Prayers of the Pious
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Episode 19: Make Me Better Than What They Think | Prayers of the Pious
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh everyone. Welcome back to Prayers of the Pious. A lot of times people think of us that which is not true of us and one of the scariest thoughts for a person that is often glorified or a person that is given undue praise is that because they don't meet that praise, they meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they're held accountable for what other people say of them of good. And the Prophet peace be upon him told us of this frightening scenario that when a person is buried and the people start to eulogize that person and to say all these amazing things about him that the angels actually poke at that person and say, Haqqadakunt, were you really as they say you were? Were you really as they thought you were? And this is not something that just applies to the great scholar or to the perceived great scholar or to the preacher. This applies to every person who is deemed righteous by the public eye. Just as we hate slander, we hate destructive praise because it can put us in a situation of hypocrisy. May Allah protect us. Abu Bakr radiallahu ta'ala anhu was very aware of that and Abu Bakr is a man who used to make it a point to hide his good deeds. And a lot of times, you know, we find other companions finding Abu Bakr doing some secret good deeds that no one was aware of. Imagine how many good deeds Abu Bakr did that we were never aware of, that the books never encompassed. May Allah be pleased with him. And there is a dua that he teaches us that I think is essential to every person that is in the public eye. The dua is, Allahumma ja'alni khayran mimma yadhunnoon, wa khfir li ma la ya'lamoon, wa la tu'akhidni bima yaqooloon. Allahumma ja'alni khayran mimma yadhunnoon, O Allah, make me better than what they think of me, wa khfir li ma la ya'lamoon, and forgive me for that which they don't know of me, wa la tu'akhidni bima yaqooloon, and do not hold me accountable for that which they say about me.
Now, if you look at this dua, the first thing is, O Allah, make me better than what they think of me. And the word that's used is dhun, because they might think something of me that's untrue. So, I don't think that I'm as good as they think I am. Wa khfir li ma la ya'lamoon, but forgive me for that which they don't know about me, meaning it's factual. There are factual shortcomings and sins that they are unaware of. So, he even uses a different language. Forgive me for that which they don't know about me, that I know about myself, wa la tu'akhidni bima yaqooloon, and do not hold me accountable for the things that they say about me. If anything, we want Allah to bring about good testimony from people on the Day of Judgment. But we want to make sure that the character testimony, which means something, the shahada, the witnessing of people on this earth, means something of good. But we want to make sure that we're actually living up to that, and that was not all a false portrayal. And Ibn al-Jawzi rahimallah has a beautiful saying, Ibn al-Jawzi, who we covered one of his duas. He said that, if people are impressed with you, don't think that they're impressed with you. They're impressed by the beauty of Allah's cover of your sins. They're impressed by Allah's beauty, or the beauty of Allah's hijab of you. It's not really you. It's the veil that Allah has provided. And you need to be self-aware of that, so that you can continue to work on those things, and not allow for destructive praise to sedate you, or to paralyze you from actually living up to the best of yourself. So may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us better than what the people think of us. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgive us for that which they don't know of us. And may Allah not hold us accountable for the things that they say about us. Allahumma ameen. Jazakum Allah khayran. I'll see you all next time inshaAllah. Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
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