Surah Al-Masad & Atomic Habits | Imam Tom Weekly

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Surah Al-Masad & Atomic Habits | Imam Tom Weekly

How does arrogance blind us to the truth and seal our fate? In this episode, Imam Tom Facchine unpacks the powerful word Tabbat in Surah Al-Masad, exploring how Abu Lahab’s arrogance led to his eternal downfall and why his story holds timeless lessons for us. Paired with insights from Atomic Habits, Imam Tom dives into the psychology of making good habits attractive, tricking your brain to enjoy the hard but rewarding choices, and understanding how emotions play a critical role in shaping our actions.

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This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.

We have Surah Al-Masad. Masad is a translation of a twisted rope fiber. Okay? There's a pun that Allah makes.

Arabic translation. Lots unpacked there. Abu Lahab was one of the uncles of the Prophet (ﷺ) who knew that Islam was the truth but rejected it because it was against his worldly interests.

And he said this word, Arabic translation. Basically, curse. Sending a curse to the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). And these words were revealed. Straight away. On the spot. To the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ).

To answer. Say so. And Allah is making different puns. So, he plays with his name. Lahab is a flame. And similar to how maybe in contemporary colloquial English we would say that someone is hot. Right? They're attractive. They're beautiful.

That this was something that meant that he was an attractive person. But Allah flips it and basically says that he's going to end up in a flame. Right? Meaning the flame of fire. Of hellfire. And then he also mentions his wife as well which is a carrier of firewood.

It was an expression to indicate that she was someone who carried tales and spread lies and slander against the Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ). And that he then makes another pun and says that there's going to be a twisted rope around her neck on the Day of Judgment.

Now, they used to have ropes carry firewood and that you would wear it around your neck. The imagery of having a twisted fiber rope around your neck in a strangling way. Not in a way where you're just carrying firewood.

But in a strangling way on the Day of Judgment is pretty intense. Is pretty intense. The idea of Tabbat is that Abu Lahab would not just quietly disagree. He made a big show out of it.

And he tried to say in a very public way to influence everybody else around. To say, curse be to you, you know, Muhammad. To try to throw shade at him and to try to basically discredit him.

Okay? Now the interesting thing about this chapter is that it's very, very short. And Allah tells him what's going to happen to him. That he's going to end up in the hellfire forever. For eternity.

Because of his knowing rejection of the truth. Now, if Abu Lahab wanted to prove the Quran wrong. All he had to do was say, Ash-hadu an la ilaha illallah, ash-hadu anna Muhammad Rasulullah. All he had to do was embrace Islam. Accept Islam.

Become a Muslim. And he would have proved the Quran wrong. But he was so arrogant that he couldn't even bring himself to do that. And this is an important point when it comes to the nature of kufr. Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala says in the Quran, بَلِّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا فِي تَكْذِيبٍ

بَلِّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا يُكَذِّبُونَ That the nature of kufr is this type of arrogant refusal. A lot of people, I don't necessarily particularly like the translation as just unbelief. I don't think that, or disbelief.

That's a little bit too weak. Right? Like kufr is like, it's the cover. You're arrogantly rejecting. You're a denier. Right? It's not even like, well, I need to think about it. No. It's like you know it's true.

And you reject it. Today, we are in the chapter about making it unattractive.

So if you know James Clear, he breaks down sort of the four laws of habit forming or habit formation. Make it obvious was number one. And number two is make it attractive.

Now, every law has its corollary or its opposite, which is true. So your good habits, you have to make them obvious in order for them to be successful. Meaning the cues that are going to trigger you're doing that habit.

And so if there's bad habits that you have, you have to do the opposite. You have to make them unobvious. You have to hide them. You have to make them invisible. Okay? Now, the second law was make it attractive.

And we talked previously about trying to make your good habits attractive so that you'll want to do them. We talked about temptation stacking was one of the words that was used. Like every time I watch TV, I'm going to do pushups during the commercial breaks or whatever.

So you're tying the things that you need to do to the things that you want to do. Okay? But now we're going to talk in this chapter about the opposite or the implication of this law, which is to make your bad habits unattractive.

And he starts pointing out by why we have bad habits in the first place. And this is really key. And I think it's really also empowering. That everything that you do has an underlying motive. Okay?

Whether it's a good habit or a bad habit, there's an underlying reason why you're doing it. And your current habits are not always the best way of addressing the problem that you're facing or the reason, the motive that you have to do that thing in the first place.

Let's say that you want to unwind. At the end of the day, you had a stressful day at work or whatever or with family, whatever's going on. There's multiple things that you can do to relax. You can listen to Quran, take a shower, work out. You can go for a walk. You can spend time in nature.

You can scroll on your phone. Scrolling on your phone is what a lot of people reach for because it's convenient. Because it's right there. But is it the best way to address that underlying motivation of wanting to relax? It's probably not the best way.

You have a craving or a sense that something is missing or even better, you want to change the way that you feel. Most habits are about wanting to change the way that you feel.

But you have to realize the action that you're doing is not necessarily the best way of having it done. And so then you actually start to look at yourself like, Whoa, boy, okay, well, I'm scrolling through the phone because in this moment, I feel lonely.

In this moment, I feel like I want some human interaction. I feel like I want to unwind. What's a better way of unwinding? What's a better way of having human interaction? Going through these sorts of motivations is really important and can be empowering.

And you can actually start to pay attention and look at your habits and say, I want to address the underlying feeling. I want to feel different. But I need to take control of the decision and the habit that I'm choosing to achieve that change of feeling. And I need to choose a positive one.

I need to choose a constructive one. I need to choose a better one than the one that I'm currently doing. A lot of people think that emotions cloud your decision making, and he says that's not true. And I agree with that. I think that's a really super important part.

I think that post-Enlightenment Western values look at emotions negatively. Oh, you're just being emotional. Oh, he's in his feelings. But feelings are actually really critical. Emotions are essential to making decisions.

There's no possible scenario in which you can put your emotions aside. They've observed people who had some sort of brain injury that incapacitated the parts of their brain that are responsible for emotion.

And you know what the consequences of a person who loses that part of their brain? They can't make decisions. Isn't that crazy? They can't feel happy. They don't feel sad. They don't feel angry. They don't feel anything. They look at a decision, and they'll sit there for hours and not be able to decide what to do.

I was surprised by that. So rather than emotions getting in the way of our decisions, you actually really need your emotions to make decisions in the first place. That's why he's going with the whole move. Well, we don't necessarily want to get rid of the emotions.

We just want to observe and pay attention. You have this emotion. You feel lonely. Let's think about a more positive and constructive and rewarding activity and one that's actually going to more successfully deal with the fact that you feel lonely.

Joining a club, joining an activity, going to the masjid, like whatever it is. It's easier to scroll your phone 100%. It's hard to, okay, you've got to find your keys. You've got to get in the car. You've got to make sure gas is in the car. You've got to go and do all this other stuff. Oh, so-and-so is going to be there.

I don't really get along with them. All these reasons that stop us from going. So how do you get over that? That's how he ends the chapter. He basically says that you have to trick your brain to learn to enjoy the hard habits.

So if going to the masjid is hard compared to scrolling your phone, but you know it's the right thing to do, then you've got to figure out a way to trick your brain. Into liking it. And there's a few different techniques he gives. One of them is the language that you use in your internal speech.

So instead of, for example, I've got to go to the masjid. I have to go. No, I get to go to the masjid. Focus on what you're gaining. You can even say it out loud. I'm going to the masjid so that I can stop feeling so lonely.

Or I'm going to the masjid so I can build positive relationships with the brothers and the sisters. Now, what if you feel nervous? What if you're going to the masjid? We have people who are converts here or people who are interested in Islam. And they're nervous to go to the masjid.

And that's the reason it's holding you back. Well, he suggests what a lot of professional athletes do. The pregame motivation ritual is that a lot of athletes, yeah, they get nervous as well.

When you step up to the plate, when you're about to go to bat, bases are loaded, two outs, bottom of the ninth, World Series, game seven. That's a nervous situation. You're taking your free throw. Game seven, series is tied, 3-3. One second left on the clock.

You are in a very, very nerve-wracking situation. What's going to save you in that situation? To do your habit the way that you want it to unfold, to have a ritual, a ritual that motivates you.

And you can tell yourself and reframe that you're just getting excited and that you're using your adrenaline rush to power you through this thing. So there's whatever you can do. You can psych yourself up. Sometimes it's a nasheed or it's something that you listen to, part of the Quran.

Sometimes it's a certain YouTube video. Sometimes it's something that makes you angry, right? If you want to look at what's going on or the particular sort of hate that's directed at Islam or the people of Islam or things like that, it motivates you to go to the gym and pump that iron.

Then you can use that as your ritual. Develop a motivation ritual for yourself.

So identify one hard habit, the right thing to do, but you're lazy to do it, it's inconvenient to do, and develop a motivation ritual that's going to help you to do it.

I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen.

I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen. I'm going to stop sharing my screen.

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