Reminders
62 / 83
Hold Yourself to Higher Standards | Daily Reminders
When Allah says “those who…” in describing the praiseworthy or the disliked, there is a method of reflecting upon those verses we take from the pious.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh once again. A'udhu billahi minash shaitanir rajeem. Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. walla'udhu walla illa an adhalameen. wal aqibatil mutaqeen. Allahumma salli wa sallim wa barakal abdika wa rasulika Muhammadin sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallim tasliman kathira. I pray that all of you are doing well inshallah ta'ala. I hope that you found benefit in the webinar that we did on the life and legacy of Ibrahim alayhi salam. And again, the goal of that was to create a connection, a background that inshallah ta'ala will help you appreciate Dhul Hijjah more and then specifically the series that we're going to be doing on the duas of Ibrahim alayhi salam which are very relatable. So inshallah ta'ala for the first 10 days of Dhul Hijjah we're going to be going through 10 duas, 10 prayers, supplications of Ibrahim alayhi salam to understand the nature, the context of those duas and how they're relevant to us today. And I'm looking forward to going on that journey with you inshallah. Also we have the Virtues of Dhul Hijjah series which you can sign up for inshallah ta'ala at the link. And we'll also encourage everyone inshallah ta'ala to be a part of our Dhul Hijjah campaign inshallah ta'ala to consider in these blessed 10 days making a donation, an automated donation inshallah ta'ala to Yaqeen Institute bi'dinah ta'ala. And with that being said I'm going to go ahead and continue with some of the lessons and reflections that we've been drawing from Surah Ibrahim. And last week I spoke about alladheena yastahibboona alhayat ad-dunyaa alal-akhirah those who love the world too much. They prefer the world, the life of this world to the life of the hereafter. And as a result of that their decision making is skewed towards this world inherently. They're not willing to make sacrifices of this world for the hereafter because the hereafter is not worth as much to them as the world if they even care about the hereafter at all or believe in it at all.
But I wanted to speak about actually the first word of this alladheena, those who. And speak about this concept of paying attention to negative traits in the Quran just like when we pay attention to positive traits in the Quran. You know we did the series of ibadur rahman, the servants of the most merciful. Ibadur rahman alladheena yamshoona alal-ardhi hauna. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala describes the servants of the most merciful and says alladheena those who and you pay attention and you try to adopt those traits in your life. Qad aflahal mu'minoon alladheena hum fee salatihim khashioon. Allah says successful are the believers and then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala starts to tell us who the believers are. Now we have to pay just as close attention to the negative traits when alladheena shows up as we do to the positive traits. And I want to actually offer a few reflections as to why. I think in one of the Quran 30 for 30 sessions I spoke about this when Allah talks about nations that came before. We should challenge ourselves with the traits of those nations that are brought up to make sure we don't have them and don't just simply pass them off as stories of the past. I want to actually speak about the benefits of this for a moment inshaAllah ta'ala and what it means to us. Well for one Hudayf ibn al-Yaman radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu is a very powerful narration. He says kan al-nasu yas'aluna rasool Allahi salallahu alayhi wa sallamu alayhi alkhair. He said that people used to ask the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam about the good things. Wa kuntu as'aluhu anash shar makhaafatan yudrikani. He said and I used to ask him about evil out of fear that it would come to me. Out of fear that it would come to me, that I would be afflicted by it. So evil qualities or evil consequences. Both of them apply to what Hudayf ibn al-Yaman radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu is saying here. The power of that statement is that because Hudayf ibn al-Yaman radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu
feared hypocrisy so much and he feared evil qualities so much though he was a great companion of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam is precisely why he was so safe from those qualities. He's a person that was so entrusted and so precious, so righteous and pious that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam found him worthy of being given the names of the hypocrites. So he's someone who could keep the names of the hypocrites because he himself was that safe from hypocrisy. We find a conversation between Umar ibn al-Khattab radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu and Hudayf ibn al-Yaman radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. Umar ibn al-Khattab who has been guaranteed paradise on numerous occasions, who is who he is and has attained all of the blessed qualities that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam mentioned of Umar radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu still asks Hudayf ibn al-Yaman radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu if he's on that list. If he's one of the hypocrites that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam had mentioned. And Abdullah ibn Mas'ud radhiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu said, ما أمين النفاق إلا ونافق No one fears hypocrisy or no one feels safe from hypocrisy except for a hypocrite and no one fears it except for a believer. What this speaks to is this idea of being kept humble by your fear of those negative traits of ever falling prey to those negative traits in any capacity. And so that's the first thing, the more vigilant you are about those traits and obviously with vigilance first comes awareness, awareness of those traits, awareness what leads to those traits and awareness of signs of those traits in yourself that might already exist or that might be starting to appear, the safer you're going to be from those traits. That's the first thing, so safety. The second thing is standards. And we're talking about Ibrahim alayhi wa sallam and how Ibrahim alayhi wa sallam even
when he told three lies, right, those three lies and I put them in quotations for a reason. The three lies were what? When he said to his people, I am sick and he was sick but just not sick in the way that they understood as they went out to their festival and he stayed behind. When he was asked who destroyed the idols and he said kabirahum, the biggest of them and he was speaking about the biggest of his fingers, not the biggest idol but that's what they understood and when he said about his wife Sara that she is my sister and she was his sister in faith but that's not what was understood by what he said. Now obviously those were not lies that he told for personal gain but Ibrahim alayhi wa sallam is a siddiq, he is the truthful one and so he was afraid or he's afraid of the consequences of those on the day of judgment with all the honor that Allah gives to him that when he's asked for shafa'ah, when he's asked for intercession, Ibrahim alayhi wa sallam would mention these three quote unquote lies and the reason why is because Ibrahim alayhi wa sallam holds himself to a higher standard. And so the first one is safety, the second one is standards, right, having higher standards. Those that hold themselves to higher standards will be more critical, self-critical of these traits so that you know it's you know when you're talking about the first category there are signs that would cause a person to start paying attention but no the second category is that a person would consider things to belong to those traits even if other people don't, right. You know what even if you don't consider them lies I do because I hold myself to a higher standard. Even if you don't consider this hypocrisy I do because I hold myself to a higher standard and so that's the second benefit of this that we take from the pious and particularly here from the pious prophet Ibrahim alayhi wa sallam and that standard that he set for himself.
And the third thing is proportionality. Is that you know just because I am not a major hypocrite in that I literally you know falsify my creed does not mean that there are not elements of hypocrisy in my deeds. So I might not be a hypocrite in creed in that you know I fake being Muslim you know for benefit but I might have hypocrisy in my deeds in that my deeds are not done with the same level of sincerity and quality when they're only witnessed by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and not by other people. So I prolong my prayer in front of others. I still pray at home but it's not like when I pray and there are others watching. I still do good deeds but not like when others are watching. Those elements of hypocrisy if they are not treated could lead to the major hypocrisy. And so a person has to ask themselves when they see these qualities for example those who love the world too much. Well maybe I don't love the world to a point that it caused me to abandon faith but were there decisions that I made that were detrimental to my faith that came out of hubb al dunya that came out of the love of this world. Maybe I'm not alladheena yasuddoona an sabeelillah I'm not those that lead others astray or that push people away from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but were there times that I allowed for my own weaknesses to cause me to weaken others in their resolve with faith and in their own personal regimens with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Maybe I don't twist the truth. yabghunaha a'iwajabaw. Were there times that I took the easier opinion even though I knew it didn't sit well with me. Right? Or I took, I always ittiba' al rukhas. I always take the concessions that are given wherever I can find them wherever I can mix them up I take concessions. What are some of the elements of these negative traits that might already be present in smaller quantities with my behaviors?
And so that's also a way of paying attention that allows us to hold ourselves to higher standards and that allows us to be safe from the consequences of those traits. And so the point is that part of tadabbur and tafakkur with the Quran reflecting and contemplating with the Quran is that when you see alladhina those who you pay attention whether it's the positive or the negative if it's the positive how do I aspire how do I get there if it's the negative how do I make sure I never fall into that. Are there some elements of those traits already present in my behavior that I need to rectify so I may come close to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. May Allah make us amongst the muhsinun. May Allah make us amongst those who excel. May Allah make us amongst the mu'minun, the believers, the mutaqoon, the pious. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to embody all of the positive traits mentioned in his book and exemplified best by his Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to avoid all of the negative qualities that are mentioned and that were manifested by the hypocrites in the presence of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam. May Allah azawajal allow us to be joined with the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and his companions and his family in the highest level of Jannatul Firdaus. Allahuma ameen. JazakumAllahu khayran. Asalaamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
1 items
1 items
1 items
25 items
50 items
9 items
