Journey to Allah - Session 2

The speaker discusses the importance of following the path of Prophet Muhammad and his companions in order to please Allah. They emphasize the need to have a sincere and strong love for Allah, rather than being consumed by worldly desires. The Sahaba (companions) are mentioned as the best examples to follow, with Abu Bakr being highlighted as the best of them. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of fixing the heart and having a strong intention in all actions. The significance of learning and acting upon the Quran is discussed, as well as the challenges faced by the Sahaba in their journey to Allah, including the Hijra (migration) to Madina. The focus is on fixing the heart and pouring iman (faith) into it. The speaker mentions Ibn Qayyim's book "Madarij al-Salikeen" as a valuable resource for guidance on the path to Allah. Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen, wassalatu wassalamu ala al mursaleen, wassalatu wassalamu ala al mursaleen, nabiyina muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi, wa salamu taslimin kathirin rabbil deen. Allahumma laka alhamdulillahi, hatta terba'u laka alhamdulillahi, illa radheetahu laka alhamdulillahi, ba'da al ridha. So, when we talk about our journey to Allah, you know, we are not the first people walking to Allah. We are not the first people who want to get the pleasure of Allah. There is a whole society which came before us. And the leader of that society is our Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And the best of the followers or the best of those who walk this path is the Sahaba of the Prophet. And that's why it is a religion that we are following people. We are following people. We are following the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam. And if you see in Surat al-Fadiha, what you are saying is, Show me the right path. The path of those who you blessed. So people, so there are people who walked before us on the same path. And they achieved. We are followers. So we want to stop at the places they stopped. Run at the places they ran. Right? And think at the places they talked. Change the speed at the places they spent. And all those actions that got them close to Allah, we want to follow it. We want to understand it. And when they talk about the Sahaba, and the first and the best of the Sahaba is Abu Bakr. The Salaf that he did for us, they told, They say that Abu Bakr is the best human being after all the Prophets. After all the Prophets. Best person, Abu Bakr. And he is not a leader among the rest of the people. Because he prayed more or he did fasting more. Right? Because that is how we are thinking. We want to get a better Muslim, become a better Muslim. I have to pray more. But, It is something that was in his heart. That made him better than others. And then, Abdullah bin Masroor says, In his people, after the Prophet passed away, among the people, among the Tabi'een, he says, Antum, the Tabi'een, the people who came after the Prophet passed away. Some of the followers of the Prophet are still alive. Right? And they are talking to the people who never saw the Prophet. And he is telling them, You are more praying and more fasting than the companions of the Prophet. Than the followers of the Prophet when he was alive. Right? But, they were better. You pray more, you fast more. But they are better. So, they asked Abdullah bin Masroor. What? They want to find out. So, he said, They wanted less from this life. And more from what is there in the Akhira. Hereafter. After death. They want more. And they want less from this life. So, he is actually showing them, showing us, showing them the key. More money is not the key. Bigger position is not the key. You have to have something inside your heart. That is love of meeting Allah. And not filling your heart with the love of dunya. Basically, that is the key. So, if we get that, we have achieved something. Now, that path requires certain method to follow. And that is why, Iman has to come first. And the Tarbiyah that Allah, the teaching that Allah gave to the Sahaba, is such that he didn't make Salah, the Salah that we pray now, Asha Salah, when it became Salah for the people. Just one year before Hijrah. That means around 12 years. 12 years of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he is asking people to convert to Islam. He is not asking them to pray five times. And when we are fasting first, second year after Hijrah, that means 14 years of Salah, after that only, Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is saying, you have to fast Ramadan. What were the people doing before that? The people were following Surah Al-Nisa. Surah Al-Muzzammil starts with, Old Prophet, who is covering himself, get up and pray in the night. Half of the night, or more than the night, or less than the night, and read the Quran. And this Surah is a little, it's a page and a half. Last Ayah of the Quran, of that Surah, Allah says that some of you will be travelling, some of you will be sick. So it's okay if you are not able to pray in the night. Read little Quran. So at first, it became Fard, meaning like we are praying five times, for the first followers of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, they used to pray every night. And how to pray every night? You know how you prayed in Ramadan? Taraweeh. Some people praying 8 rakats, some people praying 20 rakats, some most praying up to 2 hours, some most praying up to 1 hour. That long reading of Taraweeh, is daily 365 days. Why that training Allah gave, is also in the same Ayah. He says in the same Surah, The feed you put in the night, is stronger. And the words are clearer. Why? Because in the day, you have so many things that you are doing. So whenever you are praying in the day, you are already coming from some job, some task, and you have to go to another task. This is in between. So you are thinking about the past, you are thinking about the next tasks. So you are busy. But in the night, sounds are all coming. Everybody is sleeping. No distractions. So the voice of the Quran, has strong impact in the heart. So, this, once the heart gets fixed, then everything else gets fixed. The heart got fixed of the Sahaba, in the early days. That's why for them, when Allah says, Are you going to stop? Stop what? Drinking. Liquor. Sahaba, like majority of Asir, for example, all of them used to drink. Both of them. Right? They used to drink a lot. But the training they got from the Quran, it became very easy for them. When Allah told them, Are you going to stop? They said, We are going to stop. And they spilled out all the bottles. And the liquor was running in the streets of Madina like rivers. Running in the streets. Like there was rain. So it became easy for them to follow. Why? Because they got the training. The heart has changed. So once the heart is changed, everything else can easily follow. But how did the heart change? The Sahaba says, Abdullah bin Masroor, again, same Sahabi. He is a scholar among the Sahaba. Among the Sahaba, there are some who were scholars. Some who were fighters. Khalid bin Waleed. Right? Abdullah bin Masroor, and Abdullah bin Qas, and Abdullah bin Umar, are scholars. So Abdullah bin Masroor, he says, We, among us, the people, what we used to do is learn only 10 ayahs of the Quran. They are Arabs. They are Arabs. It's coming in their language. Right? The same language that they are using is the language of the Quran. And in the same, even, even same words choice. You know, in Tamil, you have Sri Lankan Tamil and Indian Tamil. Right? There is difference. So this is for the Sinhalese people, if they receive in the Tamil of Sri Lanka, if they receive in the Tamil of Sri Lanka. No impact. Like that, the Quran is in the Arabic of the Quraish people. Same language. And they will also, only one 10 ayah. They want to learn the meaning of it, and they want to act upon it. Take action. According to that 10 ayah. Then only they move to next. So they followed a strategy of learning. And the Prophet, when he is training, when he is teaching, when he is addressing his people, he is trying to fix the heart first. Trying, working on the heart first. And purifying the heart first. First, hadith in the book called Arba'een an-Nawabiya. It says, He says that the actions, the good deeds that you are doing, it is by the intention. What is the intention you have with the good deeds? You want to pay. What is the intention of your prayer? So in that time, one of the biggest challenges the Sahaba faced is the pressure they were receiving from their own family members of Quraysh. So they had to run away to Madina. It is a big thing to run away to Madina. Why? Because you have all your family, your uncles, your aunties, your brother, your mother, your father, your sister, everybody is here. One house is here, one house is there, you have your business, your shop, your trade route, everything is here. How you will just leave and take nothing but your clothes and run away? So they did Hijra. A lot of the Sahaba did Hijra. And the Hijra also, such a big task they did, such a big sacrifice they did. Prophet said, whose Hijra was for Allah and the Messenger, then he get reward for that. Whose Hijra was for more money in Madina, another branch in Madina, start new business in Madina, then that is what he will get. Or who is following another woman who is going, or wants to get married a woman in Madina, then that is what he will get. So physically they are doing the Hijra, they are going from Makkah to Madina leaving everything. Physically everything you can see, 300-400 Sahaba followers of the Prophet left. But Prophet is saying, physically moving is the easy part, more difficult part is the heart moving. That is why he said, what is your intention, what is your need, what you want from this action, what you are asking from Allah, from this action. And the Prophet again says about the heart, he says, Prophet says, there is one small thing in the body, if it is fixed, the rest of the body is fixed. If it is spoiled, then the rest of the body is spoiled, and that is the heart. So the first thing we want to learn, to get to Allah, in our path to Allah, in our journey to Allah, is how to fix our heart. And how to pour the iman, the water of the heart is the iman, how to pour it so that it becomes filled with iman, and keeps that iman. So that is the challenge that we have, and that is what we want to learn from these sessions. And there are so many efforts by people before us, in terms of writing books, about the fixing of the heart, about the path of iman. And one of the biggest and best known scholars is, Ibn Qayyim. And one of those best books that he wrote, is Madarij al-Sadiqeen. The steps of the people who are on the journey to Allah. And Madarij means like the steps of the stegists. One step, next step, next step. First step he talks about is al-yaqaba, awakening. Not sleeping, opposite of sleeping. Awake, just being awake. And what is the awakening that he is talking about? Not the eyes, heart. He wants to awaken the heart. So the heart is always looking. It is always observing. It is always learning. It is always growing. So what is it that the heart is not connecting with Allah? Why? Why is it not connecting? And Allah says that I am near you. And then in surah al-Baqarah he says, وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ وُجِيبُ بِعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَانُ فَلْيَسْتَجِيبُونِ وَلْيُؤْمِنُونِ بَلْعَلَّهُمْ يَرْشُدُونَ He says, tell me, if the servants ask the Prophet, if they ask you, then I am surely near them. Allah is saying that he is near us. وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِي عَنِّي فَإِنِّي قَرِيبٌ وُجِيبُ بِعْوَةَ الدَّاعِ I hear what they are asking. And I listen to what they are saying. So they have to respond to me. So Allah is near to us. But somehow our heart is not connecting to Allah. Where is the issue? That is what we would expect in our duty. In Surah Al-Mutafiqeen Allah says, The issue is كَلَّ بَلْ رَانَ عَلَى قُلُوبِهِمْ مَا كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونِ This verse is actually a warning. That the heart has covering. رَانَ عَلَى قُلُوبِهِمْ Because of the misdeeds. Because of the sins that have come. So the heart becomes like a treasure in the mountain. Or a treasure in some where not. So each one of us, The depth of the treasure is different. For some it is so many layers and layers and layers of covering on the heart. For some it is one layer. For some it is two layers. For some it is just few layers. So that covering is there, you have to dig it out. To take that treasure out. Just like that you have to dig out your heart to get the light of the sun. To get the light that Allah is sending to your heart. So that effort, Once you find out, How do you find out that your heart is out? The heart has become awake. How? If we know how, then we can put the effort, we will put the effort. So we want to know, how is it that we know that our effort is successful? Right? Allah says, Allah says, Is it the one who is dead and we gave life? And we gave it light. That using that light we are walking around. Is he same as the one who is in darkness? And he is not getting out of the darkness. Are they same? They are not the same. And Ibn Mas'ud said, When this ayah was recited, People asked him, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, And what is this light that you are talking about? The heart getting light and it is walking in the streets. And it is walking in the right path. What is the light? The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he says, A light that is true in the heart. And it becomes receiving of the light of Allah. Right? And what is the sign of it? Heart receiving light. What is the sign that the heart has received the light? He says, He says, That you are expecting the death. The life after death. You are expecting. You are preparing. You are working for. All you are concerned about is life after death. That is what you are working for. That is the day and night. That is what you are thinking about. And you are living this life. You are not worried about this life. You are not worried about your job. You are not worried too much about your money, your house, your wife, your children. You are not worried too much. That is there. But that is not what is taking your brain power, and you are sleepless, and you are wondering about, and you are calculating, and you are managing. All that calculation and worrying, all that is about the life after death. And you are preparing for the death before the death comes. These are the three things the Prophet saw. So, again, is there something more to find out if the heart is receiving the light? He says, That is, وَجَلُ الْقُلُوبِ عَنْ جَذِكْرِ اللَّهِ The heart becomes aware, or a new light is received when Allah's name is mentioned, when Allah is remembered. إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ الَّذِينَ إِذَا دُكِّرَ اللَّهُ وَجِلَتْ قُلُوبُهُمْ وَإِذَا تُلِيَتْ عَلَيْهِمْ آيَاتُهُ سَادَتْهُمْ إِيمَانًا وَعَلَى رَبِّهِمْ يَتَوَكَّرُونَ Allah says that the mu'minun, the believers, are those whose hearts وَجِلَتْ قُلُوبُهُمْ It becomes lightened. And if his names and his Quran ayahs are read, it increases them in iman. And they are always dependent on Allah, always submitting to Allah. تَوَكَّر You know, تَوَكَّر is a concept that you can't explain if the Islam is not clear. It is difficult to explain تَوَكَّر. Because when you are seeing that your salary is only 40 BB, and your expenses are 60 BB, that is, that is not enough. But تَوَكَّر is such that you know you are leaving in the morning and you will come back with your salary. Prophet Muhammad says that if you truly have تَوَكَّر, then you will be like the birds. Every night the birds are planning for next day. No, they are not planning. They just get up in the morning, they travel, they try to come back, their stomach is full. Yes. And they go out and they are hungry. They are hungry. Come back, their stomach is full. So this is the تَوَكَّر, It is a matter of the heart. It is that believe in Allah. Allah is going to take care of me. Allah is going to take care of my children. Allah is going to take care of my wife. Allah is going to take care of us. So I don't have to worry too much. I don't have to. So the وَجَل of the قُلُوب is the heart gets life. And there is this fear of Allah. And there is the speed in the heartbeat that you feel when you are listening to the Quran. Right? And it is like a burning sensation in the heart when you are listening to the Quran. So that is the وَجَل. And another aspect is خُشُور القلب. First was وَجَل القلب. Second is خُشُور القلب. خُشُور is submission. Humility. خُشُور is something lower when you see there is something upper. Allah is up and you are submission. And that is why this whole سُجُود سُجُود is physically we are submitting our head, our pride, our self, putting on the ground. That is a physical خُشُور. But if your heart is not doing the خُشُور then you are not getting the fruit of it. That is our mission. So the heart also you have to put it on the floor in front of Allah. That is the خُشُور. You know and Allah says in the in several places about خُشُور. He says وَخَشَعَتِ الْأَخْوَاتُ لِلرَّحْمَةِ In the Day of Judgment in يوم الآخرة All the sounds will be low. Everybody is going to be whispering. Nobody is going to be talking. Nobody is going to have the courage to talk loudly. Everybody is just whispering. So the sounds are all going down. This down Allah says خَشَعَتِ And Allah asks an important question. He talks about He talks about منافقين. And immediately after that in سورة الحديد after منافقين He says فَلَمْ يَأْمِنِ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَن تَخْشَعَ قُلُوبُهُمْ بِذِكْرِ اللَّهِ وَمَا نَزَلَ بِنَا الْحَقُّ وَلَا يَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ مِن قَبْلُ فَقَالَ عَلَيْهِمْ أَمَدُ فَقَصَتْ قُلُوبُهُمْ وَكَثِيرُهُمْ بِنهِ فَاسِقُونَ He says people who are believer is in a time for them that their heart is submitting for the dhikr of Allah for the remembrance of Allah for the Quran of Allah and is not to be like the people before people before includes Christians people before includes Jews people before includes Buddhists people before includes Hindus because they all received the light of Allah they all received the word of Allah but فَقَصَتْ قُلُوبِهِمْ their heart became hard because they left the teachings of Allah far away and they didn't go back to it the teachings of Allah was available for them they didn't preserve it they didn't carry on reading it they didn't aspire to learn it and implement it they forgot about it so their hearts became hard so the fixing of it is that we have to keep putting the effort to bring our heart the remembrance and the submission and the surrender of our heart to Allah again and again and again so how is that again and again going to happen one of the opportunities is the high times prayers it is basically an opportunity Allah has given us to keep going back and putting the heart to the floor Ya Allah I need you Ya Allah I want you so that physically we are going but we have to take our heart with us we have to engage our heart in the salah that's how we will be getting the light from Allah and the heart will be walking with the light of Allah and the last point I have for you is once you have that khushu in your heart you taste you taste the iman there is a taste that is for the iman and Allah and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says salatun man kunafi wajadabihim halawatan iman man kaana allahu wa rasuluhu wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman wajadabihim halawatan iman first is that Allah and his messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam should be the most loved the love you have for Allah and Prophet Muhammad should be number one after that everybody else after that his wife, after that his children after that teachers, after that the mother, after that the father after that everything first is the love of Allah and Prophet Muhammad second he loves or hates only what Allah only for Allah he loves something because Allah loves it he hates something because Allah hates it that love is because of Allah and he has to third, he has to hate going back to kufr becoming kafir after Allah has saved him as if the one who hates being thrown in the hell fire who is going to love being thrown in fire nobody wants to be thrown in the fire like that, you have to hate anything that reminds you of your past before Islam, you have to hate it right so all this is difficult but after the difficulty only, you get the taste hala urtun iman hasan-ul basir of iman says taste of iman find it in three places in prayer in reading the Quran and remembering of Allah if you have tasted it, then be happy that you have tasted it and carry on and if you don't then you know that the door is closed for you you have to keep knocking the door to get the taste these three the salah, prayer the Quran and the remembrance of Allah dhikr, dhikr can be saying la ilaha illallah, saying subhanallah reading the Quran is also dhikr, the morning ayatul kursi so many ways that we are remembering Allah, that remembrance should give us some taste not getting the taste, keep knocking the door, the door is closed until it opens because the moment you knock the door it will surely open you have to knock the door and once you reach that level what happens is that you enjoy that you taste and you are looking forward, you know lovers their appointment will be three weeks after today we will meet there at time ok, three weeks after you have to be, you get the taste from now your ticket date is next month 25th also month is there but you get the taste from now you want to see, you want to go that love, that feeling, you get it for Allah if you get that level so for us to reach that level, that's why we want to marry Iman we want to love Allah, reach that level of Iman that we are expecting the native of Allah like we are expecting the most beloved one for us what is it that we should do that is what we have to learn and that is with this session and that's all I have for you today Subhanallah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah Allah