to read Qur'an and your phone is vibrating, it's going to hurt. There's a cut off there. It's bitter. It's harsh in the beginning. And then you taste the sweetness of it. Sweetness does not come without that. And so between sweetness of the sin to sweetness of worship are those two layers of bitterness that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala has put Jannah as the outcome, as the prize for. We ask Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala to protect us. Arabic Arabic Arabic
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