Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan, in the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. No one is worthy of worship except against the wrongdoers. And the punishment is for the righteous. Allahumma salli wa sallam wa baraka al abdika wa rasulika Muhammadin salallahu alayhi wa sallam wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasliman kathira First of all, I apologize for the break that we took. Alhamdulillah, my throat is better now, so I appreciate all of your du'as. Insha'Allah ta'ala for the story of Ibrahim A.S., the life of Ibrahim A.S. Initially, the intention was to do it over three sessions, where we do three Tuesdays. But instead, I decided to just make it one long webinar insha'Allah ta'ala on the life and legacy of Ibrahim A.S. To really prepare everyone for what is to come, to feel that attachment to Ibrahim A.S. Especially this year in the absence of Hajj and in the absence of so many things. It's important for us to feel that connection insha'Allah ta'ala. And that will prep everyone, hopefully insha'Allah, our hearts for what's going to be the Dhul Hijjah series this year. The first ten days of the Dhul Hijjah will have a series insha'Allah ta'ala. So there will be more information on that at this webinar. So we're going to go ahead and do this insha'Allah on Saturday night. So this Saturday, and you can sign up at the link below insha'Allah ta'ala. This Saturday at 8pm Eastern insha'Allah ta'ala, we'll do a seminar on the life and legacy of Ibrahim A.S. Speaking about his virtues, it will be a different look at his life. I think that many of us have heard the story of Ibrahim A.S. But there are two things. Number one, what's so unique about this prophet and messenger of Allah? Number two, why him? What is it that connects us to him? And obviously the history of Ibrahim A.S. You've got all these snapshots. So tying it in so that we understand his story chronologically insha'Allah ta'ala,
I think is very powerful for us to connect us to this great prophet of Allah, the father of the prophets Ibrahim A.S. So that's going to be this Saturday insha'Allah, and you can go ahead and register at the link below. So instead, next week, I'll just do another nightly reminder on Tuesday night. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, we'll have short reminders insha'Allah ta'ala. And then the week after will be Dhul Hijjah and we'll get into the Dhul Hijjah series. There's a lot that you can do right now for Dhul Hijjah. You can make sure that you catch up with last year's series where I actually went through the virtues of Dhul Hijjah. You know, over 10 episodes, some of the meanings of how to make the most of the 10 days of Dhul Hijjah. There's a full action plan. You can read some of the articles that we have on the subject. And insha'Allah ta'ala we'll be having much more to benefit you with bi'danahi ta'ala. Now tonight I wanted to reflect on the second ayah of this surah, of surah Ibrahim. Just the very first part of it. الذين يستحبون الحياة الدنيا على الآخرة Those who have chosen the life of this world in preference to the hereafter. They love the world more than they love the hereafter. They love the world more than they love the hereafter. And you might notice that the word is يستحبون يستحبون is stronger than يحبون It obviously speaks to a rule in the Arabic language about كثرة المباني تدلو على قوة المعاني That the more letters that are added, the stronger the meaning becomes. So it's a stronger meaning that we have. On top of that though is a discussion about what happens when we have an unhealthy love and an attachment to this world. And it is a Hadith that often gets quoted as a Hadith It's not actually authentically narrated as a Hadith. حُبَّ الدُّنْيَا رَأْسُ كُلِّ خَطِيءَ That the love of the world is the root cause.
Is that the root cause of every single sin. However it is something that we find in our books of Taskiyah and our books of spirituality And it does have strong meaning and it does have a lot of truth for us to analyze. The love of this world is at the root of every sin, every sinful habit, every negative quality. There is too much of the love of this world that is involved in it. And some of you may have taken the course where I talk about مُختصر من هذه القصدين The book by Imam al-Quddam and we talk about this idea of the love of this world The unhealthy love of this world being at the root cause. So I want us to think about this for a moment inshallah ta'ala And how this plays out. Now what's going to follow in this ayah is that it plays out even in the deviation in regards to religion. The changing of religion to suit desires. That that's how extreme the love of this world can become. But to talk about the love of this world from a few different perspectives One of them is that the love of this world is what fuels an extraordinary sense of شهوة, desire. Now Allah has told us that our desires are natural. We just have to make them conform by not letting those desires take us outside of what is permissible. Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala has told us وَلَا تَنْسَى نَصِيبَكَ مِنَ الدُّنْيَا Don't forget yourself in this world. We are not asked to harm ourselves in this world or to do anything that would suggest that asceticism That زُهَد is the abandonment of this world in the sense that we put ourselves in poverty Or we put ourselves in a hard situation. In fact moderation in how we deal with this world is what allows us to have a healthy attachment to the hereafter. Because you'll find that the scholars of Tazkiyya will talk about this idea of افراط تفليت
Which is extreme denial or excess. If a person denies their natural desires to an extreme Then they're likely to end up acting upon them in an extreme fashion. So the counter of that, what's going to happen is that if you suppress desire in a way that's unnatural You're eventually going to act upon them in a way that's unnatural. And so that's why the sunnah teaches us to channel our desires in a way that is permissible and in some ways rewardable. To pursue this world in the sense of seeking to be in a healthy financial situation. That's a healthy thing, not so that a person could be extravagant But so that a person could use what they have earned of this world for noble pursuits And so that they could be sufficed with the permissible and not end up resorting to the prohibited. So that a person maintains dignity اليد العليا خير من اليد السفلى The Prophet ﷺ said that the upper hand is better than the lower hand. The upper hand is the giving hand and the lower hand is the receiving hand. So you should seek to have the upper hand. You should seek to be in a healthy situation. Do not beg, do not find yourself in a situation where you're in need of others. Find independence if you can. So it's healthy. The problem is when you allow your heart to become attached to those things And so wealth is no longer in your hand, it is in your heart. You no longer possess things, things possess you. You allow for the love of this world to cause you to pursue things in a prohibited way, to act out in a prohibited way, and then even to oppress and to harm. How many forms of oppression take place because of materialism? Materialism is at the root of so many of the evils in our world today.
It inherently leads people to try to dominate one another for the sake of increasing their wealth, increasing what they have because they have an unhealthy attachment to it. How many people, subhanAllah, you know, brothers, sisters, siblings, best friends, quarrel over business, over a few dollars, over land, and it completely destroys and wrecks a family. So there's the obvious material fashion of this. How many people end up in riba? How many people that are otherwise noble end up in selling prohibited things, opening up liquor stores and engaging in usury and engaging in all sorts of shady financial practices because they have an unhealthy attachment to this world and it leads them to all sorts of things. There are other ways that a person becomes attached to this world that are not necessarily financial. So the unrestricted desire to act out in unhealthy ways. When it comes to anger and our ego, the love of this world in the sense of the love of prominence, the love of ostentation, all of these things. One of the scholars that I was listening to, I forget which one it was, who was talking about rabab, he was really extrapolating some beautiful lessons from the chapter on anger. And he talked about this idea that, you know, what are you getting angry over? We talk about anger and we talk about anger from the perspective of how to calm ourselves down and not to let our tempers flare up. But what are you getting angry over is something that you have to ask at a very deep level. You've got to dig deep and ask, okay, why am I so angry? What's making me so angry? Is it that I feel like something that is of this world is being taken away?
Why do I have such an ego? Why do I have such an unhealthy attachment to being validated by other people? So why are you so angry? What do you get angry over? What makes you so angry? The pursuit of fame, the pursuit of prominence, all of these different types of pursuits, if you look at them, there is a quantity in which they become unnatural and the excess of those things leads a person to use any means to achieve those unhealthy amounts of dunya, even if that means using prohibited means and even if that means doing things that are unethical that means breaking relationships and at the top of those relationships is breaking your own relationship with Allah, breaking your relationship with God. Okay, actually there's a verse in the Bible that's the love of this world is enmity of God and it speaks to a similar sentiment, right? So it disconnects you first and foremost from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and then it disconnects you from people because you start quarreling even with your closest family members and your brothers and your sisters and your best friend over what? And you have to ask yourself that constantly, over what? So just as there is a healthy pursuit in that you pursue things within permissible means and for the sake of noble ends, this also means that you don't tolerate oppression of yourself, this isn't to let people oppress you because it's just the world anyway. This is to say that your pursuit of your heart, that your aim, that your goals revolve around the hereafter. So when the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam says do not let the dunya become akbar hamina wa la mablaga ilmina, don't let it become our greatest pursuit, don't let it become the majority, what dominates our thoughts and our knowledge and what we seek to acquire but let the akhira, let the hereafter become our greater pursuit. And when you're pursuing the hereafter, you're pursuing the pleasure of Allah
because that's the treasure of the hereafter, that's success in the hereafter, the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so a person remains focused and oriented. So every time Allah talks about the love of the world, it's in the context of not letting the love of the world lead you to do things that will ruin your fate in the hereafter, that will disconnect you from al-wadood, from the loving, from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, that will disconnect you from the people that you love, the people that are important in your life. And this is why in this ayah, الذين يستحبون الحياة الدنيا عن الآخرة, those who prefer, they love the world too much to the detriment of their pursuit of the hereafter. They love the world too much to the detriment of their pursuit of the hereafter. So when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, بل تؤثرون الحياة الدنيا عن الآخرة, that these people prefer the dunya to the akhira, they prefer this world to the hereafter. This is really what it's talking about. And so again, حب الدنيا رأس كل خطيئة ذاتي, love the world, the head of all the truths, love of this world, an unhealthy attachment to this world is at the root cause of every oppression, at the root cause of every unrestricted pursuit of desire, at the root cause of every vanity, at the root cause of anger and pride and arrogance, at the root cause of it all. Because a person either desires an unhealthy level of prominence or an unhealthy level of prosperity in this world and is willing to do anything and burn any relationship in order to achieve those things and in the process they end up ruining their hereafter and destroying their fate in the hereafter. We pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us amongst those people that attain the best of this life and the best of the hereafter and that are protected from the punishment. رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ The verse where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala teaches us to say, grant us the best of this life and the best of the hereafter.
رَبَّنَا آتِنَا فِي الدُّنْيَا حَسَنَةً وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ حَسَنَةً وَقِنَا عَذَابَ النَّارِ And this is really interesting that you'll find here by the way that Imam Hassan al-Basri rahimahullah, he said عِلْمُ النَّافِعَ وِرِزْقًا طَيِّبًا وَعَمَلًا مُتَّقَبَّلًا It means beneficial knowledge, pure sustenance and accepted deeds. That's what it means. That's what it means when we say حَسَنَةً Give us the best of this life. Beneficial knowledge, accepted, beneficial knowledge, pure sustenance and accepted deeds. We pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us the best of this life and the best of the hereafter and punish us and protect us from the punishment of النَّارِ اللهم آمين جزاكم الله خيراً وصلى الله وسلم وبركة نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
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
