Putting The Heart Into Worship

Putting The Heart Into Worship

Opening Supplication

I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan. In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. And peace and blessings be upon the most honored of the prophets and messengers, and upon his family and his companions and those who follow them with goodness until the Day of Judgment.

O Allah, there is no knowledge except what You have taught us. You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. O Allah, teach us what benefits us and benefit us with what You have taught us and grant us knowledge. O Allah, we ask You for a humble heart, a memorable tongue, a tearful eye, beneficial knowledge, and abundant sustenance. There is no power or strength except with Allah, the Most High, the Most Great. O Allah, I seek refuge with You in my power and strength, O Most Merciful, the Merciful.

The Physical and Spiritual Heart

The topic that I was given is about the heart, the human heart. And it's a topic that's fascinated me for a long time, not only the spiritual heart but also the physical heart. And I was actually on a cardiac unit for several years and spent a lot of time with people that had had heart attacks. In fact, I took care of a lot of people with heart attacks and I saw people die from heart attacks in front of me.

And something always really amazed me about seeing somebody that came in to a hospital with a heart attack. Is that there was a type of opening that they had, a window where suddenly they were challenged deep within their own souls to assess their situation, to assess their lives, and to really think about what they were doing with their lives.

And yet, as they started getting better, and not all of them did, but the ones that did, as they started getting better, you could see that window close. And they were back on the phone and making plans to go back to work and to go back into the dunya. And really forgot what had happened to them.

And then you would have these physicians that would come in and tell them how their cardiac enzymes were down and looking good, and it was a mild heart attack and really nothing to worry about. And you'll be back in the fray, in the rat race. They didn't use that word, but that's really what it meant. You'll be back in the rat race soon enough and you'll pedal around some more on that, like in those rat cages where they have that wheel that rats spin around on. You're not really going anywhere. The nearer you are to your destination, the more you're

slip sliding away, like an American songwriter said. And before long they were gone. And who knows, maybe a lot of them have died already and maybe some of them are still ticking.

The Extraordinary Organ

But we know that the heart is the most extraordinary organ in the entire body. We know for instance now that the heart is pulsating at about 40 million times a year. In the human lifespan your heart will pulsate about 3 billion times. It takes about 40 gallons of blood an hour. You try to get some buckets, get 40 gallons and move them from one room to another and see how tired you are.

And yet this extraordinary organ that Allah has put into the body continues to pump throughout our lives, effortlessly, not asking us for anything, not even asking us to tell it to pump for us. And even more unusual about the heart is now we know that the heart is actually not only is it self-regulating, it begins beating before there's a central nervous system.

Who made the heart beat before there was a central nervous system? Who made the heart beat? The one that created the heart made it beat and sustains its beat. And then one day it stops beating, and this form in time suddenly leaves and goes to another realm.

The Divine Language of the Heart

And during our life Allah has challenged us. He called the heart قلب and I say He called because I believe like many of the scholars, although there's difference of opinion about it, that the Arabic language is توقيف . That it was made by Allah for the Quran. That it's a language like one orientalist said, this is the most artificial language in existence. In other words, it's very clear that it wasn't a conventional language like English.

English is really a creole that resulted from pidgin languages. Pidgin languages are when people from different original languages come together and they try to communicate with each other. So like a West African came to when they were brought here from West Africa during the period of slavery in this country, illegally brought against international law at that time which was the law of the Muslims, because they were the international community.

Now it's the Anglo-American alliance. When they say international community read English and Americans, because it should be inter two nations community. That's what they should call it. They shouldn't call it international community like it's a whole bunch of nations together, because it's not, it's just the Americans and the British. And really they're one people, the Anglo-Saxons.

And all the other white people are, they're not really part of the Anglo-Saxons. They're not even accepted by them. In this country they used to have a word, they used wasp. I think that's one of the few words that's still not in the politically correct prohibited dictionary. There's a whole bunch of words that are prohibited. You could still say wasp because there's a lot of people that have been victims of the wasp sting, and so they're not reluctant to put that in that dictionary.

But the wasp is a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. And these were the people that came to this country from England. In fact they were really like Khawarij in the Islamic history, because the Khawarij were people, they didn't like the rulers, so they just broke off and did their own thing. And that's what the Americans did ultimately. And then they split, come together again, and they're ruling the world and they're not doing a very good job of it. And in fact it's really from the absence of the Muslims from the quote unquote international community.

But anyway at that time it was illegal. And in fact it was actually illegal. International slave trade was outlawed in the 1820s. A lot of people don't know that. But it continued by American slavers illegally even by their own laws. So they were actually bringing people over from West Africa illegally by their own laws for several decades until it was finally stopped. Really it's going to go into the 1880s because they were bringing slaves to the Caribbean area and also to South America.

The Etymology of Qalb

But when the slaves came over like the West Africans in Gambia, Senegal, or Senegambia, they say woke, woke means OK. And a lot of people don't know that. You see it's the most American word there is and it's actually a word from West Africa. You tell the white supremacist that and they'll stop using it probably. You're speaking a West African dialect when you say woke. So they tell the West African go put those over there and he'd say woke. That's how he responded. They would say that to them then. They understood that means OK. They'd say OK and that became part of the language.

So English is a language that really resulted in a lot of different peoples coming together. And then their children from a pidgin language, the children will create a Creole language. And so all of the languages that we speak today in the world are actually Creole languages. In fact, Urdu is a Creole language. Urdu is mixed up of Sindhi and Persian and Arabic.

Like in Urdu they say kya musibat hey. What a musibat. And a musibat is an Arabic word. Where did they get that word from? Where did they get it? They got it from the Arabs and they added to it their own things. This is what they say. Or they say like I would say Urdu nehi ma'loom hey. And ma'loom means it's known. But that's Arabic. But the Pakistanis didn't know that's Urdu because he doesn't know where it came from. And then when he starts learning Arabic, he says hey that's from Urdu. Musibat is from Arabic because Arabic is the first language. It's the mother tongue. It's the language of our mother Hawa and our father Adam alayhi salam. And their words are Arabic names.

So this Arabic is not an arbitrary language. It's not a conventional language. It's not a glutinated language just sticking things together. The word in Arabic for heart is qalb. That's one of the words. The Arabs have a lot of words for heart. One of the words is qalb.

Now if you take that and switch the letters around, you get qalaba. And there's a science of the meanings of the words when you switch the letters around. Like you have a word like ilm which means knowledge. If you switch the letters around you get amal which is action, because knowledge and action are related. And qalb and qalaba and qabila are related also. And qalb and qabla, before, are also related.

The Primordial Covenant

Because the heart knows something that it knew before it came into this realm. You see the heart knows (أَلَسْتُ بِرَبِّكُمْ - Quran 7:172). The heart knows the answer to that question. Indeed we testify to that truth. So every human heart that came into the world knew this truth, this spiritual truth. And then the human being is tasked in his life to once again testify during his life on earth, because he tarries on the earth for a period of time.

And he has to testify (صِدْقًا مِنْ قَلْبِهِ) in truth from his heart, that once again he has to testify just as he testified in the primordial world with Allah. He has to testify in this world before Allah in his unseen manifestation, because Allah is manifesting himself in creation from an unseen realm.

Before we were in a realm in which Allah was (ظَاهِر) And now he's (بَاطِن) See Allah has hidden himself from us by manifesting his attributes in creation. And it is the human heart that has to recognize this. And this is why the heart is the organ of cognition. It's not the brain.

The Heart as the Source of Consciousness

You see the non-Muslims would like to say that you think in your brain. This is what they would like to say. But you have to ask the question, why is it that, and people who study martial arts know this, that if you cut off the carotid artery for a short period of time, people lose consciousness. They lose consciousness. Why? Because you cut off the source of consciousness which is the heart. Without the heart there is no consciousness. And it's blood in fact. The blood which is carrying all the glucose and the oxygen, 60% of which is being utilized by the human brain. And it's the heart that's sending it there.

So it is the heart that is the source of human consciousness. And now we're only beginning to study things like the atrial peptide. This is a hormone now. They didn't even know it existed before. And now they're seeing that the heart is telling the brain things. It's telling the brain what to do. This is very recent research in cardiology. You see they didn't know that before.

So how much don't they know? They don't even know how aspirin works. They don't. You ask a doctor, ask your doctor, how does aspirin work? We haven't worked that out yet. It's the most prescribed drug. And he said we don't really know how that works. And you can ask them a lot of questions if you want to stump a doctor. That's an easy thing to do. If you want to stump, you can stump any of them. You see.

And really in the end of the day, they can explain things how, but if you ask them why, that question will always stump them if you just switch from how to why. You see, for instance, you ask them why does the heart beat?

You see, why does the heart beat? You know, why didn't it take the blood somewhere else? By some, why does it go contraction, expansion? You see diastolic, systolic. Why does it do that? It could have done other way. There's lots of ways you could get the blood around the body without a beat. Why did Allah make it a beat?

The Divine Names in the Heartbeat

And then you ask why did Allah make the breath expansion, contraction? Because that's what, and Basit, Allah is Qabid and He's Basit. He's the contractor and the expander. And the heart is doing that every moment. You see your heart is, if you listen to it, they call it lubdub, right? Lubdub, right? They don't know what it's saying. But if you listen closely you can hear.

I mean they say like meow in English. That's supposed to be the way a cat sound. They say meow. Well in Japanese they don't say meow. They say something else, like nya, right? Well so what is it? Meow or nya? Right? Well it's just the way they're hearing it, alright? So they're trying to get an approximation.

But if you listen to the heart with a stethoscope and very closely, you will hear what it says. It says Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah. That's what it's saying. Contraction, expansion. And if you look at the name, the divine name Allah, it's a contraction expansion. That's what it is. That's what the tongue is doing. Allah, Allah, Allah, Allah. That's what it's doing. And this is what the heart is doing.

The heart knows who its lord is. But the nafs has forgotten who its lord is. And this is because we become tainted with the dunya. We're in the world. We've forgotten who our lord is. And Allah sent messengers to remind us who our lord is, so that we can return. So that we can return.

Recognizing the Death of the Heart

Now if you ask how do we bring our ibadah to life, the first recognition is that it's dead. That's the first. That's the place where we start. The ibadah is dead. You see in the Muslim world now we are in the perfunctory mode. We went on to automatic pilot several hundred years ago, right? We invented it long before these people ever got it, right? We just turned on automatic pilot and went into what's called ghafla or heedlessness.

That's what the pilot does. They get, once they get up in the air, if you ever open that door, you'll have a heart attack because they're snoring. They're lying back there. And they even go to sleep. People don't know that, but it's true, right? They actually go to sleep on those planes, those pilots. And that's what happens with Muslims.

You see you can go into a mechanical mode. Allahu akbar. And you can pray rakats. And then like five minutes later you'll start wondering, did I pray? Or how many rakats did I pray? Why do we have so many intentions in Islam? It's an interesting thing about ibadah. If you don't make an intention, now where's the intention? You know what the ulama say? (محل النية في القلب). The place of intention is in the heart.

It's not saying نويت صلاة الظهر because that could become a tape recorder as well, right? You just go into automatic pilot. (نَوَيْتُ صَلَاةَ الظُّهْرِ أَرْبَعَ رَكَعَاتٍ فَرِيضَةً) right? And then you just do that every time and you just change

ARABIC TEXT (CRITICAL - PRESERVE EXACTLY)

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the tape. If it's dhuhr you say dhuhr. Asr, asr, asr, right? You gotta get the tape straight, right?

So this is what people do. They go to sleep. And then there's a lot of people, they've gone to such a degree of sleep because there are different types of sleep. You have REM sleep, rapid eye movement. You know, see a lot of people are in REM sleep. But there's other people, they're not even in REM sleep. The eyes aren't even moving. There's no movement, right? And so there's degrees of sleep.

(الناس نيام - People are asleep). Sayyidina Ali said that. It's true. You just have to think about it. People are asleep. They asked Sayyidina Ali, what is all of this? Creation. Somebody asked him once, what is creation? And he said (هباء لا يرى إلا بحين ما يقع عليه نور الله). This is like the dust in the air that only becomes visible when the light of Allah strikes it.

You see that was a (عارف بالله). What a more profound description of the atomic realm. You see all of these atoms like (هباء) floating, floating in this ethereal space that Allah has created. And the only reason they're visible is because Allah is (نور السماوات والأرض). (الله نور السماوات والأرض) (Quran 24:35). He illuminated the heavens and the earth.

The Protected Organ

And the heart is the locus of the human being that is capable of perceiving that in the most profound and deep ways. And this is why the heart is a gift from Allah and you have to protect the gift. Look where he put it. He put it behind the sternum, the strongest thing in the body. He put it. And then he put a rib cage around it.

He didn't put it like the genitals. The genitals is right out there, right? Seriously. Look, I mean a person doesn't have any protection there. That's why you want to down a man, they teach you that's the first thing they teach you in martial arts. Go for the groin because there's no protection. You see, but the heart Allah put a protection there, a powerful protection.

And then he gave it a pumping, this oscillating power in which the blood is flowing in every single cell of the body. In every pulse there is blood. So the heart reaches every single cell of the body. This results in amplification which is even more frightening.

The famous bridge story that they teach every engineer in Germany when all these soldiers were marching across the bridge and they were all marching in one step. And so the actual the force of the wave activity was amplified exponentially because it was all together. You see, and that's the power of being unified. When you're unified you have power. And when you're disunited you're weak.

The Entrainment of the Heart

Now the heart also has a power. The heart literally entrains the body. The brain and the heart are entrained at the same point one hertz. The heart and the brain are entrained. There's an entrainment taking place.

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Now the messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said that in the heart of the human being is a lump of flesh. If it is sound, the entire body is sound. And if it is corrupt, the entire body is corrupt. Why?

Because the entire body is in entrainment with the heart. And if the heart is diseased, then the entrainment will be diseased. If the heart is sound, the entrainment will be sound.

Bringing the Heart Back to Life

So how then does one bring the heart back to life? The first thing is to recognize that the heart has died. Now the heart dies for various reasons and there is spiritual death of the heart.

One of the signs that the heart is dead is that people don't weep. That's a sign of the death of the heart. Another sign of the death of the heart is that when they hear the Quran it has no impact on their heart. When they hear wa'az, it has no impact on their heart.

Now it could also be vice versa. If the wa'az is dead, then also that, that has a reality also. And this is part of our problem because we're all dead as well. So dead talking to dead. And then we go into this state where really it's a frightening situation.

And this is the problem with leadership. You see when the leaders are sick, they have now whales. When the leader gets sick and goes and commits suicide on the beach, all the other whales follow it even though they're healthy. Because that's what happens. And that's why leadership is such an amanah.

And that's why any intelligent person would not want leadership, because if he destroys himself, he takes other people with him. And then he has the wrong actions of the other people as well, because it's an amanah. It's a trust from Allah.

The Role of Quran in Reviving the Heart

So the first thing is to recognize the heart is dead. And then how do we bring the heart to life? The heart can be brought to life. One of the things that brings the heart to life is tilawat al-Quran with tadabbur, reading the Quran with reflection. And this is important. Why? Because you have to know why things happen.

Once you understand why Allah has asked you to do these things, understanding causes or engenders in the heart a desire to fulfill that thing, because you're now using your intellect. And when the intellect is behind something, it's not the same as when you're just following orders.

When you actually believe something, you have conviction. And when there's conviction, then there's action. And when there's action, there's change. You will change and things around you will change. So tilawat al-Quran with tadabbur is one of the reasons that Allah brings the life to heart.

Seeking Refuge from Shaitan

Now if you look in the Quran, there are many things Allah says: (وإذا قرأت القرآن فاستعذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم)

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(16:98). When you read the Quran, do isti'adha of Allah from shaitan.

Now shaitan, shaitan's realm is the heart. He does not know what's in the heart. It's one of the things Allah has veiled from him. Shaitan does not know your heart. He doesn't know what you're thinking. So don't think that he does. He does not know what you are thinking.

But he has the ability to whisper in the heart. And the weaker the heart, the more powerful his whispering. The stronger the heart, the more the decibels go down. And if a heart is really healthy, the beat is so powerful that shaitan, he's screaming and it's not heard in that heart.

The heart of a powerful man like Imam al-Nawawi or Qadi Abu Bakr or Imam al-Junaid, who actually said he wanted to see shaitan. He asked Allah to show him shaitan. And shaitan one day he came to him. He saw shaitan. And this occurred to many of the believers including Abu Hurairah who saw shaitan. And this is confirmed because shaitan takes form.

Imam al-Junaid saw shaitan in the form of an old man and he was hideous. He said when he looked at him, his heart became filled with terror. And he said who are you? And he said I'm the one you wanted to see. And he said subhanallah, you're Iblis? And he said yes. And he said I have a question for you. Why didn't you bow down to Adam?

In other words, he's thinking what a fool. You know I want to understand this, right? No this is what he wanted to. He said you know, what an idiot. Why didn't you bow down? He wanted to understand that. Why didn't you bow down to Adam? You were right there and Allah told you to do something. You must be insane, right?

And shaitan said, ya Imam Junaid, how could I bow down to other than Allah? That's what shaitan said. He said how could I bow down to other than Allah? Now this is called in sharia mukhalifat al-mu'addab, the mukhalifa of somebody who has adab.

Now shaitan is a liar. He's kadhdhab. And initially Imam Junaid was, he was shocked by the answer because he thought about that. Like Sayyidina Ali refused to wipe out the name Rasulullah when he was asked to by the messenger of Allah. Sayyidina Abu Bakr refused to lead the prayer. These are times when sahaba actually went against the messenger of Allah ta'adduban bi Rasulillah, out of adab.

So shaitan was pretending to Imam Junaid. He was saying ta'adduban, how could I bow down to other than Allah? And then Imam Junaid said suddenly it came into his heart, he's a liar. Had he really loved Allah, he would have obeyed Allah. And then when he said that, you're a liar, and he told them shaitan fled, because that's a man with a big heart.

Trust in Allah with Means

So shaitan has no power. Now Allah tells us (فاستعذ بالله) and then Allah says (إنه ليس له سلطان على الذين آمنوا وعلى ربهم يتوكلون) (Quran 16:99-100). He has no authority, inna lahu innahu laysa lahu sultanun, he has no authority ala

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alladhina amanu, on those who believe, wa ala rabbihim yatawakkalun, and they trust in their lord. They have tawakkul ala Allah. Shaitan has no authority over these people.

Now look what Allah says before he says that. He says if you read the Quran, seek refuge in Allah, isti'adha. And then he says shaitan has no authority over those who believe and they trust in Allah.

Now why is he saying that before? Because he's saying if you believe and you trust in Allah, shaitan has no authority. But he tells us before that, trust in Allah but tie your camel. Make isti'adha. Say (أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم). That's asbab. You're trusting in Allah but you're taking the means. And this is what Allah is telling us. He's telling us to trust in Allah but tie your camel, like the messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said.

And so knowing that, that when we recite the Quran we seek refuge in Allah from shaitan. Why? Because we don't want shaitan to influence our understanding of the Quran. And then Allah tells us if you believe in Allah and you trust in him, but trust means taking the asbab. You don't say I'm just gonna trust in Allah that I'll understand it. No, you study grammar, rhetoric, logic, tafsir, hadith, all of these things before you try to understand the Quran, because that is tawakkul with asbab.

We don't just say tawakkul ala Allah like somebody come over to somebody's house. They say I'm hungry. And he said I'm trusting in Allah the food will come. No, you say get up and go out, I'm your guest, go and give me some food, right? There are no angels that are gonna come in, unless there's a wife, angelic wife who puts up with husbands like that. But there's no angels in there, right, that are gonna come and do that. You have to do things with asbab, the means.

And the deen of Allah, the deen of Allah is a deen of means. And this is why if you understand the reason why we're doing these things, you will have success because it will encourage you. You'll begin to take, see if you understood for instance, if you had a glimpse of the unseen world just for one moment and suddenly you saw shayateen on people's right there.

The Reality of Shaitan's Presence

There's shayateen walking around with people. If you could see that out there in Chicago, Cook County, right? 32,000 abused and neglected children under government authority here in this county alone. 32,000 neglected and abused children. Really, Cook County, right? Children that throw other children off building tops in Cook County.

If you could see the shayateen in this city, you know what you'd be doing? You'd be saying (أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم، أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم). Everywhere you look, you'd just go into a state where you would just be saying (أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم) the whole time. You couldn't walk anywhere. And so it's a mercy from Allah that you're not frightened, right? Really, it's a mercy. But you have to be aware of his existence.

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(قل هو الله أحد، الله الصمد، لم يلد ولم يولد، ولم يكن له كفواً أحد) (Quran 112:1-4). You do that three times in the morning, three times in the evening. (بسم الله الذي لا يضر مع اسمه شيء في الأرض ولا في السماء وهو السميع العليم. اللهم إني أعوذ بك من شر ما خلقت). And do all of those adhkar. You want to be in the protection of Allah. You want to be in the protection of Allah.

The Protection of the Prophet

If the best of creation did those and he had protection, there were angels surrounding him, mighty cohorts, warriors around him that if anybody threatened him from the ins of the jinn, like the one Arabi who came up to the messenger of Allah and he found him sleeping under a tree, and he said, who will protect you now? And he said, Allah. And the man dropped his sword and started shaking. And the messenger of Allah put it up and he said, who's gonna protect you? He couldn't say Allah. He said, go ahead, kill me.

That's an Arabi. They were tough people. But he said, go ahead, kill me. The messenger of Allah didn't kill him. He became a Muslim. But the point is, that man wanted to kill him and he couldn't. Why? Because Allah gave him isma. He protected him.

When he came out the night when Sayyidina Ali took his place, he came out. All of the strongest youth of Quraysh, the people of futuwa, the people of chivalry from the Quraysh, each one of them from each clan had a sword waiting to kill the messenger of Allah. He came out (وجعلنا من بين أيديهم سداً ومن خلفهم سداً فأغشيناهم فهم لا يبصرون) (Quran 36:9). This is what he said.

(وإذا قرأت القرآن جعلنا بينك وبين الذين لا يؤمنون بالآخرة حجاباً مستوراً) (Quran 17:45). Those who don't believe in the Akhirah. And he was completely veiled. He was the invisible man. He came out, they could not see him. They couldn't see him, peace and blessings be upon him.

The Living Heart of the Prophet

And this is, he was doing these things. Why? Because his heart was aware (ما كذب الفؤاد ما رأى) (Quran 53:11). His heart didn't deny, it did not lie in what it saw of the haqq, of the truth. His heart was awake. It was living.

The angels when they came, they found him asleep and they said, his eyes sleep but his heart doesn't sleep. The messenger of Allah's heart never slept. It was always in the divine presence of Allah. And that's why if you came and you were with him, then you were immersed in that divine presence. And that's why people when they were around him, they couldn't do anything but remember Allah.

When they left the messenger of Allah, one of them, Handhalah, came to the messenger of Allah and he said, ya Rasulullah, when we're with you, we remember Allah and it's as if we can see the Akhirah in front of us. And then we go home and we get it with our families and our work and all these things and we forget. Why do we do that?

And the messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, he is (رحمة للعالمين - rahmatan lil'alameen). He said to him that this is a time for this and a time for that. This is the nature of being.

(Hadith)

All of you will make mistakes. This is our nature. But we have to be reminded.

The Internal Reminder

Now, when the heart becomes alive, there's an internal reminder. You no longer need these external reminders.

When the time comes, when the ma'asiyah is there, you remember Allah. And I'll give you an example. And this is the blessing of the company of the shuyukh.

When I was in Algeria, because I'm left handed, when I was studying in Tizi, there was a shuyukh there, Sidi Bou Sa'id, inshallah he's protected. I don't know what happened to him, but he was one of my teachers. And I was in a hall with all these people and there were several people. He was on the other end of the room and I was eating. They gave some dessert and I was eating the dessert and I was using my left hand because that's habitual for a left handed person.

And I looked over and I saw him. And he looked at me. And then he looked down at my hand. And I knew that I had to be eating with my right hand. I changed hands. Now, whenever I put my fork or spoon or anything in my left hand, I see his face. That happens to me. I'm not making this up. I see his face whenever I do that. And I remember. And that's a gift from a teacher who has spiritual authority. That's a gift. And that's a blessing of being in the company of these people.

You see the time that I spent with Murabit al-Hajj. Murabit al-Hajj, they call him shahidun ghaibun, present and absent at the same time, because all he does is remember Allah. All he does is remember Allah. He remembered Allah in every state. When he got up he remembered Allah. When he went to bed he remembered Allah. When he put his clothes on he remembered Allah. When he tied his turban he remembered Allah. When he went out to the market place he remembered Allah. When he came home he remembered Allah. When he bought something he remembered Allah. When he sold something he remembered Allah. When he went to the masjid he remembered Allah. When he put his foot in he remembered Allah and changed feet coming in and out as a conscious human being. When he came into the masjid, he did his rakat tahiyyatul masjid and then he stayed remembering Allah. When he left he remembered Allah.

The Example of the Prophet in Battle

When he went into battle he remembered Allah. During the battle he remembered Allah. Hunayn was his day. All of the battles were his days. But he defeated the Hawazin and all these great Arab tribes. He defeated them single-handedly. When all the Muslims were fleeing, even the best of them, he stayed firm. And then they came back and they routed them.

And this is because he was in a state of remembrance of Allah. He saw Jibreel fill the entire horizon. What do you do once you've seen Jibreel? You look out. Every time you see the horizon, that's what you'll see. If you had

the chance to see Jibreel fill the entire horizon, go out and look at the horizon and imagine seeing the angel of Allah fill the entire horizon. What are you gonna do after that? What are you gonna do? Are you ever gonna forget Allah? Are you going to forget Allah? You can't go to sleep after that.

You can't. It's not possible. And this is why the more that we struggle against our souls, the more light that comes in. And Allah causes inshirah to the breast. Why? Because the heart's growing. It needs more room. It needs more room because the heart is getting bigger. And the bigger the heart gets, the greater power the person has against the forces of evil.

The Power of Entrainment

And when the heart is powerful, then other people begin to entrain with that heart. Like the clocks, the tick, and the smaller clocks begin to entrain with the sway of that clock. And so when the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, was present, all of the sahaba were entrained with his divine heart because his heart was beating for Allah. His breaths were breathing for Allah. His movements were moving for Allah. And so when this was happening, everybody was in that state. All of the sahaba.

And the day he died, peace and blessings be upon him, caused such a trauma in those people that it would take them several generations before they would come back to their senses. That's how powerful his absence only in the physical realm was. And this is what the power of Islam is. It's the power of the human heart. This is what the power of Islam is. It began with the heart. Allah revealed this to the Messenger of Allah's heart. And it was transmitted to the hearts. And it's been passed on by the hearts.

And if the hearts don't wake up, they're going to wake up when they die. When your heart stops beating, it will wake up. And then it's too late. So we have to do something. Don't just come here and then go back to your home and nothing's changed. Make commitment.

Breaking Free from Demonic Entrainment

How many people are willing to stop in training with the television? Because when you watch television, you're getting these cathode rays beaming out to you. And you're in training with demonic entrainment. These are dark energies that are coming out and putting your heart into a state. And you can watch young children. You just watch them in front of a TV and you go like this. And they can't see anything because they're completely in a state of magic. A magical spell has been placed on them. And their hearts begin to entrain with that. And they're getting all of these ideas put in their minds.

People have to be willing to do these things for the sake of Allah. How many people are going to commit to praying on time from this day forward? To getting up before the dawn, not at dawn. We have to get into a state where we can call on Allah and Allah will answer us. Because we're in a state now, we call on Allah and it's just like this hadith that Imam Zaid read. This is our state. How is Allah going to answer us?

The Lesson from Turkey's Earthquake

Look at this Turkey, 45 seconds. Look at the buildings, completely destroyed. And then all those mosques. And somebody said to me, it's a miracle. It's not a miracle. Those people knew how to build. They weren't cheaters. When they made a contract with the government to build a mosque, they built it up to standard. And whose standard? Allah and His Messenger's standard. The standard of ihsan and itqan.

And now these crooks and criminals that build cement buildings, that the slightest shaking can knock them down. If it was an earthquake on 4.0, they would have all come tumbling down. There's earthquakes of that magnitude in western countries, and you don't see the buildings falling apart. Why? Because they build them up to code and standard.

And so the tribulation is from our own selves because we cheat and we lie. Who's going to become a person of ihsan and itqan of these people? And then all of those people really, look at that. It's a metaphor for this time. Those buildings that were built on taqwa, they remained and they go on. And all those other buildings built on ghafla and greed and avarice and enmity and animosity for humanity because no person with a human heart could do that.

Conclusion: The Choice Between Life and Death

And the difference between those who remember Allah and those who forget Allah is the difference between the living and the dead. And so you're going to choose, each one of you, whether you're going to be one of the living or one of the dead.