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20 Techniques to Master Patience (Part 3) | Late Night Talk
Ibn Al Qayyim (ra) lists 20 techniques to exercise patience. Join Dr. Omar Suleiman and Sh. Yaser Birjas as they go through the remaining techniques in Part 3 of this talk, and reflect on other lessons and gems from Ibn Al-Qayyim’s The Excellence of Patience and Gratitude.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. You guys are going to grade me. I didn't have a chance to practice sunnah, so I'm going to try it. This is the first shot. You ready, Sheikh? Bismillah. Bismillah. Do it with the right tajweed, though. Bismillah. Alright. Alright. Bismillah. Alright. Tunday ba'day mukhalif saynagabra e'uqab. Yatutaltay hey tujay uncha uranay kilay. How was that? Horrible? I got some applause from the sisters. Was it worse than last year? Sheikh, the guys are still trying to figure out what we are saying. What did I say? Well, you should learn how to do that. This is a poem that translates as, You don't get frightened of these furious violent winds, oh eagle. These blow only to make you fly higher. Tunday ba'day mukhalif saynagabra e'uqab. Stop it. The first one was practiced. Yatutaltay hey tujay uncha uranay kilay. Did that sound better? I got a thumbs up. Alhamdulillah. So that's a ten out of ten. I'll take it as a ten out of ten. It's one thumb up. That's over. Jazakumullah khair. Shall I get my Bosnian language out right now? Bismillah, Sheikh. Pressure's off. Now we can talk about the book. Bismillah. Alhamdulillah. So we were discussing the tips and techniques to master the subject of patience in our lives. And, again, we need to make sure that we don't leave these sessions without understanding the sequence of these things. When someone is afflicted with a calamity, if someone is tested in front of a temptation and so on, they require a lot of patience, obviously, to stand against this fitna. And Imam Ibn Qayyim, rahimullah, he says, Look, your knowledge wouldn't benefit you at the strike of a calamity. The only thing that will help you stay firm is the strength of your iman. And the strength of your iman is based on what? The practice of your knowledge.
And, obviously, the more expansive your knowledge is, the better chance you have to have a stronger iman when you practice it. Which means you have to have the proper knowledge so that you can practice it, and that will strengthen your iman, so that will help you build a stronger shield of patience in the face of these calamities and these trials. So Ibn Qayyim, rahimullah, was sharing with us 20 of these techniques that will help us make our incentive, our religious incentive to stand against trials and temptations strong. And we came to point number 16. We covered a little bit of that point last night, but we're going to start with it, inshallah, because we believe it's a very important one. He said, rahimullah, The 13th point. So he says, rahimullah ta'ala, again this is picking up at least the first part of 16 we talked about yesterday, that a person should constantly turn their attention to the one who holds the hearts of people between his two fingers. He is the one who controls everything, and to him is the ultimate return of everything. When a person constantly focuses on him, then it may be that in that focus he will find the moment in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bestows a season of mercy. And then he mentions the hadith. It's debatable as a hadith, by the way,
most of the scholars of hadith do not consider an authentic hadith, but it's still a narration. Allah has nafahat, seasons of mercy, particular moments where he bestows his gifts. So present yourselves to the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and ask Allah to cover up your hidden faults and safeguard you from fears. And he says when a person is focused on finding one of these moments, like we are in these last ten nights, a person might find that moment in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will not turn down the prayer of any person. And he says that the one who is allowed to make a du'a will certainly find the response as well, because if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not want to answer the prayers of the servants, he would not have inspired him to make the du'a. And this is of course one of the hikmah of Ibn Ata'illah. مَتَىٰ أَطْلَقَ اللَّهُ لِسَانَكَ بِطَلَبٍ فَعْلَمْ أَنَّهُ يُرِيدُ أَن يُعْطِيَكَ A very famous statement from Ibn Ata'illah rahimuhullah. مَتَىٰ أَطْلَقَ اللَّهُ لِسَانَكَ بِطَلَبٍ Know that if Allah allows your tongue to move to ask him, فَعْلَمْ أَنَّهُ يُرِيدُ أَن يُعْطِيَكَ That means that Allah wants to give you something. And Umar ibn al-Khattab radiyallahu ta'ala anhu, when he said, I do not concern myself with the answer, I only concern myself with the ability to ask, because if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allows you to ask, then that certainly means that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants to give you. And he has a following line here, you can mention the line sheikh. He said something interesting. He said, فَمَنْ أُعْطِيَ مَنْشُورَ الدُّعَىٰ يُعْطِيَ الْإِجَابَةِ If Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless somebody with manshur al-du'a, manshur al-du'a is basically like giving them the gift of making du'a at all times. Like subhanAllah, their book is always open for the du'a. They are always making du'a, day and night, privately and publicly. They are always making du'a. He says over here, If Allah blessed you to be constantly making du'a to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, your chances for that du'a to be accepted will become higher.
In any moment, any given moment, you might be exposed to one of those special seasons of acceptance, like this night for example. You never know. Last ten nights of the month of Ramadan. Imagine if you occupied your night, particularly your night, sitting in seclusion, caring about your private time, your special time with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, rather than socializing and so forth, and you kept making du'a all the time. What are the chances that some of that du'a will be accepted? So he said if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made it easy for somebody to make a lot of du'a, their chances for the du'a to be accepted will be higher than anybody else. So ask yourself the question. Am I one of those people whose du'a comes easy to them? We talked about this yesterday. We said that subhanAllah, we became so ignorant as human beings, as ummah, as Muslims. We are so ignorant that we don't even know how to ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for our personal needs. That we need the assistance of a book, or someone to make that be on our behalf. We don't even know how to ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for our need. Why? Because we're not practicing this very well. We don't do that on a regular basis. It's not like the Fatiha when you recite this. It becomes easy for you. But for the du'a, it seems that it becomes so hard because it's not natural to us. Ibn Qayyim says, look, make your du'a a natural thing for you, as if you're breathing. And chances for the du'a to be accepted will definitely be higher and higher. And then he talked about right now, okay, what about those who say, well, I've been making du'a but I'm not getting what I'm asking for. I was asked this question today, subhanAllah. I want to elaborate on that in a second. But let's see what Ibn Qayyim says about those who say, look, I'm not getting what I'm asking for. He says, look, I'm not getting what I'm asking for.
This is such a powerful and beautiful statement. Honestly, we could spend a lot of time just reflecting on these words in particular. He says that a person should not be distressed from the outward appearances of a situation. Because it may be that Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala deals with a person in a way that is foreign to him because Allah's af'al are unlike, Allah's doings are unlike any other doings, just as his attributes are unlike any other doing. So he says, just like he says, كما ليس كمثله شيء في صفاته The same way that Allah's attributes have no likeness, no human likeness, Allah's doings have no human likeness as well. So he says that know that Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala has not deprived you except to give you. وَلَا أَمْرَضَهُ إِلَّا لِيَشْفِيَهُ Allah has not made you sick except to cure you. وَلَا أَفْقَرَهُ إِلَّا لِيُغْنِيَهُ Allah has not made you poor except to make you prosperous. وَلَا أَمَاتَهُ إِلَّا لِيُحِيَهُ Allah has not allowed you to die except to give you life, subhanallah, even in death. وَمَا أَخْرَجَ أَبَوَيْهِ مِنَ الْجَنَّةِ إِلَّا لِيُعِيدَهُمَا إِلَيْهَا Allah has not let your parents, Adam and Eve, be expelled from paradise except to bring them back على أَكْمَلِ حَال
in a better situation, in an even more perfect situation. And just as it said, يَا آدَمْ لَا تَرْزَعْ مِنْ قَوْلِي لَكْ أُخْرُجْ مِنْهَا فَلَكَ خَلَقْتُهَا وَسَأُعِيدُكَ إِلَيْهَا He said it's just like the saying that Allah says, Oh Adam, do not become distressed by my order that you should leave Jannah because I have created you for it and I am going to bring you back to it. And this is how Ibn Qayyim says in another place that Shaytan was pleased by the fall of Adam because he thought he won. But what he didn't realize is that when the diver goes to the bottom of the ocean, he gathers the pearls at the bottom of the ocean and rises up once again. So Adam is better after his tawbah than he was before his expulsion. And so this is what Ibn Qayyim is saying here. So he says, فَالرَّبُّ تَعَالَى So your Lord, the universe, He shows his favor to you because it's unlike anyone else. Allah shows his favor to you by afflicting you, by depriving you and then by giving to you and then giving your health after you have been sick. And so a servant should never be distressed by a condition that he doesn't like except that which makes him angry with him and drives him away from him. Meaning the only time you should actually feel like you're in the true, you're in a true trial is when the trial is taking you away from Allah. That's when it's a true test. That's when it's there's no way this is a blessing is when you're allowing it to take you away from Allah and you're allowing it to make you do the deeds that warn his anger rather than his mercy. But don't compare Allah's deprivation of you to the deprivation of other humans of you because Allah never puts his servant through anything except that he wants good for his servants.
When we ever, we consider our personal condition. Unfortunately, we measure it in comparison to our situation with human beings. So meaning if you ask someone, what do you expect from them? That they should respond to you and give you what you ask for. If someone fires you from your job and your work, now you start getting distressed because you're so much dependent on them for your wealth and money. So you have all that distress because of that. If you get, if someone, for example, cause you to go sick, let's say contagious sickness and so on, you blame them for it. So we always measure our actions based on these human measurements. And as a result, we stress ourself out about in the circumstances and the situation. He says over here, Rahimahullah Ta'ala, look, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la does not like that. If Allah Azza wa Jal cause your business to fail, then there is, there is a hikmah behind. There's a wisdom. He's looking for something good for you. Instead of whining about what you lost, what do you need to do? Look for what He's actually is leaving for you. What He is opening doors for you. If Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la cause someone to go sick or ill, now what is the hikmah, what is the khair that I'm getting out of this? If I've been asked Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to get this map, this thing, I've been asked Allah for so long to get this map. It doesn't mean Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is not answering your call if you don't get what you asked for. Maybe He is delaying that because He knows that if you get it, you're not going to be happy with it. So depriving you sometimes of what you're asking for is part of His rahmah, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, and hikmah and wisdom. Ibn Qayyim also said something very interesting around the same concept here. He goes, look, فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَىٰ مَا أَغْلَقَ بَابًا بِحِكْمَتِهِ إِلَّا فَتَحَ بَابًا بِرَحْمَتِهِ That Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la never closes a door out of wisdom, but He opens another out of mercy. So when you start falling into distress, you're dealing with so many troubles, you're failing in this exam,
or my work, or even my marriage, you start realizing that everything is becoming tight as if life Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is closing around you. He said just look for the light. Look for the doors that are being opened for you right now. Instead of looking at how tight the situation is, look for the mercy. Look for the door of mercy. Where is it? Where is it coming from? Because sometimes, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, some people, and may Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la protect us from all of this, commit a sin, that that sin will provoke and invoke them to produce a repentance to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la by which they will erase all their previous sins and become righteous. Like without that sin, they would have never found their way back to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. And he refers to a story at the time of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, the lady who used to steal, and she denies what she takes from other women. Eventually, she was brought to punishment. Her family tried to intercede and tried to talk to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam to talk him out of it so he shouldn't be punished and shouldn't be embarrassed from the entire public and population, one from the elite of Banu Makhzum. Even they had his beloved Usama bin Zaid to come and interfere. He said, Ya Rasulullah, you know the people are willing to ransom her if you want to accept that from them. And the Prophet was so angry with him. He said, what are you trying to do? Do you want me to stop fulfilling one of the commands of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la? Eventually, Aisha, she said, after the punishment was executed, and this lady, she had her punishment. She said, She became so righteous. Because of that, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, she became very righteous. Even though it was considered a punishment and an embarrassment and a scandalous thing, but there was so much khair that might come from that. And I personally actually remember a friend of mine, we grew up together, and Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, at some point in his life,
he just kind of like went to a different direction. And he got indulged in many things for a few years. And then Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, he turned around. And when he started coming back, MashaAllah, he came back in a much better condition. And every time we tried to bring the past, he goes, look, he goes, I can't talk about this. But he said, Alhamdulillah, I'm glad. I'm glad that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la brought me back, because if it wasn't for that thing, I would never be so strong today against all these temptations. That doesn't mean people that should expose themselves to temptation. But what he's saying here, Alhamdulillah, that look, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is not like anybody else. So if Allah is delaying answering you, if Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is subjecting you to illness, subjecting you to deprivation of wealth and health and so on, he's not like anybody else. Look for the Rahmah. Where is that mercy that is embedded in Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la's actions? Because his actions are as unique as his attributes, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Just for those that are taking notes, Ibn Al-Qayyim Rahim Allah, these are two beautiful statements from him. We said earlier, كَمَا أَنَّ لَيْسَكَ مِثْلِهِ شَيْءٍ لَيْسَكَ حُبِّهِ شَيْءٍ He said, just like there is nothing like him, there is nothing like his love, and then in this chapter, he says that just as there is nothing like his sifat, لَيْسَكَ مِثْلِهِ شَيْءٍ there is nothing like him in terms of his attributes, there is nothing like him in terms of his actions, in terms of his af'al. So Ibn Al-Qayyim Rahim Allah, once again, I think he is making this point very, very emphatically. Stop treating Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la by the rules that you treat other human beings. It just doesn't work. Nothing applies. Nothing applies to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la the way that it applies to other human beings. Your Lord is beyond your comprehension, but at the same time, He is not beyond you in terms of du'a. He is close to you with your du'a, but He is beyond your comprehension. So stop interpreting. Really, it's interpretation here, right? Stop putting interpretive methods
that you use with other relationships with human beings on your relationship with Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la because it's not going to work and it's going to leave you depressed and deflated. Instead, realize the uniqueness of your relationship with Allah and the way that He deals with you. Sheikh, the last two lines were very important. I have to repeat them again. Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la and that summarizes this word. He says, قَالْ فَالرَّبُّ تَعَالَى Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la the Lord of the Worlds يُنْعِمُ عَلَى عَبْدِهِ بِابْتِلَاءِهِ Paradoxical statement He's bringing over here. He goes, look, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la blesses people through the trials. You get blessing by being tested. وَيُعْطِيهِ بِحِرْمَنِي He gives by depriving him of things. Like you ask for something and you don't get it. That deprivation is the gift that Allah has given you because if He gives you what you ask for, become disastrous. Like some guys, they come to me, they ask me, O Believing Shaykh, could you please make dua that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to help me marry this lady or this girl? I said, are you sure about that? So be careful what you wish for because you might actually get what you ask for but then Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la you realize, Ya Rabb, if you know that that was a bad decision for me, why did you make it easy for me to do it? And then you're going to blame Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la for making it happen. So I said, instead of you asking for this job or asking for this person to be my spouse or asking for this particular thing, ask Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, Ya Rabbi, if you know that there is khair for me in this matter or khair for me to marry this individual or khair for me to get this job, make it easy for me. And if not, Ya Allah, take it away from me. Give the choice to your Lord and trust Him. Don't treat Allah like anybody else. When Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la closes the door, He closes it out of wisdom but He opens another out of rahmah. Find that wisdom and look for that mercy. And He continues to say, وَيَصْحَبُهُ بِسَقَمِهِ When you are sick, Allah is there with you. He is referring to hadith of the Prophet ﷺ when the Prophet ﷺ said in the hadith of Qudsi,
Allah Azza wa Jalla says, Ya Abdi, my servant, why didn't you come to visit me? And the abdu says, Ya Rabbi, كيف أزورك أنت رب العالمين How would I visit you when you are the Lord of the world? He says, well, my servant XYZ fell ill and you did not go to visit them. Have you done that? If you had done that, you had find me with him. I'll be with the sick and with the ill. So Allah says, the Prophet is saying, look, Allah is your companion in moments like these. So instead of keep whining about, you know, your sickness and illness, realize Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is bringing so much rahmah in these trials. Shaykh, I want to mention one more thing because this principle is probably more easily applicable to as-sabr ala al-bala' for people, patients with a hardship. But how does it apply to patients with your desires? The way that it applies to patients with your desires is the following. If you think about the hadith of the people that are shaded under the throne of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. One of them is a person who was called, da'atu imra'a thata hasabin wa jaman faqala inni akhafullah. A person who was called to the act of adultery. And he said, I seek refuge in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I fear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Despite the perfect storm for him to commit the deed of adultery. So you might be thinking to yourself, why did Allah expose me to it if Allah didn't want me to have it? This is on the desires. And I had to pass this up. So you're in a situation where your desires got very strong. Maybe for a person, maybe for a transaction, a business deal fell right on your plate. And if you take this business deal, you're going to be set for life and you're passing up on significant money. Or a significant career drop if you choose to not take this. It may be that through you holding yourself there, Allah just unlocked for you wilayah. Allah turned you into a wilayah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because you held yourself back in that situation. So even then, when Allah exposes you to something,
and at that moment where your desire is strongest, you show patience with it and you hold it back. It may be that that's where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives you the greatest gift of becoming a friend of His. I think Shaykh, this is exactly what he said in the final line. When he says, فَلَا يَسْتَوحِشْ عَبْدُهُ مِنْ حَالَةٍ تَسُوءُهُ أَصْلًا إِلَّا إِذَا كَانَتْ تُغْضِبُهُ عَلَيْهِ وَتُبْعِدُهُ مِنْ Which means he says, look, don't think that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala abandoned you in any of these situations. If you fell ill, you lost your job, you're kind of dealing with some difficult situations. Like the Shaykh mentioned, these are the balaa that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala exposed you to which you have no control over. So that's something you need to know, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is doing this out of hikmah and wisdom. So try to understand the wisdom and look for the mercy within. Because this is for that one. And then he says, you can only expect yourself to be isolated from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and abandoned. If you subject yourself to a situation that will cause Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to be angry with you. That's what he's saying over here. If you fall into something that you know it displeases Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that's what you need to worry about. Okay, maybe Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is now with me on this one. I caused him to be angry with me. So blame yourself, not blame Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for that. Like if someone like Qadillah falls into the sin, they can't come and say, you know, oh, well, well, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is testing me with that. So where's the hikmah in this, right? It's your own doing. You can't use the same analogy over here for what you do. Astaghfirullah if you sin and you commit these sins with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Number seventeen.
Can I just mention some of the hints, Shaykh? It's an interesting thing. He goes, look, you need to understand that your nafs is between two gravitating forces. Two forces gravitating you. One trying to take you up, the other one trying to take you down. He goes, you need to know what's the standard. He says, look, where is your soul right now? Where is your nafs exactly? It's on earth, right? And if you die, where is it going to go? It's going to go up or down? What do you guys think? When someone dies, where the soul goes? Up or down? It goes up. Because it belongs up there. And your nafs all your life has been gravitating you up, trying to take you above the lowly things of this life, the lowly acts of this life. Your nafs gravitates to where it belongs. It's trying to take you up degrees. But you keep pushing and pulling yourself and pulling your nafs to go down, to stay on the ground. The nafs desires to connect with the higher rafiq al-ala, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, companionship. But we, unfortunately, are opposing our nafs and go with the matters of dunya. So we keep pushing our nafs to go down. And that's what creates that distress for us.
Because it's not natural for our nafs to be in these worldly affairs to that level. You are allowed to use it just so you can use it to help you sustain, alhamdulillah, a healthy level that will keep you going up and ascend. But if you keep gravitating down and push yourself down, then it's against what your nafs is being created for. So, subhanAllah, in this point here, he's almost suggesting that everyone has some level of split personality. That everyone has two sides of them. And you need to embrace that there are two sides of you that are going to be calling at all times. One side calls you to al-rafiq al-ala, one side calls you to asfar asafirin. One side calls you to the highest companion, one side calls you to the lowest. And like Sheikh said, your soul is desiring the highest companion. The other things of this world are pulling you towards very animalistic things, animalistic responses, animalistic cravings. They're pulling you towards this earth and towards the dirt. So you want to ascend above that. But subhanAllah, this idea here that a person has these two sides of them. You know, the sahaba were protected from hypocrisy precisely because of how much they feared it. The sahaba were protected from hypocrisy because of how much they feared it. Qadi Abu Laila, he says, I met a hundred or seventy or a hundred of the companions. كلهم يتهموا نفسه بالنفاق. Every single one of them was accusing himself of hypocrisy. Abu Huraira radiyallahu ta'ala anhu, when he used to ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for protection from adultery and theft. Can you imagine Abu Huraira radiyallahu anhu asking Allah for protection, making dua, Oh Allah protect me from adultery and theft. They say, Ya Abu Huraira, where are you and where are these deeds? And he says, well, look at where the shaitan was and look at where he ended up. So you've got to understand that these two poles exist until you die. And that's why Imam Ahmad rahimahullah, the very famous statement about him when he was dying,
that his son Abdullah was telling him, Oh my father say la ilaha illallah. And he was saying la or laisa ba'd, no, not yet. No, not yet. And he got scared. Then when Ahmad woke up, Imam Ahmad rahimahullah woke up from his unconsciousness. He told him what happened. He said, shaitan showed himself to me in a defeated way. And he said, Oh Ahmad, I was able to get everybody but you. You've escaped. You're gone. And he's saying, no, not yet. It's not over till I die. It's not over till I breathe my last breath. So when you're aware of this fact that those two poles are always going to exist, you as a Muslim, and this is very important, Al-Hafidh ibn Rajab rahimahullah actually comments on the hadith of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, where the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam says, My shaitan, aslam, he submitted. And some scholars say the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam shaitan actually became Muslim. So it's aslam here could mean the shaitan of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam was completely subdued. Because Aisha radiallahu anha asked the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, Do you have a shaitan too? And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said, Every human being has one. But my shaitan, aslam, he submitted words like he became Muslim, but he has absolutely no pull on the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, no power on the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. He's saying every other human being, you can diminish your shaitan, but you cannot completely eliminate him until death. Every other person, even Umar radiallahu anhu, his shaitan was still alive. He was just taking that other street. But if he was to find an opening, he'll jump right back and try to penetrate. Because Umar radiallahu anhu is a human being, but he's of the best, right? As people, we have to understand that at any moment, that lower self can elicit a lower response. And so you've got to be on guard and not discount the idea that you might fall to it one day, even if it sounds so far away from you. SubhanAllah, Shaykh, I'll just, you know, share with you, you know, when we're growing up,
I remember, you know, in Sunday school, we didn't have Islamic schools. We had a weekend school at that time. And I was going to tell a story about how I saw you on TV, and then I wanted to be like you 20 years later. Saw your parking spot, but it's not going to work here, Shaykh. It's not going to happen, no. I got to be a little bit more creative with that story. But I remember, SubhanAllah, sitting with friends of mine, and I remember, some of you might remember D.A.R.E., the drug, anti-drug initiative, and like telling us about how bad drugs are. And like, I remember people sitting in that room thinking, this is so, like, we'd never do that. And SubhanAllah, now I look back, and I'm like, 90% of that room fell to that. You think at a point in your life, and maybe you're young, maybe you're... You think, no way, I'm not capable, I'm not capable of falling to that low point. But you don't know yourself in your most vulnerable moments yet. So you have to keep building and responding to the higher self on a regular basis, like you are right now. You respond to your higher self. Every time you come to the masjid, you're responding to your higher self. Every time you open the mushaf, you're responding to that higher self, that soul that wants to ascend. The more you respond to that higher self, the more when that lower self comes, you can just pluck it away. أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم Not even a خطرة, it just comes like a passing thought. Like, what are you? The more you weaken the shaitan. You know, the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam says that your finger, when you're doing tashahud, it is more severe on shaitan than anything else. Your finger, when you're saying, أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله و أشهد أن محمد رسول الله You're placing him under your finger like a lowly being. So you got to keep on humiliating the shaitan so that he doesn't get the better of you. And the only way you can do that is by constantly responding to your higher self, both in times of hardship and in times of ease. To your point about sometimes, you know, people they might not think that it's something they could ever do in their lives.
And I remember as we were growing up as well as we were kids, subhanAllah. And you were not on TV to look up to at the time, obviously. But I remember our mentors, you look up to them. And you grew up with them as a child, subhanAllah. I mean, you get attached to them more than attached to your parents sometimes. And they become like your role models. You see the world through them, subhanAllah. Like for you, when you talk about the Prophet Muhammad SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam, Sayyidina al-Bakr, al-Siddiq, al-Umar, there they are in front of your eyes. That's how you feel about them. But then at some point, you realize that one of your mentors is just going to change course suddenly. Completely. And I do remember one of my mentors, growing up, I loved his recitation of the Qur'an. He has so sweet, soft recitation of the Qur'an. Soft-spoken person. And subhanAllah, every time we sit down, he talks to us. It was really inspirational. Like you really feel inspired by the way he talks. He explains things. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Then I remember even he was finishing high school and getting ready to go abroad to study in college. He happened to come to the U.S. at the time. He disappeared for a year. And then in the next summer, I remember first time I saw him, my heart sank. I was at the time maybe, I don't know, 15 years old? 15 years old, maybe 14 years old. And he was in the first year college, coming from the U.S. When I saw him, I couldn't believe my eyes. Literally, in that moment, one of the greatest fitna for a teenager. That you see your role model just fall from grace. SubhanAllah. The way he was dressed, and the way he was speaking, and even when he tried to go and shake hands with them, it's just like you didn't have that same feeling all of a sudden. So the fitna are so many. I mean, you can't expect to say, like, alhamdulillah, I'm protected. Right now, as we speak, as we're sitting in the masjid, in one of those beautiful nights of the month of Ramadan, all of us in this moment probably were thinking, I wish that Ramadan stays forever.
I wish I can be in the exact same moment of emotional high, supporting my, you know, higher self, forever. I wish. But that's what Ibn Qayyim, may Allah protect him, was talking about. Look, it's not going to happen. You have these two forces, and each one of them is pulling you. One up, one down. It's up to you what you're going to do. If you're going to keep putting all these extra weights on yourself, you're going to keep dragging it down. But if you start letting go of all these fitna of the dunya and the temptations and so forth, you're going to let your soul start soaring high. Your souls are going up and high, because now you're letting go of all these fitna of the dunya. The more you keep holding in your hand, the heavier it gets on you, and your nafs keeps going down. Let go of these matters of the dunya. You get lighter, and your nafs starts soaring high. So remember, there are two forces gravitating right now, your nafs and yourself. One going up, one going down. The more weight you have in your hand in matters of the dunya, the less likely this nafs is going to soar high. So choose for yourself. Sheikh, just, I mean, I think, you know, subhanAllah, especially when the Arab Spring happened, that was a really tough time. You know, a lot of the ulama that we used to look up to, and they were justifying massacres in the streets of their countries, dictatorships and massacres. And it was like, what happened? SubhanAllah. And it was a huge hit for many students. You know, you got to think, before the YouTube generation, you had a few of those cassette tapes, you had like a few of those people on like those popular TV channels. And when you see something like that, you say, nasallahu an'afiyah, may Allah protect us. Because it may be that when that person was there, they were actually at that state. They weren't necessarily pretending. It may be that they actually were in a particular state with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but that it changed. And so that's why you really have to constantly be in mujahidah with yourself.
You have to be striving against yourself at all times until the very last moment of your life, you are at war with the shaitan. You've got to have that mindset until the very last moment of your life, you are at war with the shaitan. And Jannah is forever after that, bindinnahi ta'ala. Which brings us again to the exact same principle Ibn Qayyim has been talking about all this time. Once again, he's drawing the blueprint of your success, the roadmap for your success. He says that in order for you to survive in these calamities, in these fitna, you have to have a strong iman. That strong iman comes from the practice, not just from knowing. And that knowledge, the more expansive that is, the more chances you will have to strengthen your iman, to build a very strong emotional shield and shield of patience. So it all goes back again to learning, being in constant practice of that knowledge. Otherwise, you are going to always carry that heavy weight and keep your nafs down to the ground. Number 18.
So this is the first half of it. He says that the servant of Allah has to realize that a place has to be cleared of the weeds before the rain of mercy starts to fall on it. So you have to cleanse the land of your heart so that the plants can grow faster. And if the place is not clear of those weeds, the rain of mercy will not find a place to drop in. And if the place is clear and suitable for the rain, but not cleansed of the weeds, the plants will not grow properly. So basically he's saying, look, you have to clean your heart of those spiritual diseases that prevents that rain to come down and to penetrate in the first place. And then you also, you know, you might not have it cleansed to an extent that the trees still come out, but they grow crooked. So you still have some plants, but they come out crooked. So he said in the same way, the servant cleans his heart and frees it from evil thoughts and vicious intentions.
And he sows the seeds of dhikr, remembrance, contemplation, al-hubb, al-ikhlas, love and sincerity. And he exposes it to the nafahat, the winds of mercy. And he waits for the rain of mercy. And at that time, he's likely to reap the harvest. As the hope for the rain to fall gradually grows stronger, the hope for receiving the bounty of the most merciful in the noble hours and selected conditions become stronger. So here, I mean Ramadan is the perfect time to understand this example. You're in Ramadan, think of Ramadan as a certain temperature. It's the weather, the jauh is Ramadan, the weather is Ramadan. So you got the breeze of mercy of Ramadan that's coming right now, right? So you came into Ramadan with a particular heart. You came into these last ten nights with a particular heart and you have a desire for Allah's mercy. You wouldn't be here if you didn't have a desire for Allah's mercy and Allah's forgiveness. But what did you take out of your heart before you got to Ramadan? And what are you willing to uproot out of your heart before you come to this particular season? Now, one of the problems that we have is like we look at ourselves in a black and white situation, right? So like I'm either Ramadan ready or not Ramadan ready. I'm either a good Muslim or a bad Muslim. I'm practicing or non-practicing. We're complicated beings. We're all on the spectrum, right? How much have you uprooted? And this is actually a very important point that he's saying here. Look, if you're not willing to remove those sins that you insist upon, Don't expect Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala to rain down this extraordinary, you know, change in your life. The sins, the sinful thoughts, the diseases that you allow to remain to persist are going to stop those plants from growing properly in your heart. So a sick heart versus a dead heart. A sick heart cannot taste the sweetness of worship because it's sick. In the same way that if you're sick, you can't enjoy your food.
A dead heart doesn't feel the worship at all. Okay, so there's that level of sickness and removing it and subhanallah, you know, Ibn Al-Qayyim rahimahullah mentions in other places. He compares Bilal radiyallahu ta'ala anhu and Salman radiyallahu anhu and to Abu Jahl and some of these powerful people in Al-Fawa'id. You know, when the ulema talk about why this religion resonated first and foremost with the fuqra and the masakeen and the du'afa, the weak and the downtrodden. Because what did they have in their hearts, a spiritual disease? What did they have in their hearts of attachment to this world when Islam got exposed to them? They didn't have anything to serve as a barrier between them and Islam. So when Bilal radiyallahu ta'ala anhu hears la ilaha illallah, there is no other ilah that has overcome his heart. He has nothing that he's addicted to in this dunya. When Khabbab radiyallahu anhu hears la ilaha illallah, when Salman radiyallahu anhu hears la ilaha illallah, their hearts are waiting for that breeze of mercy. And Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was the ultimate breeze of mercy that came upon them. So their hearts immediately soaked it in and then grew the plants in the most beautiful ways that we still benefit from today. So as you were speaking on this example, I couldn't stop thinking about our neighborhood. And the meaning of that, if you drive around and you look at people's front lawns, they're not all alike. They're not the same. You can tell those who kept their front lawn beautiful and clean and well-treated from those who did not pay attention. Maybe they did not invest enough, or they got too tired of keep pulling those weeds, so just stopped doing it. And as a result, subhanAllah, started growing even back again into their garden. I'll take care of my lawn. I feel attacked right now. But seriously, the example of this is all of us here. All of us here. Each one of you is just like a separate entity and separate house. Some of us, they are willing to put the investment, the money, even hiring a professional.
A landscaper to take care of it for them. And they come and they spray their lawn and they take care of it before the season starts and so on, so when it starts growing, it grows so beautifully green, mashaAllah. Others, they don't have that investment. They don't wanna waste their money on it. They don't wanna put their time or energy in it. Or maybe they tried before spring kicked in, so they tried to pull the weeds from here and there, but then when it starts kicking in, what happens? They start growing like weed, right? And it becomes so hard to catch up with that, so you give up. And once you give up on pulling all that weed out and you're not willing to put treatment to it, what's gonna happen? It's gonna take over the whole land, the whole landscape. This is exactly the situation that is happening to our hearts today. We're all right now in the same space, the same time, the same place, but each one of us have different level of investment on their hearts. How much I'm willing to pull out all these things from my heart, those dunya matters. How much of those that keep dragging me down and pulling me down are still taking my life, taking my heart, I need to pull them out. This is why, by the way, our HOA is trying to suggest, hey man, let's have one landscape over the whole neighborhood, so we can all have a standardized, beautiful front lawn. It's a good idea, right? And all of us wish like, Sheikh, please, is there something like this for the hearts? I wish, but there isn't. Your heart is your fertile ground. If you take care of it very well, the lawn is gonna come out green and beautiful. But if you stop caring for it because you're too lazy, you're too tired, well, I'll catch up later, procrastinating, or whatever that is, in no time, it's gonna look really weird, and you're gonna be penalized for that. Sheikh, that's the second part of this statement. I don't know if you wanna read it, if you wanna continue. No, go ahead, Sheikh, go ahead.
This is so beautiful. He says that, look, it's one thing when you're doing this alone, and you're trying to do this alone, you're trying to get your heart ready alone, but to Sheikh's point about the standardizing, and when you have this as a culture, when it starts to come across, he says that this is so much easier to do when you insert yourself into a congregation of people that are striving. Like this gathering right now over here. Like this gathering right now. So he says, like the gathering in Arafah, or on Friday, or coming together for istisqa, performing the prayer of rain. So when people come together for the sake of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, remember what the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam mentions, the angels shape them, the mercy descends upon them. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la puts tranquility in their hearts,
and Allah Azawajal mentions them in a gathering better than that one. So the example that he gives, he says that, look, when you're that person, when you put yourself amongst people that are striving, he Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, he says nahran azeem. He's like, imagine you're surrounded by a bunch of rivers and a bunch of oceans, that water, that rahma is coming in every direction, and if your land is still dry, it's like you have a dam that you've set up between you and that water. Eventually, it's going to break. Eventually, it's going to break because you're sitting amongst people. You might be sitting amongst people right now and thinking, well, I feel like I have imposter syndrome. I don't really feel like I'm like these people. These are more religious people than me, you know. They don't do what I do. They don't hang out the way I hang out. But if you're around these people, right now, it's like the rahma of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is descending all around you. Think about it like water, and it's breaking from every direction. So eventually, I'm from New Orleans, so this resonates, the levee will break. Eventually, the levee will break, and that water will come onto you as well. It will flood your land as well because you can't put yourself here that way. Are you saying that Texas is dry, Yani? I'm just saying. I'm always going to be loyal to my New Orleans, to my city. Truly, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, and the gathering like this, I just want people to understand. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, through this gathering, each and every one of us, a reminder. Look, you can do it. Look how it feels easier for you when you're around people like that, which means when you're away and you're by yourself, you start going back again to old habits, you need to gravitate back to be with like-minded people who will support you to do the best, inshallah, to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. He continues by saying, sometimes, if you separate from the people and you go by yourself, the river is going to continue to go through the lands. So the lands around you are all getting, inshallah, green and fertile, and yours is dry. And you start complaining, why is it so dry? Why I'm so thirsty? There's not enough water in my ground.
Why is that? Because you built a dam over there. All these sins and exposing yourself to the Muharramat and all these things just build up. It blocks the path of the river of mercy, so the river keeps diverting itself to the other side because it's trying to go to your ground, but you're not allowing it to go through. So it keeps diverting itself to the other direction, going to your neighbor next to you and the one next to you, and your land will be deprived of that mercy of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Sheikh, I want to put something in here because we live in the era of comfort. Don't judge me. I don't like feeling lower than anyone around me. We desire complacency. You know, subhanAllah, I was reading an author recently. He said, this is the era of affirmation. We only surround ourselves with people that affirm us in exactly what we're doing and exactly how we do it and the way we want to do it. So when you come to a gathering of people that might seem a little bit more religious than you, I don't know, I feel like I'm kind of being looked at different. I feel like I'm not, I don't fit in and I'm a little uncomfortable. So I want to be around people that are of my level. Force yourself to be a little bit more uncomfortable until you elevate and elevate and elevate. Not so you become condescending. This is not excusing pride or looking down on each other. But be around the righteous that make you uncomfortable with your standards. Be around righteous people that make you uncomfortable with your standards so that your standards naturally elevate and elevate and elevate to where sin becomes more repulsive to you, to where lower standards become, you know, unbefitting of you altogether. That's why the saying of the famous ulama, they used to say that the saiyyats of the awliya are the hasanats of the righteous, I mean of the common folk. The saiyyats, the sins of the righteous are the good deeds of the masses. The sins of the righteous are the good deeds of the masses because they have higher standards for themselves. So what they push themselves to,
be around people that will push you to the next level, that will make you a little bit uncomfortable with your level right now so that inshallah ta'ala you continue to ascend and you continue to diminish this. So I need to reemphasize that point I just brought up right now. We live in this time truly that unfortunately we are so comfortable wherever we are, we don't like people to remind us how short we are from reaching our potential. I mean, everybody has the opportunity to become righteous. Everybody has the opportunity to become a knowledgeable person, everybody has been given an equal opportunity for their nafs to ascend and rise up in spirituality and practice. We all have that same equal opportunity. But then to the point that you mentioned, Shaykh, nowadays we live in time when people just don't like to be told you're wrong or hey, change this, this is not acceptable and so on. Honestly, you see that online specifically. With all due respect, our young men and women today, sometimes even those who come to the masjid for tahajjud, for example, at three o'clock or one o'clock, for example, to come here. But then you go out and you see all these things on social media, the pictures and all that stuff. What's going on, ajma'a? Did we just forget what happened here at 1 a.m., what we were talking about? Suddenly, we go back again to our social media and we act like that was amazing. And you ask, what was it about? It was about an hour. What was the topic? No clue. We need to make sure that we don't just accept where we are, ajma'a. We're gonna always need to keep upgrading ourself from one level to the other one, insha'Allah. Number 19, we have to do it quickly, insha'Allah. Number 19 says, an ya'lam al-abdu an allaha subhanahu khalaqahu li baqa'in la fana ala wa li izzin la dhulla ma'a wa amnin la khawfa fihi wa ghana'in la faqra ma'a wa lazzatin la alama ma'a wa kamalin la naqsa fihi wa imtahanu fi hadhid daari bil baqa' alladhi yusri'u ila alfana wa al-izzi ladhi yuqarinuhu thul
wa ya'qubuhu thul wa al-amnu alladhi ma'ahu al-khawf wa ba'dahu al-khawf wa kadhalika al-ghana'u wal-lazzatu wa al-farahu wa al-surur wa al-na'eem alladhi huna mashubun bi dhdih li annahu yata'qabahu dhdihu wa huwa sari'u al-zawal fa ghalatu akthir al-khalqi fi hadha al-maqam idh talabu al-na'eem wa al-baqaa wa al-izzah wa al-mulkah wa al-jafi ghayri mahallih fa fatahum fi mahallihi wa akhtaruhum lam yadfur bima talabahu min dhalik waladhi dhafira bihi innama huwa mata'un qaleel wa al-zawalu qareeb fa innahu wa sari'u al-zawal an So he says that the servant of Allah should understand that Allah has created you for eternity without end, honor without disgrace, security without fear, affluence without poverty, joy without pain, perfection without defects, meaning like Allah has given you such amazing potential. SubhanAllah, if you think about what Allah has given us, we have an opportunity with a few years that we're here to have an eternity where the entirety of Allah's creation is in service to us. How amazing is that? In a Jannah where Allah is pleased with us and everything else is to our joy and to our pleasure. What did Allah create you for? He created you for Jannah. He created you to go home bi-idhnillahi ta'ala. So realize that this is, look Allah has given you a high place to go back to and a high place to aspire to. And he's saying, so Allah tries you in this world with a life that ends quickly, with honor but sometimes accompanied by disgrace and followed by humiliation, with security but also fear. And the same applies with the conditions of prosperity and enjoyment and happiness and comfort and delight. All of them have something that taints them in this life. Like there's no person who is fully happy, fully prosperous, fully free of worry in this life. Everyone has something mixed into it.
And eventually that vanishes quickly and he said, most people make the mistake and this is what we were just talking about. The mistake that they make in this place, in this dunya, is that they seek comfort, a long life, honor, power and rank and in the process of searching for those things here, they miss out the place that they should be searching for. So their talab is off. What you're seeking is off and therefore your soul will follow the place that is sought and the condition that is sought. And he said, and rarely do people find what they're searching for in the first place. So even if you search for those things in this life and that becomes your pursuit, you don't actually get it fully. You'll get a little bit of it and then it'll disappear quickly. So it'll be taken away from you very quickly. So he's saying, elevate your talab, elevate your request, what you're seeking, your pursuits, to a paradise and the potential of a paradise where everything that the soul calls you to in the lower sense is achieved in a better way in a higher place. wal akhiratu khayrun wa abqa. The hereafter is better and longer lasting for you. If I want to summarize what he said in a few words, how many of you here believe in eternity or eternal life? We have a problem if not everyone raises their hand. Right? Because if you don't believe in that, then yeah, we'll have a conversation after that. But if you truly believe in eternity and eternal life, that's what he's saying. He said, Allah created you to live an eternal life. However, he made them one of two. One eternal bliss, the other one is otherwise. So choose for yourself. If you believe in eternity, a life that has absolutely no death that will come after it, if you believe a life of bliss that has no, any kind of hardships to go through with it, if you believe in that, then he said, look, eternity is coming, eternity. So all of a sudden,
sort of this life becomes too little and small sacrifice for that eternal life. He said, that's what he's saying over here. He said, look, you don't understand. Allah created it to have an eternity, eternal life. But the destination is in your hand by the grace of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. It could be a bliss, it could be something else. So suddenly you realize this life is just temporary. Then why do you sacrifice that eternity for such a temporary thing? And Shaykh, if you wanted to summarize the second part of this instead of read through it, he literally says, Allah created you to be kings and queens, not slaves to your desires. Allah created you to be kings and queens in Jannah, not slaves to your desires in this dunya. So stop making yourself slaves to your desires in this dunya. That's not why you've been created. Know what you were created for and pursue it to its highest potential. Number 20, and the last one he said, Allah Yaqtar al-abdu bi'tikadihi anna mujarada al-ilmi bima dakarna kafin fee husuli al-maqsud. And this we've been talking about all this series. bal labudda an yudhifa ilayhi badla al-juhdi fisita'malihi waistifraaghi al-wus'i wa-ltaqati fee wa malakuthalika alkhorooju minal awaid fa innaha a'adadu al-kamali wa-lfalah fala aflaha manastamarra ma'awaidihi abada wa yastaeenu al khorooju minal awaid bi al-harbi min ma'dan al-fitna wa al-bu'di anha ma amkana wa qad qala an-nabiyyu sallallahu alayhi wa sallam man sami'a bil-dajjal fal-yana'a anhu fama astaeenu ala al-takhallusi min al-sharri bimithli al-bu'di an asbaabihi wa ma'danihi wa haahuna latifatun lish-shaytaan la yatakhallasu minha illa haadhiq wahi an yudhira lahu fee ma'dan al-sharri ba'du shay'in min al-khayri wa yad'oohu ila tahseelih fa idha qaruba minhu alqaahu fee al-shabakati wa allahu a'alam SubhanAllah, so he says, listen, you should not be thinking, you should not be misled into thinking that simply being aware of everything
that we've spoken about is sufficient in achieving the goal. Ilm is not enough. Knowledge is not enough. But you have to actually put that striving into practice and act accordingly to that knowledge. And he said at the heart of that is the abandonment of bad habits. You have to abandon bad habits because they will remain obstacles in the way of success. A person who cannot rid himself of his usual habits will never achieve the success that they're aspiring towards. You have to also remove yourself from anything that is contaminated by sin in order to rid yourself of those habits. And he said the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said that whoever hears about the dajjal should keep away from him. And there is no better way of protecting oneself from evil than avoiding its sources and its places. I'm going to say that again. The best way to protect yourself from sin is to avoid its sources and its places, its sources and its places. Where does it come from? Why does what causes it to happen in my life? And where does it occur? I need to cut those two places off as much as I can. And that's the greatest way to protect myself. And he said the Shaitan, he plays this trick on you where he tells you, I mean, he actually tells you you're stronger than you actually are. It's actually ironic. Shaitan tells you, I'm not that, I'm not as bad as you think I am. Like I'm not as strong as you think I am. You're still good. Just, you know, keep going to those places. Keep those same friends. Keep those same, you know, components of your life. You're getting stronger. You know, Shaitan will be your coach. MashaAllah, you're getting stronger. You're getting stronger so that he can keep on attacking your weakness. So he's saying, you know, even then, subhanAllah, like can you imagine the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is telling the Sahaba who has stronger iman than them? If you hear about Dajjal coming out, don't go to him thinking that you're going to be able to defeat him. Protect yourself. Why expose yourself to that fitna? Why put yourself in that situation?
Take yourself out of the compromising situation. So you're not going to be able to get out of bad habits if you insist on bad company and you insist on maintaining the sources and insist on maintaining the places. Ilm is not enough. Knowledge is not enough. You need to change your social circle. You need to change your circumstances. You need to change your environment and be present inshaAllah ta'ala in the places of mercy and engaging the sources of mercy on a consistent basis so that your heart can remain alive and your patience can remain on that upward trajectory. Wallahu ta'ala alam. So the shaitan goes again, he says the trick of the shaitan is very simple here. He comes to you with something that you know it's wrong and he just kind of throws a few good things in it. Just like kind of put some honey into the poison. He says it's okay and then as a result you fall for it and it becomes a fitna and then he says, qal fayda qaruba minhu when you come closer to that matter that you practice and you do, qal alqaahu fis shabaka it throws you into his snares and his trap. I'll give an example and these are real examples from young men and women they come to me. A brother who comes to me, sheikh you know there's a sister who wants to convert to Islam and he is masha'Allah chatting with her and talking to her. I said there's no other sister in the MSA who can talk to her on your behalf. And he is really coming with sincere heart. Ya sheikh masha'Allah the prophet says that if someone if you guide someone to Islam Allah will give you a reward better than owning all this world. I said I hear you, I hear you. But the shaitan is also on your side as well too. He's the one who's telling you this is good masha'Allah you're doing good that's what sheikh was talking about. So this is one of the examples look there is khair in what you're doing but also there is fitna in it as well too. What are you gonna do if you become too emotionally attached and it becomes so strong and then now you're entrapped
in those snares of the shaitan good luck trying to get out of it. Another example these days for instance there are many many people say look alhamdulillah social media has so much khair. I hear you, I agree with you. However some outlets of social media some platforms of social media the evil it's much stronger than any khair you can imagine. Frankly TikTok for example. The way it is designed is that you're entrapped into bad habits with TikTok than the good that you're gonna get out of it. You might say well sheikh I listened to sheikh Omar Suleiman over there. First of all he's not the one who's posting these things on TikTok just to let you know. I actually don't have it on my phone just for the sake of amanah. No, right? But unfortunately unfortunately with that kind of the excuse we expose ourself to so much fitna under the guise of maybe five seconds or 10 seconds of a beautiful clip that you already watched here at 1 a.m. for example. Right? So be careful what the shaitan is trying to do to you. He might bring an advice and something good but he plans something really really bad as an outcome for these things. So finally what he says rahimallah, look. All what we talked about over here, that's just knowledge. If you don't put that into action and you change your bad habits, it's going to be useless. And again the choice is yours. I just want to say if you're on TikTok, subscribe to my channel and subscribe to Yaqeen Institute. If you're going to be there anyway, you know, I'll feed you some good things. Or just, you know, close your account and go to Instagram. That's better for you. We're pro-Instagram. No, no, man. I'm just kidding. Inshallah, we'll take a few more minutes. Inshallah, we have maybe 10 minutes, inshallah, for your questions. If you guys would like to post your questions, you can scan the QR code that's going to come on the screen, inshallah. And we will start with the first question that comes here.
If anyone is from out of town or out of state, please make sure to let us know where you posted your question from. And sisters, make sure that your padlet is also colored, so we know it's coming from the sister side, so we can alternate these questions, inshallah. Alright, a question comes from the sister side. Dua in tahajjud. I heard in a lecture that a dua made in tahajjud is answered the day the dua was made. How does one differentiate between a sign from Allah that answers the dua or it's a coincidence? Can I say something about this? Stop worrying about the dua being answered. That's none of your business. Because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has already guaranteed the dua will be answered. But it will be answered in a way that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows is best for you. Our problem when we make dua, we make specific dua that if we don't get what we ask for, we think our dua, our attempt to make dua is failing. That's not how the believer deals with the dua. The dua in itself is an act of worship. And I've been commanded by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to call upon Him. He said, You call me, I'll answer you. He didn't say how. He didn't say He's going to give you what you ask for. And we learned already when we said that, Look, don't treat Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the way you treat human beings. If you ask Allah for something, He doesn't have to give you what you ask for. He probably would give you something else. Like the Prophet mentioned in the hadith. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala might give you what you ask for. He might give you something better than what you ask for. He might actually avert a calamity that could have been worse than what you're asking for. In many ways. And if you don't do any of these things, at least Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will reward you on the Day of Judgment for making that ibadah of the dua. That's the least you can get for it. But the dua has already been accepted. I just want to make this as practical as possible. Think of a person. You all know Sayyidina Umar bin Khattab.
How much dua do you think the man used to make? How much tahajjud he prayed? We hear about it. How much dua do you think he used to make? A ton of it. A ton of dua, right? And when Umar says, I don't bother myself with the answer. I'm just happy I made the dua. Like think about how light he lived his life. Alhamdulillah, I made the dua. I'm good now. He completely remained unbothered and unburdened by the answer. Coming in the way that he wanted it in his lifetime. He was just happy to get it off. So as much dua as he made, as light he lived from the expectation of the dua being answered the way he wanted it to be answered. And that's the perfect state of the believer. That you exert yourself in dua and you don't wait around for the answer. I can't imagine. I can't believe the question we got from Egypt. MashaAllah. They want Urdu poetry? I wish. Shaykh, do you love Koshary? I'm all for it, man. You know I'm 25% Masri, Shaykh. I found my ancestry. I turned out to be 1 4th Egyptian. So that's the fun side of you? That's the fun side of me, yeah. Are you saying the Palestinian side is the violent side? Is that what you're suggesting? When we speak, we throw rocks. That's the problem. Someone is saying over here, how can we have sabr with ourselves, with our nafs, and worship after the high of Ramadan and being in congregation is over. Stick to the masjid. Stick to the masjid. Stick to the masjid. If you want iman to remain in your heart, stay in the places of iman. Keep coming to the masjid. Keep attending the halaqas. You know, mashaAllah, even qiraat al mutoon. What we're doing right here, Shaykh does ta'seer, mashaAllah. He started this new program. Here, reading the traditional text. If you can, come to whatever halaqa you can. Come to salat al fajr.
Be present at isha. Be present for the halaqas at night. Come to the masjid. That's the most simple and practical way for you to keep faith in your heart, is to stay in the places of faith. Here's a very specific question, Shaykh, and I think it's one of those plagues of our time, unfortunately, with the young people of our time. From a young man saying, I'm trying to not date and go out with girls, but it's very hard. The only way I cannot go out with girls and meet up with them is if I text them on snap or Instagram. So that would be better than going out with them. So basically, I can't resist or stop. What do I do? You know, subhanAllah, there's something very empowering about submitting your devices and submitting yourself to other control mechanisms voluntarily before the maslibah happens, before it actually happens. You know, this is one of the tricks of shaytan. He'll tell you it's a weakness, for example, to say, hey, look, to confide in someone and to say, look, I'm struggling with this. I want you to have access to my account, for example. Give someone access to your account. If you can't help yourself in your DMs or whatever it is, give someone access to your account as a protection for yourself. That's strong. That's not weak. How strong is it for you to say to someone, hey, you know what, brother, sister, well, of course, brother to brother, sister to sister. Don't go to a sister and say, I want you to have access to my account. I need you to watch me because I'm struggling. And it could be a family member. It could be someone that's close to you. Wallahi, that's so empowering. You know, when someone comes up to me, and I'm going to be real with you, when someone comes up to me and says, I'm struggling with this addiction, I want help, the first thing I do is I congratulate you. You're not that person who the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is talking about who publicizes their sins. You're not publicizing out of pride. How strong is it for you to go and get counseling, to go walk up to someone and to say, I need help,
and I can't do it on my own, so I need you to help me with it. That is so beloved to Allah, because subhanAllah, ego gets in the way between us and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. When you put your ego to the side, and you say, I'm going to go get help, you are telling Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you're more beloved to me than my ego, you're more beloved to me than my pride, that this humbling place of me, to go and admit failure to someone on my own, to say, I need help, I'm doing it because I love you, O Allah. So those of you that get help for these things, know that that is ibadah, getting help from someone else when you can't do it on your own, is ibadah, that's an act of worship. So get someone else involved, but do not let shaitan make you think that you can play with fire and not get burnt. It's going to happen. You keep playing with fire, you're going to get burnt. So this idea of half-sinning, let me tell you, by the way, whether it's ibadah or sin, the halfway place is sometimes the most dangerous, because when you're halfway in your ibadah, or you're halfway into sin, you're at that place where you can convince yourself, I'm already doing enough, if it's halfway in your ibadah, or you can convince yourself in halfway sinning that I'm not going too far. You know those two sides of you? You give room for that whisper to tell you, I'm good. When a person is fully immersed in sin, at least then they recognize that they're fully immersed in sin, like, I need to get out of this low place. Because there's no excusing it for themselves. So don't leave yourself in that halfway mark. May Allah help every single one of us with whatever sin we are struggling with. And may Allah protect us from the tricks of shaitan in this regard. I'm going to go over a couple of questions quickly. A sister from Houston, she's asking, there are many examples of what we can do to clear the weeds and the dam from our hearts so that we may get the benefit of Allah's mercy. I think that this whole chapter, chapter 12 from this book,
is all about this. So if you can go back again to the book, inshallah, that we're studying here, chapter 12, these 20 points are exactly what he's referring to, the methods, the techniques, the tips by which you can remove all that weed and break that dam to allow the mercy of Allah to go through, inshallah. Sheikh, can I say something there? Review your notes periodically. I see, like, the four of you that are taking notes in here, mashallah, I hope there are more than four of you. Some of you might have seen, by the way, I did a series recently called the Quranic worldview. It was actually, when I was in the UK, I did talks. I'm not saying this from a place of, like, boastfulness. I'm saying this from, I actually went back to student notes from 20 years ago. Okay? Student notes and was revisiting some of the lessons on the connection between the beginning of the Quran and the end of the Quran. Take your notes and then revisit them. Rereading your own notes is actually very valuable. So go back and reread your notes on a chapter of a book this year. And then a couple of months from now, those of you that were here last year and you took notes from Sayyid al-Khatir last year, go back and read those notes sometimes and revisit them so that they can be fresh in your mind. And then capture your notes properly. Refine them. If you're taking them handwritten, you want to type them up and save them somewhere. But take notes and revisit them, inshallah. Can I really add to this, Sheikh, now? I'm going to be very, actually, blunt with you guys. That's a nasih, inshallah, from an older brother to all of you over here. What we're doing here in these sessions is not just giving you information. We give you knowledge. But many of us are sitting here just for the information. We sit down, we listen, we enjoy it, we have an emotional high, and then we leave. It's all forgotten. Unless you write it down. That's what our ulama told us. He says, knowledge requires action. If you don't practice it, it will be gone. Okay, how am I going to remember that? He says, knowledge is just like a game. And writing it down
is how you trap that ilm and you capture it. It's with writing it down. If you would like to capture your games, make sure to tie them down with strong ropes. And if you're not going to write down that knowledge, soon it's going to disappear. And all what you get out of when you leave this place is like, wow, that was amazing. Again, beautiful feeling that's not going to translate into action until you take it seriously and start writing it down for yourself. I remember, Sheikh, talking about how old our notes are. I still have my four years university, of Madinah University's notes until this day. I have them at home. You talk about 35 years old notes. They're manuscripts by now. Seriously. 35 years old notes. I still have them intact. Beautifully served. I have notes from before that. For my engineering time, I have actually some notes as well too. I don't use them very much, but at least I still have that knowledge because I value those moments. SubhanAllah, there was a time when our ulema taught us when we were in Madinah, write down everything you hear. Because sometimes you'll meet a Sheikh that doesn't come usually to your area, but you know what? Whatever they say, it's going to be valuable because one day you're going to say, hey, I attend this from Sheikh. So we used to do that. And because we were broke as students, we couldn't buy even small pocket notes. So I used to have to use the excess paper that we have and cut and staple it and make my own notes. I still have some of them until today actually with me. So I used to write some of these beautiful things when we travel around, we meet Sheikh, and we listen to something from the radio or read something from a book, I write it down. All the time. So every time I have a break, I'll grab that actual note and just kind of go flip over it and read those notes and just like, wow, beautiful. You memorize them. You remind yourself. You keep practicing this. There was a time when I had to make a phone call. Back then there was no such thing as cell phones. So you had to go to a phone booth in a specific office at the university on campus
to make that call, and then you leave it. So one day I went there, and I think I pulled one of those notes out and I put it there in the phone booth. And I made my phone call, and then I left and I forgot that note over there. I forgot that notebook. It has so many valuable things. Meetings with Shuyukh, scholars, questions, I got them answered by many things and books I read and so on. And on the way back to my door, I checked my pockets. I don't have it. I freaked out. Wallahi, I freaked out. I went running like crazy back to that phone booth. Running. My friend was like, what's wrong with you? I just kept running. I go there to that same phone for that booth, and I open the door and my heart sank. It wasn't there anymore. And I went to the guy behind the desk. I said, did anybody bring you any notebook? Small pocket notes? He goes, no. He says, can I check everywhere else? He says, go ahead. Can you check the trash can? I looked everywhere. Everywhere. And I went out the phone office looking for people walking, running after them. Hey, did you pick up something from the phone booth? When I realized it was lost, Wallahi, I cried like a baby. I literally cried like a baby because that knowledge is gone. I can't take it back anymore. Whatever is left of it is still in the memories. But so much was in that. Jama'at, please, when you come to circles like this, whether you come over here or go any other place that you go to listen to shuyukh, stop just, stop sitting there and just listening and enjoying the talk. Make sure that you write them down. And as another advice, when you start writing down your notes, my recommendation, don't just write them in the form of a tweet. Like you copy what the sheikh said exactly. I prefer that you actually write them down in the form of an action item. So if you heard something that is valuable to you, what is your action
item from that statement? What are you going to do? So you basically note to yourself, do this, don't do that, do this, don't do that, practice this, don't practice that. Make it that way. And you will find yourself at the end of the month of Ramadan with a list of tips insha'Allah will hopefully last you for a lifetime. That's how you gain knowledge. That's how you can be able to practice this. It will help you strengthen your iman and insha'Allah we'll become strong and solid enough to have patience against any fitna in this world. May Allah protect us all. Jazakumullah khairan. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
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