Journey to Allah - Session 4

Alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen wa salatu wa salamu ala al muba'uthi rahmatan lil alameen nabiyyina muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'een. Allahumma laka alhamdulillahi hatta tawba wa laka alhamdulillahi radhi wa laka alhamdulillahi ba'da ridwa. Allahumma salli wa sallimu ala sayyidina muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallimu taseer. So what we have been speaking about is iman. And until now we only introduced iman. And we saw that iman is basically the path that takes us to that the people before us took and therefore we also want to take to reach to the final goal which is Allah's pleasure. Until now we haven't defined what is iman. We haven't seen what connection it has to us. How are we going to increase the iman that we have. First of all, what is the iman of Allah? What do we mean al iman billah? What is it? So the scholars have almost all agreed. There are many definitions but majority have agreed on this definition. In Arabic they say, In terms of what is our iman in Allah, he says, the scholar says that it is the unwavering belief. The belief which is not shaken. 100% belief. And in what? In the names and the attributes of Allah. And the promise that he gave and the warning he gave. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has given promises and warnings. We believe in his names, his characteristics, his promises and his warnings. And believing also and submitting that he has not created us for no reason. He has created us for a very particular reason. What is the reason that we saw? In the previous session we saw, except for worshipping. So he has created us for the purpose. The purpose is ibadah. Simple as that. And in surah al mu'minoon Allah says, أَفَحَسِبْتُمْ أَنَّمَا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ عَبَثًا وَأَنَّكُمْ إِلَيْنَا لَا تُرْجَعُونَ فَتَعَالَ اللَّهُ الْمَلِكُ الْحَقُّ لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا هُوَ رَبُّ الْعَرْشِ الْكَرِيمُ Do you think that you just can pass the time just like that without intentionally making use of every minute in the purpose that you are built for? فَتَعَالَ اللَّهُ الْمَلِكُ الْحَقُّ It does not befit Allah to create us for no reason. He is the king. He is the owner. He is the truth. And there is no God except Him. And He is the Rabb. He is the caretaker of the Arsh al-'Azim, the Great Throne. So, He has created us for sure for the Ibadah. And what is that Ibadah? Now, first definition, Iman Billah. Second definition, what is Ibadah? We said, وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا نِعْبُتُ We have not created any jinn except for worship. What is worship? Worship is الظُّلُّ وَالْخُضُورُ وَالإِسْتِسْلَامُ And the abudeeah definition is to do everything that is required to please Allah. And avoid everything that displeases Allah. And that includes and that involves a level of submission. Until and unless you are not submitting, you are not truly worshipping. So, the submission, and Allah says, وَإِن مِن شَيْءٍ إِلَّا يُسَبِّحُ بِحَبِّهِ وَلَكِن لَا تَفْقَعُنَ تَسْبِحًا So, when you are actually doing the Ibadah, you are one part of the entirety of Allah's creation that is also doing Ibadah as well. You are one part. You are in alignment with them. You are in harmony with them. So, it is the ones who are not worshipping Allah that is the odd one out. Unfortunately, we are made to believe that the ones who are worshipping Allah are the ones who are odd one out because how many people are inside the mosque at Salah and how many are outside. So, we are made to believe somehow that it is us, the small percentage of people who are actually doing the Ibadah but actually we are in line with the whole of the creation which does Ibadah. And the Ibadah of the human beings is different from the Ibadah of all the other creations of Allah. We agreed that Allah says that everything does Tasbih, everything does Ibadah including the sun, including the moon. And Allah even says the sun and the moon do Sujood. So, everything does. But their Ibadah is different from our Ibadah. And their Ibadah, they don't get rewarded. They don't get rewarded. They don't get rewarded. We are the ones who are getting rewarded for it. Because the reason is that we are doing it out of choice. We are doing it out of choice and we are doing it in spite of, in spite of the forces which are driving us against the Ibadah. One is the Nafs, which is by nature Ammarat Bissu, which will always tell us to do the opposite of Ibadah. And in spite of Shaytan al-Rajeem, who is also, who is actually not just fighting us, it is his mission. And he has done a promise to Allah Azza wa Jal that he will work tirelessly to lead us astray. That's the promise he has taken. He promised to Allah by the Izzah of Allah. Addressing that Allah himself, that I am going to lead them all astray. Except the ones who are devoted to you. So there is a level of devotion that is required, Ikhlas that is required, so that you save yourself from the grasp of Shaytan. So we have to work to go into the circle of Ibadat al-Mukhlaseen. So that requires effort. And that requires not external effort, that requires internal effort. So that internal is what we want to talk about, that Iman is what we want to talk about. And Allah, actually, Allah does not give value to anybody except for those who are worshipping him. He says, قُلْ مَا يَعْتَقُ بِكُمْ رَبِّي لَوْلَا دُعَاصُكُمْ He will not care of you unless you are doing Dua, which is Ibadat. So all these scores of people outside, Allah doesn't care about them. Just because you put your head on the floor, your forehead on the ground, and you are asking Dua, that you have value in front of Allah. That is what gives you value with Allah. And Ibn Abbas explains the Dua and the Ibadat that we are worshipping. Which includes the Dua and all the other acts that we are doing in order to gain the pleasure of Allah. So Allah took an oath, a promise from all of us before we were even in the wombs of our mothers. And we were at that time in Alam Al-Zar, the Atoms Universe. And He took a shahada, He took a covenant from us. He said, وَإِذْ أَخَذَ رَبُّكَ مِن بَنِي آدَمَ مِنْ ظُهُورِهِمْ ذُرِّيَّتَهُمْ وَأَشْهَدَهُمْ عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ أَلَسْتُ بِرَبِّكُمْ قَالُوا بَلَا شَهِدْنَا أَن تَقُولُوا يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ إِنَّا كُنَّ عَنْ هَذَا غَفِلِينَ Allah has taken from the backs of the children of Adam and all of them and took an oath and covenant and a promise and He made them witnesses that, Am I not your Lord? And all of us answered that, Yes, we promise, we take an oath and we are witnesses that You are our Lord. Why did He do that? أَن تَقُولُوا يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ إِنَّا كُنَّ عَنْ هَذَا غَفِلِينَ This is basically in Arabic, a Hujjah. A Hujjah means an evidence against us. An evidence against us that we have already given the promise, already shown that we are witnesses of Him being our Lord. And this is, you might not have felt of it, but it is actually an innate nature, a Fitrah. There is a Fitrah and Allah talks about this Fitrah in such a way. He says, فَأَقِمْ وَجْهَكَ لِلدِّينِ حَنِيفًا فِطْرَةَ اللَّهِ الَّتِي فَضَرَتْ نَاسَ عَلَيْهَا لَا تَبْدِيلَ لِخَلْقِ اللَّهِ ذَلِكَ الدِّينُ الْقَيِّمُ وَلَكِنَّ أَكْثَرَ النَّاسِ لَا يَعْلَمُونَ So, put forth your faith, to direct your faith towards the Deen which is straight towards Allah. This is the Fitrah, this is the innate nature that Allah has created in the human being. And there is no change to it. And it is out of the creation. So Allah has put a program in us. We are a hardware, our bodies, and there is a software. That software already internally has that Allah is our Lord. That there is this superior being up there. So all of the people, even those who have never ever seen other human beings, they know that there is somebody up there. There is somebody up there who is controlling, who is making sure there is rain one day and there is no rain the other day. So we have to do something to make him happy so that there is rain the other day. So there is innate nature, there is a software that is inculcated in us. And that is the confirmation on the promise that we give. قَالَ رَسُولُ الله ﷺ مَا مِن مَوْلُودٍ إِلَّا يُولَدْ وَعَلِ الْفِطْرَةِ فَأَبَوَاهُ يُهَوِّدَانِهِ أَوْ يَنصِّرَانِهِ أَوْ يُمَجِّسَانِهِ Prophet ﷺ said all the newborns are born on the fitrah. Fitrah is that they believe there is a God. They believe Allah is the Creator. They believe Allah is the Cherisher and the Sustainer. And He is the One who is going to take our life. As they are born, they know. The parents are the ones who make the newborn Yahudi or a Christian or a Majusi. Majusi is the five worshipers. So the Prophet ﷺ will also not know that he has given us a responsibility by taking a promise from us. Why do you even give a promise if you don't want to take accountability? You don't want to hold them accountable one day. So that accountability Allah talks about. وَعُرِضُوا عَلَى رَبِّكَ صَفَّنْكَ لَقَدْ جِئْتُمُونَ كَمَا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ أَوَّلَ مَرَّةً بَلْ زَعَمْتُمْ أَلَّنَّ جَعَلَ لَكُم مَوْعِدًا He says you will be shown in front of Allah in Ruth. You will be standing in front of Allah in Ruth. You have returned to us at the day you were born, at the day you were created. You are the ones who thought that you will never have a reappointment with Allah. So you think that there is an appointment or you don't think there is an appointment. Allah is going to make you stand in front of Him in a straight row. Rows upon rows of people. So the Ubudiyyah, the worship of Allah, the place of it is the heart. It is the internal that we are talking about. And this is where your love, your hate, your fear, your hope, your happiness, your sadness, your wantingness and your peace. All of it is inside, in the heart. All those feelings are inside. So what is the connection of the Qalb with your Aqid and with your Nafs? That's the topic today. So Allah has created in all of us a Qalb, a heart. This heart, the Qalb is a bad translation of, the heart is a bad translation of Qalb. Because heart, when we think about heart, it's just a physical pump that makes sure there is blood circulation in our heart, in our body. But the Qalb is actually not just that physical thing that is in us. It is also the decision making which is assigned to ourselves. And this is the one which guides and directs everything else, including our brain. And we will come to it. The Prophet ﷺ in a hadith says, أَلَا وَإِنَّ فِي الْجَسَدِ مُضْغَةٌ إِذَا صَلُحَتْ صَلُحَ الْجَسَدُ كُلُّ وَإِذَا فَسُدَتْ فَسُدَى الْجَسَدُ كُلُّ أَلَا وَهِيَ الْقَلْبُ There is a meat piece inside the body, right? If it's pure, then the whole of the body is pure. If it is spoiled, then the whole of the body is spoiled and it is not the brain. It is the heart. So, this heart is the one which guides our aqid, our brain. And the brain's duty is the pondering, the thinking. And the knowledge is the tool of the aqid. And that's the one you're thinking about the consequences of. So, heart will not think about it. It's the brain which is the tools of it, is the thinking, is the assessing of the consequences. And that's the one which controls the emotions. Emotions want you to just run around. The one which controls that emotion is your brain. Therefore, the best of the advisors to the heart is the aqid. Because your heart sometimes might be reactive, but your brain says, if you act this way, this is the consequence. This is how the other party will see you. Therefore, this is not probably the right time to say it the way you want to say it. Hold on. Right? But the nafs, now we talked about qalb, aql and nafs. Nafs is where all your wishes and your ghariza, your shahwa, your bodily needs are in your nafs. And it is automatically driven to be loose, to be free, to take freedom as its path. So it doesn't want to be bounded by the aql or the qalb. It wants to drive free. And this freedom is what leads the people to do all these things that we sometimes do not understand. What is it that's guiding them? So it is their shahwa, it is their desires that's leading them. So, now the nafs always wants to take precedent over the decisions made by both the qalb and aql. It is a very demanding feature of us. It wants all the attention given to it. Because I currently am hungry, therefore your thought process, leave it later. Halal, haram, leave it later. I am hungry now, feed me. It's halal, it's haram, that's a problem you deal with later. Now I am hungry, I see food, take that food, feed me. So it is a very commanding, demanding, very strong driver, the nafs. So if you leave it like that, it will be your driver. You are just running behind what your heart is, not your heart, your nafs is taking you to. So we don't think about these things the way the westerners want to think. We have a framework to think. We have three elements. We have the qalb that we want to purify. And from the purification of the qalb, we are able to make use of our aql, our brain, right? And take control of our nafs. So if we fix the qalb, the aql and the nafs will fall in line. So how do we fix the qalb? That is the exercise of increasing iman. That is the exercise of increasing iman. And Allah has in fact assigned a malak to each individual. And he is the one who reminds of good. And he is the one who makes you avoid the bad. And he is the one who warns you. The malak is always directing you by your side to do the good, to avoid the bad. And kind of warning you once in a while. He is also assigned to us a shaytan. Who is always giving you hopes, baseless hopes. And he makes the haram beautiful to us. And how does that happen is, one of the reasons is the jahal, the ignorance. Since the more ignorant you are of Allah's commands, the easier it becomes for the shaytan to beautify what is wrong. Therefore the knowledge and gaining it becomes a duty of yours. So that this shaytan is not able to play with you. And the prophet s.a.w. says, Indeed for the shaytan is a union with the son of Adam, and for the malak is a union. As for the union of the shaytan, it is a return to evil, and a denial of the truth. As for the union of the malak, it is a return to good, and a confirmation of the truth. So whoever finds that, let him know that it is from Allah, so let him praise Allah. And whoever finds the other, let him seek refuge in Allah from the outcast shaytan. And then he read, The shaytan will return you to poverty, and will order you to commit indecency. The prophet s.a.w. has said that the shaytan has a grip on us. He has a grip. He always wants to show you the bad results. And he always wants you to not believe in the truth. That is the kufr, is that you see the truth, and you don't accept it. So this, it can't be. Doesn't make sense. This is not how it could be. This doesn't add up. This thought process, when you see the haqq, that it is from Allah, it is from the process of Allah itself, that is from shaytan. And the malak also has a grip on us. And he is the one who wants you to believe when you see the haqq. So the prophet says, if you see that you are inclined towards believing the haqq, inclined towards expecting good from Allah, then know that it is from Allah, and you should thank Allah. And if you see in you the previous example, that you are seeing that this is truth, but you want to avoid it, then know that it is from shaytan, and you should seek refuge from Allah. أعوذ بالله من الشيطان And Allah says, الشيطان, the prophet read this ayah immediately after this, he says الشيطان يعيدكم الفقه ويأمركم بالفحشة Shaytan is always promising you of poverty. When do you think about poverty? A lot of the good deeds actually outwardly might lead to poverty. Don't think about sadaqa only. Don't think about zakat only. When you are coming to sadaq, you are leaving a money making opportunity. You could be losing out certain money just because you are away from that opportunity that is making money for you. Like the example which is mentioned in surah al-jumu'ah. The prophet ﷺ is standing and doing futba, and there is this caravan from another city which came. So a lot of people got up and ran to the business opportunity. They want to get the goods in the best price before anybody else gets. So they become the wholesaler before the retailer, and there is a margin and all that they are thinking. Why is the futba going on by the prophet ﷺ? So this opportunity loss is what the prophet, the shaytan is going to tease you with. And he is always going to beautify which Allah has crowned upon you. Which Allah always makes it beautiful. So the Iman, the heart is the culmination of all your feelings, of all your love and hate and happiness and sadness. It is always being dragged by two forces. The force of Iman and the force of Hawa. Hawa is our wishes, our dreams, our desires. And the Iman is always asking you to be content. So there is a level of contentment that is required from you which will stop you from running to the business opportunity. That I am happy with what I have. So there is this level of contentment that Iman feeds in you. Unless if you don't have that contentment, then you are clear that there is work to be done in terms of Iman. And you are also able to believe when the truth is forwarded to you. You believe that the instruction given by Allah actually has its reasons even if it is not clear to you now. So the heart is the one which responds. Either to what the Iman is calling you to. And the Aqn also confirms that what Iman is telling you is truth. Your thought process, if you think long enough, you are reaching to the same conclusion that the Iman is showing you. Therefore, you would see a lot of research in academia will come up to the conclusion that the Iman is giving, that Islam is giving. They will do research upon years and years and years and years and trial and error. And they will go to universities and they will check with this group and that group and this group. Until they reach to a conclusion that they believe that it is from the Aqn. And it is true that it is from the Aqn. But it matches what the Iman was always telling us. So the Qalb, if it is answering to its desires, then it is answering to something material. To something touchable. Some enjoyment. That is what we want to avoid. Right? So the strength of each. Now there are two pulling parties, no? Two pulling forces, no? Each have their own strengths, no? Right? How do you feed them strength? You have the control in feeding which side you want to feed more strength. And how is that you do? This feeding that you do is the one which actually derives the actions. The actions, the decisions you are making is in fact a reflection of which force you fed more. If you fed Iman with more acceptance and following, then this force becomes the driving force for your actions. Your actions not include just getting up and moving. Your actions include even your sight. Even what you are paying attention to by ear. Even what you are allowing your Aqal to process and think about. And what you are allowing your Nafs to ponder over. Right? So all that is in your decision in which one do you feed. Is it the Iman or the Hawa? This example of it is very clear in the Prophet's hadith when he says قال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم لا يذن الزان حين يذن وهو مؤمن ولا يشرب الخمر حين يشربها وهو مؤمن ولا يسرق السارق حين يسرق وهو مؤمن The one who commits Zina, he does not commit the Zina in a state of Iman. And the one who drinks alcohol is not drinking in a state of Iman. And the one who steals is not stealing in a state of Iman. Why? Because at that moment it was the desire, the Hawa which took hold of him and took control of his Qalb. So the Iman was far away, was never there, was distant, was kept aside, was never involved. Because if Iman was involved then the Zina would not have been committed. Then the alcohol would not be drunk. Then the stealing would not have happened. So your actions of any of your bodily organs is a reflection of the strength of either your Iman or your Hawa. And your effort and all the Jihad, the Jihad is in increasing the strength of the Iman and pushing the strength of your Hawa. That is the effort you have to be putting and this is what is Jihad. This is the Jihad in Nafs. And that is, I believe, more than enough for today. May Allah bless you. O Allah, help us to remember You, and thank You, and honor Your worship. O Allah, forgive us our sins, and forgive us our sins. And grant us to die while You are pleased with us. O our Lord, O our Master. O Allah, help us to remember You, and thank You, and honor Your worship. O Most Merciful. O Allah, send blessings and peace upon our master Muhammad and his family and companions.