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Invisible Wounds & Visible Flaws | Live Reminders
The eye of the believer looks to rectify and remedy. From a place of concern, how do you help someone overcome what ails them both spiritually and emotionally?
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Hi everyone, Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuhu Bismillah wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu Salatu wassalamu ala rasulullah wa ala anihi wa sahbihi wa man wala So there's been a lot of discussion in the wake of the death of Chadwick Boseman who was hiding his cancer diagnosis for four years about what people are really struggling with and how we need to be more sensitive about how we treat people in the public space. How we treat people, not just in the public space, but people that we interact with and may not be paying close enough attention to. And it was very interesting to see, for example, some of the commentary. You know, I saw some of those pictures from earlier this year where, you know, he was a lot skinnier and there were people that were mocking him in certain online spaces for his appearance. You know, people calling him a crack user and all sorts of unkind things. And, you know, it provoked a discussion about wounds, about invisible wounds and what people are dealing with, what people are struggling with. And the reality is that everyone's going through something. And we often don't pay attention to what people are going through. In fact, we often cause some of the pain that they then live with unknowingly, unintentionally. And this idea of just being more sensitive towards others, being more careful about our words, being more inquisitive about how people are doing, but not just by way of conversational courtesy, but actually like doing check-ins with people that we know to make sure that they're doing OK, to let them know that we're there for them. And obviously it's a time, you know, it's a global pandemic and much has been happening this year to where a lot of people are really struggling. And a lot of people that were struggling before the pandemic are struggling even more now. But I wanted to talk about this from a spiritual perspective and tie it to another concept in the religion, which is to overlook people's visible flaws.
And this is a, you know, an interesting tie-in because the same eye from a Tezkea perspective, the same eye that is supposed to overlook the visible flaws of people is to look for the invisible wounds of people. And sometimes we do the opposite, right? The common thing is to pounce on people's visible flaws and actually cause them some of the invisible wounds that they will then carry as a result of that interaction, especially in the world of social media where it's so easy to bruise someone else. But, you know, from a Tezkea perspective, from a spiritual perspective, this is an extremely beautiful concept because it speaks to where the eye sees from. It speaks to the condition of the heart that the eye sees with. When a person looks to people's visible flaws and pounces or writes them off or causes them injury as a result of that, as opposed to looking to better that person, looking to help that person, looking to inquire about that person, and even see sometimes when they have, you know, very visible flaws, what it is that might be causing them to act in those certain ways and takes the time to pray for them, takes the time to sincerely advise them, takes the time to care for them. And in the process could move them away from some of those very visible flaws and also help rectify their situation internally. And so, you know, you find, for example, the narration of Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, which is a very beautiful narration that a man was brought to him and it was said that his beard was still wet from wine. It was dripping from some of the alcohol that he had drunk. And Abdullah ibn Mas'ud, radiAllahu ta'ala anhu, this great companion and jurist and scholar, he said that we have been prohibited from a tajassas, from spying, and, you know, he basically still gave the man the benefit of the doubt because we did not see him drinking the alcohol.
So even to that extent of husn adhlan in a person, of expecting, you know, assuming well of a person, and making as many excuses as possible. You find the hadith of the Prophet salAllahu alayhi wa sallam, whoever seeks out the faults of his brother, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will seek out that person's faults. And if Allah seeks out your faults, then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will humiliate you even if you are in your home, even if you are hidden away from all means of exposure, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will certainly humiliate the one who seeks to humiliate others and seek out the flaws or expose the flaws of the one who seeks to expose the flaws of others. So that's a person who looks to the world to cause injury for the sake of growing self, for the sake of their own ego, for the sake of their own lowly pleasures. The other side of that is to look to people that are struggling and to, from a place of empathy, from a place of wanting good for that person, seek to ask and inquire, not to spy, but to say, hey, is everything okay? And to give them that love, to give them that advice, to give them that shoulder that they need at times. And in the process, they will better themselves and a person will humble themselves naturally. When you're doing a check-in with someone, you're naturally humbling yourself to that person because by virtue of your check-in, you are prioritizing them over yourself. Whereas when you pounce on the visible flaws of someone, the visible faults of someone, you are, and even worse when you seek out the faults of someone that aren't so visible and you seek to make them visible, that's from a place of nefs. That's from a place of making yourself, prioritizing your own happiness to theirs, prioritizing your own pleasure to theirs, prioritizing everything that has to do with your nefs to the detriment of them, prioritizing yourself over them. So it's the opposite source when you're doing that with someone who is exhibiting something
that's very visible that lends itself to a potential flaw. At no point in Islam do we compromise the status of sin. But at every point in our own spiritual pursuit of Allah's pleasure, do we challenge ourselves to do better to help people get away from sin because sin causes pain in the hereafter and at the same time demonstrate empathy to move people away from pain in this life. In both of those situations, a person is seeking to do right by their brother, right by their sister to help them through a difficult situation. SubhanAllah you find with the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, he paid close attention to people. When he inquired, if someone was missing from the masjid, if someone hadn't shown up to the masjid and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam inquired about them, he didn't inquire about them from a place of suspicion, he inquired about them from a place of concern. Where is that woman, where is that woman that used to clean the masjid, where is that man that used to show up and then the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam finds out that his son passed away, why is this person acting differently? So there's this place of concern that the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam had. Often times when we see someone missing from our religious spaces, we say, oh where is that person? Then someone throws in a suspicion, casts some wide, broad suspicion, you know I heard that they're doing this now, they're doing that now. So the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam asked about people from a place of concern. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam also, when he saw someone that was hiding their suffering through acting normal by asking questions that weren't related to their suffering, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam paid attention to their faces, he paid attention to their body language. The famous hadith of Abu Huraira radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu, where Abu Huraira was hungry but he didn't want to ask for food. So he asked Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu anhu a question about the Quran, knowing the answer to it, hoping that Abu Bakr radiyaAllahu anhu would notice his hunger. He asked Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu the same question, hoping Umar would notice his hunger.
And right away when he saw the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam recognized his hunger before he could even ask. So some people, you know, are not going to ask for help, and it's important for us to make them comfortable with asking for help by making it a point to let them know that we're there for them, and that we're paying attention. And so subhanAllah, again, it's this connection between the two that I was just reflecting on, you know, how the eye of the believer does not look to the faults, the visible faults of a person to pounce on them, but rather they look even deeper to where those faults might be emanating from, which are often, you know, some of those invisible wounds that, you know, people don't make it a point to pay attention to. And if I'm able to look at my brother or sister with that, then perhaps I can rectify what is causing the visible fault, what is causing the visible flaws, so that they would overcome that sin. And at the same time, I could help them with what is on the inside so that they could overcome their difficulty in this life. And that's the connection between the two, because the eye of the believer looks to help their brother or sister. You are a mirror to your brother or sister. And just like when you look at yourself in the mirror, you might look a little bit more carefully, but you look more carefully to others not to scorn them, but to beautify them. That's the intention. When you look at a mirror, you look at a mirror so that you can catch something that you otherwise would not see so that you could fix something, right, of your appearance. When you see your brother or sister, you want to be their mirror, you want to be their reflection, you want to help them. So at no point do you compromise the status of sin. At no point do you compromise the status of a flaw. But at every juncture, you pay attention and you show that person that you want to help them overcome both their flaw and their source of that flaw, which is often a pain that has been unremedied. So we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to purify us and to purify through us.
We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to help us overcome what ails us in this life and the next, and to enable us to help others overcome what ails them in this life and the next. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to make us bearers of his mercy, of his rahma towards people. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to help all of our brothers and sisters that are struggling in silence, that are suffering in silence. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make it easy for all of you to overcome whatever it is that ails you. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala help all of us to help one another. So that we may enjoy one another in truth and in patience. Allahuma Ameen. JazakumAllahu Khayran. Wasalamualikoum wa rahmatollahi wa barakato.
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