Balancing Deen in the Social Scene

Balancing Deen in the Social Scene

Lecture by Imam Mohamed Magid

Opening

(بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ - bismillahir-rahmanir-rahim)

In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah. I seek refuge in Allah from the evil of the heart and from the evils of deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, he is guided, and whosoever He misguides, he is misguided.

And the result is that for him is a guardian, a guide. This topic of balancing life, especially social life, and staying connected with Allah, is a very important topic because the notion is that life is short and have, you know, enjoy it and have a lot of fun. And this fun is contradicting to be religious.

If you are religious, you're going to miss out. And therefore, the idea of religiosity and having balance in job or social life has been missing in many people thinking and behavior as well.

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Two-Dimensional Relationships

You know, many of you maybe have heard me before saying that you have to look to all relationships are two-dimensional.

Two-dimensional. One of the relationship is vertical. You know what vertical is? Vertical relationship.

And then the other one is horizontal. The vertical is a relationship with whom? With Allah. Horizontal is a relationship with people.

Everything a person does in their life has something to do with God Almighty. Even if when they do the wrong thing, they do it because they have used and utilized an ability and the power Allah give them in the wrong place. Now, how can a person then appreciate what Allah have bestowed upon them and utilize in the way that very fulfilling? You need to live a very fulfilling life.

Today, that you hear about social media, how many of you have any kind of social media? Facebook or Twitter account or any kind of social media? How many of you? Therefore, we use social media today to interact with people. We have to look into the tools that Allah has given us which is Facebook or Twitter account or emails or chat rooms and so forth. At the place that where we can create what I call the social comfort zone.

But that social comfort zone, it has to be guided by our relationship with Allah Almighty.

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The Prophet's Example of Balance

I'm going to give you an example from Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam life. There was no person who have balanced his life more than Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in every aspect of it.

And I'm going to give some example of his social life, Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. One of the most important aspect of his social life is the family time. We must look our family quality time as one of the most important aspect of our social life.

But the virtual society sometimes have taken away this quality of family time. Not only that, sometimes the parents themselves, they lost sense of fun with their children because the life fast rhythm. People come home and somebody in the desktop upstairs, somebody in the laptop in the basement and somebody in the iPad in the living room.

Everyone in their own world. And there is no aspect of having activities, social activities such as just going out together for dinner as a family. Such as riding your bike in a nice weather day with your parents.

All of these are activities that have been missing today and it's impacted the level of connection between people. For Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has this time with his family, quality time. He comes home, he plays, jokes with his family.

The first thing about balancing social life is to create a social life within the family. Was having fun in the house. For Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam had this great sense of humor.

Many people don't know that Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam has a great sense of humor. He's always smiling. You know, because some people associate religiosity with looking mean.

You know, a person, the minute they become religious, the smile disappears from their face. What happened to them? I'm becoming religious, super religious. What we want first of all the Muslim youth to know, please relax and give it a big smile.

A smile big. Let us agree on that first. The first fun to have is to be a pleasant person.

Don't be mean and be cheerful. Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, do you think that he didn't have difficulty in his life? He never took anything serious? Everything about his life he took it very serious. But yet he has time to smile all the time actually.

They call the smile man. Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And he has time also to joke, Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam.

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Sports and Physical Activity

Time to race with his spouse. How many of you, you know, you think about having fun of racing or wrestling with somebody? Do you like that, guys? You know, the guys, they said they like it. Okay.

How many times that you really think sport is fun now? Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he wrestled with one of the most famous wrestler in Mecca and he won. He raced, ran with his wife, Aisha. She won the first round.

And Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam waited until, you know, time is right, six months or so after. And he was with his companion. Look at the balance in social life.

He was with his companion and he said to them, can you leave us just a minute alone? Go ahead. And he said to his wife, the son. He said, here? This is not like indoor gym.

This was outside. He said, Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, should we run here? He said, yeah. Run here.

Race. And they raced. And Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam won this time.

And he said, now we're even, we're equal. We're equal. Yeah, Aisha.

And Aisha radiyallahu anha said, Humeira, the daughter of Siddiq. And Aisha radiyallahu anha made an excuse. She said, the reason I lost the second time because I gained some weight.

I couldn't run faster. Therefore, sports is one of the most important activities I think our youth should have. Girls and boys, male and females.

And that's why I think Adams Center, now having basketball for sisters and basketball for brothers, is one of the most important aspects of the youth program. Sports have three values. One, it creates team building, understanding of team building.

Number two, teach person patience. What do you call that when a person loses and they don't lose their cool? What do you call it? Good sportsmanship. Because part of the sports value that if you lose, you have to say it's a game.

That we learn to sometime you lose, sometime you win. And that's what I like about sports. The third, it creates an environment of getting to know people.

It creates a kind of bond between people. And therefore, when you're talking about balancing life, sports has to be one of those aspects of it. Now, but how do you balance sports with practicing your religion? I know Tim Tebow.

Yes, I traveled. And Tim Tebow, if there's a video on YouTube, you remember that you were together in Croatia. And he's a devoted Christian.

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Isn't he? And he gets to play football and to be proud being Christian. A Muslim sport person should have the same like Hakeem Al-Jawad. Where he balanced his social life, he balanced his activity of sport with him fasting Ramadan.

Fasting Ramadan. He fasted Ramadan. And the two Abdullahs, who were in Hajj this year, the football player, they come to Isna.

They feel proud that they are playing football, but they're proud of their identity as Muslims. And therefore, the option people give that either you become religious or a sport person, or religious or social person, this is a false argument. A person can enjoy life fully and connect with God Almighty.

A person can be a person that's conscious of God and have a lot of fun. There's no religious depression. What I mean that a person will draw from life because they're religious.

We don't do that. You know? Therefore, one of the most important aspect of this also is that how can a person balance their life when they socialize not to have them to waste time.

Time Management and Social Media

There's some people addicted to the internet. It's true or not. When they sit in front of the computer, they don't look to their watch. They go for five, six hours straight just chatting.

You ask them what they're chatting about. We just talk. A person have to think about the value of time.

That you have to be able to have a time management to take one aspect of your life to say, I'm going to have fun for two hours. But during that time, we'll not miss a prayer. I'm not going to let the prayer go because of video game.

I'm not going to let the prayer go because of a chat room. No matter how interesting the conversation is. Because I'm going to have more interesting conversation with God Almighty, with Allah.

If you say, my friend saw a conversation more important than my mother. That's a problem there. Or Facebook.

Sometimes, we spend so much time in our Facebook. And by the way, I want just to say one thing about Facebook. People who do wrong and they display that in Facebook.

Really, they're doing two problems. They're making two mistakes. One is the mistake itself.

The other is the bragging about it. You have to be, there's almost, I think, we call it fiqh of using of Facebook. You have to be able to understand that you cannot slander someone, backbite someone, and say, I'm having fun.

The minute that you put somebody down, make fun of them, and you know it hurts, going to hurt them. It's not fun anymore. Fun does not hurt.

Don't hurt other people feeling, making racist joke about other person's race. That's not fun. There's no fun about that.

That's why that Prophet Muhammad, salallahu alayhi wa sallam, did not accept his own wife, Aisha, when she made a comment about the lady. He said, oh, she's too short. The Prophet said, this is not acceptable because you're making a fun of someone's size where they have no control over it.

For some time, we do cross boundaries in having fun. For example, some people, they find it funny using foul language or curse word. Sometimes a person will listen to music that have nothing but cursing, degrading women for hours.

What's fun about that? There's no fun in that. That's corrupting the soul. Corrupting the soul.

Protecting the Heart

What kind of person can do? Can listen to something of rap music that does not do that? There's alternative. You know, sometimes you go to the store, and you have a bottle of medicine, and one of them says alcohol, some of them says non-alcohol. Which one are you going to buy? Non-alcohol.

But both are medicine. There's options, there's choices that a person makes in life. The most important thing for a person to think about when you make a choice is to say, I'm going to protect this organ here called the heart.

And when you protect the heart, you create what you call firewalls. Your computer have games? Can you download things in your computer? But you make sure the game have not what? Doesn't have? A virus.

Somebody can send you a game that has virus, isn't it? Trust me, there's some fun, so-called fun, have viruses.

You need to be able to screen every program that comes to the heart. And make sure that the fun is clean fun.

And therefore, you'll be able to detect it.

If you create a firewall, the firewall and the screening program, antivirus program, that you know that will filter anything that comes to your heart, it will warn you before it corrupts the system, the software. But I want all of us to think about balancing social life by saying how Allah, God Almighty, will look to this action about to do. And that will be criteria.

If you are in a chatroom and you know it's going wrong direction, you have to remind yourself to say, Allah was in the chatroom. Do you want to stay on or want to get off? Then you make the choice. It requires what? Signals come from where? From the brain to the finger.

Boom, out. And then your friend says, why you were out last time? You were in the chatroom and you signed off. Say, guys, it's going the wrong direction.

I cannot stay there because it's not fun. You know, have you heard someone that sometimes says, stop it. It's not fun anymore.

Have you heard that before? I don't like it anymore. A person has to do that to be solved. To say, this is not fun anymore.

This is going the wrong direction. I have people where they say that they smoke socially or they drink socially, you know, for fun. It cannot be fun if you know Allah Almighty is not happy.

The Prophet's Example in Humor

And how do then you balance life? Should we just become like mullahs? You want mullahs? And all of us just quit anything we do and stay in the mosque? No. Sallallahu alaihi wasallam, as I said, he socialized with people. He joked with people.

As a matter of fact, that Sallallahu alaihi wasallam, you know, with his companion, that he made some jokes. He said to a woman that she said that, Ya Rasulallah, ask Allah for me to enter paradise. And she was an old woman.

He said, No, old woman will enter paradise. The lady cried and Rasulallah said, No, I meant that you will enter paradise when you are young. You know? And he made many jokes.

It is in Arabic context. Maybe if I say it to you, you may not see it funny. Because a joke has a context in it.

You know that? And if you say in Arabic, that is something that had to be, you know, it's not norms. It's not the norms. And therefore, that make a person laugh.

But if, you know, when I met my wife, which were both from different culture, I tried to tell her some of my joke from Sudan. And she didn't laugh. My feeling was hurt a little bit.

I said, Why isn't she laughing? And sometimes try to fake the laugh. I said, I know it's not funny. But because the joke been translated from Arabic to English.

And it's not funny. You know? But then I learned how to joke in English. And I should become more happier.

But the point here is I want to make is that the Muslims, when he or she worship Allah, worship Allah in every aspect of their life. Even when they joke. That's why Rasulallah said, I make fun.

I say jokes. But I never lie. Amzah.

You know what I mean? But Rasulallah never lied even when he made fun.

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The Company You Keep

Having fun. Now, there's three things I want to mention about Palestinian social life very quickly.

That we have to think about the company that we keep in our social life. What impact the aspect of our social life and the fun that we have is who are we having that way. By the way, that in virtual or in the physical environment.

In person or virtually. That impact the company you keep determine what kind of way of life you have. For example, if any one of us here have friends.

Or they've been in a social environment where they feel shame. Some other friends, they see them in it. Like you have a friend in a mosque and a friend in a school.

It's true or not? You do? If I have a shame that the friend of my mosque see me in a social environment. They say, listen, listen, listen. I know them from the mosque.

I try to hide because somebody walked in. In the place that I don't want them to see me in that place. By the way, what that person anyway. What he has to do in that place. I feel shame hiding from them. But I just want to mention here that if we do have double life.

You know what double life is? That a virtual life that I don't want my parents, my friends to know. Other people to know about this before I sign off when somebody see me. I use fake name because that means a person is not comfortable in their skin.

There's something wrong with that. You heard that before or not, young lady? You're not comfortable in your skin because you're using a fake name. Because you don't want other people to know this is who you are.

Then a person have to reset the thinking to say, why am I having double life? Why am I not being straight in my life? What is it all about? That is one aspect of this. That the company keep determine whether this fun and the social life that is really acceptable.

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Setting Priorities

Number two, priorities.

Priority. Some people don't have no priority in their life. You ask someone is playing video game, rank this in priority, how important it is.

They might rank it number one. You ask them number two, they don't even have number two. There's a problem there.

A person must have priority in their life. To succeed in life, you have to have your priorities straight. What is more important has to come first.

And in this regard, our relationship with Allah is the most important aspect of our priority. This is the second.

The third is that always we have to have evaluation of our behavior.

How people know that they are out of balance. If they don't have a moment to think about how their life is going. You only think you are out of balance when you really measure your life against something.

When you become only the criterion of your life, it's how it feels. Sometimes people, how many of you know that people have said that they felt good about something and it's not good for them? Do you know anyone like that? People who get high, they think that feel good, but it's not good for them. When a person goes high, they go low, actually.

And people sometimes don't realize what's hurtful, what's harmful to themselves. Without a person posing and have very important analysis and evaluation of their behavior, they will not be able to modify or change it. Because they think that whatever they are doing is good all the time.

Prayer as Priority

And therefore, for example, anyone who has an iPhone here, what do you do with the iPhone? Do you have a calendar? Do you have a calendar on the iPhone? Don't you use your calendar? Do you use a calendar? Let me ask you this. How many of you sit in this room and their iPhone, they have prayer time. It calls Adhan.

This prayer time becomes the most important aspect of your calendar and you cannot override it. What do I mean by that? You know sometimes when people have the alarm and goes on, goes off, sorry, what do people do? Wada?

Snooze. And then snooze.

And then snooze. Then you lose. You heard that? If you snooze, you lose.

That's what people do. Snoozing, snoozing, snoozing, then losing, losing, losing. Therefore, it is very important for us when we think about our prayer time, cannot be like, oh, he's being called, but like now I'm desensitized.

So what being called? No, no, no. It has to change our behavior to say, I'm going to stop, I'm going to pray, then I'm going to come back. It has to change our behavior.

If it does not change our behavior, what good is having an alarm or having the prayer on the iPhone? If you miss it, if the iPhone calls Zohr and Asr and then come home and they pray Zohr and Asr together and say, what good do you have it in the iPhone? There's nothing good about it. Therefore, our biological clock has to respond to our other clock.

Has to what? What do you call that? Sync.

You have to have them to sync together. That's what is it, what it's supposed to be.

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Achieving Balance

Now, let me just conclude so they can have a question and answer, can be interactive here instead of one-way street.

What we offer ourself, look offering ourself, is to have a life that is enjoyable, that is pleasing to God Almighty first, and then pleasing to us. If it's pleasing to Allah, it's enjoyable for us. If it's pleasing to Allah, that is a life worth living.

That all of us, we have to think about the balancing of our life by looking to different aspects of it. That there's a time for my body, which is the hadith of Rasulallah, Do you know that some people abuse their body by staying until 2 o'clock in the morning? They're chatting, and next day they have to go to school. It's true or not? Well, next day they have to go to work.

It's true or not? Am I making up things? And their body doesn't have enough sleep. They're always tired. You ask them why? I stayed up all night.

What are you staying up all night or not up all night? Making tahajjud? No, no, no, chatting, chat room. I was in the Facebook until my face dropped. You know? You can't do that.

Okay? Therefore, the rights of our body, the rights of Allah, the rights of our family, our family have rights on us. Then by giving everyone their rights, then you balance our life. Then you have a balanced life.

That's what the balanced life is about. There's time for fun. There's time for homework.

Okay? Many people do their homework. They call it bus work. You know what that means? Bus work.

They do their homework in the school bus. That's many. You know? A person in their home, then they have to have this calendar where divide their time.

What we call that, in other words, time management. You have to manage your time. If you manage your time, then you have a social bus life.

And that's why I ask all of you to seek to understand the issue of time management. And there's something even online you can take. You can learn.

There's courses. There's materials on time management, how to manage your time. And therefore, I would like just to say that today in the society where people sometimes don't realize that they're being driven by excitement.

You ask people, why are you addicted to Facebook? There's excitement about it. Can you keep up with every bit of other people's life? There's some people that become fascinated. I'm going to X Facebook to see what is happening, what she's doing.

And some people, like, check their email in their sleep. Chill out. Like, calm down.

Have a balanced life. You don't have to respond to every text message. You don't have to respond to every email, you know, even junk emails.

And there's some people, like, even sitting in their dining table and having the phone under the table. Slow on that. Yeah, I'm eating.

Why are you texting? It's time for food. Take away the phone. Don't answer the phone during the meal.

Why would you do that? But we have become obsessed with socialization. You are in your bed texting. The last thing you do.

And you get up in the morning, the first thing you do, you grab the phone. Somebody texted me last night while I was sleeping. I have to respond to them while I'm awake now.

Immediately. Why do I have to be immediate? I sit in a wedding. Wedding is a nice place to socialize, isn't it? But you're sitting at the table, sitting having a conversation with people that are sitting at the table.

What are you doing? What did you say? I'm talking to somebody else. Why? Face me. Forget about the Facebook now.

Talk to me. You're going to miss a lot if you're still doing this. Because it becomes like a toy.

There are some people really, in the school, while the teacher is speaking, they text somebody. What did you say? What did he say? What did he say? I was not there. Turn off the phone.

Turn the phone. Sometimes you need to turn even your iPod. Turn it off and listen to yourself.

Listen to yourself. Have a moment for yourself. A quiet time.

A quiet time could be a very good time. With all the noise being turned off. Deep breath.

Time for reflection. Enjoy the oxygen. Simple as that.

The fast rhythm makes us have short life. Because we are running out of breath. Running for what? I'm running after everything.

I want to catch up on things. No, no, no, of course. That's why physical activity is better than sitting at the computer and spending hours and hours and hours.

Have a back ride. You know, horseback riding. Or ride your bike.

Or whatever it is, physical activity. Even cooking a meal. You know what I mean? People don't have fun in cooking anymore.

Because there's a drive-through. Everything fast. Fast food.

You know? Take the fun away. People like we just had the time is given. Time.

You know, I didn't want people to have the store to open on Thursday. I didn't want that. Why? It took the family time.

People used to stay all night together as a family. Chatting and so forth. But you have to rush 8 o'clock for Black Friday, Saturday, Thursday.

Now, what is that? Let people have family time. We need to have more of that. But I will stop here.

Question and Answer Session

Question: Peer Pressure and Temptation

If you have any questions about this, then we can discuss them so that I don't talk too long. Can you address the issue that Muslim youths faced, such as temptation and peer pressure? Especially when the pressure comes from Muslims.

This is very interesting because every human being living on the face of the earth has some level of pressure socially. Either positive or negative. But the peer pressure is negative. How do you resist that? Okay.

Now, golden rules. Rule number one. Don't ever appease someone in expense of your spiritual state.

Anything that's judgmental of your spiritual well-being, don't compromise on it. If somebody will ask you to hurt yourself physically, no matter how much close those people to you, you should resist that. Not accept that.

But also there's a spiritual hurt. Injuries. The person should not try to appease someone because they don't want to hurt their feeling and so forth, and they end up hurting their own spiritual well-being.

I have people who say to me, you know, I don't want to hurt their feeling, that's why I drank. I don't want to hurt their feeling, that's why I did what is, you know, the wrong thing. I don't want to hurt someone's feeling, and therefore I went along.

The question is this. That if that person knows that you did these things and you really didn't like it, and you fake the feeling about it, do you think they're going to like that? A person being honest with themselves and true to themselves is a person that really can keep friendship. And this is the other rules.

Be true to your friends. Tell them how you feel. What you don't like.

And even sometimes by telling a person your vulnerability, it brings you, earns you true friendship, not a fake one. Don't try to pretend that you're perfect. Say to them, listen, if I go outside with you, that would impact me spiritually.

Don't say that, oh, I'm going to pretend that I'm going to resist this, therefore I'm going to go out. No, it says I'm vulnerable. There's a vulnerability here.

People say to me, like, me and this girl were, you know, out alone because I know myself. I say you don't know yourself because temptations and so forth, every human being is vulnerable for it. That's why in Islam it's not permissible for a male or female who are not married to close the door on themselves and to be completely in exclusion.

Because shaitan come between them. Therefore shaitan come and fool us, says, you know, you can do this, you can resist this. But things start gradually.

For example, people issue of addiction. No one become addicted from the first time. But it is a person gradually become into it.

If a person were to have to resist the first attempt, then the person have closed the door for the consequences of addiction. Now, the pressure that come from your colleague or your classmates or sometimes person at work, it comes because you wanted to sometime be accepted. It's true or not? The reason that people respond, they're looking for acceptance, approval.

Why don't you flip it? Why the other person does not seek approval from you and acceptance? Why has to be me compromising my soul to be seeking the other person acceptance? Therefore, then I have what I call it a better influence on a person rather than pressure. A person says, you know, let's go out. You say, okay, where are we going to go? They mention a place that you know is wrong.

You know what that is? The shisha place. Hookah? Hookah? You call it? What's the other name for it? Hookah. Then you say, oh, no, I don't like this.

Come on, everyone doing it. I said, everyone, I'm not everyone. I am me.

I'm not doing it. Let's have some drink. Not water here.

You know what I mean? A person says, not me. I said, everyone is doing it. It's college, man.

College campus. Having fun. This is where you go out of your skin and you be wild.

And you go home, you pretend to be so nice. The innocent person. He said, no, no, not me.

Don't tell me everyone. I'm one that's not doing it. And I can point to you some other who are not doing it.

Because the person gives you pressure by putting you in the understanding that you're out of place. You don't fit in. What century are we living in? Then a person says, you know, I can be myself.

And I can say, no, I don't have to be you to be accepted. You know? That's very important. Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said to us, hadith, that don't let anyone be a person who have no standing in life.

I said, whatever people do, I do. If they do good, I do good. If they do evil, I do evil.

Because I'm one of them. He said, no, no, no. Take a stand of yourself.

A stand of your own. If people to do good, join them in doing good. If they do wrong, stay away from it.

By the way, there's a culture of gang like that. Go join us. People, there's even today violence, extremism, and so forth.

It's about the club. A person have to resist all of that. You're not accepting it.

Have a criteria of your own who is right or wrong. Have a frame of reference. A frame of reference is what Allah says, Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said.

Now, the other solution for peer pressure is having the right peers. Have the right friends. Do you select your friend very well? Be careful of whom you chose as a friend.

The friend determine your destination. You know what I mean? If you're sitting to a friend next to you who said, you know, you see this car next to us? Let's race with it. The other person doesn't know you're racing.

You ever seen people racing on the highway? And then the police stop you, give you a ticket. Please don't give me a ticket. I was racing with him.

The guy that just went ahead in the other lane, I'm racing with him. Is the police going to accept that argument from us? Do you think Allah is going to accept the argument and say, I did it because so and so did it? No. Quran says, Quran talks about peer pressure.

Whatever we did, we did. No way. Allah does not accept that.

Now, they come from Muslims. Now the problem is this. If you come from people who are, they say, listen, I'm a Muslim too.

I drink, but I'm a Muslim. Don't tell me that Muslims don't drink. Let's go.

That person cannot be the criterion of right or wrong. Even if they call themselves prophet. There's no prophet after the Prophet.

They can give themselves any title. They say, listen, criterion of what Allah says and the Prophet Muhammad said. You can give yourself any title, but that doesn't give you a license to regulate and to tell me what is right or

wrong.

Sometimes, then a person says, let us do this and then let's seek istighfar afterwards. We make tawbah. I'm sorry that we, subhanAllah, astaghfirullah, we did this, you and I together.

We're Muslims. And this is the trick of shaitan, by the way. Because it makes you in comfort zone of sin.

You know, you heard my expression. Sin comfort zone. A person really being in an environment is so comfortable because the person in front of you is Muslim.

Sometimes it's in the basement of a masjid. It's comfort zone of sins. You carry the comfort zone and it says.

It doesn't make, no matter what it is. You know, in a masjid, or you are sitting around the corner and you are both of you Muslims or all of you are Muslims. If it is wrong, it is wrong.

It doesn't change the nature of the sin. Okay?

Question: Resisting Temptation

Somebody asked about the lyrics in the music. You know, Imam Al-Ghazali and Imam Ibn Hazm have an opinion in the issue of music that I want you to read.

That we're saying to people that you have native deen, you have Kareem Salam, you have other alternative of songs that you can listen to. We're not saying that listening to songs is haram at all. We're not saying that.

Okay? Now, how can you give advice to Muslims on how to resist the temptation to commit fornication or adultery? This is a challenge today. And I can be more frank here. You have to know there's a popular culture who created no shame on this kind of relationship.

Even if, you know, sometimes you think you read in the newspaper and it is clean, you know, but there's something in about this issue. You see some people, sometimes in high offices, fall into temptation. Okay? How can a person resist that? And here I'm going to give three quick advice.

You know, the sin of the, we call it the sin of the flesh. A person must think again, number one, about the relationship with God Almighty. Do you think there's anyone today in the world more handsome than Joseph, Yusuf Alayhi Salaam?

Joseph, peace be upon him, in biblical literature and in Islam, Yusuf Alayhi Salaam.

You think, according to what Allah is saying about his beauty or his look, do you think anyone was more beautiful than him? Rasulallah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said when he saw Yusuf Alayhi Salaam, he said as if half of the beauty of the world was given to Yusuf. You know, let me say something here. If a person spends so much time in the mirror, like two hours, three hours, like Yusuf.

If he spends too much time in the mirror, there's something wrong with him. Seriously. If a person becomes obsessed with their look, maybe that's all that they can offer.

They can offer more than their look. There's some people that all they want people to look at them. You have other value.

You have other worth. You're worth more than that. That's why Rasulallah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, there's a guy, one of the sahaba, not considered the most handsome guy.

People make fun of his look. And therefore Rasulallah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, when this man is in the market. Rasulallah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam come behind him and held his eyes like this.

Like, guess who's this? And the man said, like this. And then when he realized, Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he throw himself on the chest of Rasulallah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Then Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, who will buy this man? Jokingly.

He didn't say this man for sale because it would be a lie. Because he will buy this man. And the man said, look at Rasulallah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam choices of words.

He did this because he want everyone to hear him. He want everyone to pay attention to this man. And he knows this man has a problem with what? With his look.

He doesn't feel good about his look. The man said, ya Rasulallah, no one will be interested in me. Look at me, like who I am.

Look myself, like I'm just interpreting that in his head. I look myself in the mirror, like who want me? And Rasulallah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, and he said, therefore no one will have interest in me. Rasulallah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, but by Allah you are so precious in the eyes of Allah.

You are very precious in the eyes of God. You need to ask yourself, am I precious in the eyes of God? You need to be like that precious. Think yourself, think the best of yourself.

Don't have low self esteem. Always think, the reason that people fall into temptation sometimes. When they feel somebody paying attention that they didn't have before.

You are the most beautiful girl I've ever met. Like, oh my goodness, my heart melt. Now whatever you ask me to do, I do.

No way. I'm beautiful, thank you for acknowledging I'm beautiful. But I'm waiting until I get married.

I'm not available now. Period. Please do that, I'm talking to the camera.

Young lady, do not fall in the temptation of young men who give you the sweetest talk. They're only interested in physical relation. Cut it off.

Guys, please, stop this nonsense.

Guys, please, stop this nonsense. Really, breaking people's hearts by selling them air. No.

It's very important for you to think about the dignity of your spiritual well-being. Sometimes, you know, we don't realize that there's a dignity and a spirituality. Don't throw it away.

It begins of, just throwing away the dignity, by somebody give you a false dignity. And let me say something. It begins sometimes from that email that looks funny, and read funny, and sound funny.

Funny not like laughing, but funny meaning like fishy. It begins with that text message, it doesn't look right. It begins with that look was so long, and it does not sound right.

It begins with that telephone number somebody put in a piece of paper and put in your hand. That's when you say no. Begins with a false promise that I will marry you.

We can get married later. You know what I mean? You know what I mean by this? All of this are serious issues that people face today in a relationship. It begins when people stay late at night.

And the place should not be staying late at night. That begins with that. Okay? It begins when you reveal of yourself that things you should not have revealed, except when the time comes.

Therefore, that's first. Second, that the person should have understanding that love comes with commitment. Love with no commitment is not love.

Okay? Number three, what do you do with your hormones? There's something called cognitive therapy. Talk to yourself.

Say the other thing I can do with my life. Sports, fasting, put my mind off it. Think too much of it, it make a person more likely going to fall under trap of it. Okay?

Question: Watching Movies

And I think there's a question here about looking to wrong website and so forth.

I addressed it already now in this talk. It's one of the things that there's obsession about this whole issue. And a person should try to shield themselves from the obsession by not exposing themselves too much into the materials that are around them, around this issue.

Can a person watch a movie that rated R? Now, anything that impact your spiritual well-being. Like too much violence.

Like people so much watch too much violence and they think it's funny. I don't know what's funny about seeing people being killed. How enjoyable seeing a person like, you know, just killing people. The amount of violence in TV and movies and so forth impact our level of how we view violence.

Desensitized from, we become like, you know, that's why we have so much all of this problem of violence around us. You know? A Muslim always should be a person who want to create a peaceful environment. Non-violence world.

It's just too much of it. It impact your heart and your mind. And sometimes I, I don't know why people watch something that make them scared at night.

They want, they would like to have nightmare and they enjoy like, I'm so scared, but I'm going to have more of it. I'm going to have more DVD. Why? There's enough things to scare you than just watching a movie that you want to scare yourself.

Seriously. But I would like to say clean fun. Watching movies is not haram.

Depends what you watch. Okay? Because some people like you want to label everything like haram, haram, haram, haram, haram. Not permissible.

What is this? Don't like this. But a person have to be, you know, very protective of this organ here. Don't bring anything to it that does not need to be here.

Let me tell you something. Nothing more powerful than a picture in hand. Have you ever seen a picture that you want to take out of your brain and you couldn't take? It stays.

This is a very strong organ here. You know, in a computer you delete things. In your brain, how do you delete things?

You push this button. What do you do? Or you slap it. It's still going to stay there. This is like, you know, those are input.

Your eyes. They bring in your ears. Feed this brain.

The words there. And things stay. For a long time.

That's why Rasulallah said, The bad look, you look at the wrong things, it become like an air come to your heart. Create a hole in the heart. Some people are numb.

All this air come to them and they don't feel it. They're bleeding and still walking. Until they collapse.

Question: Being Honest

Somebody asking about having them having Thanksgiving dinner. Enjoy it. How do you, that is supposed to be how can you.

Because I don't know how do you, how can you be frank with guys without crossing the line. Honesty is the best policy. In everything you do.

Sometimes you try to hide how you feel and so forth. And it hurts you and it hurts others. But I would like to say that being polite and being frank, they go together.

You can be polite and be frank. Now, the question come from the sisters. If a guy approach you, let's say two scenario.

A guy who's not Muslim, he doesn't know the boundaries. He says, are you interested to go out? And you want to say, I'm not interested. It can be straightforward to say, I'm not interested.

Which is acceptable. Or, I don't go out. Or, we don't date.

Whatever you may say. If it come from a Muslim guy and you're not interested, do not mislead him and drag him down. I'm not sure, emailing you like.

And you know why he's texting you at 10 o'clock at night. You need to cut it off. You say, I'm not interested.

If you're interested, say, I'm going to let Imam Mahdi know that you're talking to me. So that we can take it to the next level. If he disappear, he chicken out, then he is not a good guy.

Is that okay, guys? To give them some tips? Thank you. Okay. And if he's talking to many sisters at the same time, drop him like a... Yeah.

Because seriously, some people do this. He talks to this sister at 10 o'clock at night. And he emails another sister at 10 o'clock at night.

And all of the things that he's interested in. And you like the tension. That you need to delete him from your account.

It's not acceptable. What do you say to people who think that just because you are with Muslims, hanging out, something has no limits. Sully, out Sully, has no limits.

Guys... Yeah. Listen. Listen.

One of the issues sometimes, when shaitan come and deceive you and says, you are safe. You know. Somebody will talk to a sister in a wrong way.

And I said, don't talk to her like that. She's like my sister. I said, please, excuse me.

You know. She's not your biological sister. You know what I mean? There is certain aspect of etiquette and interactions governed by the general rules of Islam.

Not by my desire and your desire. And you stay the boundaries that Allah has put and the Prophet has put. Then you'll be safe.

That's the only way to be safe. Now. Therefore, socializing is not haram.

MSA. Girls and boys doing activity together and so forth. No one says it's haram.

But how they interact, where they interact, it change the whole thing. Okay? And how long also. In a social setting like wedding, you have a lot of fun.

The whole night. And have a good time. But for me personally, I don't find myself remembering Allah a lot.

Question: Balancing Fun and Remembering Allah

How can I balance between good time and remembering Allah? Yes. This is a very important question. Listen.

Sometimes you have to remember having fun, clean fun is remembering Allah, Inshallah. What I mean by that? The Prophet said the time that the husband and wife spend together in the home is act of worship. The time that you play in the sport, if you have good niya, you worship Allah.

Therefore, you can't turn every fun to an act of worship. If you think about it in that perspective. If a person turn everything they do based on their intention that they want to please Allah and with understanding that you cannot please Allah by violating his laws, then the act itself of being with someone or having time just joking or talking or jogging on the street with the company of someone, that itself is an act of worship.

And therefore, one of the things that I would like to offer here, you need to look to the spirituality. It is this very wide, vast field. It's not confined to the masjid or confined to the rituals.

But everything that's pleasing to Allah is considered an act of worship. And here I'm offering that, like say if you are living in the city where there's a river, walking into the bank of the river at the sunset, and after you watch the sun setting and then you pray maghrib maybe beside the river or in the bank of the river, that's an act of worship. Taking your children to a zoo or walking in the forest, all of this is an act of worship.

Or even watching a clean, people this is going to sound very not really traditional, but watching a clean movie to create a bond between you and your spouse or between you and your child or between your family, if you have a great intention for it, it's considered an act of worship. Because listen, there's nothing a person should do, it does not fall into the ayah:

Wa ma khalaqtu al-jinna wal-insa illa liya'budun

"I have not created a jinn or human being for any other purpose except to worship me."

Reference: Quran 51:56

If a person believe in that, then their behavior has to be according to that. If everything a person does in life has to be within the understanding he or she is worshiping Allah. That's why Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, everything in the universe reminds him of Allah. Seeing the moon at night, he would talk to the moon, he would say to the moon, My lord and your lord is Allah.

رَبِّي وَرَبُّكَ اللَّهُ

Rabbi wa rabbuka Allah

Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam will see the horse putting his foot on the little horse and the horse making sound of being hurt and lift his foot from the horse from its little one. And Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, look at that, this is the mercy of Allah brought down to earth, even animals share. Look into the beautiful creation of Allah, reflection in heaven on the star or astronomy, all of these things should invite the person to be more connected with Allah.

In another word, I would like to say this in summary, that our view of life has to be looking at it from the lenses of an act of worship. Everything in the universe is inviting us to remind us of Allah almighty. Therefore, I would like just to have us to look to the act of worship in that broader sense, not to confine it into the rituals and praying the masjid and so forth and so on.

For example, attending a wedding, attending a waleema, attending a waleema, you respond to the hadith of Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, that if somebody asks you to attend a wedding and a celebration, your attending of the waleema, of the wedding itself, is an act of worship. You worship Allah by attending the waleema.

Therefore, I would like people to have that kind of understanding of their social life. That's why Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was asked, about the man who spends time with his family, is it considered an act of worship? Rasul sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, yes. And he said that if a person would use that time in haram, that's considered a sin, but when he spends it in the right time, it's considered hasanah, or bring good reward for the person.

Question: MSA Activities

He said, in my college, MSA, we go on a lot of trips. For example, last month, we went to the conservenium affair, and they have the program there, which was a lot of fun.

However, the girls and the guys were all together the whole time, and the guys and the girls were really comfortable with each other. There was a good company involved, but I felt like if my parents would observe us, they would not feel good about what they were doing in that place.

Now, I want to elevate this talk from parents to Allah. It's not about your parents. It's not about what your parents, it's about what Allah says.

And your parents' boundaries and what pleasing to them, if you know that it's pleasing to Allah, then you do it because of Allah. Because it's always about parents, when you're away from the parents' eyes, you're going to do the wrong thing. Or you violate what your parents ask of you.

I want us to be conscious of Allah. That's why there's a famous story of a teacher who favored one of his students, a very famous story. And the teacher realized that some other student observed that he gave this student more time and gave them more tasks and so forth.

And one day he gave each one of them an apple and said, eat it in a place where no one can see you. Everyone took their apple. Somebody took it to their basement.

Somebody, you know, under a blanket, whatever it may be, they ate the apple. Except this person brought the apple as it is. A whole apple was no, any, have not touched it.

Or did not bite any of it. And the sheikh asked him, why did you not eat your apple? He said, you said eat it in a place no one sees you. If you said a human being, then I would have eaten it.

But no one, Allah is the one that sees me. Wherever I go, Allah sees me. Therefore, I will not be able to eat it if Allah, he is all seeing, all hearing.

Therefore, the concept of my parents will not be happy, you need to ask yourself, would Allah be happy with the conversation? Because Allah have heard the conversation. The parents have not heard it. Allah have seen you, the parents have not seen you.

Therefore, this is the criterion. The other things I just want to say, is one of the most important aspect of our being, is to feel present. To understanding that we are here in this world, to serve the purpose of creation.

And the purpose of creation is what make us present. You know, which is worshiping Allah. And that includes everything that you do in life.

From eating a meal, from going to sleep, from having sport, from everything else. Because Allah want us to worship him in many ways. That includes establishing the prayer, fasting, and all of the rituals.

But Allah, through his prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم), have shown us that how can a human being be close to Allah, and balance his life in all aspect of it. Therefore, my invitation, my conclusion, is that if you want to really to have a balanced life, where is a lot of fun, and enjoy yourself and so forth, think about the life of prophet Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم). How he balance all aspect of his life, and he was the closest man to Allah almighty.

Jazakumullahu khair

Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullah

Final Question: Cultural Issues with Parents

I have one follow up, if you don't mind. Yes. Follow up regarding the family. Yeah. It's not about the parents.

It's about Allah. But what if it's a situation where you're doing something against their will, the parents will, and it displeases them, and it has to do with an issue of culture, for instance. Okay.

So an issue where maybe there's a cultural practice, that the parents come from a particular country, and they're not happy, and they do something, you know, having to do with whatever. It could be many different things.

They do something in their homeland, which they come here to America, and they expect their kids to do, or they expect their son-in-laws to do, or daughter-in-laws to do.

But the children don't want to do it, because they feel doing that is a cultural practice that maybe is in conflict with Islam. But the parents believe it's something that's Islamic. Okay, good.

That makes a lot of sense. And let me just, in the issue of the parents, of, you know, disagreeing with their parents, some of it depends what you disagree with them on. Sometimes it could be, maybe they have a different view of life, especially if your parents are immigrants, and you've been brought up in the United States.

The cultural frame of reference is different than theirs. Although it could be both correct from an Islamic perspective, none of them, your point of view, and your point of view, both are compatible with Islam. And then, what do you do in this kind of situation? The healthy situation is to be able to explain to your parents why you disagree with them, and the parents to have an open mind and open heart to understand there's a two different cultural approach here, and there's a generation, different generation understanding.

I don't like to call it a generation gap, but I like to call it a generation outlook or view of life. That's the ideal situation, that when people come to know that I cannot force my children to be 100% Sudanese, I cannot ask them, for example, to stay as long in a wedding if they don't want to stay. If they show and give their respect

and so forth, and they would leave at some times out of not feeling comfortable just being in that environment, that would be fine.

But the other solution could be also a compromise. Is that one time you do what pleases them, sometimes they do what you want to do. Therefore, the back and forth so that you create a kind of harmony between you and your parents.

Or sometimes it could be that I do what they want me to do, whether it is in the social comfort zone, in the social environment, making them comfortable, and I want them to allow me to have a space of my social environment as long as it does not compromise the principle of Islam again. And therefore, you create that kind of situation. But you have to remember that sometimes our discomfort of not comforting, or discomfort in comforting our parents, it will bring comfort, inshallah, in life to come.

Because Allah will reward us tremendously when we are pleasing to our parents. And here I would like to give an advice to all of us, because myself and my parents, that we have not to burden our children to ask them to do things that we know for sure, that it does not necessarily Islamically an obligation. And we don't like to create what they call social hypocrisy, where you have your child have a double life again.

We want them to be consistent. Or you have to accept that the different social environment, where a person reacts differently, it depends where you are. For example, if you are in Japan, and not even your parents, but in Japanese culture, you take off your shoes before you enter somebody's home.

No matter how much you are not comfortable with taking off your shoes, you have to try to accommodate other people's comfort, and to be respectful to their culture. And the same thing, think about it in your social environment, in your family. Either as a parent, sometimes you might do something for example, if you don't like football.

But your child loves football, and playing in the college team, or playing in the high school team, and they want to come and watch the game. You try to pretend that you like it, and you eat some popcorn, and you stay there, and you cheer for your child, to comfort them, you know. And sometimes, if the child feels that, you know, the Pakistani or Sudanese wedding goes too long, but they know they are pleasing their parents, because they drove their parents to the wedding, you know, eat most of those candies, and enjoy the spicy food, and maybe go and have another sweet, you know, or try to find a way that you connect, or try to get to know a new person during the wedding.

Make the good things out of it. Therefore, this is what I would like to say, that you need to be able to compromise, and to have open mind to understand the needs of your parents, and the parents and son you need, and come to a happy middle ground. Any other questions? Good.

Alhamdulillah