Late Night Talks (2024)
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Allah Is Too Shy To Disappoint | 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. Before we get started, you know, tonight we ask Allah SWT that this be a blessed night and that Allah SWT accept from us and make us amongst those who observe Laylatul Qadr. Allahuma Ameen. MashaAllah, we had two shahadahs after the first Jum'ah, one shahadah after the second Jum'ah, a shahadah after Asr, was it two shahadahs after A'ishah or one? Two. Two, yeah. And we have alhamdulillah another sister and actually we had a sister named Victoria take shahadah after A'ishah and we have another sister Victoria with us today inshaAllah ta'ala to take her shahadah. A night of victory, mashaAllah. A night of victory, truly, bid'ninahi ta'ala. So sister Victoria, are you ready inshaAllah? Yes. If you can repeat after me inshaAllah, say ashhadu an la ilaha illallah wa ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul Allah. I bear witness that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is his final messenger. May Allah bless you sister Victoria, may Allah allow you to find not just acceptance but to find happiness and fulfillment and purpose, may He forgive every sin before this moment and accept all of your good prior to this and keep you on a path of goodness and allow you to be amongst His chosen special servants, Allahumma ameen. So when we finish the lecture, you're going to need to hug all of those sisters, so after the lecture though, alright? But we're happy to have you and there are like a few, shaykh, there are like some pending
shahadahs that are here, like some people that are, so we're just going to say that at the end of the lecture, those of you that are kind of like halfway there, if you'd like to take shahadah, you're more than welcome to on this blessed night as well inshaAllah, we'll open the door for you. But no pressure obviously, but if anyone feels that calling in these last moments, and we want to welcome our guests by the way that are with us, if you feel that calling in these moments and you feel that it is that time, and inshaAllah we call you to that, then we pray that you're able to take that step with us tonight inshaAllah. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu. Alhamdulillah rabbil alameen, salallahu alayhi wa sallam wa barakatuhu wa nabiyyin wa muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam wa taslimin kathira thumma ma ba'd. Welcome you back to our beautiful late night khatirs and heart softness from Valley Ranch Islamic Center. This is the 27th night of the month of Ramadan. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it a blessed night for all of us, ya rabbal alameen. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant us the fee of attending Qadr and give us the full reward for Qadr, ya rabbal alameen. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to show us what is mercy, what is rahma, and make this gathering witnessed by the angels, ya rabbal alameen. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to take care of our brothers in Gaza and Palestine, particularly right now as we speak, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect our brothers and sisters, the worshipers in Al-Aqsa, ya rabbal alameen. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala confirm their iman and affirm their iman in their hearts. We ask Allah to shield and protect them from any harm that could cause against them, ya rabbal alameen. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to deliver our brothers and sisters in Gaza into safety in this dunya and the akhira, ya Allah. Tonight inshallah, we're gonna be discussing something that is extremely important that I believe it's one of those major, I would say, doors that would protect you from falling into the sin or committing these sins. This is a lifestyle that is gonna be discussed inshallah with the baraka wa ta'ala.
But before we get there, Shaykh Omar, hafidhakumullah, last night we were talking with Shaykh Asif Qadhi with us here on this night about how sins are considered a curse. And that's removing the person out of the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Even though Allah did not bring curse in the Quran upon many, many people or many, I would say, actions, that means if it was invoked upon something, it's extremely dangerous and people need to be aware of that. Sins can truly become a source of curse on someone. Please help us inshallah by bringing it together inshallah before we get to this point now. So, you know, as we said last night and it's extremely important, you have to really, really do a lot to fall into that category. So it's either the severity of the sin that would lead it to be amongst those actions that are cursed or amongst, you know, put you in the category of those that are cursed by the Prophet ﷺ, by Allah, by the angels. Or it is the element of zulm, the element of transgression and oppression and the majority of those categories indeed include people that harm, that oppress. You want to meet Allah and the only sins that you have on the Day of Judgment are the ones between you and Allah and the scholars used to wish, they used to say, I wish that I could meet Allah and the only sins I have to answer for are the ones between me and him because Allah is so merciful, right? So you can trust Allah that if you were trying that Allah will cover those sins out of his mercy but out of Allah's justice, Allah will hold you accountable for the things that you committed against other people. Allah will not wrong those people out of a sense of mercy towards you. So sins that involve the element of zulm and also the idea of changing revelation to fit your sins, right? And this is the most cursed because this is actually satanic, right? When you actually change revelation to fit your desires, to fit your sins and then finally the idea of insistence upon sin, like you do it almost like it is flagrant, right?
It's flagrant sinning to where you just don't care anymore that Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la is watching you. So that removes you from the mercy of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. As we said, Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, rahim Allah, the very famous saying, مَنْ خَتْخَابَ وَخَسَرْ مِنْ خَرَجَ عَنْ رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ لَتِي وَسِعَتْ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ Like how miserable of a person do you have to be to expel yourself from the mercy of Allah though the mercy of Allah encompasses the heavens and the earth. Like you have to do a lot. And indeed when the companions used to hear from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam the mercy of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, look when Mu'adh ibn Jabal radiAllahu Anhu when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was telling him, you know, do you know what the right of the servant upon Allah is? The right of the servant upon Allah, who assigned you a right in the first place? What is the right of the servant upon Allah, right? And what is the right of Allah upon the servant? As for the right of Allah upon the servant, that you don't worship anyone but Him. Don't worship anyone but Him. You acknowledge Him, you worship Him, you don't set up a partner to Him. And then, Ya Mu'adh, Atadri maa haqqu al-'abd or al-'ibad al-Allah, do you know what the right of the servant is upon Allah? That he doesn't punish them. Mu'adh is like, shouldn't I just go tell everyone this then? I'm like, go ahead and tell them that we're good then, right? And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, they're going to get complacent. Complacency is the beginning of sinfulness, and where a person just gets to a point where they become flagrant in their disobedience of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and it can lead them to shirk eventually, lead them to that place of actually attributing a partner to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, sometimes even themselves. There was another hadith, Sheikh, that I wanted to bring up, subhanAllah, the day before yesterday and it fits so perfectly into what we're going to talk about today. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said in the hadith of Muslim Imam Ahmed, مُدْمِنُ الْخَمْرُ كَعَابِدِ وَثَمٍ An alcoholic, a wine addict, is like an idol worshiper. And the scholars really broke that down. It's not that drinking wine is of the same gravity as worshiping an idol. But if you think about a person who is addicted to alcohol, it is an act of worship.
It's like you've got a certain time, you've got a certain routine, certain emotions trigger it, certain environments trigger it, you just keep running back to that bottle. And so it becomes a form of worship. It becomes a ritual. It becomes a form of worship. And that becomes your God. Your God is wine. And so replace wine with the other sin that you keep on running back to over and over and over and over again. That can become a relationship that is only befitting of a God and His servant. And you start serving that sin as if it's your God. And that's where it becomes dangerous. So really the next step, Shaykh, and I think this is where this chapter is, replace the relationship that you had with that sin, which has become like the relationship of a servant to God with the relationship with God Himself, with Allah Himself, and put good habits in place. Put a good system in place. Identify the source, change the system. Put a good system in place now to where you're nurturing a relationship with Allah and not giving space to fall back into that addictive relationship that you have with sin. Which perfectly fits into this new chapter that we're having right now. Imam Ibn Qayyim speaks about the concept of ghayrah. The concept of ghayrah and the concept which is translated as actually protectiveness and jealousy. He, and we're going to talk about it more in detail, but I want to explain it a little bit quickly here. In order for a person to stay away from all these sins and start creating all these sins as their own idols right now, you need to create that kind of fence. That fence or that firewall that protects you from falling into this. You're going to kind of like keep the gates closed, otherwise once you open that gate, this is it. There is no end to where you can go through into that actually, that path. So what is that fence that protects you from falling into the sins? What kind of gate, what kind of firewall I need to create in order to prevent me from going through all the way to this sinful life? He says, rahimahullah ta'ala, he speaks about the concept of jealousy, al-ghayrah, ghayrat al-qalb, and the concept of protectiveness.
So he says, he qal al-ma'asi tutfi'u ghayrat al-qalb, sins, sins, what they do, they kill the fire of jealousy and the fire of protectiveness in the heart. They remove it completely. They extinguish that fire. Why is this so important? Qal anha tutfi'u min al-qalbi nar al-ghayrat allatihi lihayatihi wa salahihi kal hararat al-ghariziyati lihayati jimi'i al-badan. He says that it extinguishes from the heart the fire of protectiveness and the fire of jealousy, which is considered more like the fuel for his entire body. This is like the instinct, the fuel for your entire body. He says because that fire, that heat that comes from the sense of protectiveness and jealousy is the one that purifies you from all the bad elements. All the bad elements, such as al-khabath, was-sifat al-madmuma, like bad habits and committing sins and all that kind of stuff, like this heat really just like when it purifies the gold. In order for you to get the gold and purify the gold, you have to expose it to fire. Because this is the fire that you need to expose yourself to in order to purify yourself from these thoughts, from these ideas, from these habits, from all these sins and so on. And he says, he goes, you will find that the noble of the old people and the most studious and the most serious and the most honored among all the people are those who have that sense of jealousy and sense of protectiveness for themselves first before anything else. And he says the Prophet ﷺ, because the Prophet ﷺ was this man. They cut your mic, you offended somebody. Allahu Akbar. Because the Prophet ﷺ, he says that he was this man. He was the most jealous and the most protective.
When we say jealousy, he's going to come to explain later, we're not talking about jealous because you know someone is more successful than you are or somebody is becoming you know happier than you are. That's not what jealousy we're talking about over here. We're talking about being protective over what is right and what is wrong. I think honor is a better word, Sheikh. An honor for it. Yeah. An honor of protectiveness basically in that fashion. So being overprotective for the boundaries of Sharia Allah ﷻ, which was explained in the hadith of Sa'd ibn Abu Qasr ﷺ, when the Prophet ﷺ says, قَالَ أَتَعْجَبُونَ مِنْ غَيْرَةِ سَعَدٍ You are so, you're surprised that Sa'd is so jealous or he's so basically dignified and is overprotective. Qal, he says, أَنَا أَغْيَرُ مِنْ He says, I am more protective over the boundaries and the limits of Allah ﷻ than Sa'd is. And he says, and Allah is also أَغْيَرُ مِنْنِي He's even more protective over his boundaries or his limits, over his حدود ﷻ. And that's why he says like in order for you to survive this, you're going to have to create those boundaries. Sheikh, if I may just bring an issue over here so I can understand the concept of protectiveness or jealousy, whichever how you want to translate that. I personally believe that this is what attracts a lot of new Muslims today to Islam. And what is it exactly? Is the sense of discipline. If you don't have غَيْرَةِ, if you really have no protectiveness over the deen of Allah ﷻ, then you stand for nothing. Like they say, if you allow everything, if you're okay with everything, then you stand for nothing, completely. But as a Muslim, no, there is right, there is wrong, there is حَلَى, there is حَرَام, there is okay, there is not okay. As a Muslim, I need to stand for this. We live in a society today that's completely becoming extremely, extremely to the left, extremely liberal, that there is no more sense of shame, there is no more sense of protectiveness
or right or wrong because everything can be right, it's a personal thing right now. But as a Muslim, I need to understand that, look, there is that sense of boundaries. And who sets those boundaries for me? Allah ﷻ. The stronger you observe these limits, the more protective you are over these limits, the more you have dignified to find yourself at that level, to obey Allah ﷻ, the easier life becomes for you. And the less and less you have that sense of protectiveness, the easier it becomes to commit the sin and fall into the حَرَام. Right, I was having a conversation with a professor of religion who was admitting to me and it was beautiful. I would cite his name but just out of respect for him, maybe because someone might share the stream. But he said, you know, I have to admit, Islam is the last real religion in the world today. You know, like this idea of a godless society, a society that can mock its god figures so openly, right? Someone says to you like, you know, oh, well, we mock Jesus all the time, peace be upon him, alayhi salam. That's your problem, that's disgusting. You mock God in your cartoons, you mock God in your culture, you make a mockery of everything sacred to you. It's like, try that in the Muslim world. Yeah, I'm actually proud of that. That doesn't mean I'm like, you know, I'm calling for like mob violence or like go run someone over with a car, burn something, no. But like, you know what? Yeah, we hold our prophets in high esteem. We hold God in high esteem. We believe in our creed, we believe in our religion, we actually believe in our boundaries as Muslims. We have principles, we have ethics, and just because you've lost respect for yourself doesn't mean we're going to lose respect for ourselves. So that's actually one of the features of the decline, if you will, of Western society is the open mockery of religion, which again, the scholars always say look deeper. What does that come from? Before you can mock God in a certain way, you have to feel a certain way about God, right?
And so the haybah that we were talking about, that glory of Allah is removed from the heart, and then the hayat is removed, the ghayrah is removed, that sense of honor is removed as a result of that. So you have to lose a sense of dignity before you can get there. So there's like the dignity of God. And the principles, yes, we believe in our principles. Just because you've lost your traditions, you've lost your principles, the rest of the world doesn't have to follow along with you and accept your complete moral subjectivity, which is entirely incoherent. Your sense of right and wrong changes every five years and religion follows it. You find the spokespeople and you find the religion to make it follow along. So Islam is kind of that last defense. And you'll find really serious scholars from other religions, Sheikh, that actually admire Islam for that. Like they're like, man, I wish Christians were more like that. Like it was like the guy who was, I remember someone was sharing on social media, his pastor who was like really upset. I don't know if y'all saw it, like his Muslim Uber driver who like had to take to the side to pray. Said, there's no way I'm going to let no Muslim out pray me. Like how is this possible? How are we going to let this Muslim out pray us? How are we going to, they stopped to the side of the road and they pray their five prayers no matter what. Yeah, we guard our religion. So that sense of dignity and honor, I'm proud of that, that we are inshallah the last defense of what true meaningful religion looks like. So long as we don't become hypocritical and become only about protecting the symbols of religion without protecting the substance of religion. So long as we protect both substance and symbol, then we're on good terms with Allah and Islam will be attractive to many people who are like, you know, I'm not looking for a religion that I can fashion for myself. We live in a time where Allah says, do you see those who have turned their desires into God's? When you turn your desire into a God, and that is truly indicative of the time that we live in.
First, you decide on the path, then you create a system where you will appropriate the language of religion. You'll appropriate maybe even in the name of another religion and you'll create a system that fits your desires. In reality, you made yourself God and your religion is your desires. You could call it Christianity, you could call it Judaism, you could even call it Islam because there are people that twist the path of Islam too. But we're the last defense of what true religion looks like and serious, serious seekers, and we're seeing this. People that are becoming Muslim now, they want truth. They want purpose. They're looking for answers. They're not looking for another drug. They're looking for something to get them away from the high and to meaning. And that's what, like all these people we've been talking to today that have been converting to Islam. It's beautiful. And throughout the world. SubhanAllah, these online conversations. I've been saying this in one of the khatras that we did for Isha. Is how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you know, protect this deen. And nowadays, I personally believe that people, they're in need of Islam more than ever. Our time, Shaykh, is, I don't want to say close, but it looks similar to the time when the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam came to the world. Because if you look at the time of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, it was about 500, almost 600 years from the time of the Prophet, Isa alayhi salam, to the time of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. So there was really no genuine source of guidance. It was there for people to interpret the, to interpret basically the subject of faith and so on. And as a result, these people lost their way to God. And when the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam came, the world was completely going crazy. No moral code in place. Religion is completely changed and altered by generations. So when the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam came, it was easy for people to come to this path to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
I personally believe, under the circumstances we live in, and I know we see that the negative part of it, how there's a moral decay in the society, there is religious hypocrisy, there is this, there is that. But wallahi, I believe this could be, subhanallah, the catalyst, this could be the moment when people, as Allah described in surat al-Nasr, Qal, wa ra'ayta an-nas ya dukhuluna fee deenillahi afwaja. This is when you really gonna see people coming back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in waves. Now some of us might say, wait a minute, what about what happened to the Muslim world? The Muslims seem to be going away from faith. Allah made it clear. Qal, wa anta tawallu yastadbil qawman ghayrakum, thumma layakoonu amthalakum. You change, Allah will bring somebody else besides you. It doesn't have to be the Arab world, the whole Arab world can sink. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and that's something, we go back again. How you can be protective in your deen. Why those who have this sense of jealousy over their deen, over the practice of their faith, they will have better chance, lead a steadfast life than those who always believe, it's okay, that's fine, people can do whatever they wanna do, you have to have an open mind about these matters and so forth. Is that because they're losing now the boundaries. And Allah, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam mentioned to us, which is the purity of faith for us, when he says, qal taraktu fikum shay'ayn, I left you two things, he said, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, before he was gone from this world. He goes, I'm leaving two things with you. Ma anta masaktum bihima lantadullu ba'di abada. As long as you hold on to them, you will never go astray. Kitab Allah wa sunnati. The Kitab, the Book of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and the Sunnah of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. You hold on to them, you're on a straight path. You go somewhere else to find a different way of living, different style of ibadah and worship, you're gone. You're on your own now. So one thing as well, Shaykh, Islam appealed initially to two types of people. The initial appeal of Islam was to who? Who can tell me?
What do y'all think? There's one that's pretty obvious because we talk about it multiple times in the seerah. The weakest class, the oppressed, the exploited, those that were exploited by those systems of immorality. Don't you think when Bilal radiyallahu ta'ala anhu, I mean, this man became Muslim through Islamophobia. He heard other people talking about Islam and he was able to decipher. He's a slave who's exploited in society. He was able to decipher that Muhammad salallahu alayhi wa sallam who is known for his nobility, his reputation precedes him, is calling to the worship of one God. Don't you think the disgust that Bilal radiyallahu anhu had of idols and idol worship and the ethics that stem from that led to his ability, had something to do with his ahad un ahad, one, one. This is everything you people do is just so gross and everything that emanates from it. I know your hypocrisy and I know the sincerity. So Islam appealed to the exploited classes, the oppressed classes. In fact, even in Persia, when Islam went to Persia, when Rustam, this pompous ruler of Persia is sitting on the throne and Rabi'i ibn Amir radiyallahu ta'ala anhu comes like the ambassador of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and he rides in on his donkey and he's got the red carpet in front of him and he just kind of drags a spear and cuts up the red carpet as he's walking to it. So I was like, I really don't, I'm not impressed by you. This whole pompous garbage of yours doesn't really faze me. I believe in something greater. He says, what is it with you? He says, inna allaha bta'athana li nukhrijal ibad min ibadatil ibad ila ibadati rabbil ibad. I want you to hear this. Put yourself right now in the Persian court. Put yourself in the most pompous place in the world, right? And think of a man speaking to someone on a throne. inna allaha bta'athana li nukhrijal ibad min ibadatil ibad ila ibadati rabbil ibad. God sent us to take people from being slaves to other slaves to being slaves of the Lord of all slaves. wa min dhiqil dunya ila sa'atil dunya wal akhirah. And from the suffocation of this material world
to the expanse of this world and the hereafter. wa min jawril adhyan ila adlil islam. And from all the injustices of your man-made systems to the justice of Islam. That actually penetrated some of the guards. Like people, like some of the Persians were watching that were like, whoa, they've got something real here. What did you say part of that statement? I'm so proud of it. I love it. Like I think I've, subhanAllah, it's that statement. And it's Omar radiyaAllahu anhu walking into Jerusalem. The Christians in Jerusalem, including the patriarch was like, what a man, what a man. They just don't like, they're not for the whole pompous stuff they actually have principles and ethics. So Islam appealed to the oppressed. The second group of people we don't talk about as much are people who have noble akhlaq, people of noble character. The Abu Bakr's and Uthman's of society. People that were known for their dignity, their sense of dignity and shame and goodness before Islam. They already had a sense of nobility and self-respect. And that's what Ibn al-Faym was talking about. Fitrah, they were just good people. And one of my favorite statements in that regard, Uthman ibn Mad'un. Something about the name Uthman, by the way. Because like you look at Uthman ibn Affan and Uthman ibn Mad'un, radiyaAllahu anhu, amazing Uthman's, right? Uthman ibn Mad'un radiyaAllahu anhu was one of the few people who didn't drink alcohol before Islam. And like the Arabs used to get drunk a lot. Drinking was a feature of their society. So both Uthman's didn't drink. And Uthman ibn Mad'un was asked why he didn't drink. He said, why would I do something, tulhibu bi-aqli wa tulhiku bi-an-nas? Why would I do something that would make me lose my mind and cause other people to laugh at me? Why would I be dumb like that? Even if religion didn't tell me not to drink, it's pretty stupid. Why would I use drugs? I had to bring this example over, but there is somebody else in this time of ours doesn't drink because he believes actually it makes you dumb. That's Trump, actually. Oh yeah.
This is not an endorsement of Donald Trump. What I'm saying, in this part, his fitra is in the right place, yeah. Unless it's his business mind that he needs to always be awake. Maybe that far, yeah. That far, probably. But let's just, yeah, let's. True, but subhanAllah, to your point, Shaykh, that tells us that subhanAllah, the fitra itself, al-fitra itself is supposed to be, naturally, supposed to gravitate you to those boundaries. Allah subhanAllah designed the fitra for us to know what is right, what is wrong, if it was left untouched. But what happens in our time is, unfortunately, we alter the fitra by all these man-made systems. So we create all these liberal ideas and philosophical principles and all that kind of stuff, taking people away from the Quran and the sunnah. And as a result, once the fitra has been altered, those boundaries now start shifting and becomes very subject to the person's whims and desires, especially in our time, particularly in our time, subhanAllah, one of the major things that happens in our time, Shaykh, people are, right now, the biggest attack that happens in our society today is on the religious institution, the concept of God, the concept of religion, all together, it's being taken away from the people. And number two, the traditional family values. So they're attacking all these boundaries. These are fitra boundaries. If it was left without being manipulated, you will find yourself gravitating to believe in a creator. Because the other thing is that, naturally, when you grow to a certain age, you realize the next natural thing for you in life is to start a family and have kids. And when you have kids, you need to raise them in a way that will be the continuation of that success in your life and so on. But this society of ours today is just, has no boundaries anymore. They're removing everything, and unfortunately, some of our Muslim brothers and sisters,
when they feel fascinated by the idea that you are free to do whatever you wanna do, and you can think the way you wanna think, removing all concept of boundaries, all concept of, this begins, Shaykh, when we start bringing down the boundaries and the fences and the defenses of ghairah, that sense of jealousy, sense of honor, sense of dignity, and sense of protectiveness. If you don't feel jealous in your heart because somebody's committed something haram, there's a problem with you. That's what it means. And I guess because of the liberal agenda of our time, that sense of protectiveness has been removed from the heart of the believers, so with all due respect, sometimes you see some Muslims hailing some Muslims on social media when they commit something wrong or haram. Like, you go and you're congratulating for it. Oh, yeah, you're brave, you're this or that. What are you talking about? All right, so what's gonna make Islam a good alternative? The Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, like he compared seeing evil, he brought it all together. A Muslim should never be comfortable with evil. No. Evil includes injustice. One of the reasons why other religious institutions are so easily assailable is because they're so obviously hypocritical, right? So you didn't care about protecting people from injustice, so how can you really be about protecting any real principle? So the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, like when he was told the story in Abyssinia, that there was a nun that was walking, you know, and Umm Salamah, radiyallahu anhu, and Umm Habibah, radiyallahu anhu, were telling the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, some of the things that happened in Abyssinia, and there was this nun that was walking and she had the water on her head, and two young people knocked her over, basically, and caused it to come down, and then she made du'a against them, and just people, you know, they just laughed. It was like no big deal. And the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, said how can Allah, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la,
honor a people that do not take on behalf of the weak from those who prey upon them, like that let exploitation happen in front of them? So like the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, hated zulm, injustice, right? So when he saw personal, when he saw injustice done from person to person, zulm against animals, the actual oppression, right, between people and between the creation of Allah, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, stood in the way of it. And at the same time, just as he guarded the rights of creation, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, guarded the rights of Allah, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la as well, not in the sense that Allah needs anyone to guarantee his rights, but when you see transgression of the boundaries of Allah, it also offends you. It also offends your sensibilities. And so to us, munkar, man ra'a minkum munkar, whoever amongst you sees evil, evil is the very injustice and oppression that other religious institutions have been called out for their hypocrisy and not being able to protect their weak ones. And yes, Muslims suffer too sometimes, and we have to claim that mantle, right? And then munkar is also the transgression on what Allah himself, what God has made sacred, and the boundaries of Allah, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Inna ash-shirka ladhulmun azeem, right? Shirk is a major oppression, it's a major transgression. So we are not, we can't just become, you know, we're not trying to protect a set of values for an agenda of falsehood. We're trying to protect a set of values that's based on a holistic set of values that protects the people from transgression and guards the right of Allah, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. Bringing rahma al-alamin, mercy to the world, obviously. Absolutely, yeah. Sheikh, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, this is very interesting here that Ibn Qayyim, Rahim Allah Ta'ala, why he's talking about these boundaries, why you have to be protective over the boundaries of Allah, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, finding honor, finding honor to be a person of principle. Like, finding that is very important value over here. Even if the person was not Muslim, like you said,
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, the fitrah, when they're principled people, that fitrah keeps them dignified in that sense. So he says here that, and that's how people fall into the sin when they don't really have boundaries. Qal fa-inna al-khatra tanqalibu waswasa. A passing thought, if a person doesn't have that sense of protectiveness and sense of boundaries. Qal fa-inna al-khatra tanqalibu waswasa. A passing thought turns into waswasa, means whisper. What does that mean? It doesn't just go through, it stays. You start thinking about it. You keep browsing it over and over again. Qal wal-waswasa tasiru irada. And then those thoughts, when they start becoming waswasa, keep whispering in your brain, in your mind, and just in your heart, becomes irada, becomes a will. Like, suddenly, right now, you start desiring it. You start desiring that. You start thinking about it seriously. Qal wal-irada taqwa fatasiru azeema. That will intensify, become stronger, and suddenly becomes a azeema, which means now you have a resolution to make it happen. Basically, you start planning for it. You start planning right now. Qal thumma tasiru fi'la. And then the execution comes in. From being a plan, just being a thought, being a plan, suddenly, right now, it becomes an action. So they start acting upon that plan. Thumma tasiru sifat al-lazeematan wa hay'atan tabidat al-rasiha. Then that becomes an attribute. This person is labeled with this. Like, doing this frequently, when you don't have those boundaries, obviously, people say, well, he's loose, this, this. They talk about him in a certain way because they don't have these principles. And that's why it is extremely important for people to understand that if you don't have these boundaries, there's no limit where you could stop. So don't be fooled by the steps of the shaytan, saying, oh, alhamdulillah. The shaytan is clever, can take you from one place to the other one, which brings to the second point and the second chapter he talked about, rahimahullah wa ta'ala. As he mentions over here, qal al-ghayra fil-qalb mithla al-quwwa allati tadfa'u al-marada wa tuqawmi. He says, this sense of protectiveness and jealousy over the deen of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala,
he said, this is just like al-quwwa allati tadfa'u al-marada wa tuqawmi. Just like the power, the energy that removes and pushes away disease from the heart. What do we call this in this day of jama'ah, in the medical system? Immunity, the immune system. He goes, your jealousy, your protectiveness over the deen of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that's like the immune system for your heart. If you take it out, you become extremely vulnerable. There is nothing can defend your heart against all these issues and those matters. So in order for him, he says that the medicine now, which brings to the point, the medicine that you need to continue to give your heart in order for your heart to keep that immune system strong to defend itself against all these elements is al-hayat, modesty. Having the sense of modesty and hayat. To believe that I need to have sense of hayat, sense of modesty, in today's era, we could use the word, for example, to have a sense of shame. One of the things this society did to the world is removing the sense of shame completely. There is nothing shameful anymore, really. I remember even subhanAllah, Shaykh, every now and then you get something on the internet where people, in regards to the dress code, for example, just to the dress code, that even going to the beach back in the early 1900s, women, they had to go in specific carts that they pulled them all the way into the water so they can have a sense of privacy when they're going to the water. Nowadays, Allah almusta'an. I mean, what happened to these carts? Because the hayat was removed, that sense of shame was removed. So when there is no shame, you can do whatever you wanna do. So hayat is basically is that medicine that you need to use in order for you to strengthen your sense of protectiveness and sense of jealousy. So I think the concept of hayat now, to build on it, first of all, just like since we're talking about
how all these things go hand in hand, do religious people in the West come off as modest, usually? Is there an association of the, you know, you're talking about like the family values and things of that sort. Does it come off as modesty? No, and subhanAllah, as many people will say, you gave up on family values once you allowed zina, once you allowed adultery. Don't talk about caring about family values. Once you let infidelity penetrate society and adultery penetrate society, you gave up. So don't talk about all other types of sexual behaviors and exposure and stuff like that. Your hayat was gone a long time ago, plus the sense of arrogance, right? So hayat is such a profound concept. And the way that you make it beautiful is you start from how Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala manifests it first. So just like ghira, how is Allah protective over the believer, right? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has ghira over the believer. So when our brothers or sisters in Palestine or someone is being oppressed or humiliated, there's a ghira that's being stepped on there too from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in that sense, right? Allah azawajal also has hayat. Allah is shy. It's like, wait, what? Wallahu aghiyaru minni. The hadith of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, and it especially matches Laylatul Qadr. It's narrated by Salman al-Farisi radiyallahu ta'ala anhu. Inna allaha hayiyun kareemun. You know when I say, Allahumma innaka afuun kareemun. Allah is shy and generous. He's too shy and too generous that when one of you raises your hands towards him, that he lets your hands come back. Sifran qaibatan. That he lets your hands fall empty while you be disappointed. Allah is too shy of his believer when his believer calls upon him, when a servant calls upon him and says, ya Allah, to just let it go empty.
So what does that translate into for us? That means Allah out of his love for you. And some of the salaf, they used to say, some of the pious predecessors, they used to say that when I ask Allah for something and I don't get what I asked him for, I'm actually happier. Why? Because I know that what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala did not give me was definitely not good for me then because Allah withheld it out of love because he was too shy to just let my hands fall without anything. How does that translate into our relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? When Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahullah says that a person who has haya, halal and haram become secondary to that haya. Now, don't misunderstand this. What that means is once you're shy of Allah watching you, then the rules are cast in the capacity of that overall relationship that you have with the sight of Allah upon you. So no matter who's in front of you, Allah is always your primary audience. Like the filter. It is the immediate filter, right? And Shaykh, if I could quickly shed light, subhanallah, like Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahullah mentions 10 categories of haya. If I just list them, inshallah ta'ala. So Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahullah in Madaraj al-Saliqeen, another monumental work that he has, he lists 10 categories of haya. By the way, Shaykh Muhammad al-Shanawi, alhamdulillah, wrote a beautiful paper on haya for Yaqeen. So if you go to Yaqeen's website and search haya, he breaks down all the categories. And of them, the 10 categories of Ibn al-Qayyim rahimahullah says there's the haya of guilt. There's the haya of guilt. And he said, this is like the haya of Adam alayhis salaam. And Eve, when they tried to cover themselves, when they felt guilty after what they committed. And Allah said to Adam alayhis salaam, are you fleeing from me, O Adam? And Adam said, no, O my Lord, rather out of haya from you. I'm just shy. Like he was hiding from the sight of Allah after he committed that sin, right? Are you fleeing from Allah? No, I'm shy because of the sin that I committed. Then there's the haya of inaptitude. And he said, this is like the haya of the angels
who tirelessly glorify Allah by night and day. And then once the day of judgment comes, they say, subhanaka ma'abadnaka haqqa ibadatik. How glorified are you? We did not worship you as much as you deserve to be worshiped So there's that haya. Then he says, there's the haya of awe. And this is the haya of being deeply acquainted with the greatness of Allah. And this haya intensifies in proportion to the servant's knowledge of Allah. So the more you know Allah, the greater Allah becomes, the shyer you become. Knowing that someone that great has created you and is watching you. Then he says, number four, the haya of generosity. And he says, this is like the haya of those, from those that the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam invited to the wedding with Zaynab radiAllahu ta'ala anha. They overstayed their welcome, but the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam was too shy to tell them. So the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam simply, he stood up and left. And then they stood up and left as well. Then there's the haya of chastity. And he mentions that this is like the haya of Ali ibn Abi Talib radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, who was embarrassed to ask the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam a question about intimacy because he's married to the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam's daughter. So that's one form of shyness. Then number six, the haya of humility. And he says, this is like the haya of the slave from his Lord, the mighty and majestic, when he asks him for his needs. And this may stem from the asker belittling himself and realizing the enormity of his sins, or from grasping the greatness of the one who's being asked. Then he says, number seven, the haya of love. This is the haya of the lover of his beloved. It is so powerful that whenever his beloved who is absent simply comes to his mind, an unexplainable haya may flare in his heart and heat his face. Most people do not realize why they tremble and become bashful upon suddenly seeing their beloved. And this is caused by the heart sensing the beloved's authority over it, and hence that thrill and that fear overtakes it. Then he says, number eight, the haya of servitude.
And this is necessitated by a blend of love, fear, and recognizing that a person. A person must serve Allah, but he can never do so adequately due to his incomprehensible grandeur. So he knows he's a servant of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and he knows that he can't fully be a servant to Allah, and so he always feels like he has to serve more to live up to that title of being a servant. Then the last two, number nine, the haya of dignity. And this is the haya of a noble soul, when it feels like it acted towards others in a way that is beneath the standards of dignity, be it sacrifice or generosity or kindness. And finally, the haya from oneself, when the noble soul detects its own deficiency or that it has settled for less, it is almost as if one has two souls, one ashamed of the other. And he says this is the most complete haya, for if people were to be ashamed of themselves, then by greater virtue they would be ashamed in front of others. The Prophet ﷺ said, مَنَّ يَسْتَحِي أَوْ إِذَا لَمْ تَسْتَحِي فَاصْنَعْ مَشْهِدْ If you have no shame, do as you want. So you become shy of the sight of Allah because you know Allah, you know yourself, and you become shy in front of people because of that knowledge of Allah and that knowledge of self. So it's love, it's not just rules, it's a relationship that causes you to act in a modest way and we ask Allah for that level of haya. You know Shaykh, as you were reading it in English, I couldn't help in my mind, oh my God, if this is how it sounds in English, imagine how Ibn Qayyim wrote it in Arabic. It would be so beautiful, subhanAllah, because this man was known to, the way he used his word is unbelievable. And all of what you mentioned Shaykh, that is the explanation of hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, الحياء كله خير. Haya is all good. Would come to that sense of haya, sense of shyness, sense of modesty, it is all good. Which is why the Prophet ﷺ spoke about the different categories of iman. What did he say?
الحياء شعبة من شعب الإيمان. He says the highest is to say لا إله إلا الله, to say there is no God worthy of worship but Allah عز و جل. And the lowest is when you remove an obstacle off the way from the people's way, remove harm from their way. That's also from the iman. Then out of all the other hundred categories that were enlisted, he did not pronounce ﷺ that hadith. He said الحياء شعبة من الإيمان. And shyness and modesty is one of those categories of faith and iman. So like you said, it's not just about the rigid structure of boundaries. Haya is not always about rigid structure of boundaries. It's about a relationship with Allah subhanAllah. It's about your belief that my duty to Allah subhanAllah requires for me to always do the thing that most pleasing to Allah عز و جل. Which brings me to a point I have to bring it here since I don't want people to misunderstand the meaning of haya. So Ibn Qayyim also differentiates between two things. There's an Arabic word, another Arabic word called khajal. So there is haya and there is khajal. Haya is what we usually translate into shyness. And honestly it's more of, in addition to saying shyness, there is that sense of modesty. Why so? Because shyness, when you say shyness, it might be an intrinsic value. But modesty is an action. In order for you to be haya, have that sense of haya, sense of shyness, it has to translate into modest way of living. This modesty, where do you learn the rules for modesty? You learn that from the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. So therefore, if modesty in terms of the religion, it requires for me to do something that you have to do, like for example, the Uber guy. He had to stop halfway through the journey because he knew, I can't, I have to pray right now. He didn't say, he didn't feel shy or having haya, you know, from the people to say, hey,
I can't speak, I can't tell them because I don't want to embarrass myself. That's not haya anymore. That's khajal. Khajal is negative. Khajal is disgrace. Exactly. It's like disgrace. It's basically, it prevents you from living up to the standard of modesty. That's what khajal is. But haya, feeling that sense of haya, it needs to come in the form of modest living. And that's when a Muslim really, those who say that alhamdulillah, I have haya, you need to translate that into, okay, how does it come out in your living, in your action? And you've seen the 10 categories over here. Some of them really, that requires from you to have a very strong sense of discipline and protectiveness over the deen of Allah ﷻ. And I have to bring it up today. We live in a society, unfortunately, that the concept of haya is completely gone from the life of people. That sense of protectiveness, that sense of caring about, you know, shame and right and wrong in that sense, unfortunately, it's really gone. And I want to bring this also to our young brothers and sisters today that, wallahi, since this is one of those qualities that are missing in our society, it becomes imperative upon us, young men and young women and even adults, to observe that even more. Like, we really need to pursue that quality because, like we said, it's the medicine that will help our immune system, that our hearts need to be protective over this kind of living so we'd never fall into a sinful life. Sheikh, can I share something, two things really quick here before we go to questions? Like if you think of the Prophet ﷺ, one of the descriptions of him is like you couldn't look him in the face. Like you just put your head down naturally when you're around him, like you couldn't look at him. And, you know, when Amr al-Nas was a very respectful man, he's like, I can't describe the Prophet ﷺ because when I see him I just kind of put my head down. And he's, you know, the most handsome person that they knew. They described his physical appearance as stunning, like people were so ashamed in front of him or they were shy in front of him.
What was it? It wasn't what he was wearing. He was wearing super simple modest clothes. He lived in a poor house, right? I mean, nine by four, tiny hijurats, his sleeping quarters. He never had a fancy meal in front of him, never had any fancy jewelry on him. He never was riding like a, you know, any type of particular animal. Like this is the Prophet ﷺ who would ride on a donkey, on a mule, right? What was it, right? And that is the description of the Prophet ﷺ. He was so shy, he had a modesty to him, but that modesty was born out of dignity. This is a man of dignity. So you were so like when he was in front of you, just the awesomeness of the Prophet ﷺ made you like, whoa, like I've got to respect myself because this is a man who respects himself so much because of his relationship with his Lord. That's the type of hayat that we're supposed to have right now. It's not a self-righteousness where we like, you know, boast and, you know, trash people or no, like where you respect yourself, you respect your religion, you're such a person of ethics and principles and modesty that people around you are that way. Prophet ﷺ's voice was not like, he didn't used to boom with his voice and like talk over people. In fact, he let you finish what you had to say. Like the Prophet ﷺ never cut people off. He would let people say what they had to say, then would ask them, are you finished? And then he would speak. But every word people hung on to. So think of that person of the Prophet ﷺ and then think of your Lord and this is of the greatest messages of hope. Who am I for Allah to be shy of me? Who am I? I know my sins and you know what? Allah knows your sins better than you know your own sins. Allah knows all your deficiencies. Allah knows your weaknesses. And with that, Allah is shy when you raise your hands and call upon Him.
If Allah is shy of me, despite who I am, when I say Allahumma, how can I not be shy of Allah when I know how great Allah is? You see, like if Allah is Hayy, how can I not be shy when I call upon my Lord? So dear brothers and sisters, when Allah becomes greater, then this becomes more than just You know when they say like a relationship is transactional? You don't do just this transactional relationship with Allah. Like imagine the implication, you know, I know we've alluded to it, but like the word makroo means hated. Is it makroo? Like does Allah just hate it? That's what you're asking. Does He just hate it? He didn't say I can't do it, right? He just hated, right? Okay, if it's just hated, it's all good. But the Hayyah would prevent him from doing it, even though it's just my subuhu. It's a barrier. It's like, no, like I love Allah too much. I think of Allah's sight upon me. I want to honor that sight of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la upon me. And so I'm going to move beyond simply the rules of halal and haram. I feel deficient in my worship. So you know, I'm not just looking for new ways to serve myself. I'm looking for ways to improve my servitude to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la because like the angels, subhanak, ma'abadnaka haqqa ibadatak, like I need to worship you more. I need to do more for Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la because Allah is who Allah is and I am who I am and I know how great He is and I know how deficient I am and I want to keep fulfilling that gap or filling that gap. One last point, Imam Ibn Qayyim mentioned in the book that I have to also bring to our attention so that people don't feel desperate right now in this moment saying, oh my God, if this is the case that I have no haya, I have no sense of modesty, my life is messed up. How can I get that sense of ghayr and so on? So he said, rahimahullah wa ta-a'la, in hadith al-Nabiyeen, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, qal, wa laysa ahadun ahabbu ilayhi al-udru min Allah azza wa jal. Like no one, no one loves to give people excuses. No one loves to give people grace and opportunities than Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. What does that mean?
He says so that if you, as you try to build those fences, as you try to build this firewall, as you try to dignify yourself with a sense of modesty and haya, the haya is in the heart, modesty is in the actions. As you try to build that, you know, these defenses basically, he says you're going to fail. You're going to fall one time, fail a second time, this happened, that happened. And he goes, look, as long as you still try to come back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with one of the categories of haya, right, when you make something wrong and you feel shy like Adam alayhi salam did, I still want to practice my haya and the sense of modesty with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala by instead of running away from him, running back to him. I need to always return back to him because me doing this, I hope it helps me inshallah to build my defenses and build my level of modesty and haya and that ghayra in the heart that will help me inshallah be protective over the deen of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. It's interesting because like when he elaborates on it in the chapter of haya and madaraj, I'm shy from Allah when I worship him and I'm shy when I disobey him. So you know like when you bring a gift to someone and you know like that person like makes way too much money and like you're giving them like a gift that they could probably buy with their chump chump change, it's like you know but you want to give something like but you feel shy. So you feel shy when you worship Allah and you feel shy when you disobey Allah and repent so I'm like God, like I know I can't do enough but I'm counting on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and that's where the beauty comes in. I also want to teach you some Urdu Sheikh, you ready? Allahu akbar. Basimullah. Teach me some Urdu. What do you have? How do you say you have no ghayra in Urdu? Jazakallah khair. No, no, no. Oh, you still are. How do you say it? I thought that was Urdu. No, you say bay ghayrat. Bay ghayrat. What is that? Bay is bidoon. Bay ghayrat. Yani ma andu ghayrat. Tab how about with ghayrat? Yani andu ghayrat. Ghayrat. I know but how?
And then basheesha halu bay sharam. Did I sound right jama'at? Because I don't know what he's saying. It's good? Yeah, they know. So bay sharam, basheesha halu. He has no shame. Bay bidoon. I'm teaching you Urdu but bay is bidoon. Sharam is haya. Bay ghayrat. Ma andu ghayra. He has no ghayra. So teach me something like how are you doing man? I thought you were going to teach me that stuff. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, no, no. I thought you were going to teach me something like how are you doing man or. I thought you were going to teach me that stuff. The first question coming all the way from Alberta in Canada who has claimed it's actually the Texas of Canada that they say. I don't know what that means. Oh, no, it is. It's totally the Texas. I thought Canada was all like California man. Oh. Alberta is definitely the Texas. So they say here. It's a red state. How do you build our ghayra? Like this immune system that we're talking about, it says, I mean, if it's already been broken due to constant sins, obviously when you keep hitting that, you know, that those fences, subhanAllah, with the hammer of sins and mistakes and errors, what happens? They get weaker and weaker and eventually they start falling apart and that breach leads to God knows what. So how can I make sure that I'm building that sense of ghayra, sense of protectiveness and keep it strong? So first and foremost, so like haya is more, I don't know if you agree with this or not by the way, but I think it seems Allah knows best that haya is more of like protection of the self, like guarding your own, like modesty, your own ghayra is more of like when other people as well are sinning, right? Like so modesty and they go hand in hand. So the haya is an intrinsic value. Modesty is basically towards other people, interaction with them. And ghayra is that you also don't like that other people disobey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and you don't like that the boundaries of religion are going to be crossed in your presence.
It's extremely important that we don't normalize the, not only normalize sins, but we actually express righteous indignation. You know, we talk about righteous indignation and comprehensively in a way that we don't see presence in other systems, comprehensively, sincerely, righteous indignation. So don't accept that the boundaries of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala be crossed in your presence. Don't celebrate the boundaries of Allah being crossed. And dear brothers and sisters, like subhanAllah, realize again, you know, we talked about this, the idea that outrageous behavior is going to be incentivized, right? Haya is going to be looked down upon even in the time of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, right? Like they have the man who was telling his brother, subhanAllah, there were two brothers and one brother was very shy. He had a lot of haya and his brother was basically blasting him, right? Like, you know, you need to become more assertive. You need to become more this. You need to become more that. And what was the answer? You know, leave him because at the end of the day, haya is religion. And as Ibn Abbas sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, haya and faith go together. If haya is lifted, then faith goes as well. So protect yourself from open sinning and protect others from open sinning in your presence as well. Like don't accept these things, these boundaries to be crossed either by yourself or by others. And when you fall privately, then feel shame that you fell privately. Don't go boast about it that you fell. Feel shame that you fell privately. Don't open up those sins to the public. No. So a question, and since we talk about the subject of haya and so on, what advice would you give us, the young people of this day, to how can we maintain haya while we're interacting with each other and interact with the opposite gender? Which is very common, this is obviously, you know, in college campuses, for example, and
the masajid sometimes, volunteerism, and for beautiful causes as well, too, and so forth. How, they're asking, how can, how does it look like, basically, to have haya while interacting with the opposite gender? So this is where you start, you always start from the rules, right? So there's the relationship with Allah SWT, then the rules start there, right? So adam al khalwa, the lack of seclusion, right, and being alone with the opposite gender, the physical touch, flirting, and stuff like that, right? But then there's the part where your heart can twist quickly, and that usually happens when you failed to abide by the boundaries. The boundaries are there for good reason, right? Because it's very easy for you to lose your aql, to lose yourself, when the boundaries are lifted, and you might not recognize how far you've actually gone, right? So putting those boundaries in place is a means of protecting yourself, so that you know that you're not going too far, right? The way that I tell people, subhanAllah, even when it comes to a conversation, you know, if you're married, would you feel comfortable with your spouse looking at that conversation? That's like an easy filter, if you're married, right? You can say, look, would I feel comfortable with my spouse reading this conversation, or not? Or would you feel comfortable if your spouse was sitting in that same gathering, for example? Right. So it's trying to use, like, your own, if the boundaries are not there by circumstance, That's where the fitrah kicks in right now. Because that's when you naturally start feeling that sense of jealousy, a sense of protectiveness over your spouse, over yourself, with the opposite gender, and so on. So I think to what you're saying, I believe people need to differentiate between dealing with the opposite gender, of course, and on an equal mental level, for a specific professional, let's say, cause, versus socializing. I mean, the problem happens when it becomes over-socializing, unfortunately, and we lose the boundaries, and now we start having cross-jokes, and cross, you know, sometimes rude, you know, conversations, and so forth. We lose all the sense of haya' right now. So you can't even tell the difference right now between what's right or wrong in this
moment. Right. Someone is saying about the haya' of Uthman, that the angels will be shy with him. What is that? How does that look like? So the angels were shy, subhanAllah, I've mentioned this before. I have a very special love for Uthman ibn Affan, it's actually the first halaq I ever gave in my life was on Uthman. SubhanAllah. The first halaq I ever gave. I was like, I'm going to talk about Uthman, because I always felt like you talk about Abu Bakr, and Umar, and Ali, and they've got like these big personalities, and subhanAllah, Uthman, by virtue of his shyness, even kind of gets, you know, pushed aside. His greatness was in his shyness. His greatness was in his shyness, and it's even in the way people talk about him, because he's not like the warrior on the battlefield, he's not, even, you know, subhanAllah, like he accomplished so much, like expansion happened to his khilafah, yeah, subhanAllah, Islam expanded his khilafah, you know, Islam grew all over the world, like he was a genius, he was an able leader, and so many different ways, just excelled, excelled, excelled. So the scholars mentioned the haya of the angels towards Uthman in multiple categories. Number one was Uthman radhiAllahu ta'ala anhu, his refusal to disobey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, in private or in public, and again, even before Islam, noble character, like people used to sing lullabies to their kids, I love you by ar-Rahman, the way Quraysh loves Uthman. People used to sing lullabies because of the righteousness of Uthman, the goodness of Uthman. The fact that he gave so much charity, he had all of the devices that could lead a person to arrogance and to boastfulness, yet somehow they all increased him in bashfulness. I mean, rich, handsome, famous, access, lineage, he had all of the factors in Qurayshi society
that would make a person just intolerably arrogant, and he was the epitome of shyness and modesty. And so subhanAllah, like even in his private, you know, life, like even, you know, his shyness with himself, like keeping himself covered, his bashfulness was so much, so the angels were shy of him because subhanAllah, as much as he worshipped Allah, as much as he had of this dunya, he constantly lowered himself, and then the last thing, they were shy, subhanAllah, because his people would kill him. A man would do all this for his ummah, and his own people would kill him. Very sad. And subhanAllah, it's one of the devastating realities. It's like they're feeling shy, they could not protect him because of the command of Allah to let go like this. If Uthman radiAllahu anhu would have come out and said, people, carry your swords for me, people would have carried their swords and shed blood for him. Ali radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, al-Hassan, al-Husayn, Talha, al-Zubayr, may Allah be pleased with them. The companions were like, please, let us protect you. And Uthman radiAllahu anhu said, not a drop of blood will be shed in the cause of Uthman. I don't want anyone to protect me, I don't want anyone to do anything for me, let them kill me. So his shyness, subhanAllah, was so much that it stopped him from unleashing on people what was being unleashed on him. And the angels looked at such a beautiful man, what a beautiful human being. He financed the expansion of the Masjid of the Prophet SallAllahu Alaihi Wasallam. He financed the wells. You know, he had none of the arrogance that usually comes with wealth. He had none of the boastfulness that comes with power. He had none of the pompousness that comes with physical beauty. All of that's gone. And on top of that, when people want to defend him, he says, no, no, alhamdulillah, no blood being shed for the cause of Uthman, let them kill me, it's okay. So his karam, his generosity even led to his death because he was too generous to this Ummah.
So when the Khawarij, when these extremists rose in the ranks and started to slander him, the social media of that time spread a thousand lies. None of them are true, but what's the saying? Where there's smoke, there's fire. And young people fell for it. Where there's smoke, there's fire. So they threw every accusation against him. They all, you know, the slander spread all over and Uthman couldn't put him out. If he tries to respond to one, then they come up with another hundred. So it just became fitna, fitna, fitna. And Uthman resigned himself to that. And he said, don't harm in my path. So modest, so beautiful. Imagine being with the man in his last moments of life where he's reading Quran and, you know, they come and they kill him while he's reading Quran. And he's resigned himself to that fate. And he's pleased with Allah. He's pleased with being with the Messenger, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. He's pleased with everything that comes with that. He doesn't boast. He doesn't activate in his defense. Just pure dignity, pure dignity. Someone says here, if someone lost haya already, is there hope to bring it back? Yeah. Look, innama al'ilmu bita'allam wa innama al'hilmu bita'allam. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says that knowledge is through seeking knowledge. Forbearance is through practicing forbearance. And whoever pursues good, Allah will unlock it for them. And whoever, you know, seeks to avoid evil, Allah will protect them from them, from that evil quality. So if you pursue a good quality, you have to practice that good quality. You have to earn that good quality. You have to lean into that good quality. Look, you know who had a lot of haya? Umar al-Khattab radiAllahu anhu had a ton of haya. What's his modesty? A little kid walks up to Umar, big, bad Umar, and says, ittaqillah, Umar says, what did I do? Because he fears Allah so much.
Any person, anyone could say anything to Umar, radiAllahu anhu, and despite his strength, he immediately shrinks for Allah, not for the person. So, subhanAllah, Umar had to learn that quality. Because Umar, prior to Islam, you walk up to Umar and you say something to him like that, you're getting smacked, right? You know, who are you to talk to me like that? But because of his awareness of the sight of Allah and his desire to be loved by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, someone says to him, ittaqillah, he immediately, and that's the thing, that's part of haya too. Shaykh, it reminds me, you know, when you talk about haya, let me just be real here. Abdullah Mubarak, someone said to him, will you not teach us how to fear Allah? He said, is anyone, will you give us nasiha? He said, is anyone looking for nasiha anymore? Do people even ask for like real advice now? Like, they're like, why aren't you admonishing us anymore? Why aren't you giving us like the hard truths? Saying, because no one's willing to swallow them. So we live in a day and age where in order to not risk offending people, you don't tell them what they need to hear. That's very, very dangerous. Shaykh, that reminds me of the words of Imam Al-Ghazali rahimahu wa ta'ala. He says, qal an nasiha to aziz. Ya'ni, having, finding someone to give you advice, that's so scarce, so rare these days. Qal wa azzu minha qabooluha. And then what's even actually even more rare to say is that to find someone to accept it when you offer it. Like he's saying, you're lucky if you find somebody who would advise you, really. You're lucky if someone tells you, by the way, this is wrong. Oh, be careful, I don't think you should be doing that. You're lucky to find someone like this because it's so hard to find someone who would give you advice, who would feel protective over you that they will advise you about doing something right and stay away from something wrong. So when someone comes to offer you this, you're lucky. So rejecting it, Allah musta'an, out of pride
and arrogance probably, it's one of those diseases of the heart. The haya in this moment and the modesty in this moment is what? Like Omar does, rahimahu wa ta'ala. To humble himself says, why, what did I do wrong? What happened? That doesn't remove you from being a dignified person when you admit your faults and your errors, subhanAllah. It's the opposite. It actually even raises you into high ranks. Last question, Sheikh, over here. Someone's confused between ghira and ghaira. So ghira, which is based on jealousy, for example, let's say between a husband and wife, for instance, that might not be in the right place versus what we're talking about in terms of modesty over here. How can we differentiate these two things? So honor is to be protective for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and you can't be protective for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala unless you abide by the rules of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That's the criteria. That's the criteria, just like anger. Someone says, I'm angry for the sake of Allah. If you're angry for the sake of Allah, you will not violate the rules of Allah and your anger. So when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was angry for the sake of Allah, he didn't curse, he didn't belittle, he didn't abuse, he didn't harm because his anger was for Allah. So he acted upon that anger in a way that was pleasing to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Honor, ghaira, when it comes to spousal ghaira, that's not suspicion and that's not harm, right? Like the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is not creating this environment where like sahaba who are growing in their ghaira, like in their learning ghaira for each other, like spouses, spouse for spouse, like accusing your spouse constantly, baselessly, that's not ghaira, that's suit of one and it destroys marriages. Bad assumption. Yeah, and ghaira is to, you know, look, you can't claim to be protective of something if you don't honor it yourself. True. Right, so ghaira is also understood. I always mention Ali radiyallahu ta'ala Anhu, the famous poem where Fatima radiyallahu ta'ala Anhu was using the siwak.
Hadhita ya'ud al-araki bi tagriha ama khifta ya'ud al-araki araka law kunta min ahl al-qitali qataltuka ma faaza minni ya siwako siwaka. Like Fatima. That's romance, man. That's romance. Romance is a skill. That's a skill. Romance is a skill. Ali radiyallahu Anhu had it, man. You know, Ali radiyallahu Anhu sees Fatima radiyallahu Anhu using the siwak and he says the famous words that how dare you, O' Ud, O' stick of the arak, you know, do such a thing. Aren't you afraid, O' stick of the arak tree, araka, that I would see you? Law kunta min ahl al-qitali qataltuka. If I could fight you, I would fight you. Ma faaza minni ya siwako siwaka. No one has escaped me, O' siwak, other than you, siwaka. Now here's the thing. Was Ali radiyallahu Anhu, this madman, like walking around the streets of Medina, did you look at Fatima? Like, what, Fatima, did you talk to him that way? No, astaghfirullah. As-sahaba and the family of the Prophet ﷺ, they knew their boundaries. Fatima radiyallahu Anhu. So they removed suspicion from their life to begin with. That's the other part of it. They warded off suspicion from themselves by virtue of the way that they carried themselves and the spouses would not sit there and throw baseless accusations and like put people down. You know, Fatima radiyallahu Anhu was a treasure to Ali radiyallahu ta'ala Anhu. And she knew it. And vice versa, it's like they treasure each other. But Fatima radiyallahu Anhu is the splitting image of who? The Prophet ﷺ. As Aisha radiyallahu Anhu says, I never saw anyone who resembles the Prophet ﷺ more in look, in appearance, in behavior, in mannerisms than Fatima. She looked like the Prophet ﷺ. She acted like the Prophet ﷺ. She carried herself that way. She was the daughter of her father, truly. So, if you imagine the shyness of the Prophet ﷺ, that's our mother Fatima radiyallahu Anhu, the queen of Jannah, Fatima radiyallahu ta'ala Anhu as well. And rahimallahum ra'an dhabbal ghibata'an nafsih. May Allah have mercy on somebody
who wards off ghibah of themselves by what? Staying away from this position of suspicion. Like if you really want to find that kind of good relationship between you and your spouse and not to being over jealous, I don't want to say over protective, because protectiveness is a good thing, like haya and modesty here. But again, filtered by the commands of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, like over the religious boundaries here. But jealousy sometimes is completely out of control, because now it's all about suspicion. And I personally believe, Sheikh, it had to do with also some of the diseases of the heart, because the person is insecure. They're insecure. They're weak from the inside. They don't trust Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's limits to live by them. So they start creating their own protectiveness and their own boundaries. So they start trying to protect their relationship, their marriage, but using a system different than what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala put for them. And that, as a result, becomes a source of trouble. I'm going to say one more thing here, and I have to say it. If you violated the trust of your spouse, then don't blame yourself. Absolutely. Don't blame the spouse if that trust has to go through a long process of being rebuilt. So if you violated, if you, in fact, violated that trust and got caught, then there's a reason why that suspicion is going to exist. So it's also, again, it's like, personally, what standard do you hold yourself to? And lima taqooduna ma la taf'anoon. You can't hold your spouse to a standard that you don't hold yourself to. So if you get caught violating, and you validate that suspicion, then, of course, it's going to be hard. I'm glad that you mentioned this, because tomorrow, inshallah, our discussion will be along these lines. Living a sinful life like this, a suspicious life, basically, that's away from the boundaries of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, weakens the heart. And when the heart is weak, you're always vulnerable. You cannot stand for yourself, because you know you're wrong. You know you have done something haram.
And if you try to lie about it, that makes you even weaker and weaker. Because the heart thrives on truthfulness. And if you're feeding it with lies and hypocrisy, it's going to start getting weaker and weaker. So tomorrow, we'll be discussing this, inshallah, Jazakum Allah khair. Sheikh, can we ask if anyone wants to take shahadah? Any brother or sister, or anyone like to take shahadah that's here visiting? All right. Inshallah at Fajr, inshallah ta'ala. Inshallah at Fajr, bismillah ta'ala. But we want to welcome everyone that came, alhamdulillah, as well. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu. Wa alaykum as-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu. Wa alaykum as-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu.
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