Late Night Talks (2024)
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What Do You Run Away To? | Late Night Talks
In the last 10 nights of Ramadan, Dr. Omar Suleiman and Sh. Yaser Birjas reflect on the book “The Disease and Its Cure” by Imam Ibn al-Qayyim.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. Waalaikumussalam warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen. Sallallahu wa sallam wa barakatuhu ala nabiyyina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam wa taslimin kathiratun mamma ba'd. I welcome you all again from the Valiant Islamic Center on this beautiful night, the 25th of Ramadan. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us among those who are given the tawfeeq to witness Lailatul Qadr, Ya Rabbil Alameen. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant us the full reward for Lailatul Qadr and make this night a beautiful night and peaceful night to all of us, Ya Rabbil Alameen. Alhamdulillah, we're here back studying together the book of Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, Al-Da'u wa al-Dawa, the disease and the cure. Sheikh Omar, Alhamdulillah, we've been discussing this for the past few nights. We talked about the false hope of safety, the delusion of safety. And then last night we were talking about part one and the ill effect of the sins. So we found out, of course, that one of the, unfortunately, ill effect of sins is the loss of barakah, loss of the blessings from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, whether it's knowledge, whether it's rizq itself, whether it's, you know, I mean, there's wahshah. We have that kind of a strange loneliness away from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the people. So that was our discussion last night. I want us to give us an insight on it inshallah ta'ala first. Allah yabarik fikir, Sheikh Omar. Bismillahir rahmanir rahim. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. So, you know, basically what he established yesterday is this idea that the sin affects more than just your world. It affects your dunya, your akhirah. It affects more than just your rizq, your sustenance. It affects your sustenance. It affects your body. It affects your spirit. It affects your emotional well-being, your mental well-being. And so everything that is opposite to that is the effect of the good deed. And everything that is opposite to the impact of the good deed is the effect of the sin. So subhanallah, I just wanted to kind of give you all two examples as we sort of fade into today's discussion which goes into some of the deeper meaning. Yesterday, there's a quote from Abdullah ibn Abbas radiallahu ta'ala anhu where he says,
إِنَّ لِلْحَسَنَةِ ضِيَاءً فِي الْوَجْهِ وَنُورًا فِي الْقَلْبِ وَقُوَّةً فِي الْبَدْنِ وَسَاعَةً فِي الْرِزْقِ وَمَحَبَّةً فِي قُلُوبِ الْخَلْقِ That verily in the good deed, there is a brightness in the face, there is a light in the heart, there is strength in the body, there is expanse in the sustenance. وَمَحَبَّةً فِي قُلُوبِ الْخَلْقِ And there's love that is placed in the hearts of the creation of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala towards you. And for the sin, it's all the opposite. The deformation, the deformity of the face, the darkness of the heart, the constriction of the sustenance, the hatred from the righteous towards that person. So he's talking about how these things actually match up. And subhanAllah, two examples of that just really quickly. Number one is Abdullah ibn Abbas صلى الله عليه وسلم himself. And there's something deeply inspiring here because he himself was a young man that basically decided to set himself apart from his company. And this is really important when we're talking to a lot of the young people here and a lot of young people that might be watching. At what point do you set yourself apart? So Ibn Abbas صلى الله عليه وسلم was a 10-year-old when he decided, you know what, forget my friends. I'm going to go and follow the companions of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and follow ilm, seek knowledge, seek worship. And so he was kind of the odd man out from his social gathering. And he mentions a good friend of his who, you know, when he told him, let's go find the companions of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and seek knowledge from them. His good friend said, let's go play with the pigeons. He said, I left him and I went to the doorsteps of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم companions. Later on, that same friend saw everyone gathered around Ibn Abbas صلى الله عليه وسلم and he said, I wish I would have listened to him. He was on to something. And the description of Ibn Abbas صلى الله عليه وسلم from Masrooq قال إذا رأيت ابن عباس قلت أجمل الناس فإذا نطق قلت أفصح الناس فإذا تحدث قلت أعلم الناس He said that when I would see Ibn Abbas صلى الله عليه وسلم, when I saw him, I said, he's the most beautiful of people.
And when he spoke, I said, he's the most eloquent of people. And when he went on, I said, he's the most knowledgeable of people. Another person is Yahya عليه السلام. Allah سبحانه وتعالى mentions Sayyidina Yahya عليه السلام and specifically describes the forbiddance of sin. As the narration is مَا هَمَّ بِمْرَأَ وَلَا أَذْنَ بَذَمْبٍ That because of how Allah fashioned him and molded him, he wouldn't sin. And he was Sayyidin wa Hasura. He was chaste and modest. That's one of the meanings of Yahya عليه السلام, of his Hayat. And a beautiful connection that the scholars make is that with that Hayat that he had, he was also given knowledge of the Torah. He had a strong sense of knowledge, a strong command of the scripture that no one else had. So there was a connection between the lack of sin and the بَرَكَة, the blessing that comes into the عَقِل, the mind, the intellect, the tongue, the heart. All of that is a result of good deed and restraining yourself from blessing. So I just wanted to phase in what Ibn al-Qayyim Rahim Allah says here. You want to comment Shaykh on this? I just want to actually add to what you mentioned, to the point that you mentioned of Abbas رضي الله عنه وارضاه This is actually the evidence to what Ibn al-Qayyim is talking about. That you have, mashallah, your time, your money, your friends, your heart, your ears, your sight. And they're operating just fine. You can see, you can hear, you can talk, you can feel. But he says there is no بَرَكَة, that's what it means over here. That's exactly what Allah سبحانه وتعالى says in the Qur'an. قَالَ لَهُمْ قُلُوبٌ لَا يَفْقَهُونَ بِهَا وَلَهُمْ أَعْيُونٌ لَا يُبْسُرُونَ بِهَا وَلَهُمْ آذَانٌ لَا يَسْمَعُونَ بِهَا بَلْهُمْ أَضَلُّ He says that they have hearts, but they don't comprehend anything. They have eyes, but they see nothing. They have ears, but they hear nothing. Which means useful to themselves. إِنْهُمْ إِلَّا كَالْأَنْعَامُ Just like the animals, just like the stock. Meaning they're just gonna like walk and wander in there, subhanallah.
They're operating with everything like everybody else. But there is no بَرَكَة in their effort, no بَرَكَة in what they have. Even the knowledge that they're seeking, there's no بَرَكَة in it. The رزق that they actually die for, they receive it, but there's no بَرَكَة in it. Subhanallah, a sinful life can really steal all the بَرَكَة from your life. So you'll be busy, but never productive. And the wrong intentions too. How many Ibn Abbas wannabes were there? You can actually read about them at the time. But they didn't want the علم of Ibn Abbas. They wanted the شهرة, they wanted the fame of Ibn Abbas. And they all failed. And he didn't want the fame, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala continued to bless him. And that was because of the good deeds, the proper. Like you said, you seek knowledge, and then you grow with it. Shaykh, I want to ask you these two sentences as we phase in. He says at the end here, the last chapter that goes into the production of this chapter. وَمِنْهَا حِرْمَانُ طَاعَةٌ فَلَوْ لَمْ يَكُنْ لِلذَّنْبِ عِقُوبَةٌ إِلَّا أَنْ يَصُدِّ عَنْ طَاعَةٍ تَكُونُ بَدَلَةٌ The worst consequence of sin is that it replaces a good deed. It replaces an act of worship. It forbids you from an act of worship. And he gives this مثل here, this example at the end of it. So he says, you pursue one sin, Allah shuts the door of good for you. You pursue another sin, Allah shuts a better good deed for you. You keep pursuing sins, good deeds keep on disappearing from you, good opportunities. But then he says, he gives this مثل at the end. وَهَذَا كَرَجُلٍ أَكَلَ أَكْلَةٌ أَوْجَبَتْ لَهُ مِرْضَةٌ طَوِيلَةٌ مَنَعَتْهُ مِنْ عِدَّةِ أَكْلَاتٍ أَطْيَبَ مِنْهَا وَاللَّهُ مُسْتَعَبٌ So like a person basically eats food and then he gets like food poisoning. He's giving this example, you know, because Ibn Al-Qayyim is a visual person. He says, think of a person who eats food and gets food poisoning. And then his only cure basically forbids him from tasting food that he would have actually liked, he would have enjoyed. So he kept on eating something that wasn't good for him.
And that took away the sweetness of all other dishes. Like had he been more careful not to indulge in that kind of meal that he thought, I need to eat that anyway. They might not be even hungry. Just eating for the sake of pleasure, subhanAllah. Just indulges in eating that. And as a result, like Ibn Al-Qayyim mentioned, you get sick and you deprive yourself of many, many days. Days would come or in probably weeks because you've been deprived of eating something more beautiful because you can't. The exact same thing he talks about as al-ma'asiyah. And that's where we actually come into the chapter, inshaAllah ta'ala, which is basically is about how sins are like bad omen. Really, they take not just the barakah from your life, they lead even to negative consequences. And one of them he says in this chapter, he said, مِنْهَا أَنَّ الْمَعَاصِي تَزْرَعُ أَمْثَالَهَا He said, look, sins beget sins. If you commit a sin, most likely you're going to breed another one. And you're going to plant seed for another one. Because unfortunately, if you plant the seed of sin and you find sweetness in that, even if it was temporary, then eventually that seed is going to grow and the one seed that you put in there is going to become what? Multiple. It's going to blossoming, unfortunately, bad flowers. And it becomes more and more, he goes, قَالَ وَيُوَلِّدُ بَعْضُهَا بَعْضًا And they start breeding one after the other one. حَتَّى يَعُزَّ عَلَى الْعَبْدِ مُفَارَقَتُهَا Until it becomes so dear to you to stay away from it. Like you always gravitate back to it because you feel so guilty being away from that sinful life. كَمَا قَالَ بَعْضُ السَّلَفِ Some of the early Salaf they mentioned, قَالَ إِنَّ مِنْ عُقُوبَةِ السَّيِّئَةِ السَّيِّئَةَ بَعْضَهَا Sometimes part of the punishment a person receives for the sin they commit is that it facilitates another sin for them.
How many times you've never ever in your life thought that you crossed this line? Never. For you that was a red line. No way I would do this. But now you look at yourself just like, what am I doing? It's because that sin made it closer to the next one, to the next one, to the next one until we crossed that line. Which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, قَالَ وَلَا تَتَّبِعُوا خُطُوَاتِ الشَّيْطَانِ Don't follow into the footsteps of the shaitan. He didn't say go, don't follow the shaitan. The footsteps of the shaitan. Because the shaitan is not going to actually leap with you to the sinful life. He is going to take you one step at a time. And that's what he says over here. That each one of them. And as a matter of fact, subhanAllah, it's interesting with Shaykh here in this chapter what he says. He now, we talked about him being a person who tries to keep things visual. He wants you to see it with the eye of your mind and your heart as well. So he gives an example here. قَالَ فَالْعَبْدُ إِذَا عَامِلَ حَسَنَةً قَالَتْ أُخْرَى إِلَى جَنْبِهَا إِعْمَلْنِي أَيْضًا Because if the person does a good deed, another good deed next to it would tell him, Could you please also practice this? Can you please take care of me as well too? Like if you give, for example, charity over here. There's now the sunnah of making two rak'ah would tell you, Could you pray two rak'ah? And when you make two rak'ah, the sunnah of making wudu perfectly now is basically saying, Could you please, you know, when you make wudu, make it perfect this time? Like a good deed inspires a better deed. Similarly, he says over here, قَالَ كَذَلِكَ وَالسَّيِّئَاتُ كَذَلِكَ So when you commit a sin, another one says, How about me? What about this? What about this? What about this? And it starts breeding more sins. And God knows until when. So this is the profoundness of this, that good deeds and sins have the exact same effect in producing other ones. Now, by the way, think about this in multiple ways. Number one, the going from minor to major. All right?
So you commit a sin or a genre of a sin, and then that normalizes that sin to you. Your heart hardens towards that. And so you do another, you get a little bit more severe with it. That's one, right? So to go from minor to major. When it comes to good deeds, you started praying taraweeh and you were tired with four rakahs, now you can do eight, now you can do ten, now you can do twelve, now you can do tahajjud. The strengthening, the strengthening of the resolve and the strengthening of the resolve, right? Unfortunately, they're producing, you know, the opposite consequences in regards to the sin, but you're getting deeper, right? You're either getting deeper into the same genre of evil or into the same genre of good. There's a second element of that, which is habit, right? So good deeds become habitual. Amal becomes a'dah. Sins become habitual. And so the repetition of them, right? To where you're killing the thoughts of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because you do it so frequently now, you've kind of like accepted this as a part of your life. And that's where even the minor sin becomes a major sin. Because al-israr la saghira bi-israr wa la kabira bi-istighfar. There is no such thing as a minor sin if you insist on it repeatedly. And there is no such thing as a major sin if you seek forgiveness for it. But here's the third one. And it's something subhanAllah that, you know, you got to walk people through the practical scenarios of it. Shaytan will tell you that the only way to cure yourself from a sin is to commit another sin. There are major elements of that and there are minor elements of that. The example that we have of Barsisa, the priest from Bani Israel, right? Who went from being a worshipper to getting too close to this girl to committing adultery and then shaytan telling him, look, the only way you get yourself out of this adultery is by killing her. Because you got her pregnant, now you're in trouble. Right? So instead of making tawbah and accepting what he did, he went from becoming a worshipper to an adulterer to a murderer. Right? How does that work in our day and age? Right? So let's say you tell a lie. You get caught in the lie.
What do you have to do now? Because you don't want to be called a liar. You got to tell another lie. Right? Let's say that you get caught committing a sin. Well, you don't want to be exposed, so you tell a lie so that you don't admit to it. So you went from being a cheater to being a liar. Right? And then if you got good at lying, you said, hmm, I can apply this to other elements of my life too. Right? This worked for this one, so let me do it here as well. Let's say that you... And then become a hypocrite. Yeah, you become a... And that's why Ibn Umar radiyallahu anhum I mentioned, you can become munafiq khalis, a complete hypocrite. You slander. And then you don't want to be called the slanderer, so what do you do? You convince yourself that it's righteous, and so you slander deeper. Right? You get more and more creative with the slander, and you tell yourself that the slander is justified. You go deeper, deeper, deeper, in different genres. So what Ibn Umar radiyallahu anhum says, Shaykh, JazakAllah khair, and we can just bring that up and move on. He mentioned the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, he said the qualities of the hypocrite. When he speaks, he lies. When he promises, he breaks his promise. When he's entrusted, he breaks his trust. Meaning he spills secrets, or he violates the trust. And four was, when he argues, or when he gets into a quarrel, then he exceeds the bounds of argument. Ibn Umar radiyallahu anhum said, If you have one of these traits, you're 25% hypocrite. You get two of them, you're 50% hypocrite. You get three of them, you're 75% hypocrite. You have all four of these, you're a complete munafiq. Now here's the thing, one thing leads to the other. So you lie, and then someone says, are you sure? You say wallah. Throw in the wallah there. I promise you. And then you get accustomed to it. You just went from being one-fourth hypocrite to being 50% hypocrite. So subhanAllah, hypocrisy grows. Sin grows. All of these things breed different genre, and shaytan sells you another one, and another one,
until sin becomes your portfolio. Same thing with good deeds. SubhanAllah, you came to the masjid, like Shaykh said, the sadaqah, you said, you know what, let me pray two rak'ahs. You learn something in the khawater. Not from me, from Shaykh Yasir, because my khawater is you don't learn anything. You learned a du'a from him. You learned a good deed from him. Like hmm, I'm gonna start applying that too. You met someone in the masjid that's gonna be a good influence on you, inshaAllah ta'ala, a good friend. You saw someone doing something. You picked up the mushaf. You had 30 extra minutes, you picked up the mushaf. Maybe you developed the Quran habit. So the good deeds, they grew this way and this way. Sin also grows this way and this way, horizontally as well as vertically. And that's actually the chapter that he's building on top of each other, one after the other one, leads us to this understanding of how bad omen sins are really, how far they go, and how much they ruin your life. So he mentioned here something again, the man, he loves those metaphors and examples, the visualized things for us. He goes, look, you're gonna start doing all these ta'at or sayyi'at. Whether you do ta'at or ma'asi, becomes solidified, and it becomes, like I said, habit, and becomes part of your life. And becomes like part of your attributes, like a person would be known to be a liar, like the Prophet shallallahu alaihi wa sallam said, until he's written to be a liar. Also, someone known to be unfortunately, you know, abandoning the ibadah and ta'at, so people describe him, they describe him with that description. And someone, astaghfirullah, always known to curse or cuss, so people, they start labeling him with that. Because now it's becoming his habit, and he's known for these kind of evident sins that he commits. And as a result of this, If a righteous person, a good worshiper, stops praying and stop doing ibadah and their ta'at, he starts feeling the life becomes constrained around him.
Even the earth becomes too tight for him. So he starts feeling like a fish. Once you take it out of the water, you start feeling suffocating until you're back into that water, so you can feel the coolness, of course, of your ibadah and your ta'at. And then he says, وَلَوْ عَطَّرَ الْمُجْرِمُ الْمَعْصِيًا A lot of people in Ramadan, it's like, I should do this more often. They're thinking to themselves. They don't need the Sheikh to tell them, but then it's like... Or they say, Sheikh, can you do this late night program once a week? And I promise you, if we did it once a week, the masjid would not be this full. Because we think when we're in the water, we're savoring, we're going, wow, this is great. But the reality is, is that Shaytan deludes you once again. Once Shawwal comes around, you jump back out of the water, right? You start convincing yourself that the air is better than the water for you. You know, Sheikh, it's very interesting, subhanAllah. You fast 30 consecutive days, and you have no problem with that. The moment Shawwal comes in, you struggle with one day out of the six days. It's a struggle, subhanAllah. What happens is, literally, you're out of the fish tank right now, and you're gasping for air. But the water right now, you went from the salt water to fresh water, it's not the same.
Until you're back again to the exact same environment, where you feel comfortable with the people around you at 1 o'clock, at 1.30, subhanAllah, a.m., and the masjid is full, tabarakAllah. Beautiful. But he says also the same thing. If a sinner, or the thug or criminal, basically, he stops committing these sins, or actually, stops committing the sins, and tried to worship Allah, subhanAllah, tried to come to obedience to Allah, azza wa jal, he feels constrained because it's not natural to him. This person is so addicted to the sin that when they try to worship, it doesn't give them the exact same feeling. It doesn't give them the same comfortable feeling. So he starts feeling constrained, and he starts trying to find ways out of it. He's completely not feeling comfortable with this. Some of those disobedience, some of those wrongdoers, actually, they said they don't commit the sin out of pleasure. They just commit the sin because they just don't know... They need a fix. Exactly, what else to do? It becomes part of their habits. They simply do that. And he said the only reason they come back to it is because... from the pain they feel from not being indulging in that sin again. Like you said, it's just a fix. And he quotes here, كَمَا صَرَّحَ بِذَلِكَ شَيْخُ الْقَوْمِ He goes just like their master, their chief. And he's referring to a man by the name of Hassan ibn Han, known in Arabic literature as Abu Nuwas. Abu Nuwas is a very famous poet. His poetry is amazing, by the way, just don't look for it. The reason why, because he's known to be a drunken man, he's an alcoholic. All his life was just glorifying wine and drinking. So he was the influencer of his time. Very much. Which many of the scholars mentioned. I remember when my sheikh was going over this,
one of the scholars mentioned this, that the fact that Ibn al-Qayyim named him showed that there was something to warn against. When someone becomes an influencer in evil, when they literally call people to sin, it's not backbiting to say, hey, watch this person. Watch what this person is feeding you. You know, it's funny that back in the day, they didn't have, of course, social media like we do right now. So in order for you to remind the people of this person's influence, I remember more than 30 years ago, I visited Iraq, and there, lo and behold, there's a statue of Abu Nuwas actually on the river's side. It's like, la ilaha illallah. Out of all the poets and all of the literature people, there's just Abu Nuwas sitting there. Because it's a reminder for people, if you don't know who Abu Nuwas is, you're going to search him. And suddenly you're going to start seeing that thing. وَكَأْسٍ شَرِبْتُ عَلَىٰ لَذَّتٍ وَأُخْرَىٰ تَدَوَيْتُ مِنْهَا بِهَا Like, that's how messed up that mind is, subhanAllah. He goes, a cup or a glass of wine, I had out of pleasure. Like, I wanted this. I was desiring it. And then he says, وَأُخْرَىٰ But the other one, تَدَوَيْتُ مِنْهَا بِهَا I had it out of guilt for having the first one. Like basically, just drinking it to make yourself forget the sinful life that you're doing. So basically, what that does mean is that when someone commits a sin, and then they want to feel it's bad and regretful, their mind, their shaitan, in order for them to forget that feeling of guilt, what does it inspire them to do or whisper them to do? Do it again. Kill that pain by doing it again. Because you had pleasure, so maybe that pleasure will kill that guilt feeling that came with the first one, came with the second one, came with the third one. And that's what we call it today, what? Addiction. It's always the next one, probably better than the first one or the previous one. Always the next, maybe the next one, maybe the next one, maybe the next one. And it's just, again, bad omen.
Breeds sins endlessly along this time. And I think, Shaykh, it's like if you compare it to a person who misses out on ibadah, a person who says, like, I don't want to suffer from the withdrawal. Smoking. A lot of people are like, look, if I don't smoke my cigarette, it's not that I enjoy it anymore. If I don't smoke this, the withdrawal is going to be too much. So sometimes it's the withdrawal symptoms. And sins do have withdrawal symptoms. And of the sincerity of repentance is your willingness to deal with the withdrawal symptoms and to do everything you can to still get over the sin for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But some people resort to sin. You keep returning to the sin over and over again, not because you enjoy it, but because you don't want to deal with the withdrawal if you don't have it. You're not even enjoying it anymore. And addiction is of multiple things, right? And things that trigger in the head, right? There are multiple realities here that if I have to do this, I have to do this. If I don't do it, I'm going to feel withdrawal, pain, misery. You know what, subhanAllah, there are going to be people that get into Jannah because they quit a drug. Keep that in mind. There are going to be people that Allah azawajal admits into Jannah because they quit a drug addiction. And that's true for addictions in general because they were willing to put in the work. They cried, they felt it until the pleasure of that sin was replaced by the pleasure of ibadah, was replaced by the pleasure of the good deed. And then they were able to deal with it. You break off a haram relationship. Of course you're going to miss her. Of course you're going to miss him, right? You get so used to it, like I got to have my fix. Of course you're going to miss it, right? How many people live adulterous lives? I'm just being real here, right? We talk about it when they repent. We talk to people like that all the time that turn the page, right? You got to understand, subhanAllah, people confess.
Even though we don't have confession, people confess to us as imams all the time, right? It's like, man, I used to do this. I used to have this count. And at some point, it was no pleasure at all. It was just like a habit. It felt like just something I had to do or else. Mindlessly, they would just be doing it over and over completely. It's mindless sin. It's all getting you away from your purpose. Getting away from what actually gives you life. Come back to what's going to give you life. Get back in the water like that fish, right? And taste what real life is. And ask yourself, is the pleasure that I get from obeying Allah, subhanAllah, like the pleasure I get from disobeying Allah? Yeah, there is a pleasure when you disobey Allah. But are those two pleasures really the same? Especially if we're not thinking about akhira consequences, the hereafter consequences. Because you need to use whatever you can to get away from it, to get away from the sin. Am I feeling the right type of pleasure when I sin? Or am I feeling a different type of happiness? What's being elicited when I worship Allah, subhanAllah, when I do good deeds? When I steal versus when I give charity, right? Money, right? When I worship Allah versus when I obey my desires. What type of pleasure am I getting out of the two? He goes afterwards and says, another ill effect of the sins. He said, this is the thing that I fear the most for the true servant of Allah, subhanAllah. Because it weakens the heart from desiring the pleasure of Allah, subhanAllah. Because this is the most dangerous thing, the thing that I fear the most. Is that your heart no longer desire the pleasure of Allah, subhanAllah. Can you guys imagine that? Think about this for a second. That your heart no longer desire the pleasure of Allah, subhanAllah. I mean there was a time when we commit the sins and we feel guilty, we feel bad.
We wish that Allah, subhanAllah, give me a strong tawbah. I wish Allah, subhanAllah, save me from this trouble. I wish, you always still want to pursue Allah's pleasure no matter what. No matter how I mess up in my life. But he said that moment, because the sin keeps breeding another sin, another sin. And becomes complete sinful life. You get to this moment. When you know the heart is no longer desiring Allah, subhanAllah's pleasure anymore. It is like, you know what? I'm doomed anyway. Who cares? Like this is it. It doesn't matter anymore. So they don't even try. They don't even try to help themselves or recover from that sinful life anymore unfortunately. Because this is the most dangerous thing. When the heart becomes weak and no longer desiring the pleasure of Allah, subhanAllah, it becomes so weak, it starts desiring what? Disobedience to Allah, subhanAllah. Why? Because now it confirms to themselves what they believe about themselves. I'm wicked. I'm doomed. I'm not deserving the mercy of Allah, subhanAllah. So why bother? Just enjoy it while you're on it anyway. So this is the difference between a sick heart and a dead heart. I'm not even going to try anymore. My heart is just shut off at this point. Now Allah can still give, Allah can still resuscitate a dead heart. But here is the good news for most people. If you still feel guilty when you commit a sin, and you still really really want to be a better Muslim, alhamdulillah, that means that your heart is not dead. You're perceiving. But don't let the sickness overcome it. Don't continue until the sickness overcomes it.
The heart becomes so weak that it doesn't desire the pleasure of Allah anymore. Rather, it desires more sinful life. Until the desire to repent to Allah, subhanAllah, or the will to repent to Allah, azazal, is actually taken away from their heart. Stripped away from their hearts. So they don't even have the notion of repenting itself is no longer there anymore. Like they never feel guilty anymore. And the thought itself of trying to repent is no longer there. Like, Sheikh, we've seen many of these young brothers and sisters, and even, subhanAllah, adults and older age these days, Allah make it easy for all of them, ya Rabb al-alameen. They go into this path for some time. But then it doesn't, for them, it just, it's not, it feels not right. It's not right. So they try to find a way back to Allah, subhanAllah. So they come, they ask. They try to find a way to come back to Allah, azazal. Alhamdulillah, there's still, there is a will to repent in their hearts. But it becomes more dangerous, and the most dangerous, when that will to repent is no longer there anymore. So therefore, they just kind of submitted themselves to the shaitan. And they accepted that this is the fact. I'm defeated. I'm completely done. So therefore, let's continue with this path of destruction, unfortunately. Yeah, so you got like, if you think of the heart, and the dirt that's being thrown on it constantly, right? You still are able to sort of peek through. The dirt's there, you repent, you're still clearing, and then, you know, staining, clearing, staining. But what did Allah say about the hypocrites? وَقَالُوا قُلُوبُنَا غُلْفٌ It's like, you know what? We've covered our hearts. We've accepted in our lives that we just don't really care that much about being these good Muslims and stuff like that. So that's where, subhanAllah, the disregard for Allah comes from, right? And that's one thing, you know, Allah talks about this.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ لَا يَرْجُونَ لِقَانَا Like, you don't want to meet Allah? You're not hoping for the reward from Allah? وَقَالَ رَبُّكُمْ وَدْعُونِي أَسْتَجِبْ لَكُمْ إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يَسْتَكْبِرُونَ عَنْ عِبَادَتِي Like, you don't even want to make dua anymore? You're not even trying? You really don't want Allah anymore? What happened, right? And here's the thing. And I think this is where, like, it's so important. There's a process to becoming a Siddiq. And there's a process to becoming a Shaytan. There's a process to becoming a truthful person and becoming a devil. It's not overnight. It doesn't happen overnight. And how many people end up, وَنَسْلَ اللَّهُ عَافِيَةً May Allah protect us. End up on that devil side. And they realize it way too late. Like, man, I dug myself a hole. I dug myself a hole. I dug myself a hole. And then eventually, You don't like people telling you that you're doing anything wrong. So what do you start doing? You either disbelieve or you deceive. So you start changing the text to fit you. Or you just say, I don't care about the text anyway. Leave me alone. Leave me to myself. So leave the door open between you and Allah SWT. Shaykh, can I tell one story? I think I might have shared it last year. It's one of my favorite stories from the Salaf. It's the story of Abu Bakr ibn Shibli RA. When he says in Damascus that we got taken by highway robbers. Like there was a group of bandits that took a group of ulema hostage. They tied them up. And they stole everything from them. And Abu Bakr says, I was watching. And the chief of the bandits, basically the gang leader, wasn't eating or drinking. So everybody else is eating and drinking our food. The gang leader wasn't eating or drinking. So I told him, just out of curiosity, I was like, why aren't you eating? He said, Alhamdulillah, I'm fasting. Wait, what? What do you mean you're fasting? So you rob scholars? Man, we talk about people not backbiting while they're fasting. And invalidating their fast with like TikTok.
This guy took it to another level. Like he's robbing people. He steals while he's fasting. And he's like, what's the point of your fasting while you rob people? Like what's wrong with you? That brings us to the next point of Imam Ibn Qayyim RA. He says, the reason why this man actually did what he did, even though he was fasting while robbing these ulama and these people. He says, because they reach the moment where they become desensitized. The ugliness of the sin is no longer present when they're doing it. So as a result, for them, it's completely neutralized. So basically, committing so much of that, being on that path for so long, neutralizes the concept of sin. It's no longer ugly as it used to be before. Like, let's be real. May Allah protect us all from visualizing any sin in our life. So people, they feel guilty just seeing a kiss on TV. And then they see something else, oh, they turn their face away. And then a little bit this and a little bit that. And then at some point, astaghfirullah, the act of zina on the screen, and they don't turn their face away from it. Because, I mean, whatever. It's normal. So now, no longer it becomes a problem over here. And that's extremely dangerous because the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wa sallam, he said that, as Muslims, we're responsible. Like I mentioned the other day, subhanAllah, we are the final, I would say, the final line of defense when it comes to faith and religion. And here, the Prophet, salallahu alaihi wa sallam, said that, If you see a munkar being committed, if you're seeing a sin being committed, if you can change it, change it with your hand. Like if you have the authority to do that, you should. If you couldn't, then at least speak about it. Speak up. And the third thing he said,
If you couldn't even speak out about it, at least in your heart, you need to deny it in your heart. To hate that in your heart. Three levels, obviously. You're never going to act in that fashion in any way unless, in the first place, you need to believe it's ugly. You need to believe it's munkar. You need to believe this is absolutely unacceptable. But when a person reaches that level where it's completely synthesized, normalized, and neutralized, and their heart doesn't see a difference between watching haram or honestly being intimate with their spouse. It's the same act. Completely neutralized. He says this is one of the ugliest things that could ever happen to anybody. Those who lead that kind of lifestyle, those who pursue the indulgence in fahisha and the sins, he says this is the top moment of pleasure for them. When they commit that sin, and they boast about it. Because for them, there is nothing wrong with it. This is the time, Sheikh, that we live in today. But unfortunately, even among Muslims, they commit a sin, and they do something wrong, and they have absolutely no shame on posting about it, and talking about it. Now what do they do exactly? Which is what he says after. And he speaks about it to those who didn't know that he did it in the first place. He goes, I've done this, I've done that. Now, in this culture, there are some people, they want to commit a sin while people are observing. Voyeurs, basically. They enjoy it when people watch them committing a specific sin. And they boast about it. Today, it's happening on social media. People, they post about their sins, their mistakes, and what do they want to do? Read the comments. What people say about themselves. What they say about what they've done. And they want to see how people comment on their wrongdoing.
Exactly the same thing. The algorithm rewards outrageous behavior. SubhanAllah. It's literally meant to reward the outrageous. So whatever you can do to push the boundaries, and unfortunately some of those boundaries are going to be boundaries that are set by Allah. So people want to push the boundaries with what they say. Sinfulness is, by the way, not just like, you know, lewdness on camera. Sinfulness is sometimes in your hot takes. Let me give a hot take that's super outrageous. And just say something that's super, super crazy and out there. And disregard people's honor and whatever it is, and just say something really out there. Because that's going to be rewarded. So every platform rewards the outrageous, and that incentivizes the outrageous. And so people want to keep on getting more and more outrageous. So the line between normal and outrageous continues to be blurred. It's interesting that you talk about this, SubhanAllah, when you mention the word algorithm, really. That brought me to even the Qada and Qadr, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, when the Prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam mentioned, if someone, that you do, because Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will facilitate for you what has become your decree. So therefore, does that mean, literally, if someone commits so much bad stuff, the shaitan, their satanic algorithm is going to add more to it, facilitate more to that. And if you do good, your algorithm is also going to breed good for you. So really, and blame nobody but yourself if you start getting deeper into that hole. It's because you're digging deeper into that hole yourself. You need to stop somehow and change that algorithm. So here I'll share something with you all to visualize. Every single one of us has a shaitan. We know this, right? Every single one of us has a shaitan, so that means your shaitan customizes an algorithm for you. So if you can imagine, the guy that runs your social media company,
your platform, literally your shaitan sitting next to him, like, hey, you know, feed that to him, feed that to him. No, look, she really likes that. Put that there, right? Like, if you could imagine that your devil literally is customizing to feed your cravings, to feed your desires, how much would you be like, whoa, I can't do that, right? It's an agenda, it's an evil agenda, right? Take it that way, that look, your shaitan studies you, studies your vulnerabilities, studies your desires, and then caters to that and customizes towards that. Shaykh, I want to finish the story because I need to give people hope. So the story of the highway robber, there's a good ending to the story, all right? So the guy that was robbing people while he was fasting, does anyone remember what he said to Abu Bakr when he asked him, why are you even fasting? It's so important in Ramadan. Anybody know the, yeah? Jazakallahu khairan. He said, لقد أغلقت بيني وبين الله أبواب كثيرة. He said to him, listen, Shaykh, I have shut way too many doors between me and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So I didn't want to shut this door so that perhaps Allah will call me through it again. Maybe Allah will call me back to him. And Abu Bakr ash-Shibli said, I saw this man in hajj the next year, and he made tawbah, and he was in the front lines of the prayer, he was doing tawaf, and I went up to him and I saw the brightness, and he mentioned subhanAllah, بياء في الوجه, I saw the brightness in his face. And I said to him, what happened to you? And he said, الحمد لله, Allah called me back through that door. Which also shows you, Shaytan will tell you, you've already done this, you might as well do that. Your angel, the goodness in you, your taqwa will say, just because you've done all this, don't do this as well. Don't give up your prayer. Don't give up your fasting. Don't give up your ibadah. You still have hope, but you've got to come back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Now here's the thing, had the man continued to be a highway robber, had he continued down that path, had he said, you know what, what's the point?
Then he would have died in his sinfulness. But it's also the point, the fact that you're here, الحمد لله, the fact that you're listening to this even online, that means that there's still something inside of you that craves Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Don't shut the door, right? So don't shut the door because of those sins, and be like, I've just done way too much now to ever have any hope of coming back. Instead, use that newfound desire to come back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So he came to him, and that's a real story, actually. It's someone I knew personally. He said, he asked me, he goes, Fulan, you drink? I mean, you come to the masjid, you pray. How could you do this to yourself? You pray. He goes, look, listen to me. He goes, listen. And he almost quoted the exact same thing. He says, look, I know I drink. I know this is a bad thing that I'm doing. He goes, but I don't want to cut all the ropes that I have that leads to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. I want to at least keep that rope of salah between me and Allah. He said, salah for me is a red line, even though he's drunk, subhanAllah. And I personally encountered one brother, may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala have mercy on him, in the community, previous community I served actually as an imam over there. He was known to also the same thing, being drunk all the time. Like I've never seen him, but he was drunk. You always smell alcohol on him. And in Ramadan, unfortunately he wasn't able to fast, but he wouldn't waste a moment but to come and serve in the masjid, to come and prepare the food and serve the saimin. And he's always there. And you can smell even, subhanAllah, you can smell alcohol on him. Like one time, a few people, they were offended by that. They want me to kick him out of the masjid. I said, no. They're not going to do this. SubhanAllah, at some point, it caught up with him.
And he died because of a liver failure. And he passed away. I heard the news. I said, we're going to do janazah for him. We're going to pray janazah for him. And we're going to take care of him, subhanAllah. Because Allah, I don't know, maybe he was just overwhelmed with that addiction. He was completely unable to get away from it and get over it. But I hope that him trying to connect with all these other doors, that leads to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the work from Allah azzal, will be great, inshaAllah. The point is, you've got a pulse, you've got the accumulating plaque. Eventually, one of those things is going to overcome the other. So don't count on the pulse remaining. Try to let the good overcome the bad, but don't let the bad convince you that the only way to remedy the bad is more bad. The last thing I want to mention here, Sheikh, before we go to the questions, inshaAllah, is he says in this paragraph, one of those, of course, ill effects of committing a sin, like a bad omen. He goes, sin inherits dhul, which means humiliation. It removes your dignity, it erases your self-esteem completely. How many people, they isolate themselves from others because they don't feel confident enough to be among others, because they're afraid to be exposed. So it takes that dignity away from them. And they always feel the sense of humiliation. All the time, like, I did it again, again, and again. So it takes away from their self-esteem and that moment of strength and power. Because true dignity, and if you would like to find dignity and that self-respect, you will find this when you worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because you free yourself from dependence on anything and anybody and any sin and any act, but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Sheikh, there's something super
important about that. You know, again, kind of talking about this day and age where the outrageous is rewarded, right? So you'll do whatever it takes to get that validation. SubhanAllah, one thing I was thinking about when I was reading about our ilmah in the past, and it's really painful when you do biographies. Like, can you imagine Imam al-Bukhari being dragged through the streets, tied to the back of an animal and lashed and spit on? Can you imagine Imam al-Nasa'i? Can you imagine Imam Ahmed rahimahullah? These people were whipped and tortured, and they tried to strip them and humiliate them in the streets. But look how honored they are. Like, why? Because they knew in themselves that I'm being oppressed, I'm being persecuted because of my deen. And so there's honor there. And anyone who's honorable looks at that and is disgusted by it. Look at Asiyah. SubhanAllah, Fir'aun wanted to humiliate Asiyah. Look what happened. He tried to put her, you know, his own wife, strip her in public, whip her, drop a stone on her, so people would look at her and look what Allah did instead. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, took her soul to the heavens before her body was crushed, and Allah drowned Fir'aun. And today, who's honored? Asiyah is honored, Fir'aun is humiliated. So the good deed might come with some form of alienation. People try to humiliate you, people try to harm you. The sin could be instantly rewarded. People will celebrate your sin. People will, you know, reward that type of behavior. Even if you backbite in a gathering, by the way. You know, you kind of tell something edgy, right, or you go a little bit too far, people will celebrate it initially. But eventually, you're just a messy, dirty person. No one likes you anymore. You talk too much about people. So people just, you know, stay away from that person. Or as a person who is strict, the person who, you know,
guards their tongue from that, maybe they're, you know, they're kind of like the party pooper. But at the end of the day, like, everyone honors that person. When it's all said and done, when the books are closed, that was an honored person, and this is a humiliated person. That's a person that held to their principles, and that's a person that simply sought after people constantly. So there's humiliation in making the people your master, and there's honor in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala always being your master. And it will show when the books are all closed and when it's all said and done. Alhamdulillah. I mean, I hope inshallah ta'ala that we understand that the gist of this chapter is that sins are bad news, basically. If you start with one, it's not going to stop there, most likely. It's going to keep breeding another one and start getting bigger and getting easier until your heart is completely desynthesized and completely neutralized in the concept of sin. And you don't even mind it anymore to open a window into your personal life to other people so they can see what you're doing, and you don't even care anymore. And that becomes extremely dangerous because now, suddenly, you're on your own. And that's when you start feeling humiliated, you lost your honor, you lost your dignity, you lost your self-esteem, and you start digging yourself deeper and deeper and deeper. And the only way that you can find your honor back and your dignity back, it's in the worship of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because when you do so, you realize you defeated your desires, defeated your whims, you defeated the shaitan, you defeated in that moment, you now, you feel the dignity of winning that battle against the shaitan. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala make us among those who always win that battle. I mean, Sheikh, can I give one, sort of, summarize this all too? Because this is, right now, you're reading the warning label on the box of sin. This is this part of the book where it's just the warning label. It's the picture of the lungs, it's the picture of the heart, it's the warning label, the warning label, the warning label. There's something I want
you to keep in mind constantly. Firstly, there is utility to being disgusted from this. Like, Allah azzawajal wants us to be disgusted from sin. You would hate to consume the flesh of your brother, so you should hate backbiting. You would hate these things, right? So, to disgust you is actually part of disconnecting you from the sin. But you'll never truly conquer the sin until you do what? Until you replace it with a good deed. The same time that you spent in that sin, you need to spend it in doing something good now. The same money that you spent in that sin, you need to spend it in good. The same energy, the same emotional energy, all of it. Physically, emotionally, mentally, you need to replace it with something that's good or even neutral, but not sinful. Even neutral, but not sinful. So, I'm going to work out. Working out can be ibadah, by the way. Exercise can be an act of worship. But I'm going to work out, right? I'm going to replace something sinful that I was doing with a lot of exercise. It can be ibadah, it can be an act of worship. But it's technically, it's not like reading Quran, right? But it's still, you're replacing something bad that you used to do with something good. Now, can you add coming to the masjid? Can you add doing more things? Can you add ilm? I'm going to stop listening to this. Instead, I'm going to listen to some really, really boring audio books that I enjoy for whatever reason, right? That no one else enjoys. But you know what? It's not a sinful audio book. It's not a sinful podcast. I'm going to start watching this, you know, Sheikh Yasser's new Romances Rizq, you know, theatric, right? I'm going to watch it. Hopefully, it's not sinful, inshallah. You know, it's just teaching the skills and, you know. But at the same time, like, it's not sinful, it's neutral. And then, hopefully, the neutral becomes good. So, you have to replace the sin with the good deed. You have to replace the driver of the sin with a driver of good. You have to replace the structures of sin with structures of good so that you can stay within that good bid'ah in the nighttime. Inshallah. Sheikh, there are many questions over here right now. And I hope people can keep it just within the topic itself,
inshallah. Someone is asking, look, if I'm going to be quitting the sinful life out of fear of the ill effects of the sins, not out of fear of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, would that be acceptable? So, you want to use... There's something that Imam al-Quddam rahim Allah ta'ala actually mentions, that sometimes to use the worldly consequences of your sin as a means of driving you away from that sin is a form of ibadah, it's a form of worship. It's not the best. The best is that you quit out of your fear of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But if it's going to help you quit the sin, then it's okay, inshallah ta'ala. So, if someone says to you, listen, doing this could ruin your career. And your love of your career makes you stop the sin. That's not the best thing, but it's better than committing the sin, and inshallah it will be accepted. But you need to turn that into repentance. So, yes, use the fear of this world. It's just like, you know, I give this strategy. This is a strategy that I learned from my Sheikh, and it was... I did this as a video a long time ago. He said, make your sins expensive. What does that mean? If you commit the sin, give sadaqah. All right, if I commit the sin again, two hundred dollars. If I commit it again, three hundred dollars. Make it so expensive, but you got to be disciplined. Give money every time you commit the sin. Maybe the love of that wealth will stop you from committing the sin again, but that's like where you've got to make it distasteful, and you got to put something as a consequence that's even worldly, if the akhirah consequence is not enough for you. Someone said that I'm quitting the sin for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, but my friends are not getting it. Is it okay if I lie about it, say I'm doing this just because it's a health issue? I'm not sure if they're talking about Muslim friends or non-Muslim friends. Like, for example, drinking, for example. You're quitting it because it's haram. Non-Muslim friends tell you, why?
Say, well, it's a health issue. That's where the honor and the humiliation comes from here. Take honor in doing honorable things, and you never know. By the way, just like you don't want people to underestimate you, I've learned this in my line of work as well, I don't underestimate people. Sometimes when they say never judge a book by its cover, sometimes the most shallow seeming person who seems to be living a life of sin and has absolutely no care for the religion, if you say something that sparks it, you'll find a lot of depth to that person. And so sometimes your friend who you think is shallow and has absolutely no thoughts of religion, that's all just a cover. It's all a front. And if you show them that you have a willingness to turn back to Allah, you might be surprised who tells you, you know, I've been thinking about the same thing. I've been thinking about this as well. To your point, I know somebody who became Muslim. Guess how? Because they found out that Muslims don't shake hands with the opposite gender. As shallow as it might sound to many, many people, but for them it's just like, wow. Because it seems that they saw the effect of being too close and too friendly to the opposite gender, and now realize that Muslims are so disciplined that there are so many boundaries you don't even allow to touch someone who is not mahram to you. If the Muslims adhere to that, subhanallah, properly, obviously, you can imagine how much people would realize, wow, if you can't even touch someone who is not mahram to you, then I assume you're not supposed to do this and that and this and that. Hopefully, obviously. But subhanallah, just to the comment, and some people think it's a shallow thing to tell them where because Allah says it's haram. And maybe that discussion can lead them to Islam, subhanallah. You never know. Yeah, Sheikh Shanawi, actually, if you watch his Quran 30 for 30 episode, he actually tells this whole story about a brother who converted to Islam through... Because of that. Not this in specific, I think, but he was like, he came to me, he was talking about all these boundaries, and he's like, Islam is so restrictive. And he thought,
he said, I thought he was going to say I can't become Muslim because Islam is so restrictive. But at the end of it, when the guy finished talking about how Islam is so restrictive, he said, I love that. I love how disciplined it is, and that's why I want to become Muslim. It's like, you know, it completely took a turn, subhanallah. Yeah, demonstrate your principles, and you never know who you're going to spark, inshallah ta'ala, towards their next step in their journey. Somebody keeps asking this question every single night. They're asking Sheikh Omar. They say, could you please ask Sheikh Omar if he can recite a poem in Moroccan? In Moroccan? In Moroccan. What does that mean? I have no idea. That's... The Moroccan accent, probably. That's Tunisian. And they say, actually, I rock better than you in the Moroccan folk, just to let you know. It might be Laylatul Qadr, so I'm just going to let that go. Same excuse. You can have it, Sheikh. Same excuse. Take it. You can have it. You do rock it nicely, though, mashallah. It's not fair. It's not... I'll take number two. No, no, no. You're number one. I rock it better than everybody else in here, but you can, you can, you can, you can keep that first place. Now, Sheikh, people that talk a lot about, subhanAllah, the whole idea of how, how do I guarantee that my path to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is going to be fruitful? Like, it seems that they are holding on to the sinful life because they have no guarantee that their tawbah would be accepted. So, you know, if I'm not going to accept it, at least I can go back to my old ways. That's where, look, Allah loves those people that repent. All you have to do is turn around. Allah doesn't expect you to get a hundred miles ahead before he says, okay, now I'm fine. Just turn around.
SubhanAllah, this is something very powerful in that verse in Surat Az-Zumar. Don't despair from the mercy of Allah. Because if you put it in your hands, you're going to despair, but don't despair from the mercy of Allah. Why? Because Allah forgives all sins. It's not about you or how big the sin is. Allah forgives all sins. Why? Because he's forgiving. He's merciful. So none of this is actually about you. You just have to express a willingness to being forgiven. None of this is about you. So it's just like, don't belittle the sin. Look at the greatness of the one that you're disobeying. Don't belittle the repentance. Look at the greatness of the one that you're repenting to. You're turning towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Allah's mercy absorbs all those sins, and it does not harm Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in any way. Nor does Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala require you, require you to achieve the status of a prophet before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala shows you that mercy. So you just have to turn. Just show Allah willingness. Die trying. Like if there's a model, subhanAllah, die trying. Die trying. Die trying. Allah loves those that try. Die trying. Make sure that when you die and you meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, Ya Allah, I was in that process and I really was trying. Then leave it to Allah. Someone is saying, it's a very serious question over here, because we're talking about how sin deprives you from the barakah and inherits this sense of humiliation and so on. He goes, but what should I do if, what should I, what someone does basically, what should I do if I'm a sinner but still feel a connection with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? Like they rephrase the question and say, look, I do things on a daily basis. I know that they're
wrong and they're haram on a daily basis. But still when I make dua, I feel so good. Like I still feel connected to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala even though I'm committing sins. They're asking, is that delusion? So it's one of two states. It could in fact be delusion. It could be delusion, right? There is the person who insists upon sin and he says, look, me and Allah are good. I talk to Allah every day. I mean, I feel like I know he loves me and I know he's responding to me. That's ghurur. That could be delusion, right? And it could be the shaitan making you feel a certain way. Or it could be that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala really wants good from you. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is calling you back to him. So listen to that caller, right? So at the end of the day, it's what you translated into that's going to tell you where it's coming from. If you translate it into a return to a true return to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, then perhaps it's that pulse. Look, here's the beauty of it. يا مقلب القروب ثبت قلبي على دينك. Oh, turner of hearts, keep my heart firm on your path. اللهم عني على ذكريك وشكريك وحسن عبادتك. Turn me back to you, O Allah. Enable me. The beauty is when you turn back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and you want to be good, Allah azawajal will turn you. But when you turn away from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and then say, Allah and I are good, you're only deluding yourself. So it could be ghurur, or it could be that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala wants good from this person inshallah is calling them back. Take it as the second one inshallah ta'ala that perhaps this is Allah azawajal calling you back to repent. I want to also add to if the person who asked the question is present or even hearing us right now, to go back maybe two sessions before, because we talked about this He mentioned that sometimes people they wonder, okay wait a minute, I mean you have the knowledge, you know it's wrong, but you're still committing the sin. How is that even possible? Why would
good people commit these sins basically? He said that sometimes it's because of da'af al-ilm. Their knowledge is weak or what they learn is not the right thing. So they have false knowledge about it, about tawbah, about feeling good and so on. Sometimes because of da'af al-fahm or fasad al-fahm, like there's corruption in the way they understand it, their interpretation is messed up completely about it. They've been given some wrong interpretation to that ilm that they have, so they feel good because it's okay as long as you can return back to Allah and tawbah, you can do whatever you want to do. So they don't see salvation from abstaining. Salvation is just like as long as you believe in Allah, you're always fine inshallah ta'ala. Sometimes he says because of da'af al-yaqeen, the weakness and their certainty that this is punishable or this is haram or this is so bad. So that da'af al-yaqeen leads them sometimes to get to that level unfortunately and there's more to it, they can go back to it inshallah. Ibn al-Qayyim rahim Allah also mentions at some point either in this book or another book, but he talks about a person who shows up on the day of judgment and when their sins confront them that person will say, but I thought, but I thought, what did you think? I thought I was good because I wasn't facing the consequences of my sins because I was still praying, I was still making du'a and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's answer is what? Didn't I send the quran and then a prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam to explain things to you? Like you were told this was wrong, there's no I thought when you were told, there's no I thought when you were told. So it's it's clear, so you cannot use your husn adhan to escape a good expectation of Allah, to escape a command from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, an explicit command from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Someone's asking, says how can I permanently get out of the the repeating cycle of sin? I want to comment on this, how can I permanently get out of the repeating cycle of sin? The short answer, you will never, you will never
be flawless or sinless, but the degree of sin will differ, depend on your ilm, your knowledge, your taqwa, your deen and your iman and so on. So basically someone's iman and knowledge might get to a level their sins are a different grade and what's considered for you may be an easy thing, they might consider this to be a sinful thing for themselves. So there's always been an element of falling into haram or something wrong or sin depends on the level of their iman, the level of their knowledge, the level of taqwa, so it's an ongoing struggle. However, one thing important to understand here in this situation, in order for us to get out of that feeling, is we have to keep in mind that shame, which comes from the guilt tripping when we commit a sin, knowing that it's not supposed to happen, I shouldn't be doing that and so on, so shame only thrives in privacy and in seclusion. What does that mean? Is that the shaitan loves to isolate you and always convince you, don't tell anybody, you shouldn't be talking to anybody. If your friends find out, oh man, if your spouse finds out, wow, this, that. So therefore, because the prophet says, shaitan preys on the stray sheep. You can't find a wolf, a wolf comes through the flock or the herd in the middle, no, they go to the side so that when the sheep try to escape they go in one direction and then suddenly one of those sheep by mistake goes to the other direction, away from the herd and that will be the easy prey on these wolves to finish. Same thing with the shaitan, keeps telling you who are you to be among these people. Seriously, you're going back again to the masjid? Did you see what you did last night? Did you hear yourself the other day? So the shaitan is clever to tell us that. So my recommendation really for those who struggle with this is please, please seek professional help because sometimes a sinful life is part of addiction and as we try to
only solve it from a spiritual point of view, sometimes it requires much more than that. It requires maybe chemical treatment, it requires really change of structure, of habit, seek professional help. Go to a therapist, really, and there is no shame, no harm, hope inshallah to Allah from going to professionals and ask them for help. And frankly, the imam is not going to always help you with that. The imam might be giving a spiritual advice that you already know about and makes you even feel even worse because, but I know that already. So therefore you might need something much more powerful inshallah to Allah in terms of actually a structure. But spirituality, there is no doubt, if you increase your imam, I hope inshallah help you to get out of that situation. Part of it, so it's, the equation is identify the source, change the system. Identify the source like Ibn al-Jawzi al-Rahim Allah mentions, if you fall, you look to see what tripped you up. So why did I fall? What was pulling me to that sin? Like what's the deficiency? What's the void? What was I trying to achieve or accomplish by committing this sin? Then change the system. That means what's leading me to it, the structure around me, what's leading me to it and what's causing it to thrive? Change the system. So identify the source, change the system. And by the way, you know, again, I just want to reiterate what Shaykh Yasir said, sometimes the greatest ibadah you can do is seeking help for a sin. Why? Because it takes a lot of swallowing your ego to open up to someone like, hey, like I can't, I've tried to quit and I can't. That means you're willing to swallow your ego for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That means you're willing to humble yourself for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That's ibadah, that's an act of worship. So don't look at it like, this is so shameful and I should just be able to say astaghfirullah and it goes away. The fact that you're willing to go to someone, talk to someone to try to get through it and you need that help and you're willing to solicit that help because you don't want to meet Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with it, so you want to get rid of it here, that's ibadah, that's an act of worship and that's part of your humility, inshallah.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala keep us all, remain steadfast on the path of guidance, ya rabbal alameen. I ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to protect us from all the ill effects of the sins, ya rabbal alameen. And we ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to guide our heart to that which is most pleasing to Him. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to help us find that dignity into worshiping Him, ya rabbal alameen, and stay away from anything that displeases Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We ask Allah azza wa jal to protect our brothers and sisters in Gaza, ya rabbal alameen. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for their safety. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to accept their shuhada. We ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to heal the wound among them, ya rabbal alameen, to bring those who are absent and ya Allah we ask you to protect those who are alive, ya rabbal alameen. Provide for them from your rizq, from your blessings, ya rahman, ya rahim, ya rabbal alameen. Ya Allah the way we all gather in this place, in this blessed night of Ramadan, we ask that we all gather together in Jannatul Firdaws al-A'la, ala surur al-mutaqabilin, with the Prophet Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, wa salihin, wa alhamdulillahi rabbal alameen, wa sallahu alayhi wa sallam wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam. Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
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