In The Footsteps of The Prophet (s)

In The Footsteps of The Prophet

Opening Nasheed: Tala'a al-Badr

Jazakumullahu khair

أَمَّا بَعْدُ

Introduction: The Crisis of Our Ummah

Alhamdulillah. First of all I want to say that Sayyidi Muhammad Sharif, what he spoke about was incredibly important, and I don't think it can be really underestimated, the importance of that topic. Because what we are facing now as an ummah, we've never faced in any other time in our history. We're facing the threat of the dissolution of the human soul itself.

I had the great fortune very recently of meeting somebody that I would consider one of the great men of our time, Shaykh Abdul Kareem Zaidan. I met him in Mecca. We had suhoor together. And he's an Iraqi Shaykh of over 90 years of age. And he's written an encyclopedic work about the fiqh of women, of the ahkam pertaining to women, several volumes. But among the many books he's written, he wrote a book about the sunan of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, the ways in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala works in His creation.

The Blueprint of Existence

Because one of the most extraordinary things about our teaching is that it literally provides us with a blueprint of how existence works. And we are the conscious element within the entire creation that is able to understand creation in a way that no other creature has access to. We are able to prevent harm for ourselves or take ourselves to destruction based on the knowledge that we have been given. And so this sacred knowledge, this most profound knowledge, is something that Allah has bestowed upon us as an amanah, as a trust. And it is a weighty trust of which, according to the Quran, the angels, the mountains themselves, the earth refused the

mountains themselves refused to bear the weight of this amanah, this trust. And the human being took it upon himself to bear this amanah.

The Shaykh's Warning

And one of the things that this shaykh—that struck me so much—is that he came into the room and sat down, and given the age that he is, he obviously walks with some difficulty. And he sat down and he was very quiet. And somebody asked him a question, because there was another shaykh in the room who had been talking. And somebody asked him a question, and suddenly there poured forth from this man a passion that really struck me, given the age of the man—like a young man speaking with deep sincerity and passion. And it affected everyone in the room.

And the gist of what he said is that we as an ummah are collectively facing a crisis that is unparalleled in the history of Islam. There is no other period in our history that is equivalent to the period that we have now. And the greatest reason for that is mass communication.

The Threat of Mass Media

The reason that we are threatened now, unlike any other time, is the power that the kuffar now have in their hands to attack the Muslims in the hearts of their own homes. Everywhere we go in this world, you see all across the Muslim world satellite dishes filling the houses of the Muslims, all over the Muslim world. In the poorest of houses, you will see a satellite dish outside of that house. What that satellite dish is absorbing is the filth that is polluting the minds and the hearts of our youth, of our middle age, and of our old age, day in and day out, by night and by day.

Ramadan has become now a time when people watch television because the best programming is now given during Ramadan in the Arab world. People are watching television in Ramadan. This is a calamity. Really, we have to realize what is happening to this ummah, the massive impact, the massive power—because it is power. There is a power in the ability to influence the minds of people.

Letting the Devil into Our Homes

We have let the devil into our front rooms, into our bedrooms, and opened it up and allowed the devil to raise our children, to teach our women, to corrupt their hearts. Really, it is something extraordinary.

We have now on the Arabian Peninsula young men—young men like gangsters from the 1950s, like gangsters looking like James Dean and Marlon Brando on the waterfront with their leather jackets and their baseball hats like Muhammad Sharif, turned backward—really, going around the Kaaba itself and then going out, and many of them don't even pray. Their parents are in praying and they are out there like they are gangsters on the street sidewalk, talking and wasting their lives away, and then meandering down to the Burger King or the Kentucky Fried Chicken just opposite the King Abdul Aziz Bab of the Kaaba to eat junk food that nourishes their junk

minds that are a result of their junk television programs. And this is what we are creating: a society of junk people.

The Crisis is Real

And this is not an exaggeration. And your laughing is a sign of how serious the crisis is, because like the Arabs say, the worst of things makes people laugh. We are in a crisis, and we are all sleeping. Really, we are in a deep sleep.

And we have to ask ourselves: what is it going to take? How much do we have to lose of our humanity before we wake up? What is it going to take? How many children have to be sacrificed at the altar of prime time television before we wake up to what's happening to our communities, to our families, to our children, to our masjids, to our societies? How much more? How much can you take? How much can you fill your heart with how much pollution?

The Example of Imam Shafi'i

If Imam Shafi'i complained about losing some of the ability of his memory because he saw something haram for even a moment and maintained his glance, how much greater that we're filling our hearts with the haram day in and day out. How much greater that we have a crisis, people, and we have to wake up to the crisis and realize the weight that this ummah has.

Learning from Others' Tribulations

We have a great weight that's been given upon us because we are not like other people. We are not like other people, and we do not want to be like the Jews who were given the truth and turned away from the truth, and because of it they incurred the wrath of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, and Allah afflicted them. This is what Allah says in the Quran. We do not want to be like that.

The sa'eed, the felicitous one, is the one who learns by the tribulations of others. He does not learn through his own tribulation. He learns by the tribulation of others. By seeing others in tribulation, it wakes him up to the reality that the only way to prevent that tribulation is to stop and turn back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And this is what Allah wants of us. This is what Allah is asking for us to do: is to turn back to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala collectively as an ummah.

Turning Back to Allah

As an ummah, we have to turn back to Allah. We have to give up our pettiness. We have to set aside our differences. We have to wake up to the truth of this deen, and we have to take it out to people because people are dying. The planet itself is dying. Our rivers are being poisoned. Our food is being poisoned. Our minds are being poisoned. We are killing ourselves. Your oppression is only harming yourselves.

For the Sake of Our Children

For the sake of our children, for the sake of the future of our children, for the sake of our children, we have to change. How much selfishness can go on? I want my children to grow up in a world that facilitates their humanity, it doesn't destroy it and take it away from them and deprive them of their humanity. It's their birthright to become human beings, to become real people, not to become junk people that spend their lives in trivialized malls buying junk goods to fill their junk lives. How much more? When are we going to wake up collectively as an ummah and respond to the call of Allah and His Messenger?

"O you who believe, answer the call of Allah and His Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life."

The Death of the Spirit

When will we answer that call? When will we respond to the call of Allah and His Messenger to something that gives us life? The implication in the ayah is: as long as we do not respond to Allah's call and to the Messenger of Allah's call, we are dead people. Our hearts are dead. Our lives are dead. And our society is a society of death. It's a society that celebrates the death of the spirit in giving life to the lowest pursuits of humanity.

This is the death of the soul, because the soul can only be brought back to life by recognizing why it was created, for what it was created, and then setting out and striving to achieve that goal, recognizing that we will have shortcomings, that we will make mistakes, that those mistakes are part of our humanity, that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows those mistakes because He created us to make mistakes so that we could turn to Him and He could in turn turn to us and forgive us. And this is why we were created.

The Gift of Ubudiyyah

We were created to respond to our ubudiyyah to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And the only way that a slave feels its ubudiyyah, its servanthood to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, is in its abject nature. It is in its subjugation to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that occurs by doing wrong and then desiring the atonement, desiring to reconnect with one's true nature. And this is why we were given wudu. What a gift, the gift of wudu! What a gift, the gift of purifying ourselves! What a gift is the gift of prayer to pray to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala! What a gift to be able to give munajat!

The Modern Search for Meaning

In a recent article in one of these magazines, they mention the fact that more Americans are playing than ever before—adults playing children's games, from bungee jumping to these machines that they make to jump off mountains and all of these things. This is what they're doing with their life, with the preciousness of life. One

time you have, one short life you have to do something, to do something great, to be great people. One short span.

Why are they doing all these things? They say to relieve the stress of their lives, just to taste for one instant, to have an adrenaline rush, to feel alive. That's all they're trying to do. And by jumping off a bridge with rubber strings and seeing a cement sidewalk heading right for it, suddenly he feels for one moment that he's actually alive, and he wants to repeat that experience because he wants to feel alive.

True Life

But that is not the life that the human being was created for. It's not through adrenaline rushes. It's not through the rush of heroin penetrating your brain. It's not through the rush of cocaine snorted. It's not through the rush of jumping out of an airplane skydiving. It's not through the rush of being in an emergency room doing cardiac resuscitation. Those aren't the things that will make you feel alive.

The only thing that will make you feel alive is to become a slave of al-Hayy, to become a slave of the Living who never dies. And this is the reality. You see, we have these passionate displays. In fact, there was something—somebody told me about, I didn't see this—but there was a demonstration, I think it was in Canada, and they fought. The Muslims were fighting over who was gonna lead the demonstration against the bombing of Iraq, right? This is a disease of the heart. It's called hubb al-riyasah—love of leadership. "I'm the leader, I'm the spokesman here." Really, it's a disease.

The Leaderless Age

And I'll tell you something about this age. This is an age, it's a leaderless age. It is a leaderless age, because the one prerequisite of leadership is not there, and that is that you don't desire it. Because if you desire it, according to the hadith, you're not allowed to have it.

"We don't give this affair—meaning rulership, governance, leadership—to anyone who seeks it or covets it once he obtains it."

That gives an end to election day. It's over, right? "Vote for me"—that is the sign that you shouldn't vote for him. Seriously.

The only he was a frightening military leader—but the only leader that the Americans probably ever should have had was Sherman, Tecumseh Sherman, who said, when he was asked to run for president, he said, "No. If nominated, I wouldn't run, and if elected, I wouldn't rule." That sign there is a sign that that should be the man that they should put forward, not the man saying, "Vote for me. I'm the proper ruler. I can help you out." That's the man—he can't help you out because he's too busy seeking power, right? Really, it's a disease in the heart.

They love it.

The Example of Leadership in Islam

We can't—if an imam did something like that, that's it, it's over. You know, he'll have to come into the masjid if he comes in with his head bowed down and never say another word in public, because he's been disgraced. And you don't want that person put forward as an example.

In fact, one of the things they noted in the newspapers was after that scandal, suddenly the use of foul and descriptive language became commonplace in all of their major newspapers. Things that young people are reading, the children are reading. And suddenly these things are belittled, and this is the destruction of the moral fiber of the society, whatever's left of it. There's not much left, right? It's like whole wheat bread and white bread, right? Seriously, there's no bran there, there's no moral fiber. It's gone. It's junk food, right? You have junk souls. And that's really—this is a serious crisis.

The Potential for Greatness

And like Sidi Mohammed Sharif said, we have the religion that can transform these people and make them great people. Because these people—not only the Canadians, but the North Americans in general—have the potential for greatness. They have the potential, and we have to recognize that. They have worked wonders in the world. And if they would transform their energies and make it for the sake of Allah instead of the sake of dunya, they would work wonders for Islam.

And we should desire their guidance. We should desire their guidance. We should not really, we should not desire their destruction. We should desire their guidance. We should desire the destruction of the worst elements of that society that is corrupting the best elements of it, because there are evil people. And there are—we have to deal with that. That is a reality in our tradition. There are evil people with evil ideas and evil thoughts, and they set out to corrupt the hearts of human beings.

Mobile Phones in the Haram

You know, it's not so bad, one of those things going off here. But when you hear it and you're in the Kaaba in Tarawih prayer—I'm serious, there's people all over now in the Haram Sharif: "As-salamu alaykum. How are you? Alhamdulillah. There is goodness, brother. We are in front of Allah's house. Alhamdulillah. I was in Medina. Alhamdulillah. How are you? We are at the Prophet's house. May Allah bless you. We don't need to hear it. Give me a break. How are you? Make the coffee hot by the time I get there."

What are you going to say? What's so important?

What are you going to say? What's so important? Really, what's so important? What is so important? I mean, I'm asking myself that question: what is so important? Even the Christians turn off those things when they go into their churches. My God, even the Christians turn off those things when they go into their churches. I mean, really, what happened to this ummah? La ilaha illallah. Really, there's no exaggeration there. What happened to us that we have forgotten?

I mean, the Jahili Arabs had a sense of the awe of the Ka'bah. Umar ibn al-Khattab, if he heard a voice raised in the masjid of the Messenger of Allah, he went with his stick to warn them that the hurmah of Allah's Messenger after his life is the same as when he was walking amongst us. There's no difference.

"Don't raise your voices over the voice of the Prophet."

What is it to talk on a telephone? Why? Anyway, we have to remind ourselves. It's all ghaflah. We're in heedlessness. That's what we're in. It's our disease.

I'tiqad and Iman

So i'tiqad is the first and foremost, and that has to move into iman, to serious conviction. The second is the difficult part—not the first one—ikhlas. The heart has to be sincere for Allah.

And Imam Qadi Abu Bakr said that the heavens and the earth stood when they heard the ayah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala revealed:

"They were only commanded to worship Allah with ikhlas, and for Him is the religion alone."

The Meaning of Ikhlas

Ikhlas—according to the Arab language, al-khalis is the one free of impurities. And one of the extraordinary things about the Arabic language is the word fitnah, which means tribulation. Fitnah means to test gold for alloys. It means to test gold for impurities. So the reason Allah gives us fitan is to see who is pure and who is impure, because fitnah reveals everything. It separates the true believer from the munafiq.

And the head of the munafiqeen in Medina used to get up after every Jumu'ah and say, "This is the last messenger of Allah. We have to give him victory. We have to give him strength." He used to do that after every Jumu'ah. He'd get up and he'd start boasting and saying, "Get out there and let's support this man." And then when the tribulation came: "I have to go back to Medina. He didn't listen to my opinion." He starts making excuses. And this is what happened.

When Fitnah Comes

And the amazing thing—and I've said this before—the amazing thing to me about the Muslims is when the fitnah comes, people that have been sitting around like couch potatoes watching life go by suddenly become the most active people of the community, calling up people: "Did you know he said this and that, and this happened and that happened, and we have to do something about it, and let's get rid of that person?" Really, writing letters, emails, faxes, money. Why? Because now they have an opportunity to reveal their nature, to show you who they are. They're people that have fitnah in their hearts. And that's why when the fitnah comes, they're the ones that get out there and do all the damage.

And those people are the people that when Islam is strong, they have no voice, because the children of Medina, according to the Messenger of Allah, if the Dajjal came, they said the children of Medina would chase them away with sandals. That's a Muslim. That's a society that's not in ghaflah, because the Dajjal, his strength is heedlessness. Everybody's in heedlessness, because Allah says he only comes out when everybody's in heedlessness. And this is what we have to guard ourselves from constantly: is ghaflah.

Imam al-Junayd said the root disease—they differ, the people of the heart differ about what the root disease is—but Imam al-Junayd said the root disease is ghaflah. That is the root disease of the human heart: is heedlessness.

Pure Milk from Impurity

So, laban khalis. Allah says in the Quran:

"From between farth, which is filth, and blood, which is najis, comes pure milk."

It's something extraordinary in this ayah, because one—I mean, there's a scientific miracle that was pointed out by Maurice Bucaille and others—but there's another important isharah here, and that is the nature of the mukhlis is that he is constantly surrounded by people who are not pure. They're impure. And in order to maintain his ikhlas and his sincerity to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, he has to be vigilant. He has to guard himself. He has to maintain the purity of that milk.

And the purity of the milk is guarded by not exposing it, right? This is what we do to maintain purity of the milk—we cover it. And this is why you have to veil your actions. You have to hide. You have—Sidi Mohammed Sharif once sent me a letter, and he said, "Make your actions in secret better than your actions in open, in public." And this is the secret of ikhlas. You have to be true with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when you're alone, more so than you're in the public.

The Malamatiyyah

And even though it's a tradition that the ulama don't like, there was a group of ghulat—they were extremists—

but they called them the Malamatiyyah. These were people that used to publicly do displays of dishonor in order for people to have a bad opinion of them.

And Sidi Mohammed Sharif and I were in Morocco once, and we came out of a coffee house after Fajr. We'd gone, we'd prayed and went to this place, and we were on our way to the airport. And we came out, and there was a man sitting there begging, and I was about to give him something. And then we saw next to him was a bottle of alcohol, and I was about to give him something. And he said, "Don't give him anything. He'll just buy something—he'll buy more alcohol."

And then I said, "Subhanallah." You know, I was thinking, "Yeah, you're right." And then the man, he looked down at the bottle and he looked at us, and he said:

And then he looked up and he said:

"Allah is above everything."

And Mohammed Sharif said, "Astaghfirullah. I didn't see him drink. I just saw the bottle next to him, and I made an assumption that was not correct to my Muslim brother." And that is having a good opinion of the slaves of Allah.

But there used to be that tradition, and it's not an acceptable tradition. The ulema condemn it because you should honor yourself. But the point is, people went to an extreme, really, to be sincere with Allah. And that's a bid'ah, and it's not acceptable, but it expresses only a sentiment or a point that these people were very—they were serious about being sincere with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Protecting Sincerity

And so protecting that, between all the filth of the world, guarding that milk, that pure milk—it's easy to drink, it's sweet. And that's why the mu'min, when people mix with the mu'min, they love the mu'min, because the mu'min is sweet. The Prophet said he's gentle, he's sweet. His nature is good. The Prophet said people were rude to him. The desert Arabs were rude to him, and he never returned their rudeness with rudeness. He smiled in their faces. He returned their bad manners with good character. And this is what he taught us to do with people. And we have to—we have to struggle.

The Story of Patience

The sabr is in—patience. When the woman who was in the graveyard and she was mourning over, and the Messenger of Allah passed by her, and he said that, "This is a musibah, and you should be patient." And she said, "You didn't have the tribulation that I had." That's how she answered him. And he just left her.

Now look at the character there. He didn't say, "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Messenger of Allah. You can't talk to me like that." He didn't say that. He saw she was musab—she was in tribulation. He left her to be in her tribulation. He gave her nasihah, and she didn't accept it, but he recognized her psychological state. She was in a state that it was not useful or beneficial to continue with her, and so he left her. This is wisdom. This is hikmah.

And then he went to his house, and somebody came by and he said, "Don't you know who that was? That was the Messenger of Allah." Suddenly remorse entered her heart. "Astaghfirullah." And she went to his house and knocked on the door. "Ya Rasulullah, I didn't know it was you."

And the Messenger of Allah said:

إِنَّمَا الصَّبْرُ عِنْدَ الصَّدْمَةِ الْأُولَى ]Sahih al-Bukhari 1283[

"Patience is in the first calamity." When the first thing hits, in other words, when the calamity hits, patience that Allah wants is at that point. That's the point Allah does not want you to lose control. That's the point. It's not when it's all over you say, "Oh, please forgive me. I didn't mean to punch you after you said that to me." No, it's to stop: "I'm not going to punch him. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to engage."

And that is mujahidah. That is learning to suppress the nafs for the sake of Allah, because we're here for Allah. And this is ikhlas: to do it for Allah's sake. Really, to do this for Allah's sake, to forgive your brother for Allah's sake, to forgive your sister for Allah's sake—not for them, to do it for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

Maintaining Family Ties

Really, there's people in here that haven't talked to their brother or their sister, or some of them to their mothers and their fathers. Don't be that person. Don't cut off your blood bonds. Don't be that person. Do it for the sake of Allah.

And a man came to the Messenger of Allah. He said, "Ya Rasulullah, I ask my brother and he will cut off my blood. I give it to him and he will stop me. I give him, he withholds. I come to him, he cuts me off. What should I do?"

He said, "That is what you're doing is the right thing. And continue to do it even though he's cutting you off." That's Islam. And it's hard. Don't think this is an easy religion.

Mujahidah and Ennoblement

We want to be people that make mujahidah. We want to be people that honor ourselves because Allah has honored us. We have ennobled—we have made you great people. We gave you a heart. We gave you intellect. We gave you the ability to overcome the worst aspects of yourself. And even if from time to time you capitulate, we've given you the means to renew and to restore the self through tawbah. What a gift from Allah.

So this is what we have to do: ikhlas.

The Opposite of Ikhlas: Riya

The opposite of ikhlas, as everybody knows, is riya. And like Attar has a story of a man praying, "Allahu Akbar," and then somebody hears the mosque door open, and he says, "I'll pray longer so they'll think I'm a really good person." And then he goes—long prayer, long sajdah. And then when he finished, he looked to see who it is, and it was a dog that slipped into the mosque, right?

Or like the man who was—he was praying and somebody said to another person, "Subhanallah, that man, he prays so much. It's unbelievable." And then the man said, "Don't forget to tell him about my fasting." You know, there's people like that. It's hard. Seriously, there are people like that. And when that comes to your heart, because it's the nature of being human, right really, from the time we're children, we love praise. Children do the most wondrous things to get the attention of the parent, to get the attention of somebody who they feel has jah. They have a position. And we all want that. It's something that we have to fight that in ourselves. We have to fight it and oppose it.

The Cure for Riya

And say, and I'll give you the cure for it. If everybody want this—according to the hadith, three times a day, in the morning and the evening:

That's it. Do that three times in the morning and three times in the evening. And do it in sajdah, and do it after your prayers, do it before your prayers, do it when you feel that happening.

"Allahumma inni a'udhu bika an ushrika bika wa ana a'lamu—O Allah, I seek refuge in You that I should associate with You with knowledge. Wa a'udhu bika mimma la a'lamu—and I seek refuge in You from what I don't know."

Because riya is very subtle. Like one of the salaf—and this is from bab hasanat al-abrar sayyiat al-muqarrabin—the good actions of righteous people are bad actions of the people in the divine presence.

One man used to pray every day in the first line. Twenty years he did that. And then one day he went and he missed the takbirat al-ihram and was in the last prayer, and he felt ashamed that people would see him. So he decided not to go into the prayer. And what he said he realized from that is that he'd been praying 20 years with riya in his heart. And he actually made up all of the previous prayers. So that's a subtle—that's subtle riya, the hidden.

And the Prophet said:

(Musnad Ahmad 23630, Hasan)

"The shirk of his ummah is like the movement of an ant on a smooth rock on a black night."

So ikhlas has to be done, and that's the cure for it.

The Warning About Riya

Now the warning about it is this. In the hadith in Sahih Muslim, according to the hadith that are judged—a man who's martyred, he's brought before Allah, and Allah shows him his blessings. And then He says, "What did you do with all the blessings I gave you?"

The man says, "I fought for Your sake."

Allah says, "You're a liar. You fought to be called a brave man, and you were called a brave man." And then he's taken to hellfire.

And then the same is true of a scholar who learned knowledge to be called a scholar, and that was his reward, because that's why he did it. The reward is according to the action. If the action was to be called a scholar, then you got your reward in the dunya. You know, that's why I have to say I'm not a scholar. And when I hear people say that, it scares me, because one, it's not true, and two, because if that's in my heart, then I'm in big trouble with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

You know, to study—even Imam al-Jazuli said something—when I read it, it frightened me to death. He said, "From riya is when you read some strange thing in a book and you remember it to tell other people in a majlis."

I mean, that's getting very subtle. And when I said that to one of my shaykhs from Mauritania, he said, "There might be some mubalighah in that." You know, but the point is, these people were very serious about protecting their hearts from riya.

What Frightens the Prophet More Than Dajjal

And the Prophet said, once he came to a group of sahaba and they were making mention of something. He said, "What are you talking about?"

They said, "The Dajjal."

And he said, "Can I tell you what frightens me more for my ummah than the Dajjal himself?"

And they said, "What?"

And he said صلى الله عليه وسلم:

(Musnad Ahmad 27742, Sahih)

"That they work for other than the sake of Allah."

The Problem of Modern Education

And we have a whole nation of people studying for pieces of paper. Wallahi, they're studying for pieces of paper. It's not knowledge. You can't tell me it's knowledge, because I have the piece of paper, so nobody can tell me it's knowledge, because I went to the school and I sat in the classes and did that thing and regret every minute of it. It's not knowledge. It's really—it's not. It's a lie.

Now I won't say that there are things like medicine and engineering that have benefits in them, but the vast majority of what they're teaching is just absolute nonsense. It's just nonsense. Psychology-don't tell me. "I'm getting a degree in psychology," right? Psychology in the Arabic language is 'ilm al-nafs. And if you think these people know anything about the nafs, just try reading some of their self-help books. Seriously.

I mean, we've got Muslims reading Stephen Covey. I mean, the reason I did that talk—I did a talk called "7 Habits of Muslims"—was because all these Muslims I was hearing, "Oh, did you read Covey's book and this and that?" Subhanallah. You're taking your deen from a Mormon. Really, you're taking your deen—because it's deen. It's about mu'amalah. That book's all about how to be in the world. That's where you're taking your sunnah.

And you say, "No, but it's just like Islam." Well, then take it from Islam. Don't take it from him. Don't tell me, "Oh, it's just like Islam," or "He got it all from Islam." Why don't you go to the source that he went to if he got it all from Islam? Seriously, it's a madness. We've gone mad, collectively. This is an ummah that has a collective madness right now. Wallahi, it's a collective madness.

Truthfulness: The Path to Sincerity

So that's the reason. Now the next thing, the most beneficial thing for achieving sincerity according to Qadi Abu Bakr and this is based on the Quranic truths—is truthfulness. And this is why the highest maqam after the prophets is what? Siddiq, right?

Siddiq. Al-anbiya, al-siddiqin, al-shuhada, al-salihin—that's the tarteeb. The anbiya, the siddiqin, the shuhada, the salihin. That's the tarteeb. The best are the prophets, and then the siddiqin.

The highest siddiqah is Maryam, alayha salam, right? Allah chose her over all the women of the world during her time, right? And she's honored in being the mother of Isa, alayhi salam. And Isa is also honored by having Maryam for a mother. Allahu Akbar.

So, and the highest siddiq in our ummah is Abu Bakr. And that's why he is the highest after the Messenger of Allah in maqam according to our 'aqeedah: Abu Bakr al-Siddiq. That's his name.

And the thing about Abu Bakr is he was sadiq with Allah and with the Messenger of Allah. He was the truthful one. And the Messenger of Allah said:

(As-Sirah an-Nabawiyyah by Ibn Hisham)

"Every heart wavered when I explained to them about Islam except Abu Bakr al-Siddiq."

From the men. Khadijah radiallahu anha al-kubra, she knew. She married the Prophet because she knew he was going to be a prophet. That's why she married him. She knew. Waraqah and she had—and so did one of the cousins of Waraqah—tried to marry Abdullah before Amina because she saw the light of nubuwwah in his face.

So they knew. They had information.

The Company of Truthful People

So siddiq is something that we have to get. Now if you look—one of the most profound—I mean, the whole Quran is profound. You can't say one of the most─I'm always trying to watch, guard my tongue about the Quran. But really, the ayah in the Quran—we should deliberate all of the Quran—but this ayah about talking about this, al-siddiq, is Allah says:

"O you who believe, have taqwa of Allah and be with the truthful."

So sohbat as-sadiqeen—being in the company of truthful people.

And then:

"Be truthful in your speech-yuslih lakum a'malikum wa yaghfir lakum dhunubukum-Allah will rectify your affairs in the dunya, and He'll forgive you in the akhira."

With siddiq, being truthfulness.

Guarding the Tongue

Now siddiq is—the basis of it is the heart, and its translator is the tongue. And so guarding the tongue—and the one noble quality of the tongue is siddiq, is truthfulness.

But there are over 20 harmful qualities of the tongue, and they've been enumerated by many of the scholars.

One of them is Imam al-Ghazali. The book which is called Adab al-Lisan, which is worth translating—it's a great book on what's prohibited to speak.

But Imam Abu Bakr says there are four things. If you guard yourself from these four things, all of the other prohibitions of the tongue are easy to take care of. And so I'm going to give you these four things, and we should all make a commitment to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tonight, in this place, right now, to be vigilant about these four things. Really, and this is called musharatah.

The Stages of Purification

And this is the first stage of purification of the heart. The second stage is muraqabah, which is to—once you make a shart with Allah, a condition—"Ya Allah, I will not do this anymore"—and that is tawbah, then you make muraqabah, which is you're vigilant about it. And when you make a breach, you correct it by tawbah. And this is called muhasabah also. Muraqabah. And then the last maqam of tazkiyah is muraqabah, which is where you enter in to a state of divine awareness, and so it becomes very difficult to do anything wrong, right? And the wrongs become extremely subtle.

First: Lying (Al-Kidhb)

The first that has to be guarded of the tongue is al-kidhb, which is lying. We cannot tell lies. We have to be truthful people. And this ummah—it's unbelievable how many lies. You know, this ummah, wallahi, we're lying to ourselves. We lie every time we say:

We're lying if we don't take the guidance, because Allah refutes us immediately in the Quran when He says, "Here's the guidance. You're asking for it. I gave it to you. There it is, right there." So prove yourself that you're not a liar when you say Ihdina as-sirat al-mustaqim.

And the Messenger of Allah said:

"How many people recite the Quran and the Quran curses them?"

Because Allah says:

"The curse of Allah is upon the liars."

So we have to be truthful. Those who submit to Allah are seeking guidance.

Second: Backbiting (Ghibah)

The next one is ghibah—backbiting. As an ummah, we have to stop doing this. We have to stop backbiting. Each individual has to make a commitment. And when you hear people backbiting, you have to tell them, "I don't want to hear this. I can't hear this."

What is backbiting? There are two definitions. The prophetic definition is obviously the best, but there's an extended fiqh definition which is important also.

The prophetic definition is:

ARABIC TEXT (CRITICAL - PRESERVE EXACTLY)

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ذِكْرُكَ أَخَاكَ بِمَا يَكْرَهُ ]Sahih Muslim 2589[

"It is to mention your brother—had he heard you saying it, he would dislike it."

That is the prophetic definition.

The fiqh definition is an extension of that, which says that it is to make mention of your brother in a distasteful way in which there's no need. In other words, sometimes it's necessary to say things about your brother for reasons, and they give reasons for it, and they're this:

Tazallum – which is if somebody is an oppressor, it's permissible to tell somebody, "Help me, he's an oppressor." Like to go to the judge and say, "This man stole my property." He wouldn't like to hear that, but it's permissible in that position.

Isti'anah – to seek help. "Help me, there's an oppressor here," or "Help, come, somebody's stealing," something like that.

Or istifta – to ask a fatwa. So if you go to a faqih and say, "My husband does this, this, and this"—like Hind, the wife of Abu Sufyan, went to the Messenger of Allah and said:

إِنَّ أَبَا سُفْيَانَ رَجُلٌ شَحِيحٌ ]Sahih al-Bukhari 5364[

"He's a miserly man."

If Abu Sufyan heard that, he'd be really upset, but she was telling him because she wanted a fatwa about whether she could take his money without his permission. So it's permissible in that case.

Tahdhir – to warn people about somebody. Like if you've had a transaction with somebody and he's done wrong things, and somebody comes to you and says, "Ya akhi, you used to be in business with that person. I was thinking about going in business. What do you say?" And you say, "Don't go in business with him. I had a bad experience." That is not ghibah, that's nasihah.

The ulama make a condition, and that is that you don't add anything on to it that's not necessary. So you don't say, "By the way, he beats his wife, and by the way, he drinks." You just leave it to what he needs to know about it. Seriously. And it's a temptation, because if somebody did something wrong to you—and this is a proof of what Sayyidina Muhammad Sharif was saying in his talk—it's a proof of that, that you only tell people what they need to know.

The Example of Ibn Umar

Look at Ibn Umar. When he divorced his wife, one man came to him and said, "Why did you divorce your wife?" And he said, "I don't want to make ghibah," because obviously there was something that was displeasurable. And then he said he asked him, "You know, do you think I should marry her?" Like he asked

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him something like that. And he said—no, he asked him what her mu'asharah was like. And he said, "I'm no longer married to her, so I have no right to tell you anything about her personal life." And that's taqwa. That is simple as that.

How many people now will spend the rest of their lives complaining about their divorced wife or husband to everybody that will give them an ear? "Twenty years I put up with that man. I used to bring him tea, and he said, 'It's not hot enough.' I used to make him food, and he'd say, 'Where did you learn how to cook?''' Really, how many—there's a lot of people like that. And then there's men like that: "That woman, all she did was scream at me. Ten years I put up with that. Finally I got rid of her."

Why are you telling people that? She's a Muslim. Really, we have to shut up. This is taqwa. This is it. This is what this deen is about. It's not a game, because yawm al-qiyamah, suddenly we're all going to say:

That's what people are going to say: "Oh, I didn't do the rights of Allah. Why didn't I do it?"

"Oh, I wish I didn't spend time with this shaytan."

This is what people are going to say. These are real expressions in the Quran that people will say.

"Let me go back. I'll do good."

Working for the Meeting with Allah

We don't want to be those people. We want to be people:

مَنْ أَحَبَّ لِقَاءَ اللَّهِ، أَحَبَّ اللَّهُ لِقَاءَهُ ]Sahih al-Bukhari 6507[

And the one who loves to meet Allah is working for that day. That's the proof. It's not, "Oh yes, I want to die and meet Allah. I can't wait."

Many of the sahaba were afraid because they didn't feel prepared yet. And that's why the Messenger of Allah said:

لَا تَتَمَنَّوُا لِقَاءَ الْعَدُوِّ ]Sahih al-Bukhari 2966[

"Don't desire death, because either you're a bad person and you still have time to make tawbah and do some good things before you die, or you're a good person and you want to increase in your goodness." Allahu Akbar.

وَاجْعَلِ الْحَيَا��َ زِيَادَةً لِي فِي كُلِّ خَيْرٍ ]Sahih Muslim 2720[

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"And make my life increase in every good."

Third: Warning About Innovators

And then idhhar al-bid'ah – to let people know about a mubtadi'. And I'll say about this, this is true:

مَنْ أَعَانَ مُبْتَدِعًا فَقَدْ أَعَانَ عَلَى هَدْمِ الدِّينِ

"Whoever helps a mubtadi' has helped to destroy this religion."

Bid'ah is one of the most serious transgressions in the deen. It really is. The mubtadi'un will not drink from the hawd of the Prophet, and we don't want to be from them.

But there are many people who make masa'il—questions that are mukhtalaf fiha—that there's difference of opinion about them, and they'll say, "This is a mubtadi'." That is not right. That is wrong to do that, because everybody who has justifiable mujtahidun that have given their proofs and their opinions about things, we have to respect those.

The Example of Mawlid

If you—mawlid is mukhtalaf fihi. There's a difference of opinion about it. Now, what goes on is another matter. There are things in many of the ulama—like Ibn al-Hajj mentions—there are many bida' that go on in the mawalid, and people should avoid them because of so many bida'. But the actual act of mawlid—

Now, in a country that makes war on the mawlid, they're celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the birth of that nation right now. They're celebrating. It's everywhere. I was just there. It's everywhere, the celebration of the birth of a nation.

And when I came on the airplane, I'm telling you, this film was as close as you get to shirk. I mean, it was unbelievable. They had a film, and it showed first a desert scene, and it said, "From the depths of the Arabian Peninsula came a man with a great vision, a man of the greatest character, a character of nobility and honor, a man of lineage, a man of truth and sincerity." And you're waiting to say the Messenger of Allah. It was King Abdulaziz.

I'm serious. And I'm not saying anything bad about—I don't know the man. I didn't know him, anything like that. But when you want to talk about what came out of the Arabian Peninsula, get your coordinates right, right? Seriously. It wasn't in Najd. It was in Mecca and Medina. That's what's great about that place.

Really, and I told someone, I said, "Listen, if it wasn't for Mecca and Medina, not a soul on this planet would be here, other than Bani Harb and Bani Kalb and Bani Tamim." Seriously. No, who would go there? Alexander the Great got to the doors of the Arabian Peninsula. He said, "Forget it, let's go back to Egypt," right? Seriously. Herodotus said nobody's ever wanted to conquer that place.

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The Wisdom of the Hijrah

And that's a secret. Allah made it a place that was unbearable because the one who could bear the greatest trust would come from that unbearable place. The Messenger of Allah would come from that place, and that's why it's great.

And look what Ibn Abi Jamrah said—one of the most beautiful things I've ever read about the Messenger of Allah in Ibn Abi Jamrah's commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari. He said one of the greatest wisdoms of the Hijrah is that had the Messenger of Allah never left Mecca, people would think that Mecca was honored before the Prophet because of Abraham, and they wouldn't see that the deep honor that the Messenger of Allah had just by his very being.

And this is why he said Medina, a place that had no honor before the Messenger of Allah made Hijrah—so when he went there, it was a proof that the Haram became a Haram just like Abraham made Mecca a Haram. Our Prophet, peace be upon him, made Medina a Haram.

And then he said even more so than that, the most honored place in the whole city was the masjid, because that's the place he spent the most time. And the most honored place in the masjid was the Rawdah, because it was between his house and the mihrab, and he spent more time walking between those two places than any other place in the masjid.

And the most sacred place in the entire universe, by ijma', according to Qadi 'Iyad in ash-Shifa, is the place that contains the blessed body of our Messenger of Allah. That is ijma'. And it's a Rawdah. It's a Rawdah. It's in Paradise. That place is in Paradise.

Respecting Differences of Opinion

So what I would just say is beware of mukhtalaf fihi. If it is a valid difference of opinion—and valid means rightly guided imams have differed in it—like photography. Rightly guided imams have said it's haram, and rightly guided imams have said it's permissible, it's mubah, depending on what's in it, of course. So that's a difference of opinion. If you don't like it, don't use it, but don't condemn other people.

And there is a permissibility of calling people to the more cautious position, but you do it with lutf and a recognition that if they don't respond to it, you can't condemn them because it's mukhtalaf fihi. To get out of khilaf is mustahab according to the qawa'id al-fiqh. So if that's all you learned tonight, utilizing this qa'idah can unite this ummah, right? Really.

Fourth: Argumentation (Mira')

And then finally, after all of those things, is then mira', which is argumentation. We have to stop arguing. Argumentation has no benefit in this deen. None. Imam Malik would leave when there was argument. If people start arguing—and I'm just starting to get—you know, people have to realize if somebody has studied the deen

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for several years and you have not, you cannot argue with that person even if you disagree with them, because you do not have the requisite information to argue with that person.

Argumentation is something that is makruh amongst the ulama, but it's haram amongst the 'awam according to the ulama. And this is why Imam al-Ghazali said, "Leave knowledge to the ulama. Leave knowledge to the ulama."

That does not mean don't become a scholar, but what it means is if you're not an 'alim, don't start speaking about knowledge, because you don't have it. And this is why Imam al-Bukhari says:

بَابُ الْعِلْمِ قَبْلَ الْقَوْلِ وَالْعَمَلِ ]Sahih al-Bukhari, Book of Knowledge[

"The book or the chapter of knowledge before speaking or doing anything."

Knowing Your Place

So really, we have to guard our tongues about argumentation. I mean, there's people argue all the time now. And this is why Imam Ali was asked, "How do you know a man?" He said, "If he speaks, I know who he is instantly. And if he shuts up, I'll work it out in a day."

Somebody speaks, he'll expose himself immediately. Either he's a fool or he's an intelligent person, because a man lies hidden under his tongue.

So we have to learn our place in the world. This is part of adab. Really, it's part of adab. A student of knowledge is not the same as somebody who's not a student of knowledge. And just because you have your—you know, your book like Fiqh as-Sunnah in your house in translation and your Mohsen Khan Bukhari in translation and your Noble Quran in translation does not mean that you are a scholar or even a student of knowledge.

Because one of the secrets of this deen is it's taken from other human beings. The Messenger of Allah was taught by Jibril. The wisdom in that is to teach the ummah that knowledge is taken from teachers. And he said—right, the Prophet was sent to teach people, but he himself was taught. And he was taught by somebody who was less in stature than he was, which is a sign that we should take from people.

Somebody might know tajweed, and that's all he knows. And I might be a faqih, and so my knowledge is greater than his knowledge because knowledge of fiqh is over knowledge of tajweed. But I have to humble myself if I don't know tajweed and go to him and have him teach me tajweed. We have to be humble.

And you cannot learn—one of the salaf said:

لَا يَتَعَلَّمُ اثْنَانِ مُسْتَكْبِرٌ وَمُسْتَحْيِ

"An arrogant person and somebody who is too shy—they cannot learn."

And that's called haya' al-ma'siyah.

Fifth: Excessive Jesting

And I've been going on a long time, but the last thing I'll finish is mirthfulness—jesting all the time. Mizah is a disease of the heart. And that does not mean that we can't be light from time to time, but we should not—and especially in these times—we should not be light people. We have to be weighty people because we've been given a great amanah, a great weightiness.

Final Advice: Make Musharatah

And so my advice to myself and all of you is first and foremost to make a musharatah with Allah, to implement what you've just heard. Really make—and I'm making this with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We should make a serious effort in learning these things.

We're living in dark ages, but we've been given the light of Islam. And I'll tell you something: one of the most powerful realities of this deen is it never leaves you without guidance. Ever. And even if the hour is coming upon you and in your hand is a seedling, then finish planting it. Even when the hour comes, we have guidance. We know what to do.

The Lifeboat of Islam

When the Titanic goes down—and I think it's going down, I could be wrong—we want to bring lifeboat. We want to bring the lifeboat of Islam. And we want to—"Come on board! There's plenty of room." Seriously, come on board. It's going to be tight, but hey, we've been to Mecca. We know what tight's like. There's no problem. We can be patient. Come on board. There's water, there's biscuits, not much.

We look pretty pathetic right now, but it's a lifeboat. And the alternative is to sink. So really, invite them on. We're on a lifeboat. It looks bad. We used to have a big ship just like they did. We used to have a big one, but it sunk like all ships sink. It went down. The Ottomans went down. The Seljuks went down. They all went down. Their ships went down. But whenever their ship went down, Allah-survivors got on some lifeboats and went somewhere else and built a new one.

Well, all we've got left is those lifeboats, but Alhamdulillah, it's better than nothing. So let's use them, and let's invite people on, inshallah.

Jazakumullahu khairan, wa salamu alaykum.

Closing Announcement

I would just request Shaykh Hamza to come up and make a du'a inshallah to close the evening.

Sorry, one last thing. One last announcement I forgot to make is that the halaqah this Sunday is cancelled. After this Sunday, the halaqah at Masjid al-Ansar with Shaykh Talal, we will continue next Sunday with the regular program inshallah weekly.

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

O Allah, send blessings upon our master Muhammad and upon the family of our master Muhammad, as You sent blessings upon our master Ibrahim and upon the family of our master Ibrahim. Indeed, You are Praiseworthy and Glorious.

O Allah, purify our hearts, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy, as You purified Your House.

O Allah, purify our ears and purify our hearing, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy.

O Allah, purify our deeds, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy.

O Allah, revive Islam, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy.

O Allah, purify our deeds, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy.

O Allah, make them intercessors for us, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy.

O Allah, make them happy with us, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy.

O Allah, unite us with them, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy.

O Allah, unite us with them at his blessed pool, and give us to drink from his noble hand with this pure, blessed water, after which we will never thirst.

O Allah, unite the ranks of the Muslims in every place.

O Allah, unite the ranks of the Muslims in this city.

O Allah, make the Muslims in this city lights by which people are guided.

O Allah, make these Muslims in this land lights by which people are guided, O Most Merciful of those who show mercy, and may they be guided, O Allah.

O Allah, grant victory to the Muslim mujahideen in every place.

O Allah, lighten their burdens.

O Allah, make our eyes cool with our master Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.

Glory be to your Lord, the Lord of honor, above what they describe.

And peace be upon the messengers.

And praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.

challenge of the human being, and this is what we have to wake up to.

Pen and Paper: A Sign of Seriousness

We have to wake up to something. I want to ask a question here: how many people have a pen and paper here? How many people brought pen and paper? This is part of our crisis. Every hand should have—they should raise

their hand. Because either you came here to learn something, or you came here out of curiosity, or you came here to be entertained, or you came here because somebody dragged you here, or you came here like Muhammad Sharif said, to take notes for the Canadian government, or maybe for the United States government. I don't know, and maybe they have pen and paper too, because they don't go anywhere without—they always bring pen and paper and a recording machine, right? And that's why they're ruling the world, because they work at it. They work hard, right?

But we should have pen and paper. What I've noted is that the women tend to always have pen and paper, right? Seriously, and it's not for nothing that women are taking over in the universities and in all the major fields now, because the men are watching football.

Reviving Our Intellectual Tradition

The point is that we as an ummah need to begin to revive our intellectual tradition, to think, right, to take notes, to go with benefit, not to come and just sit. These people work hard. They really work hard, and that's why they're ruling the world, and we are the ones that should be ruling the world as Muslims. And if you look out there, we look so pathetic. In fact, it's really extraordinary that they even take us seriously.

But the reason they take us seriously is because they know history. They study history, and they're very worried about conflagrations of Islamic revivalism. This scares them because they read. They say, "Look at this 19th century-something very mysterious happened. What was that? Well, suddenly there was this mujahid that appeared in West Africa, and then at the same time, there wasn't—we can't even find any material correlation. Maybe they met in Mecca, but who knows? Suddenly there's a mujahid appearing in Hunan province in China, and he's saying the same things, and people are responding. And suddenly there's somebody in Sudan who's doing it too, and somebody in Algeria and somebody in Libya and somebody in Turkey. And it's suddenly happening all over. And how does this happen?"

They Study Us

We want to understand this, so they examine it. They hire people. They give them grants to do PhDs that end up in Langley, in Virginia, and other mysterious places that we're not allowed to—in this open democratic society —to examine what they're talking about, right? This wonderful democratic society that prides itself on its openness, in fact, has the most closed and secretive organizations and institutions that have been known in the history of man, right?

But they study us. They examine us. They dissect us. They analyze us. They do psychological profiles on people like me and Mohammed Sharif and other people that get up and speak publicly. They look at the books we read. If we buy with credit cards or check out in the library—I'm not making this up. This is what they're doing. They have 30 billion dollars from the congress to do things like this. And then we don't even know what they're making on the side with all their cocaine deals. So they have a lot of money. They have money to burn.

Islam as a Threat to Their Way of Life

And they're very serious because they see Islam as a threat. They see Islam as a threat to their way of life. What's their way of life? When the head of the president of the United States security retired and became the head of a professional football team's security in the United States, his quote was about that strange and dramatic shift from protecting the president of the United States to protecting Troy Aikman or somebody like that. He said, "There's nothing contradicting this. I made an oath to protect the American way of life, and football is the American way of life."

You see, this is really—this is what they want to give the world: games, Roman games, the old coliseum. Put people in front and watch them. Watch people get eaten alive. Christians eaten alive by lions. Now they let them watch Muslims being bombed. Smart bombs on dumb Muslims. This is what they do. Watch it on CNN. This is the forum, the modern forum. Watch the Muslims get eaten alive by the Desert Storm people and then the Desert Fox.

And it's amazing—nobody even commented. Desert Fox is a Nazi general named Rommel. Why are they calling it Operation Desert Fox when he was a fascist Nazi general whose primary arena, theater—they call it theater of operation because to them it's a game, it's a cinema, it's a game-theater of operation was North Africa, right? The Desert Fox, Rommel. And that's what they called it.

They Will Entertain You Until You Drop Dead

So this is what they do, and they'll entertain you until you drop dead. They'll entertain you until you drop dead. That's one promise, right? They will entertain you until you drop dead. And they'll drop dead too. And it doesn't matter because they get replaced, right? Really, they all drop dead—all their actors and actresses and producers and directors. They all drop dead just like everybody else.

A Program for Purification

So I'm going to inshallah now give you a program. If you take it seriously—and I take it seriously because I have to take it more seriously than everybody else, because if I'm teaching something that I don't take seriously, then that's the most dangerous thing for me—but if you follow this program, and I hope you write it down, because we want to follow in the footsteps of the Messenger of Allah.

And our Prophet ﷺ said:

(Musnad Ahmad, Sahih)

"I was sent to perfect noble character."

According to the Arabic language, it's called innama. It means the only reason I was sent was to perfect noble character. How do we do that?

The Two Primary Concerns

There are two primary concerns in Islam. The first and foremost is the heart itself, which is called al-qalb. It's also called al-fu'ad. It has many names in the Quran, but primarily and foremost it's called al-qalb. And the basis of the importance of the heart is in a verse of the Quran and in a sahih hadith.

The verse of the Quran says:

"(On that day, on the day of judgment, nothing will benefit the human being except the one who brings a sound heart."

In other words, that is the only thing that's gonna benefit you. It will not be your wealth, nor will it be your children, which was the concept of what benefited you in the dunya. In the akhira, suddenly the criterion changes. It's no longer a dunya criterion, it's an ukhra criterion, and that is a sound heart.

The Need for a Sound Heart

If you do not have a sound heart, then you better get one. If you do not have a sound heart—salamat al-qalb— and if we're backbiting, that's a sign we don't have a sound heart. If we're cheating, we don't have a good heart. If we're not fulfilling the obligations that Allah has commanded us to fulfill, we don't have a good heart. All of the things that distance us from Allah are indications that the heart has work to be done. That is the first and foremost concern of the human being: is his own heart.

Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said:

"The hearing, the sight, and the heart—all of them man has been made responsible for."

Guarding the Senses

Allah begins with hearing because hearing is the most difficult to guard. I came into New York City, and I'll tell you something: going from Mecca to Jeddah was like going from paradise to the gates of paradise. Going from Jeddah to Morocco was like going to a place where I could see paradise off in the distance, but I definitely wasn't in it. And then getting to New York was like a descent into the bowels of hell. And there's no exaggeration about that, because suddenly everybody around me was using foul language. It's unbelievable. The only time they don't use foul language is if they're serving you something.

Everybody—I was standing waiting for the bus, and I hear these two people talking, and I wanted to plug my ears. And that's what Imam al-Awza'i used to do when he saw people of bid'ah. And these people—it was so foul, every other word was a foul language. And the mu'min is—in the hadith, the mu'min does not use foul

The Danger of the Tongue

How do you guard your limbs? Listen to the hadith. According to the hadith, every morning all of the limbs shake in the presence of the tongue, and they say, "O tongue, fear Allah concerning us. If you're straight, we're all straight. And if you go crooked, we all go crooked."

Because the tongue is called lisan al-qalb—the tongue is the interpreter of the heart. And the tongue is the most dangerous organ in the destruction of the human being. And this is why the Messenger of Allah said:

(Jami' at-Tirmidhi 2616, Sahih)

"Our people are dragged on their faces and their noses in the hellfire other than the harvest of their tongues."

The Guarantee of Paradise

Our Messenger of Allah, upon him prayers and peace, said:

(Musnad Ahmad, Sahih)

"If you guarantee for me what is between your two thighs and your two jaws, I will guarantee for you paradise."

And this is 'iffah concerning the bestial nature of man. In other words, it's purity of our bestial nature, which is to explore our human sexuality in areas that Allah has permitted it and to avoid areas that are impermissible.

And then it is to honor our angelic nature, which is the ability to articulate, which raises us above the beast.

The Two Concerns of the Heart

Because we are called, according to the Arab scholars, al-insan al-natiq, al-hayawan al-natiq—the articulating animal. This is the gift.

"The Merciful taught the Quran, created the human being, and then gave him bayan—the ability to speak and understand."

Which is the basis of understanding and interpreting the Quran.

The Two Concerns of the Heart

Now, concerning the heart, there are only two concerns. The heart has only two concerns. The first is belief—i'tiqad. What do we believe? Because the heart is the source of our belief. It's where we believe from. When I say, "My heart's not in it," it means I don't believe in it. I don't have the certitude to give my life for it. Belief is in the heart. And this is why the Messenger of Allah said:

(Sahih Muslim 2564)

"Taqwa, which is awareness of Allah, is here"—and he indicated his heart three times.

Belief and Conviction

So, belief. Now belief is easy in the sense the outwardness of it is not difficult. The mustashriq, the orientalist, can learn the outward nature of Islam. They can understand it. You can learn 'aqidah in a short period of time. You can learn it on a weekend. And this is not an exaggeration, because our tradition is not a difficult tradition.

It's a tradition that the Messenger of Allah could teach to people on a visit. They used to make wufud—they would come to him, and they would spend only a short time with the Messenger of Allah, and he would teach them tawheed, and then he would send them off. And it was not an exaggeration what I mentioned about Shaykh Murabbit al-Hajj saying that tawheed is contained in Ikhlas, because it really is. If you understand Ikhlas in a deep way, you understand tawheed.

I'tiqad is not difficult. Iman is when the belief becomes a conviction. You see, in other words, when the creedal formulation that we've learned becomes something that we're willing to die for. And this is something very profound, because like Imam al-Busiri said in his Hamziyyah:

إِذَا حَلَّتِ الْهِدَايَةُ قَلْبًا نَشِطَتْ فِي الْعِبَادَةِ الْأَعْضَاءُ

"When guidance penetrates the heart, suddenly the limbs respond in worship of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala."

The Reality of the Hereafter

And this is the profundity of conviction: that Allah is true, that Allah's Messenger is true, that the Jannah is true, that the Nar is true, the Sirat is true. All of these things are haqq. They're true, they're haqq. They're from Allah

subhanahu wa ta'ala. They're real.

And one of the most profound realities of this tradition—and this is something I've only come to realize—one of the most profound realities of this tradition is: unlike all of the other peoples on the earth, or at least the vast majority of the peoples on the earth, the Arabian Peninsula at the time that the Messenger of Allah came to it had a unique aspect to its belief system. They did not believe that there was anything after death.

The vast majority of human societies believe in some form of life after death. The native peoples of this continent believed in this. The traditional African peoples believed in that. The Europeans believed in it. The Druidic people believed in it. Even the ancient Greeks with their Hades believed in an afterlife, dark and despairing as it was. They believed in an afterlife. The Chinese believed in an afterlife. In Pure Land Buddhism they believe in an afterlife, reunited with the great Buddhas of the past. The Indians believed in an afterlife.

The Arabians did not believe in an afterlife. "There is only one life in this world, and we are not resurrected. It's only the life of this world, and we will not be resurrected."

"Who will bring dead and decaying bones to life after they've died? Say: The One who brought them back the first time."

Examining the Quran

So this is something extraordinary. How is it that the Quran—we have not examined the Quran. As an ummah, we have a romantic attachment to the Quran. Most of us say, "Oh, the Quran, what a great book," and have never even read it. They've never read it, right? We're like people in the restaurant who look at the menu for 50 years and never order to taste the food. We just look at the headlines, right? You go into the restaurant and it says "Shish Kebab," and you don't even know what that is, and you just look at it and stare at it. And the garçon comes to the table and says, "Would you like to take your order?" "I'm still thinking about it," right? Really, that's what we're like. We're like people that have never bothered to taste the food that Allah has given us. Food for thought, right? Food for thought—the Quran.

The Danger of Passion Without Knowledge

And this is why this romantic attachment to Islam is a flimsy attachment. It's an attachment that leads to extremities. It's an attachment that leads to passion. When one is impassioned, and passion, as every ancient Arab knows, is something that is incompatible with the intellect.

Like in the story Imam al-Qushayri mentions about the 'usfur—there was a sparrow on the top of Sulayman's place of worship, and he was trying to convince a female sparrow that he was a worthy mate, and she wasn't paying any attention. This is a story. And he said, "You know, if I wanted, I'd turn this dome right over on the head of Sulayman for you." And so Sulayman, who knew the interpretation of the birds, called him down, and

he comes down, he's all shaken, and his little sparrow heart's beating. And he says—Sulayman says to him, "What made you say that ridiculous remark?" And the sparrow said, "Oh Prophet of Allah, don't you know that lovers are never taken to account for what they say in the presence of their beloved?" Right? In other words, "I was in a state of passion. You can't take me to account."

And this is the