Late Night Talks (2024)
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The Qur’an Cures All Illness | Late Night Talks
In the last 10 nights of Ramadan, Dr. Omar Suleiman and Sh. Yaser Birjas reflect on the book “The Disease and Its Cure” by Imam Ibn al-Qayyim.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. I want to welcome you all to this beautiful night, the 21st night of Ramadhan. May Allah make it a blessed night to all of us, ya rabbal alameen. From Valley Ranch Islamic Center, we are starting inshallah our late night khatirahs with my beloved dear neighbor and sheikh and colleague Sheikh Omar Suleiman, who inshallah we're going to be discussing together the book of Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Ad-Da'u wa-Ad-Dawa, the disease and the cure. Before we get into the book inshallah, I want to also bring to your attention that for the first time inshallah this year we're going to be broadcasting this inshallah program with also the help of our ASL interpreters and translators, Sister Rebecca and Brother Shu'aib who are going to be introducing themselves inshallah here on the screen on the camera. Jazakumullah khair. Just say salam to the jama'a like this. Bismillah. Jazakumullah khair. Barakallahu feekum. So I hope inshallah that Allah will put barakah in the service for the people around the world and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bring many people to Islam, ya rabbal alameen. The book of Ibn Qayyim rahimahu wa ta'ala, we had alhamdulillah, we've introduced Ibn Qayyim rahimahu wa ta'ala from last year. We discussed the book of al-Fawa'id as well. So there is really no need to discuss Ibn Qayyim rahimahu wa ta'ala a lot at the beginning here inshallah, except that just from your perspective, Sheikh, if you have a reflection on this author, on this man, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah rahimahu wa ta'ala, what would you want our audience, our brothers and sisters to know about the significance and the importance of this author, especially with this book being in our hand inshallah wa ta'ala? Alhamdulillah, wa salatu wa salam wa rasool Allah wa alihi wa sahbihi wa man wala.
I think subhanAllah when you talk about Ibn Qayyim rahimahu wa ta'ala a lot, there is not a single science except that he has written an encyclopedic-like volume on it and then a bunch of small books. So we've reflected on al-Fawa'id, which are many of his reflections. We did Uddat al-Sabirin. If you're talking about seerah, if you're talking about law, if you're talking about spirituality, last year's Jannah series, so it's every science, he is the go-to author in that chapter and I think that's one of the things Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala blessed him with. And what makes this particular work so beautiful, so by the way, does anyone remember his actual name? Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr al-Damashqi al-Hambari. Sheikh Yasser is a secret Hambari admirer, mashaAllah, because we only do Hanabilah, so he did Ibn al-Jawzi and we're doing Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziya. He was a 14th century scholar, but the beauty of Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahu wa ta'ala is that many of these rasa'al, many of these books, 200, 300 pages, just came because someone asked him a question. And that's all this is. Somebody asked him a question and he literally just says that in the introduction, someone asked him a question and he said, I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. And he said, I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to ask you a question. And the answer is, because there are so many those questions that we like to ask, it's just the question about whether or not we can utilize medicines and we can seek out the cures for diseases. And are we sinful if we look for certain things? So it's just answering one man's question and then he writes a 300 page book. So that's kind of his, his introduction into this world. Alhamdulillah. And we're still benefiting from that work until today. Sheikh, Allah, I'm mentioning one thing about Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahu wa ta'ala as well is that he is one of the students of, or the famous student actually, of Sheikh Islam Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahu wa ta'ala. He accompanied him for about 17 years until he was imprisoned with him when he was released after the passing of his Sheikh Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahu wa ta'ala.
And now what the significance of that, of course, is that he has so much influence in his life, being in the company of his teacher Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahu wa ta'ala. And Ibn Taymiyyah, he was known for being also an encyclopedia of ilm. As a matter of fact, he was way even ahead of his student, of course, Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahu wa ta'ala, Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahu wa ta'ala, Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahu wa ta'ala. He actually, Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahu wa ta'ala, known to be a philosophical scholar. When he writes, he writes sophisticated language. Not everybody can understand his words. Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahu wa ta'ala, he was that, the one who brought the knowledge of his teacher to the masses. Like when Ibn Taymiyyah writes about aqeedah, when he writes about law, when he writes about spirituality, he speaks to the elite. He speaks in a language, not that he's deliberately doing that, it's just his level of knowledge, his level of intellect, as well as eloquence, mashallah, he writes at that level. But Ibn Taymiyyah rahimahu wa ta'ala, he brought it down to the level of the masses so they can understand. And this is one of these beautiful things. The other thing, the idea of writing a book as an answer to a question, that's a tradition of a lot of our ulema, subhanallah, which makes the ilm that they produced in the past was very meaningful and very well needed. Today, mashallah, we see books coming out right and left. Whether there's a need for it or not, simply because somebody thought it was a good idea to put a book like that. But here we see that our ulema, mashallah, they're answering for a real question. And the beautiful thing is that the question itself, sheikh, in the book, if you allow us to read it, inshallah wa tabaraka wa ta'ala, is actually just one small paragraph. The answer was 500 pages. A small paragraph, in which the question comes like this. Suwi al-shaykh al-imam al-allam al-mutqin al-hafidh al-naqid shams al-din Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn al-shaykh taqiyy al-din Abu Bakr, al-ma'ruf bi Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, zayad Allahummin fadlin. That the shaykh, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah rahimahu wa ta'ala, with all those beautiful titles
of praise about him, he was asked this question. Ma taqool al-salatu al-'ulamaa? What are those esteemed scholars, they say, immat al-deen, the vanguard of this faith and this deen, radiyaAllahu anhum ajma'een, fi rojul al-abtuliyya bi baliyya, someone that was tested and was tried with a trial, and they talk about a fitna that he's going through. Wa alima annaha in istamarrat bihi afsirat alihi dunyaahu wa akhirata. And this person knows in his heart, if it continues with him, it's going to ruin his deen and dunya. He'll be ruined in matters of deen and matters of dunya as well. Wa qad ijtahada fi daf'ihaa an-nafsihi bi kulli tareeq. And he put every single effort you can imagine to push that away from him and keep himself safe from that. Fama yazdadu illa tawqudan wa shidda. But unfortunately, that effort of pushing it away, it's making it stronger for him to return back to it. Their whole push back, it makes him feel more addicted to it even more and more. Qal fama al-heelatu fi daf'ihaa. What is this person going to do right now about keeping it away from himself? Wa ma al-tareequ illa kashfihaa. How can he remove this fitna away from him? So that's the simple question, and I believe the question itself is in the heart and the mind of many of us over here. So what do you think, Shaykh, in terms of this question? Is that a common thing? Yeah, absolutely. It's a common thing that, subhanAllah, when a person has their eyes open to their spiritual diseases in particular, it can be really overwhelming. You know, when you talk about ghurur, and a person that lives in delusion, and they say ignorance is bliss, in this dunya in multiple ways it is, right? When you don't know about yourself and you don't bother to ask certain questions about yourself about diseases that may be present inside of you, then obviously you live comfortable until the next life, right?
But if you have that spiritual insight into yourself, and you examine yourself deeply, then it can be very overwhelming, because you can end up like the best of people, right? Abu Bakr radiyallahu ta'ala anhu in the famous hadith of Hamdala, yattahimu nafsahu bin nifaq, right? Accusing yourself of hypocrisy, and then not knowing what to do with that self-accusation of hypocrisy. And so ignorance breeds complacency and comfort, knowledge of the self breeds urgency and sometimes anxiety in the very beginning in particular. And subhanAllah, there's something so beautiful, sheikh, he says, may Allah have mercy on a person who helps someone who's been struck. And this also shows you the spirit of the sheikh, right, that, look, I want to help this guy, I want to help this person. It's not, you know, go say, you'll be alright. No, may Allah help the person, or may Allah help the person who helps someone else. Wallahu fi'aouni al-abdi maa kaana al-abdu fi'aouni akhi. And Allah is in the service of the slave so long as that slave is in the service of his brother. So the idea here, that you have to be willing to help someone else and help yourself, that watawasahu bil-haqqi watawasahu bil-sabr. You support one another in the pursuit of that truth and in keeping someone patient. If you have a spiritual disease, it's likely present in some of the people around you as well. If you have a problem, something that you're ailing from, then you need to look towards how to solve that in yourself and to help someone else overcome that as well. So it's a whole school of introspection. What's so interesting about this question is that, I mean, if we pay attention to it, this question was sent to Ibn Qayyim more than 800 years ago. 800 years ago, this question was asked to Ibn Qayyim, and I'm sure that each and every one of us right now feels that this question is still valid even today, and valid even for me.
Like, subhanAllah, through all these generations, all these, I believe that each and every one of us over here now believe that, oh my God, this question speaks for me. Thank God someone asking the question, subhanAllah. And we all have this issue that we are dealing with. All of us have their own, their struggles. And subhanAllah, at the beginning of the month of Ramadan, we spoke about how we're all on a journey. And everybody has their own journey, of course, in this life. Some of us, alhamdulillah, they're overcoming a lot of difficulties. Some of us, mashaAllah, they don't even have anything to worry about, but they're struggling with making their life better even, and so on. So the fact that, Shaykh, everybody is complaining about a fitna, it's now we call it addiction. So this person has been addicted to something, they consider it a baliyah, it's like a trial for him. And every time he tried to push that away from himself, he feels that, you know what, the burning desire to go back to it is even, I was killing him. And Allah al-musta'an, if this was 800 years ago, before the age of social media and the internet, the age of extreme, constant connectivity, can you imagine our young brothers and sisters, even adults, the kind of fitna, the kind of baliyah, the kind of trial they're going through today, and how much they have the desire to solve their problems and find a cure for this disease. So this book, alhamdulillah, hopefully will answer this question for each and every one of us. And for the next 10 nights, inshaAllah ta'ala, we are going to be tackling some of these issues, bismillah, from the words of Ibn Qayyim himself, rahimahullah ta'ala. Shaykh, the fact that the answer is a one-liner, and then it goes on, bi kulli da'in dawa, every disease has a cure. There's some people that have given up on the mercy of Allah, and some people have given up on their ability to pursue the ways that are pleasing to Allah subhana wa ta'ala, and those two things are not always the same thing. Some people believe that Allah will forgive them, and some people hope that Allah will
forgive them, but they've given up on getting rid of certain spiritual diseases, getting rid of some of those addictions. It's like, look, I'm on my 8th, 9th Ramadan, trying to quit something, trying to get better, you know what, it's not working. It's not working for me, so I'm just going to turn myself in intense prayer and supplication to Allah subhana wa ta'ala for Allah to remove it from me, but I don't think I'm actually curable. I don't think I'm curable, right? When it comes to this behavior, when it comes to this attitude, when it comes to this arrogance, when it comes to this constant relapsing, I don't think I'm curable. And the fact that he quotes the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, مَا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ دَاءً إِلَّا أَنْزَلَ لَهُ شِفَاءً Allah did not bring down a disease, physical or spiritual, except that there is a cure for it. That means, by the way, in medicine as well, the ulama talk about this, that every disease that exists, there is a cure for it, and in one of the narrations of Imam Ahmad, I don't think he mentions it here, but the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, فَمَنْ عَلِمَهُ فَقَدْ عَلِمَ وَمَنْ جَهِلَهُ فَقَدْ جَهَلَ And whoever knows it will come to know it, and whoever doesn't know it will remain ignorant of it. So every disease that exists on earth has a cure to it, physical and spiritual, but you have to search for it, and you have to be willing to exert that. But here's the thing, medicine is bitter, and especially when you talk about spiritual diseases, I think there's a core difference between how we approach physical disease and how we approach spiritual disease. People look for physical cures that will work. People look for spiritual cures that will make them feel better. And there's a big difference between those two things, right? Spirituality is meant to be an outlet for me to feel better, for me to cope with emotional stress and for me to come to terms with life and for me to move forward. Physical cures are, hey look, I have this disease, can it be dealt with without a major surgery?
And if the major surgery is the only way to deal with this disease, then I'll do it because that's what's necessary to cure the disease. And when you approach your spirituality, you have to have the same mentality. Medicine tastes bad, usually tastes bad, it's bitter. Are you willing to take the medicine? Some people need a major spiritual surgery. Are you willing to undergo that major spiritual surgery or is it just, hey, I really want to feel better. I'm feeling down, I'm feeling low, I want to feel better. Spirituality is not a feel-good cup of delusion. So people that are willing to endure the physical pain by going through surgeries and all this kind of medications and all that kind of stuff, but they're not willing to get the exact same treatment for their spiritual diseases. Absolutely. Give me an easy dua. Give me a dhikr, Shaykh. Can I have the dua? Can I have a one-liner? Give me a dhikr that I can memorize. Otherwise, it's all going to go away. As a matter of fact, they would go to their grandmother and say, can you make dua for me? Like, they don't even want to make the effort themselves, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. They don't want to make the effort because if someone else can do this for me, alhamdulillah raba ameen. I don't think a doctor will do this for you if it comes to physical pain, right, or physical problem. You're going to have to take the medication yourself. You're going to have to undergo the surgery yourself. But for spirituality, like you said, Shaykh, they always wish for someone else to help them out. Even by just making dua, by delegating this matter to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and waiting for a miracle to happen. They're not willing to make the effort though. Back then, you'll notice a lot of the, one thing that immediately caught my eyes when I was kind of refreshing the reading, and when you read these books about ihsan and taskiya, what was medicine like back then? Like when you had to have surgery, what was it? It was like al-qaiy, it was cauterization, right? It's tough. And they would compare certain spiritual pursuits that are necessary to cauterizing, like, and
subhanAllah, you look at the people of Gaza right now, and the primitive surgeries, the means by which, I mean, whatever tool they can find, no anesthesia, that really gives you a window into this type of stuff, right? A lot of the stuff that was available to them back then, similar. It wasn't, there wasn't, you know, maybe you drink alcohol if you want to lose your mind, and there are stories about, you know, the Salaf refusing that type of thing, right, to try to deal with the pain, but healing required pain sometimes. Now, you don't seek pain in Islam for the sake of pain, but you know what, like, it's going to take something for me to make this commitment in Islam. You know, Allah commands me to do something, it's going to be hard to do it. I'm going to have to make sacrifices, and it can be as painful as burning something, and fitna means to burn, right? So it's going to burn when you are willing to undertake certain sacrifices for the sake of Allah's answer. If you leave something for the sake of Allah Azawajal, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala will give you something better. Sheikh, the beautiful thing that you mentioned earlier is that the beginning of the answer was just one-liner, right? Which is basically, subhanAllah, that's jawab al-hakim, is that he, the answer of a wise man, a sage, he immediately gave people hope before anything else. Like he's basically saying, oh, you have a problem with addiction, you have this, you know what? Alhamdulillah, there's hope. There's hope. Why? Because that's a disease, and Allah, as the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, for every disease, Allah sends a cure. Now, we might know it, alimahum man alimahum, so we know the cure, now it's up to you if you're willing to take it, no matter how much pain you're going to have to endure in order for you to heal yourself, or jahilahum man jahilahu, we don't know. So we've been trying, like, hit and miss. Keep trying things. We keep trying things herbal to you, and all that kind of stuff, nothing's happening, nothing's helping with that, until Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wills for us to find that cure.
So Ibn Qayyim goes into saying, he goes, this hadith, that for every disease there's a cure, it also includes all the diseases of the heart, the soul, the body, and also includes its medicines. So the cure. So the remedy comes with that as well, too. And he gives some examples, saying, wa qad ja'ala an-nabiyyu sallallahu alaihi wasallam al-jahlada'an, wa ja'ala dawaa'ahu su'al ulama', just like the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he called ignorance a disease, and he called asking the ulama the remedy and the cure for that. Now, then he goes, which I wanted actually to go into right away inshallah, is using the most important remedy, the most important cure to all diseases, whether it's physical, spiritual, heart disease, whatever that is. So what is he saying about that, rahimahullah wa ta'ala? So obviously he's going to go into the Quran, and there's a very important distinction to make, Shaykh, from the physical diseases and the spiritual diseases, which is, for the physical diseases, not all cures are known to the physical diseases, but all cures are known to the spiritual diseases. So the Quran is that cure, and we have the example in the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and in the implementation from the Salaf, so we don't have to go find someone that lives in El Paso, Texas, you know, you're here now, so we can take shots at El Paso, right? We don't have to find someone that lives in the desert, that has discovered some sort of spiritual cure to some disease, and if you say this dua, or if you do this practice, and you read this 300 times backwards, then this is going to happen. No, no, we already have the cure to spiritual cancer, we have the cure to spiritual heart attacks, it's called the Quran and the Sunnah.
We already have it, we don't need to go outside of it. So Allah, in His mercy, has already revealed to us all the knowledge of the spiritual cures. وَالَّذِينَ جَاهَدُوا فِينَا وَنَهْدِيَنَهُمْ صُبْرَنَا Do you want to strive or are you willing to take the medicine? For the physical diseases, all the cures are there, but Allah has made part of the ibadah searching for the cure. So that's a bushra for all the, glad tidings for all the med students here. The scholars praised medicine, they praised, just not all of you become doctors, alright, you can become something else too. But the scholars praised the most beneficial knowledge after Islamic knowledge is medicine. After spiritual knowledge, as Imam Al-Shafi'i rahimahullah mentions, right, the two most beneficial sciences, right, it's al-ilm and then al-tibb, it is that medicine. Why? Because by you striving to find things that cure people physically, right, then you are in that process, in a state of ibadah, if you have the right intention. Allah has given us the bushra, the glad tidings that all of that is there, but strive, there is a cure to every disease that exists out there, and one of the signs of that is that at the bare minimum you can find ways of takhfif, to lessen the pain. Spiritually the cure is already known all together and that's where the hadith, if you want to read it, Shaykh. In the Qur'an, Hamid, it's very clear that the Qur'an is shifa. He says, rahimahullah wa taraheer, qal wa qad akhbarallahu subhanahu wa anhu al-Qur'an anahu shifa. He said that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, He told us about the Qur'an that it's a remedy, it's a cure. Like, it's not a secret, like you said, Shaykh, subhanAllah. Allah Azawajal made, look, the cure is in the Qur'an for the spiritual diseases. He says, wa nunazzilu min al-Qur'ani ma huwa shifa'u wa rahmatu al-mu'minin. And we reveal the Qur'an as remedy, healing, wa rahma and mercy for the believers. So the, yeah, I mean the medicine for all spiritual diseases has already been put in one single manual.
Now, which one, how and where to find it, that's when you require, of course, the experts to tell you, look, reflect on this thing, for example, on this ayah. Find yourself in the story, in the Qur'an. Read the Qur'an frequently. Connect with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Like, find your way to connect back to Allah Azawajal because that is going to be the shifa' that you're looking for. So he says, rahimahu wa ta'ala, he says, fa inna al-Qur'ana kullahu shifa'u wa rahmatu al-mu'minin. The Qur'an entirely is healing, is a remedy, and rahma and mercy for the believers. As it was mentioned in the ayah, fa huwa shifa'u al-qulubi min da'il jahl, that you'll find cure for the disease of ignorance in the heart. Also a cure for doubts, a cure of uncertainty that you might find in your heart. He says, fa lam yunzir Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala min al-sama'i shifa'an qat amma wa la anfa'a wa la a'dhama wa la anja'a fi izalat al-da'i min al-Qur'an. He says, you know what, I need you to translate this, inshallah wa ta'ala. So what does he say about that? So he says that the Qur'an, fa huwa shifa'u al-qulubi min da'il jahli wa shakli wa al-ghayb. So first and foremost, the Qur'an is a cure from what? I think this is where you really need to shift your understanding of the Qur'an. You know? It's not like you put it on top of your head and it protects you from lightning, alright? It is meant to first and foremost cure ignorance and doubts, hesitation. You know, any type of doubt that you have, it cures that doubt. Your doubt about why you're here, not just the Qur'an itself, your purpose in life. And that's how some of the ulema differentiate between a shak wa al-ghayb. Al-ghayb is a more serious form of doubt than shak. Al-ghayb like you have no idea. And that's why dhalika al-kitabu la al-ghayba fi. There's no doubt. The Qur'an clarifies where it comes from, where you come from, who created you, and what you're supposed to be doing.
It's just full clarity. So it clears all of the fog. And so Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not send down the Qur'an except that it is shifa'un qat a'am. Or there's nothing that Allah has sent that is more general, that is more beneficial, wa laa a'adham wa laa ashja'a, that is greater in removing the disease than the Qur'an. And here Shaykh Subhanallah, like, when you think about the Qur'an as a cure, there's the physical side of it, but the greatest tadabbur of the Qur'an, the greatest introspection of the Qur'an is when you read it and you are willing to interrogate yourself for the spiritual diseases that are found in the most spiritually diseased peoples and nations that have ever come before. So you're reading the Qur'an and you are interrogating yourself. Surat al-Fatiha, you know, if you just think about it, alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. That's a cure for arrogance. If you praise yourself. Ar-Rahman ar-Raheem, the most compassionate, the most merciful. Ar-Rahimun yarhamuhum ar-Rahman, right? It's a cure for your own hiqt, your own envy, your own grudges, your own anger. So you want mercy from the most merciful, here's your cure. Maliki yawm al-deen, master of the day of judgment. A cure from al-ta'alluq bid-dunya, holding on to this world. Iyaka na'bud wa iyaka nastaeen, you alone we worship and from you alone we seek help. Ibn al-Qayyim raheemullah said what? Iyaka na'bud is the cure from pride, iyaka nastaeen, you alone we seek help, is the cure from, or I'm sorry, iyaka na'bud is the cure from riya, from showing off. Iyaka nastaeen, from you alone we seek help, is the cure from pride. And then you go on, ahdina al-sirat al-mustaqeem, the cure from being led astray by your desires, the cure from stubbornness, ghayri al-maghdoobi alayhim wa al-dhaaleen, the cure for being led by your desires, it's a cure, right?
And then you get into al-baqarah shaykh, the same thing. Like, do I have what led shaytan to that miserable place? Do I have, you know, which was his stubbornness and pride, do I have what led Adam alayhis salam initially to a bad place? Do I have Bani Israel-like qualities with Fir'aun? Someone thinks to themselves, well, man, Bani, like you read the Qur'an, you're like, man, Bani Israel had it so good, why did they mess this up so bad? You know what they were thinking? They're given an order from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and they thought, let me do it 75%. Change the word, apply it 75%. Sorry, is that something that's present in us as well? Allah says fard, and you say, I'll do it halfway, 75%. That's a Bani Israel-like quality, right? Do I have the narcissism of Fir'aun? You know, Ibn al-Qayyim rahimallah, actually, in Madad al-Salekeen, he actually like interrogates you with the traits of Fir'aun and Qarun and Haman. Am I like them? Do I have that? So you want to cure yourself, like you want a book that's going to really rock your world in terms of spiritual diseases? Read the Qur'an like a book that is meant to shake you down. Don't just take comfort in the Prophet's du'a. Take heed from the diseases of the diseased, and say, I don't want to be like that. Just like in any book of medicine, obviously. If you're going to become a doctor, what are you going to study? You're going to study all the cases that happened in the past, the diseases, all the symptoms, everything, and so on. So at least you recognize the disease, so you can talk about the remedy after that. And subhanallah, the Qur'an, one of the most frequently mentioned stories in the Qur'an is the story of Musa alayhi as-salam Bani Israel. As a matter of fact, Surah al-Baqarah, when you begin from Surah al-Baqarah, at the beginning Allah speaks about the mutaqeen, then He speaks about the hypocrite with two verses, I mean the kuffar, and then He speaks about the hypocrite for more than that, and then shifts from there to Bani Israel.
A lot of the stories mentioned in Surah al-Baqarah relate to Bani Israel. Why is that? As if Allah is telling us, here's a disease, it happened before, here are the people, they used to be among the best of the best. As Allah mentioned to them, that we preferred you over so many of the people before. But then what happened to them? The disease of the heart. And slowly and gradually the corruption took over. And then they became destroyed as a result of that. For us, the Muslims, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says as well, You are the best nation ever produced in mankind. For what reason? Because you enjoy good and forbid evil. And alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, until this day, regardless how low the morale is in the Muslim ummah, regardless how bad it is really for the Muslims around the world, subhanAllah, we're still probably the only, if not among the only, the only ummah that is still standing as much as possible for justice and not compromising our faith and our boundaries with come to our deen. Yes, you will have some people here from the Muslim ummah might actually compromise here and there. But overall, as an ummah, we stay our ground. Alhamdulillah. And that's, I would say to what you mentioned, this is a disease being explained to us. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is talking to us about what happened to many Israel and what you need to do not to fall into the same trap. Going back, Sheikh, to Surat al-Fatiha, I want to just mention briefly on this subject before we move on. We talked about the Qur'an being a cure and remedy for spiritual diseases. No doubt about it. But it also, and that's what Ibn Qayyim rahimallah is mentioning here, the Qur'an is also a healing and a cure for physical actually pain. And he brings here Surat al-Fatiha particularly as a source of healing. In the hadith, which was mentioned by al-Bukhari and Muslim, Haitha ibn Sa'id al-Khudi radiyallahu
anhu wa radha, the story quickly, that they were traveling and they came across a small town or hayy min al-nas, and they asked him for hospitality. These people were mean. They did not offer them any hospitality. So as they were seated outside of the neighborhood, then suddenly the chief of that tribe got bitten by something, and he developed fever. So they tried everything they had to physically heal him. They couldn't. So one of them suggested, he goes, the people outside, why don't you ask them, they might have a healer among them that could help us with that. So they went to ask them, and the Sahaba, they said, you know what, we're not willing to help you unless you give us something. You have to give us a payment. He goes, if you heal our chief, we're going to give you this much or this many, or a herd of sheep or something like that. So he went to recite Surat al-Fatiha four times. Did ruqya. A ruqya is healing by the Qur'an, when you recite the Qur'an over the body, and you wipe over the body with the Qur'an, with the blessing of the Qur'an. So he recited four times Surat al-Fatiha, this man, he just like jumped out of his situation like nothing happened to him. So when they went to the Prophet ﷺ, they were suspicious about the payment they got for reading the Qur'an. Look, subhanallah, taqwa of the heart from the Sahaba. They felt guilty, like we took money, we took a payment for reading Qur'an to them. So when they came to the Prophet ﷺ, ya Rasulallah, is that okay for us to use that payment? And the Prophet ﷺ, he asked him, he says, وَمَا يُدْرِيكَ أَنَّهَا رُقْيَةً How did you know that this was healing, this was actually a remedy? Like the Prophet he approved that the Fatiha was actually a physical cure, and the Prophet told him, I would love to take a share from that payment as well too. To make it halal for them obviously, right?
But the idea is that the Prophet ﷺ said the Qur'an can be also healing and a cure for physical pain. Which explains why the Prophet ﷺ, even in the last moment of his life, Aisha was holding his blessed hand, and she was reading the Qur'an for him, and wiping with his hand over his body to ease his pain, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Sheikh, there's a lot about that hadith. One of them obviously is that the Qur'an benefited a person who doesn't even believe in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. He was a non-Muslim chief and it healed him. So what then of the person who believes in it? And sometimes honestly like when we're in the hospital rooms with someone who's dying, or we're with someone who is very sick, sometimes I'm like, I wish I could film this right now. I wish I could film the difference between a person who's reading Qur'an or having Qur'an read upon them when they're dying, versus someone who's not. I wish they could see the way that a person who is in excruciating pain, but when you start reading Qur'an on them, when all the medicines have failed, they take the sigh of relief, and you could tell that the sweat is less, and you could tell that there's some relief and release that's coming to their bodies. Like there's so many times like I wish I could pull my phone out and record this because it's a miracle of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And now again, look at the people of Gaza, subhanAllah. You're seeing people reading Qur'an while their limbs are being amputated. Kids reading Surah Yasin while their limbs are being amputated and closing their eyes, and it is doing something for them. It's not an excuse for the failure of the world. It's a testimony to the power of the Qur'an, right? How amazing is it? But here's the thing. This man was a non-Muslim chief and Allah Azawajal showed a miracle. When you believe in the Qur'an and when the Qur'an has already been your source of cure for your spiritual illnesses, your source of cure from your emotional illnesses, then when
it comes time to resort to it for your physical illnesses, subhanAllah. It just fits into the whole spectrum of how you approach life and how you approach sickness and wellness in the first place. And that's what makes the Sahaba themselves different. So the scholars in the commentary of the Hadith of Abu Sa'id, because they wrestled a little bit with like how did it work on a non-Muslim chief? And they said it was the taqwa of the qari, the piety of the reciter, not the one who is being recited upon. So obviously the power of the Qur'an and the power of the reciter, not the one who is being recited upon in this regard, right? Can I interject here for a tangent a little bit on this one, subhanAllah? The power of the Qur'an even over non-Muslims. Because I've done that. SubhanAllah, it's an interesting thing and I'm not here advertising for anyone to come to me and say, can you do ruqya for me please? But subhanAllah, one time in El Paso, somebody came to me and said, Sheikh, does the Qur'an work on non-Muslims? I said, what do you mean? Because somebody came to their store and they were complaining that they have some sort of like demons or jinn or this and that and so on. And they've been going to their church almost every Sunday to try to cure them and the effect of that treatment would always be horrible. Like bad effects happen on them. Specifically, they will soil themselves physically. He said, would that work on a non-Muslim? I said, look, the power is in the Qur'an, it's not in anyone else. It's in the words of Allah subhanAllah. So I said it would work on them. So one day I was in his store, subhanAllah, and suddenly that lady, actually she was in her 60s, an old lady, subhanAllah, or maybe 50s. She came with her son. He goes, Sheikh, remember the lady I talked to you about? There she is. I'm like, okay. He goes, can you do ruqya right now? I'm like, man, come on. SubhanAllah. Eventually, we did the ruqya and the lady actually was scared.
She said, but I'm afraid I don't have clothes to change. I said, don't worry about it, nothing's going to happen to you. But I said, it's going to be very tough. And subhanAllah, we did just for about five minutes recitation of the Qur'an. I don't want to describe the scene to you, man. I mean, it was not pleasant in terms of the sight, but subhanAllah, the lady, immediately the moment we stopped reading, she started throwing up. And then she said this never, ever happened to her before. We gave her ruqya on water and olive oil in two weeks. She comes back, she says she's 100% cured. And Allah, subhanAllah, it was just like a humbling experience to know that the effect again of the Qur'an is barakah from Allah, subhanAllah. That's actually a personal experience that I dealt with to show that the power of the Qur'an is in the word of Allah, azza wa jal, just like it's actually, it's also had the effect of it. So Ibn Qayyim, Shaykh, just to conclude with this point, inshallah, here, he mentions, okay, Allah promised the Qur'an, the adhkar, the dua, can be a remedy, can be a cure. But why does it work on some, doesn't work on someone else? Why they're helping this person, not that person? I've been trying this, it's not seen, have the same effect on me, why? So he mentions the reason for that. Qal, walakin haa hoona amru yanbighil tafattunu lah. Here's something you're going to have to pay attention to, he says. And that's that the adhkar, ayat, ad'ia, all the ayat, the adhkar, the words of dua that we use to seek a cure through, wa yurqa biha, and use it for ruqya, hiyya fee nafsiha naafi'atun shafi'a. It's sufficient to be, sufficient as a cure, and beneficial in that matter. Walakin, however, it requires a few things from you. He mentioned three things. Number one, qaboolul mahal. What does that mean?
The recipient, the recipient should be able to accept that. It's just like when you try to do a transplant, for example, if the recipient body is not accepting that organ, it will completely actually kind of like block it. It would be a waste. The second thing, qal wa quwwatu himmatil fa'il. The strength of the conviction of the one who's reciting it. Like are you reciting it out of conviction that it helps, or you're doing it just like whatever. If it helps, alhamdulillah rabbil alameen. And the third one, qal wa ta'theerahoon. Means the effect should be present without anything to block it. Like what? Someone, may Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la protect us, for example, their life is haram. They eat haram, they consume haram, they live in the haram. So when you do ruqya for them, that person is not there, he's not present by heart. And as a result, no matter how much powerful your recitation is, it's not going to be in there because the effect has been blocked by the haram that this person is consuming. So three things over here says that like any other medication as well too, if you take chemical medication but you have something else in your body that project that, you're not going to get the effect of that medicine. So I want to make sure that people understand that I've been doing this but it's not helping me out. So how come it helps this person, it doesn't help that person. So we need to make sure that we understand that when I make my dua, when I read that Quran over that pain, or when I do the ruqya, I need to make sure that the person who's receiving it, it's someone willing to accept that. That you, when you do the dua or the ruqya for yourself or somebody else, you have the full conviction that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will bring that healing by the barakah of the Quran, and also the effect is present inshallah without anything to block that, binnillahi azzawajal. So that's, I just want to make sure that people understand that he doesn't say that this is actually a cure to everybody without any conditions here.
There are prerequisites for that to be effective on someone when you recite the Quran for them. I think sheikh also, it's important for people to read the Quran on themselves. The way of the sunnah and the way of the companions at the end of the day was people read on themselves. The Prophet ﷺ, imagine if the Prophet ﷺ was offering ruqya from himself to the community, there would be a line, it would never end. He taught them to read the three qurs on themselves every day and night. He taught them to read the last two ayat of surah al-Baqarah, ayat al-kursi for themselves as a means of protection for them. So you also have to recognize that the power of the words is there, and that the best ruqya is going to be what you read for yourself every day and every night. So don't wait to find someone that's going to read on you. Read on yourself inshallah ta'ala, and that's the most powerful way to use it, binnillahi ta'ala. Inshallah wa ta'ala. Sheikh, we're going to stop here inshallah to make room for questions from the audience binnillahi azzawajal. So that was just an introduction to the topic and the subject itself, al-da'wa al-dawah. I just want to make sure that you guys, if anyone wants to follow this inshallah azzawajal, we have the Arabic book, it's available online, as well as there is an English translation for it as well. It's also called The Disease and the Cure by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah. If someone would like to bring that book and follow, tomorrow inshallah ta'ala we're going to be reading on the subject of da'wah. Just like we did the Qur'an being a source of cure and also remedy, how da'wah is also considered a cure and a source of remedy as well too inshallah azzawajal. It's going to be, and that's an interesting thing. When he starts speaking about da'wah, Sheikh, he goes into tangent, and that's an interesting thing. And I counted the number of pages, by the way. So in the Arabic text, in the Arabic version, he starts speaking about da'wah on page nine, and then on page 65, page 65, he goes back again, he says, okay now let's go back again
to when we started this book four, talking about the problems with the disease of the heart and so on. Like 60, about 50 pages as a tangent on the subject of da'wah. Those who read the English copy, it's going to be from page 14 all the way until page 107. That was all a tangent. So we're going to summarize this tomorrow inshallah ta'ala in one session, bin allahi azzawajal. Sheikh, if it's okay, I just want to share one more reflection on this subject inshallah. You know, especially being in Ramadan, and that point about the Qur'an offering you an insight into your potential spiritual diseases, since I know people are going to be reading the Qur'an tonight, but the night on these last ten nights. Look, when you think about Bani Israel, it's not like every day they decide to go build a golden calf. How does Allah say they went astray? They started delaying their prayer. So you're praying late, right? Coming very late to the prayer, delaying your prayer outside of its window. When you talk about Bani Israel in terms of the rituals, in terms of the diseases of rejecting the prophets, most of the time it was taking a law that was given to them in regards to their food, their dress, their drink, their way of being, and then finding the loophole, and being excessive with the loophole. It wasn't outright rejection of it altogether. And so, you know, you think about advanced Firaun disease, advanced Bani Israel disease. These are, you know, we're looking at these diseases at their final and advanced state. This is when it's stage four. It's gotten terminal, spiritually terminal. And Allah is giving you that to say, don't wait till you get here to wake up. And so a lot of times when you're reading the Qur'an, don't say, oh, Alhamdulillah, I checked this box, I checked this box. Like seriously interrogate yourself. You're not going to come out of Ramadan with anything greater than a greater sense of self-introspection,
and a willingness to try to tackle those diseases. And a lot of what we're going to be covering, that's the underlying factor. Whether we're talking about Dua, whether we're talking about the effects of sins throughout this book, because we're only going to have these flashpoints. You need to be super self-critical to the point where you come out with something different or something greater than simply what we said over here. So may Allah make these sessions beneficial and allow us to have our own personal sit-downs with what's coming out of this inshallah, to be willing to take that next step in our spiritual journey. I hope that all of you inshallah as you start joining us on this journey, by the end of every session, I really recommend for each and every one of you just to pull their phone out and write in their notes a reflection for yourself. Like what did you learn from this, seriously? What is my action item? Not just what did you learn, what's your action item? Alhamdulillah, I sat here for about 45 minutes, for an hour. We heard about the Quran being a remedy and a cure and this and that. Okay, what's your action item? The question that was asked at the beginning of the book is a question each and every one of us have to deal with. Because all of us have that kind of thing that we're addicted to that we'd like to get out of it. We've been trying, it's still coming back to it, we're trying to get back to it. And now we're talking about the remedy and the cure inshallah. So I hope that before you leave this night inshallah, write down your action item. What is it that you need to do inshallah, making sure with full conviction in the heart and persistent to make it happen, you will reach inshallah that right ratio of that ta'a and ibar and that qira of the Quran will bring you the cure inshallah. Now, if you look at the screen, you'll find a QR code. If you want to send a question inshallah azawajal, please scan the QR code, send your questions. For our brothers and sisters, our audience who are watching us live from outside of Texas, outside of Dallas, please when you put your question, make sure to let us know where you're asking from, where you actually you're sending your question from.
So at least we give you inshallah ta'ala attention and also priority as well to ibn Allah azawajal. Shaykh, now the first question here. How do you determine if you have a spiritual disease? Or do we all have some some form of spiritual disease since we are imperfect? Do you determine which spiritual disease you have by introspecting? First and so it's analyzing the depth of what's being said. And then the willingness to analyze the depth of what's present within you. So it's being able to look inside after that and to see how much of this is possibly within me. So it's reading very carefully with your eyes open, with your heart open. That's why I say when you read the Quran, when you read the hadith of the Prophet, when you read any of these texts, don't just try to get to the end of the page. Try to get to the depth of it inshallah ta'ala and reflect on it. And then being really willing to say, do I have any of these traits? In the beginning of Ramadan, I asked people, by the way, I said, ask someone around you, close to you, if they see any character flaws, to make you aware of them. And then be willing to tackle that in Ramadan inshallah ta'ala. Because sometimes you don't even see it yourself, but other people might see it that are close to you. You need to make them comfortable enough to give you that nasiha. And that's the culture of nasiha, the culture of soliciting advice amongst one another inshallah ta'ala. Is that it helps us through that. If I may add one more thing, Sheikh, people, they need to understand that my issues are different than someone else's issues. Like if someone's dealing with financial, for example, disease related to finances, they always want to be rich, they want to be this, they want to have this, they want to own this. So they're always pursuing the financial gain in this dunya. And someone going after lust, for example, they have different diseases right now. So their way of feeling is different than the other person. And sometimes you will see that when people read Quran, the effect to them is different.
How come you guys are praying behind the exact same imam, standing right next to each other, hearing the exact same recitation. This person is crying their eyes out. And the other person is just like, what's wrong with him? Why is that different? Because I don't know how deep that wound and how much it's bothering you versus him or her. So you need also to reflect on the Quran in a way that would help you heal. You might be reading the exact same surah, but the way we reflect on it, subhanAllah, is something different. Another question, Sheikh, says about the Quran. Like they say, I would like to know if reading the Quran with English translation in the last 10 nights, because I don't speak Arabic, would that have the exact same effect? So there is a benefit to reading the Quran as reading the Quran, right? There's a benefit to qira'ah, there's a benefit to hif, there's a benefit to memorization. There's a benefit to reading. There's nothing greater than obviously reading the Quran with tadabbur, with introspection. If you don't understand Arabic, part of your tadabbur, part of your introspection, is then reading the translation inshaAllah ta'ala, to help you be able to reflect on it deeper. That's the same as someone who's reading a tafseer of it, who speaks Arabic and who's reading it with tafseer, for example, to get a greater understanding of it, and then being able to get it better. So if you're going to read haf, but with translation and tadabbur and introspection, that's certainly better than just reading through it without that, if you're not able to understand it. Now, someone says, you said that ignorance is a bliss until the next life. Yeah. Does this mean that it is implied that the one who dies without knowing they are in sin? Or someone who hasn't accepted Islam will be held accountable to that which they had no knowledge of? Those are two separate issues. No.
For one, don't wait for the consequence of something to be alerted to it. And so that's how a lot of spiritual diseases persist in us as believers. I haven't faced a major consequence in life for having this spiritual disease. Therefore, it must not exist. No, don't wait for the consequence of it in order to be introspective. So for the believer, you're always in a state of mujahada. You're always in a state of betterment, striving to get to that next level. If you're not striving anymore, the Prophet ﷺ said, لَوْ لَا تُذْنِي مُنْ خَشَيْتُ عَلَيْكُمْ مَا أَكْبُرُ مِنْ ذَلِكِ الْعُجْبِ الْعُجْبِ If you don't sin that I worry about something far greater than that, it's deceit. It's conceitedness. It's when you think I'm already there. Alhamdulillah, I've already arrived. As for those who don't know, the Prophet ﷺ mentions, you know, that Allah has forgiven this ummah for, what is it? النسيان ومستكره عليه I'm missing the first one, Shaykh. عَذَرَ اللَّهُ لِّمَتِيهِ الخطأ والنسيان ومستكره عليه So there's that concept where Allah has forgiven this ummah for what they do out of mistake, what they do out of forgetfulness, or that which they do under compulsion. As for those who've never heard of Islam and its pure message, Allah ﷻ will deal with them in His way, in a way that's just, right? So we know that Allah is just, therefore we don't bother ourselves with the details. We know that Allah ﷻ has tasked us to deliver the message. So if we know someone that doesn't have the message, we don't ask ourselves, how is Allah going to deal with them? Because we already know that Allah will deal with them in a way that's just. We ask ourselves, how can we get the message to them? But we just bring it back to ourselves and to our responsibility, inshaAllah. So I want to add to the first part, Shaykh, for the Muslims. For the non-Muslims, we understand if they never get the message, they're called qamat al-hujjah, to have the proof against, for example, them and so on. That's a different story. But for a Muslim to take ignorance as an excuse, now that's not acceptable. Because learning has become part of your duty as a Muslim.
Learning is one of your obligations as a Muslim. As a matter of fact, to find that cure and that healing, as the professor mentioned, sual, you need to ask, you need to learn, you need to acquire that knowledge. Even Allah says in the Quran, You need to have the knowledge. There is no God worthy worshipper of Allah. Those who truly are mindful of Allah among the people, those who have the knowledge. So it's already there in the Quran, part of the remedy and healing, that you need to heal your ignorance with knowledge. So not learning is not an excuse. Because I heard some people say, you know what? You better actually stay ignorant about this. Otherwise, once you know, you have to apply it. So ignorance is a bliss. Don't even try to learn. So they don't want to come to, they don't want to read books. They want to learn anything because I don't want to take any more responsibility or accountability for what I know. I don't practice. No, you need to learn and try your best to practice inshallah. Can I comment on that too? I think it's really important. You know, Saidiya, it's almost like, you know, an analogy that I think of as someone that's, again, in the middle of the desert in El Paso. Doesn't have health insurance, doesn't know where the hospital is, doesn't know where a doctor is. I know, I love El Paso. It's beautiful, actually. But you know, like has no access whatsoever to the person who knows the doctor, who knows where the medicine is, who knows exactly where to go. That's you as a Muslim. You know where to go. You don't say, well, why did you have to tell me that was haram? I wish I didn't know. Careful, by the way. There's something deeply pervasive about the culture that we live in right now, which is people look to trend, not truth. People look to trend, not truth. No one is going to teach you Islam and halal and haram through a social media platform, through a trend. You've got to put in your mind that if 99% of Muslims are doing it this way, 99% of Muslims could be wrong. That's not to your own intellectual arrogance, like I googled the hadith
and I know them better than the ulema. I'm not talking about the ulema. I'm talking about trends. Trends don't replace truth. But for most of us, we make ourselves comfortable with trends. And subhanAllah, like you think about, I can't shake this out of my head. Do you all remember? I don't know if this was even prior to last Ramadan when Elon Musk said, you know, I'm pretty sure there isn't a hell. And if there's a hell, most people are going to it anyway. That was like the most arrogant and careless and reckless. And you know, if he doesn't repent, can you imagine him meeting Allah with that statement? Standing in front of Allah like, here's your tweet. Allah yastur, right? Like, can you imagine if he doesn't repent from that? Like, wow, what a statement, right? Now, you think that's such an audacious statement. But in the same spirit of analyzing the Quran and seeing your mini-Firaun, do you have a mini-Elon too, right? Like, okay, I don't know if this is haram, but if it is haram, most people are doing it anyway. And I'm, you know, I'm pretty, I'm looking around, most of the Muslims do this and they seem to think it's normal. That's not, that excuse doesn't work for you on the Day of Judgment. That excuse will not work for you on Yawm al-Qiyamah. You've got to be willing to put yourself to the standard of the truth, not the standard of trends. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us. Ameen, ya Rabbi, ameen, ameen. Just someone asking, what are we going to be covering tomorrow inshallah, tabaraka wa ta'ala. For those who are following with the Arabic text, it's going to be inshallah from pages 9 to 28. We're not going to read all the pages though, the topic itself about du'a from page 9 to 28. Those who would like to follow in the English, it's going to be from page 15 to page 48 inshallah wa ta'ala. We're going to be talking about du'a. Sheikh, now a question coming all the way from Hyderabad, India. Masha'Allah. Do you have Hyderabadis over here? Oh, they got a lot of Hydros. That's all? Those are my people. Where are all the Hyderabadis? Masha'Allah. So, the introspection with the traits of the people of the Quran, it's hard to do it by ourselves.
Is there a book which will walk us through that, that will help us with the introspection and tazkiyah? I mean, I think this book is one of them. Yeah, absolutely. Look, there are multiple books, alhamdulillah, translated into different languages if we start. Actually, we have a blog. If you go to Yaqeen's website and you go to the blog, we actually have like 20 or 30 books, recommendations, just to be able to read along with the Quran, to reflect with inshallah and things that are out there. There are great tafsir books, great reflection books. But the type of tadabbur that's necessary here is your own personal tadabbur. That's not a tafsir. Like, you don't come away and say, the verse means this. You come away and say, I feel like the Quran is challenging me to take the next step in regards to this. So, that's where the tadabbur and the tafakkur comes in. So, as somebody is asking from California, actually, my mother has very bad pain and doctors are unable to detect that and so on. So, what do we do in this case? Is there any special surahs? I highly recommend that you look for a raqi, someone who does ruqya in your local area, inshallah ta'ala, and go and let them take care of this for you, inshallah azzawajal. Someone is asking on behalf of somebody else saying, what is the best way to help a friend needing spiritual medicine? Like, what can we do exactly to help our friends, especially if they might not be as strong believers of the power of the healing of the Quran and the dua? What can we do for them? I think the Quran is full of imbalanced conversations. Musa Alayhi Salaam trying to get through to Firaun. Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam trying to get through to his father. There's such an imbalance there in like how those two men approach life. The humility of Musa Alayhi Salaam versus the arrogance of Firaun. The softness of Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam versus the harshness of his father. And there's a methodology to say, speak lenient gentle words so that perhaps they'll wake up.
You have to approach people with respect, with love. You have to demonstrate with all the disclaimers in the world. I want to help you. I care about you. How you say it is just as important as what you're saying. Meaning what? Look, anyone who thinks that you can give nasiha or you know, you think that your public humiliation of someone is actually for their well-being. Good luck trying to wake a person up like that. Right? No, talk to your friends on the side. Try to reach out to someone privately. Talk to them privately. I'm talking about when you have that ability in particular, right? As Imam Al-Shafi'i says, you know, public advice is not nasiha, it's fadhiha. You're humiliating someone, right? So what does it mean? It's taking that person to the side and saying everything good about them and everything you love about them and then how much you care about them and then getting to the advice without acting like you're a person that has arrived and they're a person that is drowning. Hey, look, we're working together. I just, I want you to know, I've noticed this. I also have struggled with this myself. Here's something I'm trying to do. Why don't we do it together? I just wanted to give you this advice. Is there any advice that you have for me? Use all of that, right? And at the end of the day, most people are not to the level of Firaun or the father of Ibrahim Alayhi Salaam. Most people at the bare minimum will appreciate the spirit of your nasiha even if they're not yet at a point where they can actually take your nasiha. Most people will appreciate the spirit of the nasiha. If you've gone through all of that and that's part of your humility inshallah ta'ala and part of your making sure that your intention is sincere. So a question coming from all the way from Sri Lanka, masha'Allah, in regards to saying, look, I don't understand Arabic. So I read the Quran with translation and I tried to do that to push away all these bad thoughts and negative thoughts and notions. So does the Quran reciting on a long,
how long does it take basically for all these thoughts to be pushed away? How much Quran do I need to read and for how long do I need to do that? Before I can start saying alhamdulillah and I'm finding clarity right now. Look, I'll say this then, Hamza, one of the things that we also have with online is that you have multiple programs now to try to understand the majority of the Arabic that's used in the Quran. It's part of ibadah inshallah. Maybe you make that as one of your Ramadan resolutions that you know what, I'm going to spend the next year dedicating myself one hour a week to some of these online programs to learn the Quran, to understand the messaging, the main themes of the Quran, the main messages of the Quran inshallah ta'ala. And obviously we understand that not everyone's going to get there, right? But commit yourself to that if you can inshallah, just with the availability of information that's out there. And then at the end of the day, that's where listening to lectures does help, right? That's where listening to other people, reading how other people reflect on the Quran does help. As for the expelling, the expulsion of thoughts, that's never going to happen, right? That's going to constantly be there in your life. A question says, you know, what if the Quran doesn't affect me? Am I lost? You know, I'll say this, subhanAllah sheikh, like one of the things that's so beautiful is like when Allah gives that message that shakes you and one of the most powerful messages in the Quran, أَلَمْ يَأْنِي لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَن تَخْشَعَ قُلُوبُهُمْ لِذِكْرِ اللَّهِ وَمَا نَزَلَ مِنَ الْحَقِّ Isn't it time for those who believe to soften their hearts, to humble their hearts to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the truth that he has revealed? Just a few ayat after, اِعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللَّهَ يُحِيِي الْأَرْضَ بَعْدَ مَوْتِهَا Know that Allah gives life to dead earth. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala produces out of dead earth. So even if your heart is dead, it can come back to life if you ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to resuscitate it. You just might need a major surgery, right? The Quran is also not meant... You know, it reminds me by the way like when you talk about the intensity of emotion,
I think it was Aisha radhiAllahu anha, she saw some of the next generation, she saw someone reading the Quran and then he passed out. And she said the sahabah didn't used to pass out when they read the Quran. Like they had the greatest humility and awe of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But she was like, look, it wasn't the intensity of the emotion. It was the intensity of the humility to the commandments of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the Quran, the reverence of the Quran. Like the Prophet ﷺ when he'd read the Quran, he wasn't screaming and wailing. No, like his chest was described عليه الصلاة والسلام like a wheezing pot, you know, like boiling water. SubhanAllah, such a humble, deep, you know, connection to it. So it's not the intensity of your emotion. It's the willingness to submit to it. That's going to develop that connection to it. So a lot of people, subhanAllah, they're saying that, you know, they're reading the Quran and the effect of it, does the ruqya affect me, doesn't affect me. And I think we mentioned earlier that Imam al-Qayyim rahimallah speak about the three things that will prevent you from benefiting from this ruqya. If your body, if you're doing a lot of haram things such as eating the haram, consuming the haram, no matter how much du'a you make, the Prophet ﷺ says, فَأَنَّ يُسْتَجَابُ لَهُ how Allah will answer their call. So you need to make sure that your provision is halal, your lifestyle is halal, so that can have that effect on it. Also when you do it, you do it with conviction, not guessing or maybe, let's see, let's try it out. Or maybe I believe in someone else reading it for me, might have more power than me reading the Quran myself. So all these things will affect that. So that's something I want them to do that inshaAllah wa ta'ala. Here's an interesting question though. I think we should conclude with that inshaAllah wa ta'ala. Does ruqya, I feel it's amusing to be honest with you, does ruqya work for anger and laziness? That's a lazy question. That's a dad joke. I like it. Right? It's good, sheikh.
No, but seriously, like you need to remove laziness by applying a lazy behavior. It's just like read Quran, it's going to be fine, alhamdulillah. Right now, start becoming active right away. It doesn't work like this, o jama'a, unless if we talk about not laziness, really, it would be ajiz. There's a big difference between being lazy and having ajiz, subhanAllah. Laziness is when there are sometimes some circumstances, but ajiz is when you're just completely out of it, like you're completely incapable of doing much or anything. So how would you answer people like that, sheikh? Look, I mean, obviously there's the dua'a component, Allahumma ya'udhu bika min al-ajzi wal-kasal, but I think tomorrow as we talk about dua'a, Right, so your dua'a has to match your deeds. Your dua'a doesn't, it's not like a potion that you drink, right? It's not a magical potion, not the Quran or a dua'a. It's you doing your part and then asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to do his part. Like subhanAllah, the most frequent dua'a of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam was what? What was the most frequent dua'a of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam? You should all know this. I hear some mumbling, can someone say it? Ya muqallibal qulub, thabbit qalbi ala deenak. O turner of hearts, make my heart firm on your path. Everything about the actions of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, you know, lead themselves to a heart that is longing for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. A heart that wants to be firm. Now, O Allah, make it firm, right? So you have to take the actions that are necessary and then ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to enable you towards acceptance. That's the way this relationship is going to work with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So make dua'a for me, I've got this problem. What are you doing about the problem? And then asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to unlock that next phase. Sayyiduna Umar radiyallahu ta'ala anhu, Allahumma inni dha'if faqawwini.
O Allah, I'm weak, so make me strong. He means in terms of overcoming some of his previous spiritual ailments. Everything about Umar radiyallahu anhu is a man who's trying to conquer those ailments, yet he's saying, O Allah, I need you to get me to the next level. I need you to make it happen, to unlock that next stage. JazakAllah khair. Sheikh, nabarakallahu feekum. I want to thank all the brothers and sisters over here and our volunteers for making this possible, alhamdulillah. Just a shout out to all our audience also watching with us to let you know, mashallah, I'm looking at where they're actually tuning in from. So we have, mashallah, people from Mexico, we have people from Trinidad, from Sri Lanka, Hyderabad, we have people from Minnesota, people, mashallah, from other states, from Canada, from all over the world, alhamdulillah. No Somalia, Sheikh? You said Minnesota, no Somalia? Same thing? I guess so, man. I guess so. There's Washington State and so much, alhamdulillah. May Allah bless you all. Tomorrow, inshallah, one more time we're going to be studying, inshallah, the second chapter which is on the subject of dua. JazakAllah khair. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. you
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