# When People Cause You Pain | Midnight Majlis

**Author:** Dr. Omar Suleiman
**Series:** Midnight Majlis
**Published:** 2025-03-24
**YouTube:** https://youtu.be/7SwBh9BR8DA
**URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/when-people-cause-you-pain-midnight-majlis
**Topics:** Acts of Worship, Sharia

## Description
The end of Ramadan is a time to redouble your efforts. Pray more, fast more—give more. How do you respond when you are tested by people, staying focused on the pleasure of Allah? In this Midnight Majlis reflection, Dr. Omar Suleiman and Sh. Yaser Birjas explore Ibn Hazm (rh)’s advice on friendships...

## Transcript
**[0:00]** In reality, we have seen that a lot of parents, they overdo parenting with their kids. So they shield them from negative emotions. They spoil their children. They don't want them to cry. They don't want them to feel deprived. They don't want them to feel less than their friends. They don't want them to feel left out.

**[0:16]** All these negative emotions that are part of real life. And as a result, we always give them false reality. So the moment they grow up, they go to the real world, they go to college. They're like, oh my God, they're intimidated. A lot of people, they spend longer time in college.

**[0:31]** And some, they don't even go to college to begin with. Because they're too scared to deal with these negative emotions they've not been trained for. This is what he's talking about over here. You need to be prepared. You have to deal with negative emotions. That's part of life. You know, defeat, for example.

**[0:46]** Like, nowadays in most organizations, when we deal with children, for example. You reward every child, even for participation, right? Why? Because we don't want to leave any kid feel left out.

**[1:01]** I hear you. But when your children, when all your kids, they grow up, you know, always want to be rewarded for doing absolutely nothing important. The moment they come to reality, they expect also reward for doing nothing important. So no participation points?

**[1:17]** We don't do that. You don't do that, all right. You have to take the quiz. All right. Shaykh, so he says, إذا تكاثرت الهموم، سقطت كلها. That if the, when the worries multiply, then they're all going to cancel each other out.

**[1:33]** I think that can mean two things. Or I understand two things from it. One of them is that the ease is on the horizon. Like it's coming, right? So once you feel like you're just reaching your breaking point, then you'll find that the ease comes. The other thing is that I think that once a person embraces a life of turbulence,

**[1:52]** then they kind of say, you know what, like, not that I don't care anymore. But at the end of the day, I care less. Or I just accept this as a part of my life. That tests and trials are a part of my life. So the worries cancel each other out in that sense that I can survive this.

**[2:07]** Like, you know, you think like worst case scenario, you think that if this thing happens to you, it's a nightmare. And then that thing happens and ten things worse than that thing happen. And at some point, you just say, you know what, this is just part of the tribulation of life. What do you understand from this? I'm curious, by the way. Do you understand the first meaning or the second meaning?

**[2:22]** Actually, it gives me, it sends me back to قَالَ اللَّهُ تَبَارَكَ وَتَعَالَىٰ وَاللَّيْلِ إِذَا عَسْعَسَ وَالصُّبْحِ إِذَا تَنَفَّسَ When the night reaches its darkest point, the only thing that comes after that is a break of dawn. So when your concerns become too heavy, too many, too much, overwhelming,

**[2:41]** there is nothing after that but relief. That's what Allah promised. إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا With the hardship comes ease, with every hardship comes ease. So that's what comes to my mind, that إِذَا تَكَاثَرَتِ الْهُمُومُ When things become too many, overwhelming,

**[2:56]** this is something for the believer to be optimistic that the relief is coming. And Imam ash-Shafi'i used to say, and that's also part of the Fiqh opinions and maxims that govern Islamic law, إِذَا ضَاقَ الْأَمْرُ تَسَعَ

**[3:11]** When the circumstances become so tight, then relief is going to come. So expansion will come after that. So Shaykh, just to summarize the last part, I'll just go to these. So he talks about, you know, like, now he kind of goes into the section about people, how you deal with people. And sometimes some people will surprise you in good ways,

**[3:28]** and some people will disappoint you in bad ways. But he says at the same time, like, you should not have time إِلَىٰ اخْتِبَارِ الْإِخْوَانِ Like, the best person is a person who's not wasting his time trying to test the loyalty of his friends. Like, you get past needing your friends to pass, you know, a certain threshold

**[3:44]** of not disappointing you because you're not staking your happiness on them. And then he says, لَا تُفَكِّرْ فِي مَنْ يُؤْذِيكَ فَإِنَّكَ إِنْ كُنْتَ مُقْبِلًا فَهُوَ هَالِكُ So don't think about too much someone who hurts you, because if you succeed, then he's going to fail. He's going to burn in his anger.

**[3:59]** So if Allah Azawajal saves you from the envy and the hatred of that person, and the deception of that person, then your success will kill them. And he says, وَإِنْ كُنْتَ مُدْبِرًا فَكُلُّ أَحَدٍ يُؤْذِيكَ And he says, but at the same time, if you're falling behind, everyone is going to harm you anyway.

**[4:14]** So at the end of the day, focus on your own pursuit. Don't focus on how people are dealing with you. And he says, طُوبَىٰ لِمَنْ عَلِمَ مِنْ عُيُوبِ نَفْسِهِ أَكْثَرَ مِمَّا يَعْلَمُ النَّاسُ مِنْهُ He says, so glad tidings to the one who knows his faults better than other people know his faults.

**[4:30]** So now we're going to talk about faults, right? Eventually, at the later part of this chapter, he talks about his flaws. Like, it's like, look, if you're going to talk about Ibn Hazm and his faults, I can start. That's really what he's saying. Like, I know I've got many flaws and many mistakes in my behavior and my personality.

**[4:46]** Let me give you the primer on my own flaws and my own personality before you even start to have another author scrutinize my personality and all of my flaws. But this is really powerful. So the building again of the chapter is, expect the worst, hope for the best.

**[5:02]** Then expect the worst from people, hope for the best from people. But at the same time, don't waste time waiting for people to acquiesce to your ultimate journey in life and to become helpful components of your life.

**[5:17]** Because at the end of the day, Allah might test you with the people that are closest to you. And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala might surprise you with the people that are furthest from you. لَا يَكُونْ حُبُّكَ كَلَفًا وَلَا بُغْضُكَ تَلَفًا Don't love someone too much because they might be your enemy tomorrow.

**[5:32]** Don't hate someone too much because they might be your beloved one tomorrow. At the end of the day, you can't wait for people to come around to fit this journey of yours. So focus on your journey and as it relates to your flaws, you should be more aware of your flaws than anyone who's going to point them out for you anyway.

**[5:48]** You should be more concerned with solving your own problems than someone else who's going to potentially humiliate you with those problems or hurt you with those problems in the first place. I want to pause on this point for a moment. First of all, the statement that was repeated from the Salaf, رَحِمَهُ اللَّهُ وَتَعَالَىٰ

**[6:05]** May Allah have mercy on someone who gifts us our own faults. Like someone who comes to you to tell you what your faults are, you should appreciate that. Like we talked about this before, when someone gives you criticism, it's always good for you. So if it's good, you benefit from it. If it's false, you get the reward.

**[6:20]** So you always get the benefit of this. The second thing is that why people don't want to admit to their own faults. Ibn Rajab, رَحِمَهُ اللَّهُ وَتَعَالَىٰ, actually Ibn Rajab, he said in his book Al-Qawa'id, he says, قَالَ وَالنَّفْسُ مَجْبُولَةٌ عَلَىٰ دَفْعِ النَّقْصِ عَنْهَا

**[6:36]** Every nafs, every insan, every human being is inclined to dismiss any nafs, any imperfection, you could say, or any flaws from itself. And that goes back again to the principle of ego

**[6:52]** that we talked about the other night. Because it all comes to the ego, one more time. Because the ego is selfish. The ego is designed to free you from any liabilities. Not wanting to take any responsibilities. Always going to be on your side at all costs.

**[7:07]** All costs. Which is why your ego, again, is like the Trojan horse of the Shaytan. The ego is going to tell you, no, don't say that. Hide it. Lie about it. Don't. Your ego is not going to allow you to accept responsibility. It's your job, as a human being, as an insan,

**[7:24]** to hold your ego responsible. It's your job to tell your ego, be quiet. None of your business. Admitting your fault is going to put your ego in a very, very difficult situation. Because now, I cannot defend you.

**[7:39]** You're on your own right now, right? But that's what it means over here. The person who knows his own flaws, that's the person who will survive, who will be the best. Way better than, of course, waiting for people to tell you about your own flaws.

**[7:55]** Should we go to Manjarat An-Nas? Yes, please. Okay. So he then goes to, he says, Manjarat An-Nas, he says, He says that whoever sits with the people will never be free from a worry that pains his soul.

**[8:13]** Or a sin that he's going to regret in the hereafter. Or an anger that will boil his liver. Obviously, the kabid in Arabic poetry refers to the source of intense emotion.

**[8:28]** So he says that a person who sits with the people is going to end up with worries that pain the soul, sins that he will regret in the hereafter, anger that will boil his liver, or a humiliation that's going to crush his spirit.

**[8:44]** So he says, he gives this really powerful statement. So he says,

**[8:59]** Such a powerful statement. He says that honor, rest, joy, peace of mind, all of these things come in solitude. Like not depending on the company of people. So he's building on what we talked about yesterday. Then he gives this example. He says,

**[9:20]** We're social beings. We need people in our lives. We need people around us. So gain warmth from being around people, but don't jump in the fire. And subhanAllah, like that statement, that analogy that he gives, truly, like there's a warning throughout the seerah of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ),

**[9:37]** throughout the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), to not become dependent upon people. Like Shaykh Yasir mentioned some narrations yesterday about this. Someone who just goes with the flow. Even the Qur'an talks about this. Someone who goes with the flow. Someone who doesn't have opinions. Someone who subjects themselves to whatever influences around them.

**[9:55]** Shaykh, we call them trends today. Trends? Trends online. Social media. Right. It's all about these trends right now. People just copy every single trend, whether it's meaningful or embarrassing sometimes. So people just have no, like you said, no opinion, no standard.

**[10:12]** They just keep doing that for themselves. And they humiliate themselves. Because they want to belong. They want to belong to the whole culture of everybody. They want to be like everybody else. I don't want to be alone. I can't be left out of that. And that's where the danger comes from, is the feeling that I want to be with the people.

**[10:27]** I want to always be with them at all times. And by the way, the statement from the Salaf, Alhamdulillah is what they say. Finding joy in mingling with people is a sign of bankruptcy. Because if you only find joy around people, what is left for you?

**[10:44]** I mean, then when you sit by yourself, like nowadays, subhanAllah, I always challenge people. I say, when you drive, when you drive, and you stop at a traffic light, what is the most likely thing you're going to do?

**[11:01]** You're all just smiling. All of you are smiling right now. Why? What are you going to do? What is the most likely thing you're going to do? Grab your phone. You're going to be stopping for a couple of minutes probably. Even less. Why would you grab your phone for? Because we can't imagine ourselves sitting there

**[11:16]** just in our own thoughts. That sound in your head is creepy for you. Because you're not used to it anymore. You have to have some sort of noise. That background noise is somewhere from the outside. Because I want to be around somebody or something,

**[11:32]** I stay with people from the signs of bankruptcy. Having that sign of you always want to be around people, with people, belonging to people, part of it even social media as well too, on the comment section, all that stuff, is a sign of bankruptcy. Or Shaykh, if you just think about the time that's wasted in regular human conversation

**[11:49]** when we're talking, and then compare that now to technology. You send a text, and then you look at your phone and you wait for the answer. And the answer comes, and then you type up an answer. Still staring at your phone, checking your phone to see if it came back. How much time did you waste in those intervals?

**[12:04]** How much could you have actually immersed yourself in some deep reading or listening to something deep or practicing something deep? But you're always just so distracted. Like, oh, let me send this message. Let me wait for a message. Like, you know, the worst thing, like if you think about it, by the way,

**[12:20]** and the Salaf were very intentional about the length of their conversations. They really were, like, very intentional. Even the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). By the way, everything about the Messenger of Allah, Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), pick up any leadership book, and you go, he mastered that, he mastered that,

**[12:35]** he mastered that. Like, the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) used to walk fast. He walked like he was running. That just tells you the man, Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), had urgency. I don't have time to waste just, like, strolling around and, like, just talking. No, like, I've gotta get somewhere. When the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) sits with you,

**[12:50]** he gives you his attention, but he's not gonna sit there and, like, chat it up all day. Like, he'll sit with you, he'll eat with you, he'll exchange some beneficial words, he'll talk about some things, then he's gotta go to the next thing, 'alaihi salatu wa-assalam. It's okay to cut conversations short.

**[13:06]** To say, I've gotta go. To limit your things, right? Now, a lot of us are afraid of offending people. We're afraid of offending people. But you know what? The regret on the Day of Judgment of having wasted that much time is far greater than the pain of offending people.

**[13:22]** Be courteous, but just be someone who doesn't waste a lot of time in conversations, intervals, and just, you know, going back and forth forever. Be very intentional about your conversation. Cut things short. And that's one of the signs of mastering the self as well, that we're learning from the self also.

**[13:38]** You know, Shaykh, when you talk about, you know, texting somebody and waiting for an answer, texting back, taking time, God forbid, when you see these three bubbles, three actual dots, you know, the bubble starts popping on your screen, and you don't get an answer. And you don't get an answer. I wonder what he's saying. And then you don't get an answer.

**[13:54]** You see the bubble starts gonna come popping, and then you get no answer. Allahumma ista'an. You start holding a grudge. What are they gonna do? Where did they go? You know, they left me hanging like this. Or if it shows deleted message now. It's like, wait a minute.

**[14:09]** Why are there five deleted messages in this chat overnight? What did you say to me last night? Like, I want to know what you said, you know? Like, subhanAllah, we open doors for the shaitan that should be closed, jama'ah. Not necessarily doors. We keep opening them over and over again, over and over again. So now you see my feeling right now

**[14:25]** when you don't answer my texts, right? Who are you talking to? Because I'm intentional, so I gotta prepare for the dars tonight. Masha'Allah. Preparing for the night. Jazakallah khair. So, moving on, Shaykh, to the same,

**[14:40]** continue the same point, rahimahullah, that he says, about intermingling with people. If there were no people in the gathering, I would have been ashamed.

**[14:58]** The message is with the most secretive person, the one who will kill.

**[15:15]** And then he suddenly said, you know, can I tell you something? But don't tell anybody. That don't tell anybody? Never works. Never works. You know it's over. The moment you trust this individual in such a very friendly conversation,

**[15:30]** you're the first person I'm telling right now. So don't tell anybody, okay? I have never said this to anybody. These statements are false, jama'ah. You're fooling yourself. Because the moment you say it, you've revealed the secret, you should have actually kept it to yourself. So he says, it's enough fault

**[15:45]** that you reveal about yourself things you shouldn't. Because Allah knows what's going to happen to that relationship in the future. And maybe they're not going to be so friendly anymore. And as a result, Allah musta'an, the shaitan is clever, and they take all these secrets and they reveal them out there.

**[16:00]** The second fault, he says, you get yourself involved in backbiting, in tailbearing, in namimah, in, you know, hurting people, speaking behind their backs. He says, this is going to be dangerous for you in the akhirah.

**[16:15]** And we know the danger, of course, of backbiting, as Allah ta'ala describes in the Qur'an. It's just like eating the flesh of your brother and sister, subhanAllah. And also, the Prophet (ﷺ), when he passed by two graves, and he says, they've been punished, not for something major,

**[16:30]** at least they didn't think it was major. And one of them, he says, this person didn't mind slandering people, backbiting people, and moving around with that stuff, subhanAllah. So he says, if those are not enough for you to remember how dangerous it is to intermingle with people,

**[16:47]** I don't know what other iman you need from me. None. Shaykh, should we go to, or is that too far? Bismillah. Alright, bismillah. So one line that caught me here,

**[17:08]** He says that, You can feel the pain, as he was writing these words. So again, he used to be a powerful man, rahimahullah, he was a minister, son of a minister. And even, by the way, he's giving advice here to governors and to ministers,

**[17:25]** like I'm saying, read the chapter, read the chapter. Because one of the things he actually says, before this line, or after this line, he says something, he talks about how an amir, how a governor, should busy his enemies with things amongst themselves, He says only someone who's suicidal

**[17:40]** keeps his enemies close to him, he completely dispels that concept. But here he says, that a smart person is not deceived by friends that suddenly appear during his days of power and prosperity. Because everyone is your friend when you're on top.

**[17:55]** So he's talking like a person who lost it all. Everyone loves you when you're on top. Everyone is your friend when you're on top. But when you fall, that's when your real friends will show. And he's saying don't be deceived by these things. You wanna say anything, Shaykh Hamas?

**[18:10]** You know, subhanAllah, when Ibn Hazm was thinking that, I was remembering that, just to let you know how painful that is for him, really. Because Ibn Hazm, rahimahullah, went to prison twice. Not just one. He went twice, and both of them for political reasons. The first thing, because he was affiliated with his dad,

**[18:26]** and his dad was a minister in the Umayyad royal family in Cordoba at the time. So he went to prison as a result of that. And then he was released. But then later on, the Umayyads, they overthrew their enemies at some point.

**[18:41]** And he, as a result, was rewarded to become the minister in the royal palace for some time. And then the Umayyads were overthrown again. And Ibn Hazm went back to prison. But that was the last time for him to get involved in politics. He said, you know what? That thing, I don't need it anymore.

**[18:56]** So he's, I'm done with politics. And he left it, and he started getting himself busy with 'ilm and knowledge. And even seeking knowledge brought him so many enemies. Like Shaykh Omar was talking about, Ibn Hazm, rahimahullah, he grew up in a culture, he like, he built so much resentment to the society that he was living in.

**[19:15]** Because of their complacency with, of course, with the wrongdoing and the oppression and everything. So he was seeking a path to break away from those bad traditions. And that led him to, he became afterwards, so he says, I've been betrayed many, many times.

**[19:31]** So therefore, he said, be careful. When you're in your good times, everybody's your friend. But when the time becomes hard and difficult, you can count them on one hand probably, those who stay around you as friends. So beware of these kind of friendship. Then he says, rahimahullah ta'ala, also,

**[19:47]** He said, The way he uses the words to write them down is beautiful. He said, look, it was,

**[20:02]** la tujib 'an kalam, don't you ever answer, don't give a reply to somebody who is bringing to you a statement from someone else about you, unless you're absolutely sure that it happened or that they said it.

**[20:17]** Like someone says, hey, fulan is saying this about you, or she's saying this about you. He said, don't give any reply to that. Because if this was a lie, your answer would be true. Because your answer is true to what you heard, but it's not necessarily true to what they, if they said it or not.

**[20:36]** So basically, you're going to be wrong anyway. You're going to be wrong if you reply to somebody who tells you someone said so and so about you. And that's extremely important so that whenever someone comes and says something about you, first of all, pause. Don't get, you know, riled up with your emotions and your ego kicks in and you have to go and fight them and pause.

**[20:56]** Just listen. Is that true? Make sure that you confirm the statement. If it was true and you were able to respond but take the path of forgiveness or the path of basically avoiding these foolish people, that's actually, it's good about you.

**[21:11]** It shows how your integrity, masha'Allah, at a high level. And, but if you would like to retaliate, then at least you have a haq that you can pursue. Shaykh, this is, I think we should take a point here. I mean, the adab of how to respond to namimah. Because we live in a society of namimah, a society of slander.

**[21:26]** And slander is not always saying something that's not true. Slander is sometimes, in an Islamic definition, someone quoting words from someone else about you that will cause the flame of fitna to be kindled. So someone is in a gathering and a mutual friend says something bad about you.

**[21:46]** And then that person comes to you and tells you, hey, so and so said this about you. From the adab of Islam, from the mannerisms of Islam, you can read in Mukhtasar al-Qasideen. I know that's one of the books being studied. Like how you're supposed to respond when someone comes to you with hadith 'ank, with words about you.

**[22:04]** Number one, you don't believe that person. You don't entertain the thought. Number two, you show anger with the person who quoted the words to you, not about the one who was supposedly quoted. Say, why are you coming to me with this? What are you doing this for?

**[22:19]** You think you're, you know, you're getting closer to me by doing this? Like someone came to him and said, hey, you know, someone said this about you. He said, so shaitan couldn't find a mailman except for you? Like you became shaitan, like think about the postal service.

**[22:35]** You're shaitan's mailman. You know, let me go deliver the barid. Let me go deliver the mail of the shaitan to this person. Say so. Because then, right, you might be committing dhulm against the person. Because no one, no one, understand, not 99%, no one quotes 100% when they're carrying that type of message.

**[22:57]** They'll add a word. They'll add an emotion. They'll spice it up a little bit, even in the way that they quote it to you. No one is going to come and give you the, because someone who's messy won't stop at just the quotation of the word.

**[23:13]** You understand? So when you entertain that quotation, when you entertain that namimah, right, then you're once again throwing, you know, gasoline on the fire of fitna. You're going to make it worse. So what he's saying here is that you're going to say something, and what you say now, you might say it in anger.

**[23:31]** You might actually say something bad about that person. Now, here's the thing. Maybe what you said is true. But then that same messy person that came to you is going to go back to the other person and say, man, like, what that guy said about you, he threw you under the bus.

**[23:47]** He called you this. He called you that. Really? What happens is that by the time the fire of fitna has taken off, there's going to be, the structures will all be burned. It's going to be too hard to put the fire out and to actually salvage anything. Like, who said what?

**[24:02]** At that point, it's just war, right? Like, everyone's saying something about everyone, and people are fighting, and, you know, people are saying this about each other, and then people are lost and confused. That's why Imam Ibn Qudamah, may Allah have mercy on him, lists out these steps. Stop the fitna right when it starts. When someone comes to you and says, someone said this about you,

**[24:19]** مَنْ نَقَلَ إِلَيْكَ حَدِيثًا فَاعْلَمْ أَنَّهُ يَنْقِلُ إِلَىٰ غَيْرِكَ حَدِيثًا Someone comes to you and says something, مَنْ نَقَلَ إِلَيْكَ حَدِيثًا If someone comes to you carrying words about you from someone else, know that they carry your words to someone else.

**[24:37]** Because النمام لا يصدق A person who quotes the words of people to each other should never be believed. And Shaykh, that's why, should we go to thiqat al-mutaddin? Absolutely. This is actually, because who should be the trustworthy around you?

**[24:54]** You want to surround yourself with trustworthy people, right? But sometimes we deceive ourselves with who is trustworthy really. So what is his perspective on it? So this is a statement. Let me put it in context as well. We live, we talk about a society similar to ours, very diverse in terms of religion.

**[25:10]** Right. So you have Muslims, you have Christians, you have Jews, right? Jews lived under Muslims in Andalus with a lot of dignity and honor, right? You had Christians that lived there. It was a multi-faith society. So listen to his words.

**[25:26]** By the way, these words need a lot of context. قال رحمه الله ثقة المتدين وإن كان على غير دينك He said, put your trust in a person who is religious, even if they practice a religion other than yours. ولا تثق بالمستخف وإن أظهر أنه على دينك

**[25:44]** And don't trust a person who is deficient, who's like... al-mustakhiff here is someone who is deficient with the law, like someone who is not religious. Not taking religion seriously. They don't take religion seriously. Like someone who's a bad person, even if they're a Muslim, don't trust them because they're Muslim.

**[26:01]** But instead, surround yourself with people of integrity. By the way, subhanAllah, there's so much to unpack here. Because I don't want this point to be misunderstood. There's a context here. al-mar'u 'ala din khalilihi You are on the religion of your close friends.

**[26:16]** So don't take this statement and say, that's why I don't have any Muslim friends. I don't go to the masjid. Right. I don't go to those circles of... Because everyone in the masjid is a hypocrite. Everyone in the masjid is a hypocrite. All those people who pray are like this. All those women who wear hijab are like this.

**[26:33]** Right. You see people throw these types of statements out. What are they actually doing in the process? They're justifying their own deficiencies. When you say all those people who pray are like this, that's because you don't want to pray. When you say all those women who wear hijab are like this, that's because you don't want to wear hijab. Let's not fool anybody. All those people who go to the masjid are like this.

**[26:50]** That's not what he's saying here because the previous chapter, he was talking about what? Immersing yourself amongst the people of 'ilm. But he's saying that you get to a point in life where you just want to be around people of integrity. You just want to be around people that are not two-faced. You just want to enjoy the company of people

**[27:07]** that are straight shooters, that are just principled human beings. And subhanAllah, anyone will tell you that the older they got, the more that they started to value friendships on the basis of that. Like someone that I could trust in life. Someone that I felt like wasn't going to cheat me. Someone that I felt like wasn't going to deceive me.

**[27:23]** I take far more comfort in that person than I do with someone who supposedly belongs to my fraternity, but has no principle and integrity whatsoever. Especially in the cultures of tullab al-'ilm and students of knowledge, because it's messy. It gets really, really messy,

**[27:38]** even amongst scholars and students of knowledge and things of that sort. You just start valuing a good Muslim, a person of good integrity. And that is the way the Prophet (ﷺ), marked the end of times. When amanah is lost, when trust is lost. That people are not trustworthy anymore.

**[27:53]** And what's the number one betrayal of trust, by the way? What's the number one betrayal of trust? People that don't keep secrets. Right? Al-majalis bil-amanah. Gatherings are by trust. So people that take words in private

**[28:09]** and then publicize and cause fitan amongst people. Right? They go to another person, they cause devastation amongst people. So at some point he's like, you just want to be around people of principle. You want to be around people of integrity. And the way we should internalize these things, like to proceed the chapter

**[28:25]** that we're gonna come to tomorrow, is you be that person. You be that person of integrity. You be that person that people can trust. You be that person whose secrets are safe with you. You be that person that doesn't, you know, screenshot and forward things. You be that person who isn't messy.

**[28:41]** Secret recording and taping and all this stuff. You be that person. That is something that's so beautiful about the Prophet (ﷺ) as well. His enemies. Can you imagine? Like, I think sometimes we pass over these moments in Sira and we don't look at the way

**[28:57]** that they're relevant to our context. You're trying to kill the Prophet (ﷺ) but at the same time you trust him with your amanah. Like the Prophet (ﷺ), had precious belongings of some of the same people that were trying to kill him.

**[29:12]** Some of the same people that killed his family members, that boycotted him, that ran out his companions, and now were ultimately causing his hijrah. And what does the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) do? He leaves 'Ali (رضي الله عنه) behind to go take back people's belongings to them. Wow!

**[29:28]** Like, if I've got Abu Jahl's watch, right? I'm not giving Abu Jahl his watch back. Like, Abu Jahl is trying to kill me, right? But that's the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ), he's showing that he always has the moral high ground. That he will be al-Ameen, as-Sadiq al-Ameen, no matter how dirty these people get.

**[29:44]** He'll hold the high ground. The Prophet (ﷺ) will be the truthful one and the trustworthy one, (ﷺ). We have to put a disclaimer over here, though. As long as you know that the religion of this person also holds a high standard of akhlaq and character and integrity as well. Because unfortunately, sometimes, some religions,

**[30:03]** they promote cheating, you know, those who are not from your religion. Or hiding or lying to them or whatever that is. So if someone belongs to such a belief system, that if you can cheat others out of their money, out of their property and so on,

**[30:20]** then you don't trust them. Another thing Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, was asked in regards to women removing their hijab in front of other women, right? So he was asked, are Muslim women, are they allowed to remove their hijab in front of non-Muslim women?

**[30:35]** Because in the ayah, it says, aw nisa'ihinna, which means their women. What's the meaning of that? Does it mean they're women, meaning the believing women, the Muslim women? His answer was brilliant. He said, it's actually, it all depends on their trustworthiness. He said, because sometimes you find a trustworthy

**[30:51]** woman from the people of the Scripture, Ahl al-Kitab, is more trustworthy than a Muslim woman. Because then the Muslim woman who is not necessarily adhering to the principles of the deen, she might not keep that secret. She might go out and start speaking out about her, for example. So that's why he said, a matter of trust.

**[31:06]** Which he concludes that paragraph by saying, man istakhaffa bi hurumati Allah ta'ala fa-la ta'manhu 'ala shay'in mimma tashfiqu 'alayhi. He goes, look, anybody who takes the commandments of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala lightly, anyone who does not adhere to the commandments of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, take them greatly,

**[31:23]** says don't you ever trust them about anything you care about. If you care about something, someone doesn't care about Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, why would they care about you? So be careful with that. Now, should we go to the next point? Roger. So, the next point is an interesting point.

**[31:40]** It's kind of like, out of the context of this discussion over here. I wanna see if you guys can figure out something here, he speaks right now, he gave us a window about the culture of his time, and about technology that existed in his time.

**[31:56]** So he says here, ashbahu ma ra'aytu bid-dunya khayal adh-dhil. Ashbahu ma ra'aytu bid-dunya khayal adh-dhil. He goes, this dunya looks like khayal adh-dhil. Now the English translation you have in your book translates that into shadow theater.

**[32:12]** It's a shadow theater. But when we look at it, he doesn't talk about shadow theater, he's actually talking about stroboscopic disks, which is the beginning of what we know today as motion pictures.

**[32:28]** And he described that, he goes, wa huwa tamathilu murakabatin 'ala mathanati khashab. It's just like figurines, or figures that you create, and you put them around a desk, and then he says, you start to daru bisura, you spin this rapidly,

**[32:43]** wa taghibu ta'ifah, wa tabdu ukhra. You see some, and you kind of like, others disappear. Basically it creates that motion. I mean, it's literally like the motion pictures, he's talking about the spinning tape and the optical illusions in the process. The motion picture that we know today as movies,

**[32:59]** as cartoon, all of that stuff, when you talk about the beginning of this invention, I want to look at it, I want to see when was the first mention of such an invention in our modern time. Do you guys know what time was that? Anyone can give an idea?

**[33:16]** 1820-something, 1820-something. Ibn Hazm died, he died actually 1064. 800 years ago, 800 years ago in Andalus, they had what the Belgian physicist,

**[33:33]** and Australian physicist as well, created, and they claimed that to be theirs. And Ibn Hazm, rahimahullah, spoke about this in another book as well of his, and he attributed that invention, look the amanah of the Muslims, subhanAllah. He attributed that invention to, I believe,

**[33:49]** India or China, he said this was brought to them from the east, from India or China, to Egypt. And from Egypt it traveled all the way to Spain, and in the Spanish royal court, they enjoyed watching these things as an entertainment. And that was 800 years ago, subhanAllah.

**[34:06]** But these people are now the Europeans, they found those manuscripts probably, and they did not really attribute that to anybody. Plagiarism basically. So that's what he was talking about right now. Let's talk about what he means by this right now, the statement, he goes, look, this dunya is so deceiving, it's like optical illusion.

**[34:23]** It's like optical illusion, this dunya is like optical illusion. You see things, you think they're gonna stay forever. Then what happens after some time? It disappears. And then when you lose hope, then another temptation comes up. And then it disappears, and another one,

**[34:38]** and then another one. So as long as these temptations, these maras, they spin rapidly in your life, you always see something entertaining. And be careful and watch how you live your life. It's almost like, it's like puppet shows, right?

**[34:55]** It's unbelievable, subhanallah. So the next section, it's basically like a commentary on the other side, like it's a commentary, honestly, on Kitab al-Ruh, in a way, like what we've been talking about with the barzakh. So he says, taala ta'ajubi fil mawt,

**[35:11]** that I became extremely fascinated with death. Like you can see the jump, right? So he's talking about the mirage of this life and the mirage of people in this life. So he says, taala ta'ajubi fil mawt, wa thalika anni sahibtu aqwaman sakhbat al-ruhi liljasad, min sidq al-mawadda,

**[35:26]** falamma maatu ra'aytu ba'damahum fil naum. He said that that's because I had friends that were so close to me, and they were as close as the soul is to the body. And then after they died, some of them appeared to me in my dreams, others did not appear to me in my dreams.

**[35:42]** So I dreamt about some of my friends when they passed away, and I didn't dream about others. qaala waqad kuntu aahatu ba'damahum fil hayati ala tazawwuri fil manami ba'da al-mawt. And we made a promise, some of us made a promise amongst ourselves to visit one another after death,

**[35:58]** that we would come to visit one another after death, in amkan athalik, if we were capable of doing so. qaala falam araahu fil naumi ba'da an taqadamani ila dari al-akhira fala adri anasiya am shughila. So he says that, so some of them did not come to visit me

**[36:16]** in my dreams after death, so I do not know, is it because they forgot to visit me, or did they become preoccupied? Now, by the way, this Imam al-Qayyim (رحمه الله) has a long commentary on this notion of the visiting of the souls at death. I've been talking about it

**[36:31]** in the Ramadan series quite a bit, like even today, the riwayah of Asim al-Jahdari (رحمه الله), who says he and his friends made a deal that whoever dies first will visit the other in a dream. So he says two years later, basically to tell the other person what happened after death,

**[36:47]** he said, for two years he didn't visit me, but then my wife had a dream about him knocking at the door, and he told my wife about everything that happened to him after he passed away. So Imam al-Qayyim (رحمه الله) has a lengthy discussion about the souls meeting, hadith of the Prophet (ﷺ) Muslim, Imam Ahmad, about that the souls meet.

**[37:05]** And one of the things that's disputed amongst the scholars is does the soul actually have the choice after it passes away to appear in someone's dream, or is it completely out of their grip? And Imam al-Qayyim (رحمه الله) says that this is inconclusive.

**[37:21]** He says, we don't know. This is a matter of the ghayb at that point, that once a person has passed away, even though we have ithbat, we have confirmation that you could see someone, and the souls could meet at the time of the dream, but we don't have anything conclusive that the person that passed away

**[37:37]** can actually choose to come to your dream. So like I said in the series, don't get mad at someone that passed away. We're like, why did you come to this person? They don't have the choice that we know of to come in a dream. Also, sometimes you dream about a person,

**[37:53]** and they're a representation of something. It's symbolic of something else. Whereas sometimes it could be an actual, as Ibn Abbas says. An actual meeting of the souls versus the representation of that person, representing something to you, whether it's in their name or an image or some sort of symbol beyond.

**[38:10]** This is something we have to understand. Ibn Hazm (رحمه الله), he believes in that because of his theological background. Ibn Hazm is zahiri, literalist. So in the hadith of the Prophet (ﷺ), ...like recruited armies or ranks.

**[38:30]** The souls that look alike in terms of qualities and akhlaq and manners and so on, will find joy in being together, will be joined together. And those who don't share the same quality will be dispersed away from each other. So he believes in that. Also, hadith of the Prophet (ﷺ),

**[38:46]** he says, when a person goes to sleep, that soul, which we don't know how, really, because again, in al-Ruh, Allah says, the secret of the ruh is with Allah 'azza wa jal. But that ruh partially leaves the body. That's why this is called al-mawta al-sughra,

**[39:02]** the minor death when you go to sleep. He said the souls, they now, they travel in that realm, the spiritual realm. So there will be meetings and getting to know each other and so on, which is why his theory about love, Ibn Qayyim also commented on it as well, too.

**[39:18]** From the book of Radul Tawq al-Hamama, The Ring of the Dove, Ibn Hazm (رحمه الله), he speaks about what is known today in English literature as the soul mate. Why do you think the soul mate word came from? It came from Ibn Hazm, by the way. Europeans, they took that theory from Ibn Hazm 800 years ago,

**[39:36]** when he wrote in his book that he believes that the people, these souls, they meet in the upper universe. And if they meet in the upper universe, and then once they go back again to their bodies on this earth, and they meet in physical realm,

**[39:51]** qawiyyat al-muhabba, that love is intensified, because now it's the physical and the spiritual. He says, but if the souls never meet in the spiritual realm, and then they meet on earth, it's incomplete, because the souls did not recognize each other prior to that moment.

**[40:09]** So obviously that's his theory about the meaning of a soul mate. So yeah, if you want to keep waiting for your soul mate, you're going to have to have some information from the spiritual realm. But how can you guarantee that? There is no way you can find the answer to this. But Ibn Hazm, may Allah have mercy on him, believes that this is how things work out.

**[40:26]** Ibn Qayyim says, well, not necessary. His theory about what makes love strong, he says it's actually its compatibility. The more you share in terms of qualities with each other, goals, dreams, aspirations, and so on, the better the relationship is going to be,

**[40:42]** and the more solid it will be, insha'Allah. So once again, Ibn Hazm, may Allah have mercy on him, because of his theological belief, this is why he says, look, I was waiting for my friend to come, but I think he got busy with the Jannah and, masha'Allah, the reward. So he's too busy for that.

**[40:57]** So he's not interested in visiting me anymore. Tariq, Shaykh, I want to summarize the next section, maybe paraphrase it a bit, so we can go to the last point about Iblis. But it's so powerful. So he says, غفلة النفس ونسيانها في دار الابتلاء ما كانت فيه قبل حلولها في الجسد

**[41:13]** He says that the oblivion of the soul, who forgets the state that it was in in the world of temptation, while it's waiting for the resurrection of the body. He says, كغفلة من وقع في طين غمر عن كل ما عهد وعرف قبل ذلك

**[41:29]** is like a person who starts to drown into mud. Like, think about quicksand, someone that drowns into mud or quicksand. He says something super profound here. So what he says is that, I studied sleeping souls,

**[41:44]** people that go to sleep. And he said, what I was amazed by is how quickly their senses into the unseen sharpen when they sleep and how they forget what their body was going through just a moment before. By the way, subhanallah, it's one of the most hopeful things when you think about the shuhada.

**[42:00]** Right? Like he's saying, look at a sleeping person. The minute that you dip into a deep sleep and your senses of that life, of that realm start to sharpen, you forget all the pain that you were in just a moment ago. Like if you went to sleep with a headache,

**[42:15]** you don't feel that headache when you're sleeping anymore. You don't feel that pain when you're sleeping anymore. You take the right painkiller, it knocks you out. You're in another world altogether. And that could have been just a moment ago. It could have happened so quickly. So, subhanallah, think about death then.

**[42:30]** Think about a person who passes away. How much pain did they really feel when they passed away? We see bodies torn to pieces. We see some horrific imagery. And especially for the shaheed, the Prophet (ﷺ) mentions that he sees his place in Jannah at the first strike.

**[42:47]** He sees his place in Jannah at the first strike. So the moments that follow immediately cause him to forget everything that happened in this dunya. And that's why the Prophet (ﷺ) also mentioned on the Day of Judgment, يُعْتَى بِأَشَدِّ النَّاسِ بَلَاءً a person that had the worst life, the most pain in this life.

**[43:04]** And some of the scholars said it's Ayyub (ﷺ). Some of them said we don't know. But a person who had the hardest life on earth will be dipped into a na'im, will be dipped into Jannah one time. Right? And then will be told, هَلْ رَأَيْتَ بُؤْسًا قَطُّ

**[43:20]** Have you ever seen any hardship, any misery? And he'll say, what is hardship? I don't know what misery is. What are you talking about? He would have forgotten every hardship that happened to him. Right? So he's saying, I studied. He's talking about the temporary nature of life. Subhanallah, just think about sleep.

**[43:36]** And death is the greater sleep. So sleep is the minor death. Death is the greater sleep. When the senses of the unseen are sharpened, then the perception of the seen are put into perspective. And so the pain that you feel is temporary. Whether it's caused by people or whether it's caused by circumstance.

**[43:53]** The pain will go away. It's temporary. It's so temporary that you can escape it in a moment once Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala takes you to that next step in your existence. So shall we get to the last point insha'Allah? So Ibn Hazm, he concludes this part of the chapter.

**[44:09]** Before he starts talking about the definition of good qualities and his flaws, he says, I've never seen for the shaytan, uglier or worse or more foolish than two statements he threw on the tongues of those who follow him.

**[44:31]** The worst thing people can say to justify their wrongdoing. That's what he says. Like the most foolish things people say. The worst, the ugliest thing people say to justify their bad deeds are these two things. Number one, He says people, their excuse, well, someone did that before.

**[44:51]** Or it could be interpreted by saying, well, he started it first. Because that's the worst excuse you give yourself. Okay, let them start it first. If they disobey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in the way they treated you, you're still obliged to obey Allah 'azza wa jal in the way you apply to them.

**[45:09]** So you don't answer based on their standard of character. You answer based on your standard of character. If they decided to disobey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you always stay to obey Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So he says this excuse is a foolish excuse to say, well, they started it. Or someone did this before me.

**[45:25]** And the second excuse he says, the second thing he says, is this, He goes like, a person says, well, it's not my first time anyway. Like I've done that before. I know, I'm going to always do this.

**[45:41]** Like Ramadan is going to come to an end right now. Many, many people, like the shaytan is waiting for them at the door of the masjid in the night when the sun goes down. And the moment you leave the masjid, all these wasawis starts coming into your mind. And your justification, yeah, Ramadan is over.

**[45:58]** I know myself, you know, I'm always like this. I've done it before, so what's the difference, right? You start giving yourself all these excuses to go back again to old life that you departed in Ramadan. And you have alhamdulillah gone way far away from it. But now your excuse, I know myself.

**[46:14]** I've done it before. So it's going to happen again. Or, well, he started, she started it. These are the two most foolish statements people say and they give excuse to themselves for doing wrong things. So subhanallah, two things here. One of them is that usually you'll hurt other people because you were hurt by someone else.

**[46:35]** So it's not just that you're going to hurt the same person that you think hurt you and you'll go to an extreme. But when they say hurt people hurt people, you know, like people justify their evil to others because someone else was evil towards them. Even if they don't say that, right?

**[46:51]** I was treated this way, so I have to treat other people this way in order to survive. And he said what a silly excuse from Shaytan. Like that's not going to hold up on the Day of Judgment. Why did you hurt this person? Well, they hurt me, so I wronged them. No, no, no, you don't get to oppress someone who oppresses you.

**[47:06]** You can get justice, but you can't oppress. And you can't hurt someone else on the basis that you were hurt. And sometimes when you perpetuate those excuses in society, by the way, look, at the end of the day, if someone hurt a child, you don't say, well, he was hurt as a child and that excuses it.

**[47:21]** Absolutely doesn't excuse it from an Islamic perspective. He still has to go through his punishment. Now, you can talk about the system and how to break the cycle of pain. But at no point do you excuse the pain that was inflicted on an innocent person because you say, well, it was inflicted upon him and he was innocent by someone else.

**[47:38]** That doesn't work. That's the first one. The second one, truly, Shaykh, what you're mentioning, like, Shaytan will get you down to where he'll tell you you're bad. And you know you're bad. So while you're low, just go ahead and make the most of being low.

**[47:55]** Like, you've already sinned this way. You know, fine, one day you might go back to Allah, you might go back to the masjid, you might go back to your prayer, you might go back to being a religious person, but, hey, you've already opened this account. You might as well go ahead and open this account of evil, too.

**[48:10]** You've already gone so far here. You might as well go far here, too. You've already done this. You might as well do that because he identifies you or causes you to identify yourself as someone who's distant from Allah. So I'm, for now, while I'm here, I'm just going to go ahead and wreck everything.

**[48:25]** One of my favorite stories, I've shared it multiple times. In fact, when I teach Muqtasim ibn Harith al-Qasidi, is the story of Abu Bakr al-Shibli, rahimahullah. Imam al-Ghazali, rahimahullah, mentions it in his Ihya that Abu Bakr al-Shibli, rahimahullah, I believe it was Imam al-Ghazali who mentions it,

**[48:41]** but Abu Bakr al-Shibli, rahimahullah, was once traveling with some scholars, and they came across some highway robbers. So the robbers, you know, took them, tied them up, took everything, and so he says, while we're tied up and sitting there,

**[48:56]** like, you can imagine the situation, he says that the ringleader, like, think about a gang, right? A gang that just attacks a group of scholars, and we're all tied up. The gang leader, the head of the gang, wasn't eating and drinking. So everybody else was eating and drinking, but the main guy that was, like, commanding the operation wasn't eating and drinking.

**[49:16]** So he said, I got curious. I asked him, I said, hey, how come you're not eating and drinking? He said, I'm fasting right now. He was like, what? You're fasting? Like, okay, we talk about don't backbite when you fast. Please don't attack Shaykh Yasir outside, steal his books, tie him up, and, you know, and then say I'm fasting.

**[49:36]** Allahumma inni sa'im. What kind of fast is that? I'm fasting, and you're attacking a group of people, you're stealing their stuff, and you consider yourself fasting? And he says to him something so profound. He says, listen, لقد أغلقت بيني وبين الله أبواب كثيرة.

**[49:54]** He said, I've shut so many doors between me and Allah. Meaning, I used to be a good person. Maybe I used to be someone who was known in the masjid, student of knowledge, used to pray a lot, give charity. So I've shut many doors between me and Allah. He said, I left this one door open between me and Allah, hoping that maybe He'll call me back to Him through it.

**[50:15]** And Abu Bakr as-Shibli, rahimahullah, says, the next year I saw him at Hajj. And he said, I saw him in the front row in Arafah. I saw him in Muzdalifah. I saw him in Mina. I saw him crying in the front row in front of the Ka'bah.

**[50:30]** And he said, I couldn't help myself in Tawaf. Imagine, he goes and he stops him. And he says, what happened? He said, remember that door between me and Allah? Alhamdulillah, Allah called me back through it. So I repented to Allah. Shaytan will tell you, shut all the doors between you and Allah when you're low because you're low anyway.

**[50:47]** You might as well devastate yourself further. And then one day when you decide to repent, you can repent. Allah 'Azza wa Jall says, leave those doors open. Don't shut the doors. So you know what? If someone comes to you and says, why do you even pray? Why are you even praying? You're committing this major sin.

**[51:02]** Why do you still pray? Why do you still fast? Why do you even, why do you still wear hijab? Tricks of Shaytan, by the way. You're not worthy of that. You don't live up to, you don't mark, you're not really that person. Why do you still do this? Why do you still do that?

**[51:17]** Know that that person is the voice of Shaytan in your head. Absolutely not. Like this is a door between me and Allah. I'm going to leave this door open. And insha'Allah, the other doors to Shaytan will shut in my life. But don't allow yourself to be pulled down even further than you already are.

**[51:32]** Bismillah. So let's go to the question, Shaykh, right now. While we get the microphones ready for the brothers and sisters, insha'Allah wa ta'ala. Honestly, Shaykh, as I'm looking at these questions I'm receiving from online audience and from the brothers and sisters with us here, I can't help but recognize or at least see most of these questions

**[51:49]** are speaking about a very painful reality in our community. People are talking about, you know, the pain they have gotten and they have seen and they have received from family members. Like I have in front of me here about 15 questions,

**[52:04]** probably more than half of them talking about untrustworthy family members, generational trauma, trauma from my parents, from the closest people to me. I mean, really, Shaykh, this is a disastrous situation in our communities.

**[52:19]** I mean, instead of really answering one question, can we just comment on this thing? Sure. I think you should start, Shaykh. Bismillah. I mean, I'm going to come to the solution, but I want to hear your perspective on this. Look, my perspective on this is first and foremost, may Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala cure

**[52:34]** and heal all of these traumas and all of these pains and hardships. You know, I'll tell you, my first imam position, I was reflecting on my life, my first imam position was 19 years ago.

**[52:49]** And I remember, you know, big eyes, fresh, thinking what I thought were the problems of the community and like ready to give all these khutbas about this and about that. And then I started hearing things and I was like, wow, okay, we're actually,

**[53:07]** what I thought were the problems in our community and what are actually the problems in our community were two very different things. Right. And when you get into it, then you realize like we have deep problems. We have deep, deep pain. Most of it is within the household. Most of it is domestic pain caused by a parent, pain caused by a child,

**[53:24]** pain caused by a sibling and all sorts of traumas and pain. And that was like a crisis, not a crisis of faith for me, by the way. It's not that it caused me to question Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala, but it did cause me to sort of take a step back and question my entire approach to da'wah.

**[53:39]** Like I actually had to put all my books to the side for a moment and say everything that I thought I was going to teach for the next few years, I need to really reconsider how we deal with this. And I realized that when you look in the lives of the Companions of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ),

**[53:55]** you know, I'm only giving one facet of the answer, by the way, but like one of the reasons why I'm so obsessed with the lives of the Sahaba is that they were people. They were humans and they dealt with real people problems, betrayal, harm,

**[54:11]** internal, every type of pain, right? From parents, from siblings, from children, personality defects that they had to overcome, struggling to forgive people that caused them all sorts of issues. Like the Sahaba were people, they were human beings.

**[54:28]** I just realized Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) was dealing with real people with real problems. Like when Ibn Hazm, rahimahullah, is talking about forgiving people, he's not talking about forgiving someone that like talked bad about you online, he's talking about someone that killed your uncle. That's the type of stuff the Sahaba had to deal with.

**[54:43]** Like I have to pray next to someone that murdered my family and they became Muslim now. How do I forgive this person? Right, like they're talking about deep trauma. Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) was dealing with a community of people that came from real, real problems, deep pain.

**[54:58]** And the Qur'an spoke to that reality. So let's be real that the religion speaks to this type of pain. What I would say to our brothers and sisters who are going through this is take that pain and turn it into a mission to help everybody else

**[55:14]** that is struggling with that same pain. To heal yourself and to heal others. You could be shackled by that pain for the rest of your life and there will be plenty of justifications that you will find for yourself. Or you could take that pain and you could say I'm not going to let it shackle me further

**[55:29]** and I'm going to try to help other people that have been through that pain and show them a way towards healing. I'm going to heal myself and heal others as well. It's just like Subhana'Allah when you do da'wah, you solidify your own faith. When you teach, you solidify your own study. When you heal, you solidify your own healing.

**[55:45]** Alright, so let me be real with you all. I'm still reeling from the pain of losing my mother 18 years ago. I'm still reeling from that pain. Everything you see of me talking about it is me dealing with my own pain. That's just how we have to be with each other as a community.

**[56:01]** So take it as a lesson to heal yourself and to heal others and you'll find the answers, bi-idhn Allah ta'ala, in the deen. So my perspective on this subject, unfortunately, that we deal with a lot of trauma, especially from loved ones and close people and friends and family and so on.

**[56:16]** One more thing I noticed about our society today, we are a very fragile society. We're talking about not being used to negative emotions really. Right now people are oversensitive. Everything we go through, it hurts you, it breaks your heart, this and that.

**[56:32]** I don't mean here to undervalue and underestimate, really, I would say, the result of trauma and real pain that happens. So everybody goes through a different journey, right? But I deal with a lot of issues among people that can easily be overlooked.

**[56:49]** But because we are oversensitive, because we are, I would say, overly proud of ourselves and we have learned the concept of radical individualism. Individualism and being so independent, anything can hurt you, really. So the first message I want to give to my dear brothers and sisters out there, really, is that you need to grow a thicker skin, really.

**[57:09]** You need to learn that life is tough, it's not going to be that easy. It's not going to be that simple. You're going to be dealing with a lot of betrayals, like what Hazim talked about. You're going to be dealing with a lot of disappointments, so many of these things and so on. You need to be prepared to deal with difficult and negative emotions.

**[57:24]** That's the first message I want to give you all. The first thing. The second thing right now, when this happens to you, how do you deal with it? The way you deal with it, like Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala mentioned in the Qur'an, Allah commands you to practice justice, otherwise you have ihsan.

**[57:40]** So what is justice? Justice is when you take from people what they owe you, and you give them what you owe them. You owe someone an apology, they owe you an apology. You owe someone money, you take it from them, give it to them, like basically you come even with them.

**[57:56]** If that's the case, alhamdulillah we're good. Even Allah commands us in the Qur'an, وَإِنْ عَاقَبْتُمْ فَعَاقِبُوا بِمِثْلِ مَا عُوقِبْتُمْ بِهِ If you've been wronged, you are allowed to retaliate in an equal intensity of that wrong, for example. But don't go over that. So justice is the bare minimum and the obligation that all are required to adhere to.

**[58:17]** However, Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala commands us to do something better than that. Like better than justice? Yeah. He says ihsan. Ihsan, the whole creation was really based on ihsan, which means excellence and perfection in everything.

**[58:32]** Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala says about our creation, what did He say? He created life and death to test you, which of you is best in deed. He created life and death for that purpose. So He would try you, who's going to be the most muhsin, those who have ihsan in their deeds and their a'mal.

**[58:47]** And He says, "What is the reward for ihsan other than ihsan?" What is the reward for ihsan other than ihsan? Like for the good you do, we're going to provide you also with excellence as well too. So Allah recommends ihsan for us. Now in relation to this subject, how do we practice ihsan?

**[59:03]** Two things. If it's something that you owe, do what we call fadl, which means give and go beyond. You give and go beyond. If you owe somebody something, like if you owe someone money, give them money and a gift, for example, or a hug if you want to.

**[59:21]** You don't owe them the hug, but you owe them the money. That hug is considered fadl, and that's good for you. Now if they owe you something, treat them with al-'afu. Al-'afu is forgiveness. Now there is partial forgiveness and there is full forgiveness.

**[59:38]** The choice is yours. Now there is no obligation on you to forgive. There is no obligation on you, but it's highly recommended. In all our affairs, really, especially if you're capable of retaliating.

**[59:54]** Ibn Hazm, we skipped that part in the paragraph. He said that, look, being patient against somebody you have no way to retaliate from, that's weakness. That's inferiority, really.

**[1:00:09]** But showing patience against someone you're capable of retaliating against, but you choose not to, that's dignity and that's power. That's power. And then if you're equal, they say it's up to you.

**[1:00:26]** The whole idea here is that if you believe that you need to seek justice from the person who wronged you, whether it's a relative or otherwise, no shame, no harm, and you try to do that. The Sharia is on your side. But Allah commands you and recommends for you to do ihsan because that's what's going to make you have peace of mind.

**[1:00:43]** Look, justice is not going to bring you peace. Justice will only bring you your haqq back, that's all. It doesn't bring you peace because you have no control over it. But when you forgive, that's your choice. And because you're in control, definitely it's going to give you peace.

**[1:00:59]** So the answer to all these questions about my trauma because of my friends and my family, you want justice? Go for it. But the problem with justice, again, it doesn't bring you peace. The other thing, in the Arabic language, and that's very interesting in the language, the Arabic word for justice is what, anyone know?

**[1:01:18]** What is it? 'Adl. That's the word for justice, right? There's another word in the Quran about which sounds the same. It's called 'adl. 'Adl. So you have the word 'adl and 'adl.

**[1:01:34]** Can you guys tell the difference? Anyone can recognize the difference here? 'Adl, 'adl. The first one, justice, is ayn, dal, and lam. The second one is ayn, daad, lam.

**[1:01:49]** So 'adl, 'adl. And they are two opposite things. And they were mentioned in the Quran in the context of divorce, marriage and divorce. So 'adl is justice. 'Adl is abuse and injustice. And why 'adl and 'adl sound close and the same?

**[1:02:07]** Because this is exactly how thin that line between being fair and being unfair. In the process of you pursuing justice, you're going to trample over so many rights of others, justified by what?

**[1:02:22]** My grievances. Well, they started it, like the Shaitan said, right? They began with us. Look, in the process of being fair and just, you're going to cross a lot of lines. So be careful. Be careful you become the wrongdoer in the process to establish justice.

**[1:02:39]** That's how scary and dangerous sometimes seeking justice. So ihsan gives you more control and more peace of mind. That's just a general answer to all these questions that we have. So we take questions from the board. Can I add one more component to this, Shaykh? It's very important.

**[1:02:55]** There's real trauma. And then there are those that enter things that don't really equate. And they use big words to cover things that it's not fair to put in there. So words like abuse do get thrown around a little bit too much.

**[1:03:13]** So, for example, like a real example, someone says, my father abused me with religion. Now, there are people that actually abuse their kids and they actually do things that are abusive. And they might use the religion, and that's a painful trauma to recover from.

**[1:03:30]** How did your father abuse you with religion? He used to force me to go to Fajr every single morning. I'm serious about it. I'm not making this stuff up. What do you mean? Like, he used to wake me up and I didn't want to go. He used to force me to go to Fajr. And that made me hate Fajr.

**[1:03:46]** Like, he abused my sleep. I'm like, that's not abuse. When you call that abuse, you are actually ridiculing and insulting those who are actually abused by their parents. So, I do see sometimes in our community, to be very honest,

**[1:04:04]** that's why I'm saying, Ibn Hazm is talking about forgiveness for these major things. He's saying, I had a hard time. He talks about his own faults. We'll talk about it tomorrow. I had a hard time letting go of certain things. Like, these are people that tried to kill him. These are people that took away his home. These are people that did really, really horrible and awful things to him.

**[1:04:21]** And he's saying, I had a hard time with this. Right? There's real trauma. There's real abuse. There's real oppression. And then there are people that kind of latch on to those terms. In the arena of parents and children, in the arena of spouses, in the arena of friends.

**[1:04:36]** And that's not fair to sort of ride those trains. Right? It's not fair to those that are actual victims within these different domains. So, be very careful not to qualify something as falling into one of these categories when it really doesn't.

**[1:04:51]** Like, there has to be a Sharia weight to some of this stuff. Because it can't just be subjective altogether. Also, I want to make sure that we don't miss this point here.

**[1:05:06]** That those who are really going through serious trauma, I hope that you guys understand that you really need to see professionals. You have to go to professionals. You go to a therapist. Seek, of course, you know, the treatment in a professional way, in a professional manner. In addition to the spiritual healing. Go to the imam. Go to the shaykh. Find, alhamdulillah, a good Sharia consultation with that matter.

**[1:05:24]** That doesn't mean that you're not going to go to professionals to help you patch all these wounds. Otherwise, if you keep all these doors open, no matter how much you go forward, you can always be kind of tied down to these dead weights, unfortunately.

**[1:05:41]** So, may Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala make it easy for all brothers who go through this pain. Can we have a question from the brother or sister, inshallah? Where's the microphone? Go ahead. Assalamu alaikum. I was going to ask a question. As Imam Umar said, that Shaitan tries to drag us down and we live in a world, like, full of temptations.

**[1:06:02]** How can a person start with, like, the first step they should take, even though, like, they try a lot to be close to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala by prayer, du'a, qiyam al-layl, and everything. But they just don't feel it deep in their heart. So, the first thing is awareness.

**[1:06:18]** And that's why knowledge is so important. The knowledge of the tricks of Shaitan, the knowledge of the mastery of soul, the knowledge of the ways of the Prophet (ﷺ). After awareness comes determination, like it's a mindset. After mindset comes practice.

**[1:06:34]** After practice, it settles in. It actually becomes an absorbed reality. It's just like how initially when you're praying, you know, tarawih, for example, like, you're just trying to get over the pain of standing for so long, right? But then if you start to understand the words, you start to actually read the chapter and the translation of the chapter before you come to tarawih, you can now start to enjoy the recitation.

**[1:06:55]** Because you've gotten over the physical tiredness. So, first it's knowledge. Then it's, you know, determination that I'm going to actually do this. Then it's practice.

**[1:07:10]** And then after practice, with some time, these things become real. When it comes to the virtues, the Prophet (ﷺ) says, "Indeed, knowledge is through seeking knowledge and forbearance is through practicing forbearance." This is one of my favorite hadiths, by the way. Like, it is truly one of my favorite hadiths.

**[1:07:25]** The Prophet (ﷺ) said, knowledge is through seeking knowledge and forbearance, hilm. Hilm is being patient with people. It's exactly what we're talking about here. The virtue that summarizes everything that we're talking about here is hilm. It's to be patient with the people. You learn to become a patient person with people by practicing patience.

**[1:07:43]** Meaning what? Whoever seeks a good quality will eventually have that quality unlocked for them. And whoever tries to avoid an evil quality will eventually be spared from that evil quality. What that means is that you practice gratitude in small things in life,

**[1:07:59]** and then you can become grateful for big things in life. You practice patience with small things in life, and then you can practice patience with major tribulations in life. So if little things annoy you, and you're not trying to, for example, be patient with the small things that happen on a day-to-day basis,

**[1:08:14]** you're going to be in a lot of trouble when Allah tests you with something major. Right? And if you're not grateful for small things in life, then how are you suddenly going to be grateful when something major happens to you? Likewise with every good quality. And the ilmah mentioned of this hadith, hilm, is looked at as the impossible quality to attain.

**[1:08:34]** You know what that means? How many people in life have you ever met that successfully beat a bad temper? Very few people. It's like the mastery of self. To find someone that had a bad temper and that conquered their bad temper is of the hardest human experiments to discover.

**[1:08:54]** You can find someone that started to pray. You can find someone that gave up zina and gambling, or someone that started coming to the masjid, or someone that started dressing different. But there are very few people that you'll meet in life that conquered a bad temper. And the Prophet (ﷺ) is saying, even that is attainable.

**[1:09:09]** But you've got to work very, very, very hard. So you've got to catch yourself. If you get really annoyed, very easily, catch yourself. I seek forgiveness from Allah, I seek refuge with Allah from Shaitan the accursed, praise be to Allah. Catch yourself, catch yourself, catch yourself. And then, when a major musibah hits you, you catch yourself.

**[1:09:26]** Right? So every good quality is attainable. But the same way that you study knowledge to not be ignorant, you study virtuous qualities in order to actually attain those virtuous qualities. May Allah reward you, dear Shaykhs, for wisdom words.

**[1:09:43]** One of the tough things I have been dealing with, whenever I hate or dislike someone's character, they even know about it, like even before starting a conversation with me. The question is, is it okay to reply to low character people's behavior with goodness?

**[1:10:04]** When you don't like their character and their actions, and if you do it, will it not make you a hypocrite or at least a double-faced person? Or if you respond to them likewise, how will your character beautify or beauty come to the picture?

**[1:10:24]** The Prophet (ﷺ), one time he received a guest coming. When he was told who the person was, he said, "What a bad brother of the tribe." Like, what a horrible person, basically. And then when he came into the house, he spoke with him nicely,

**[1:10:41]** and he was very hospitable towards him. When he left, Aisha (رضي الله عنها) told the Prophet (ﷺ), "O Messenger of Allah, you said what you said about him, and then you extended kindness to him in speech." And you speak to him like this. He said, "Indeed, the worst of people are those whom people abandon due to their evil character."

**[1:10:57]** That the worst of the people are those who are being avoided because of their evil deeds or evil character. Like you don't want to deal with their mouth. Absolutely. So I'm just not even going to try to correct you because I don't feel like dealing with your mouth. Just go. So if someone with bad character comes to you, do I have to face them with the same attitudes like they are,

**[1:11:14]** or should I absorb that shock and just treat them with care and kindness and so on? Honestly, it depends. It's a case-by-case scenario over here. And it depends on who the person is. Because some people, they need to learn their lesson as well too. So it really depends on what the situation is.

**[1:11:29]** So that's my understanding to this point, Janashir. I think it's spot on. The Prophet (ﷺ) dealt with different people based on different circumstances. And that's why we're not books, we're people. And you've got to read a situation sometimes and think about what the intended output is. So, in Surah Al-Haqqah, it says "Ansur akhaka dhaliman aw madhlumin."

**[1:11:45]** Help your brother whether he's oppressed or oppressing. So that means, in theory, that when someone is transgressing in front of you, you want to stop them from transgressing and say, hey, listen, it's not okay. But at the same time, Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) is saying that there are some people that, like,

**[1:12:01]** you know if you even try to correct them, they're just going to blow up even further. And even Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) is saying, that's a really terrible person. You're just like, you know what, I just don't feel like dealing with your mouth. So, unfortunately, what ends up happening is that some people that have bad character

**[1:12:19]** end up living their lives in oblivion because no one dares to correct them anymore. Everyone just kind of is on eggshells around them. Like, I just don't want to mess with you. And that's a terrible state to be in. And everyone should actually analyze themselves and say, am I that person? Who, like, people are like walking on eggshells around me.

**[1:12:36]** Because they don't want me to blow my, you know, top and then start, like, acting in a certain way. And may Allah protect us from being those people. Ameen. Shaykh, I want to take this question and maybe comment on it a little bit. The last one, inshallah, that I hear. We live in a society where people can belittle us if we don't reach our milestones,

**[1:12:54]** like marriage, jobs, and so on. How can we learn to avoid peer pressure and live on our own terms and values? I want to make my comments. I'm a very confrontational person when it comes to these matters. So, bear with me. Please, yani.

**[1:13:09]** There's a book out there. You can look it up. It's called White Fragility. We have that same mindset. It's not about the color of the skin, really. It's about the color of the mind, really. So, we're very fragile sometimes in many ways. That's number one. The second thing, unfortunately, as a Muslim society, Muslim community living in the west over here,

**[1:13:29]** we're not living by our values anymore. We're living by foreign values. Let me give you examples. Like, for example, Islamically speaking, you become a mukallaf at what age, ajma'a? Anyone know? Mukallaf, which means accountable to your actions before Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala,

**[1:13:46]** and before the law. At what age? Puberty. And what is the age of puberty, physiologically speaking? What is the age of puberty, the average age of puberty? 12, 13, depends, right? For the lady to reach her period and the man, wet dreams?

**[1:14:01]** That's the first thing. Islamically speaking, maturity also coincides with biological puberty. As Allah says in [An-Nisa 4:6], "Wa ibtalu al-yatama hatta idha balaghul-nikaha fa in anasta minhum rushdan

**[1:14:16]** fa dfa'u alayhim amwalahum." Test the orphans. Test them. Until they reach their puberty, if you sense maturity from them, give them their money. The money that you were holding, until they reach that age, give it to them. At what age would that be, Haji Imam?

**[1:14:32]** 13, 14, 15, doesn't matter the number. What matters is the maturity level. So we are now living at different generations coming right now, living at different values, not coming from the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). Another example.

**[1:14:47]** Our kids, alhamdulillah, right now when they reach the age of puberty, of course, obviously, we delay their marriages, right? Why? Because they have to finish college first. Why do they have to finish college first? To secure a job, which is true. There's no doubt about it.

**[1:15:02]** What on earth is preventing young men from seeking jobs while they're in college? Why do you have to wait until you finish college to start making money? But we live in a society right now that's telling you, no, no, no, as long as you're in college, don't distract yourself.

**[1:15:17]** Just focus on your school. But they're living their life outside of school, actually, hours. It's just like having fun, having plenty of space and time, subhanallah. We're pushing our daughters and our brothers as well away from their main purpose in this life. We're delaying them becoming mature and adult and productive members of our society.

**[1:15:37]** So, we've come to these milestones. I hear you. I agree with you. But I don't want to go by the milestones of the society. I want to see what Allah (ﷻ) tells me and Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) is telling me. So, for me, getting married is also considered like a religious obligation.

**[1:15:54]** If I can, then I should do that. But now we live in a time when everybody is actually avoiding that. Getting married because I still want to live my life. I want to just enjoy once I reach that limit or when I get this much money. So, now we're creating a new system for ourselves and creating these milestones that if you don't hit those milestones, then you're not being successful.

**[1:16:17]** The definition of success for a Muslim, a jama'ah, comes from the Qur'an and the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). I don't care what people say. And we began our discussion here with this. The first discussion we came with in this series over here is that you don't worry about what people say as long as you're pleasing Allah (ﷻ).

**[1:16:35]** So, that's my take on this question, Shaykh. I don't know. I'm trying to think about how to word this, Shaykh. I feel like there's a difference between... Feel free to disagree with me. It's okay. It's okay. Do I ever disagree with you, Shaykh? I don't know. Have we ever argued? Yeah, right?

**[1:16:50]** There's a difference between the societal set of values and then ridiculing people as individuals not knowing their circumstances. And I think that's the thing that we have problems with.

**[1:17:05]** That's a point. Some people have their own circumstances. And then it's just annoying. You end up annoying people, bothering them, pestering them. And what does that do? It just creates hostility in society. It creates resentment.

**[1:17:22]** It bears all sorts of negative sentiments in our community and in our societies. And there are people that have circumstances in every single one of these domains. And so, I think that there's something to be said as well just about people being really nosy.

**[1:17:39]** When Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said, One of the signs of a person's goodness in their Islam is, like, mind your own business. For real, like, mind your own business. You don't have to comment on people's lives. You don't have to comment on,

**[1:17:56]** So, when's this going to happen? So, when's that happen? What happened here? No, but we have to have an opinion for everything and about everything in this life. So, I think that's really like, at the end of the day, Shaykh, when you look at people, and again, that's why I love the Companions of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ).

**[1:18:12]** Very different circumstances. Very different pathways to Jannah. Very different, like, life. When I say life gave everyone a different slot, like, life gave a different set of circumstances to many of them. So, there are, like, if you look at the four women that are perfect in their Iman, right?

**[1:18:31]** SubhanAllah, their circumstances are so different. Khadijah is married to Khayru Khalqillah, the best of Allah's creation, Muhammad (ﷺ), and that was her perfection of Iman. Asiya is married to the worst human being ever, Fir'aun, and that was her path to Allah (ﷻ).

**[1:18:52]** Fatima was the daughter of the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ). You have Maryam, the best of all women, right? I mean, she has a circumstance. The point is that people have different slates.

**[1:19:07]** So, we have to find a balance. I don't disagree with anything you said, actually. You have to have a societal value, and then you have to understand individual circumstances, and people also need to just stop being so nosy. And stop being like, so if you're going to walk up to someone and say, so, are you married yet? You better have, like, a solution.

**[1:19:23]** Like, are you coming with a proposal, or you got something to talk about, or are you just trying to mess with that person's head? Right? So, you got a job yet? You know? Do you have one for me? Like, are you coming with a solution, like, to help me get an income, or are you just trying to mess with me, or ridicule me, or create some sort of cute conversation?

**[1:19:41]** So, people need to also learn to mind their own business. If you don't have... "Man kana yu'minu billahi wa al-yawmi al-akhiri falyaqul al-khayra aw liyasmut." Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, say something good, or just be quiet. Like, silence is a manhaj. Silence is a methodology.

**[1:19:57]** Just learn to be quiet about people, and don't stick your nose into everything, and don't talk to people about their lives, unless you have some sort of benefit, something to offer. Otherwise, you're just ridiculing people, you're just making fun of people, you're just messing with people, you might be hurting someone, injuring someone.

**[1:20:13]** Be helpful, be beneficial in your conversations with people. So that's something, and again, there's no contradiction whatsoever. Societal values, and then individual circumstances, and then how you intervene in that regard. Like, make sure that you're always intervening in a good way, and trying to promote something in society that is of khair,

**[1:20:31]** by being part of the solution, not ridiculing people. To the last point, I think that's the most valuable thing about this matter right now. We don't know the people's individual circumstances. Some people, they don't have the same support system that you have. Some people are just converts in our community, they don't have anybody around them, subhanallah.

**[1:20:49]** Some brothers, their families are all overseas, and they're on their own over here. So we don't know the individual circumstances, so we cannot really hold them to the same milestones, like, mashallah, those who have all the support in this society. But at the same time, we as individuals, we need to hold ourselves to different standards.

**[1:21:07]** Not the people's standard, but the Qur'an, the Sunnah standards. Like, your value system should not be just what people see, it's the understanding of success. Because that's maybe temporary, but what you have in the Qur'an, the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), and if you're going to be bringing criticism or maybe praise to somebody,

**[1:21:25]** maybe you suggest something as a solution, inshallah, be part of the solution, not just contribute to the problem. One more thing, Shaykh, I know we're over time. Sometimes, like, that mean thing, like, what is it with the culture, like, you see someone, and, oh, mashallah. You could have, you just could have destroyed that person.

**[1:21:42]** Like, it's, like, why is it that we just always have to have commentary on people? Like, it's embedded in Muslim culture sometimes, too. Right? Like, it's weird. It's strange. This is sometimes how people break silence and start a conversation. Yeah, like, it's better to be quiet.

**[1:21:57]** Oh, mashallah, you gain weight. Oh, mashallah, you lost weight. Oh, my God. It's like, that's the opener. Assalamu alaikum, you've lost weight or you've gained weight. And you've just destroyed that person. Like, you're really hurting people. SubhanAllah, like, that's the, on Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), you look at him, like, he was never injurious, alayhi assalatu wa assalam, and that's the perfection of character.

**[1:22:15]** Like, you never left the gathering with Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) feeling low. Even his jokes made you feel better about yourself. Like, he joked in a way that made you feel good about yourself, not in a way that hurt you. SubhanAllah, I was watching, by the way, I had a dream of Shaykh Abu Ishaq, rahimahullah, last night.

**[1:22:33]** It was a beautiful dream. Abu Ishaq Al-Huwaini, rahimahullah. And I was watching the clip of him talking about Julaybib (رضي الله عنه), and the Shaykh, like, was so moved with the story of Julaybib, who was the Companion that used to be hurt by the people's comments.

**[1:22:48]** And the Shaykh cried so much when he was recounting his story, he had to cut the interview. And that was Shaykh Abu Ishaq had a very soft heart, rahimahullah. And I was just watching that interview, and I was like, what a beautiful heart. And what a beautiful heart that he loved, being the heart of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ).

**[1:23:05]** Where he knew, like, this is a person that gets hurt. This is a person who people throw comments towards, and they don't think it's a big deal. Like, can you imagine Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud (رضي الله عنه), that moment where Ibn Mas'ud, Ibn Mas'ud, a giant amongst men, and his legs got exposed because the wind blew,

**[1:23:23]** and the Sahaba laughed at him. Which shows you that, look, sometimes it's human tendency, sometimes it's normal. Like, you're looking around, other people are laughing too. And Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said, what are you laughing at? See, Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) is not usually like that, right? Haya has its limitations too, modesty has its limitations too.

**[1:23:41]** Like, Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) was very shy, very modest, but like, no, no, no, I'm not going to let this go. Nimma tadhakun, what are you laughing at? And then they were like, whoa. He said, ya Rasulallah, we're just making a joke about his legs. His legs are very skinny.

**[1:23:57]** Abdullah Mas'ud (رضي الله عنه) was very small physically. Like, I mean, subhanAllah, like, the description to give you an idea, when Sayyidina Umar (رضي الله عنه) was sitting, Ibn Mas'ud was standing, they were the same, they were at eye level. But Ibn Mas'ud (رضي الله عنه) is a man, subhanAllah, who the Qur'an,

**[1:24:15]** like, he received 70 surahs of the Qur'an direct from the mouth of Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), fresh from revelation. Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said, if you want to hear the Qur'an recited, then, as fresh as the day it was revealed, listen to Ibn Mas'ud (رضي الله عنه). So Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) stood up for him and said, what are you people laughing at?

**[1:24:32]** Like, he's talking to the Sahaba, these are wonderful people, but culture, like, just things pass, and like, oh, it's just an innocent joke, like, his legs are small. And Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) said, wallahi, each one of his legs will be the size of Uhud on the Day of Judgment. Have you ever seen Uhud?

**[1:24:48]** My God, like, he's a giant amongst you. So what I'm saying is, like, let's also not let things pass just because they become cultural, like, commenting. Like, don't be injurious with your tongue. That's something that we should, as a Ramadan resolution, try to stay away from. I'm sorry, Shaykh, I know we went way over time today, but I really feel,

**[1:25:04]** I was watching that clip of Shaykh Abu Ishaq (rahimahullah), and again, Allah blessed me to see him in a beautiful dream last night. Rahimahullah, so I was thinking about that. Tomorrow, Ibn Al-'Aziz, we're going to be discussing part two of the same chapter, and that's when he talks about the definition of these high aspiration good qualities,

**[1:25:19]** and being very, very vulnerable, speaking about himself and his faults, so we can learn from him, insha'Allah wa ta'ala. Jazakumullah khair. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

## Other Episodes in "Midnight Majlis"
- [Loving the People Who Remember Allah | Midnight Majlis S2 Ep. 7](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/midnight-majlis-s2-ep7-loving-the-people-who-remember-allah.md)
- [The Beauty of the Light of Allah | Midnight Majlis S2 Ep. 5](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/midnight-majlis-s2-ep5-the-beauty-of-the-light-of-allah.md)
- [Leave Your Nafs Behind and Come to Allah | Midnight Majlis S2 Ep. 6](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/midnight-majlis-s2-ep6-leave-your-nafs-behind-and-come-to-allah.md)
- [Freeing Yourself From Other Than Allah | Midnight Majlis S2 Ep. 4](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/midnight-majlis-s2-ep4-freeing-yourself-from-other-than-allah.md)
- [Allah Will Love You For Your Dhikr | Midnight Majlis S2 Ep. 3](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/midnight-majlis-s2-ep3-allah-will-love-you-for-your-dhikr.md)
- [Your Dhikr Makes You Beautiful | Midnight Majlis S2 Ep. 2](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/midnight-majlis-s2-ep2-your-dhikr-makes-you-beautiful.md)
- [When Your Heart Makes Dhikr | Midnight Majlis S2 Ep1](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/midnight-majlis-s2-ep1-when-your-heart-makes-dhikr.md)
- [Getting Past A Grudge | Midnight Majlis](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/getting-past-a-grudge-midnight-majlis.md)
- [Between Self-Admiration and Self-Hatred | Midnight Majlis](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/between-self-admiration-and-self-hatred-midnight-majlis.md)
- [How to Become A Great Person | Midnight Majlis](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/how-to-become-a-great-person-midnight-majlis.md)
- [How to Spot Fake Friends | Midnight Majlis](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/how-to-spot-fake-friends-midnight-majlis.md)
- [Be Your Own Toughest Critic | Midnight Majlis](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/be-your-own-toughest-critic-midnight-majlis.md)
- [You Choose To Be Learned or Lost | Midnight Majlis](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/you-choose-to-be-learned-or-lost-midnight-majlis.md)
- [Defeat Your Ego Before It Defeats You | Midnight Majlis](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/defeat-your-ego-before-it-defeats-you-midnight-majlis.md)
- [How to Break Free from Anxiety | Midnight Majlis | Dr. Omar Suleiman and Sh. Yaser Birjas](https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/midnight-majlis/how-to-break-free-from-anxiety-midnight-majlis.md)