Sexual Desires

Sexual Desires - Nouman Ali Khan - Quran Weekly

Opening Greeting

As-salāmu alaykum Qur'ān Weekly, I wanted to share with you an ayah and some insights from this ayah that belongs to Sūrat al-Isrā᾽, the 17th Sūrah. This is the 32nd ayah.

The Divine Command: Stay Away from Zina

And do not approach unlawful sexual intercourse. Indeed, it is ever an immorality and is evil as a way.

These are, this belongs to a passage in the Qur'an that are kind of equivalent of the Ten Commandments that you probably heard the famous phrase, some sahaba called them the equivalent of what the essential teachings that were given to Musa 'alayhi s-salām.

Interestingly, they belong to a Sūrah that's also called Bani Isra'īl, the sons of Isra'il. Anyhow, this particular ayah, Allah says, don't even go near fornication, adultery, az-zina, don't even go near it. He doesn't say, لا تزنوا don't do adultery, don't commit adultery.

The Wisdom of "Don't Go Near"

He says, don't go near it. In other words, there's the act itself and then there is a series of smaller acts that lead to it, it's got a perimeter around it and you can't even go close to it. One has to understand the language of the Qur'an and the sensitivity in which it deals with this subject to appreciate the wisdom of Allah عز وجل and how He's counseling us in dealing with this problem.

Allah عز وجل is telling us there are certain things that in and of themselves are not haram. You're not going to be able to pinpoint it and say it is wrong. But, when you get involved in it, you're going to get sucked into a gravitational field and it'll pull you in slowly and surely little by little by little and eventually it'll get you, eventually it'll come at you.

The Patient Strategy of Shaytan

You know, one of the things we learn about Shaytan that is remarkable to me is that he's extremely patient. He won't get you one shot. He'll come at you and he will put a little bit and a little bit and a little bit until he destroys your character.

He won't come and make you do the wrong thing right away, you know. Even in the story of Adam عليه السلام and how InshaAllah one day we'll do that story and some of the wisdoms from that story in the Qur'an. The way he approached them in Surah Al-A'raf is really interesting.

He was relentless. It wasn't just one time. Like we assume that he just came and said, hey, tree, doesn't it look good? And he was gone.

No, no, no, no. He was extremely relentless and he kept at it and he kept at it and he kept at it and he built this idea in them until they would think it's their idea, you know. And when people start listening to shaytan, this is the same surah Allah عز وجل says,

Indeed, over My [believing] servants there is for you no authority.

The Progressive Nature of Sin

My slaves, you're not going to have any authority over them. In other words, people who really submit to Allah, He will not have authority over them but others,

Satan threatens you with poverty and orders you to immorality.

will command you to do shamelessness. In other words, when you listen to him a little bit, you've granted him a little bit of power.

When you listen to him a little more, you've granted him a little more power. And if you keep on listening to him, he gets to the point where he can command you. You will find yourself, I can't even help myself, brother Narman.

The Spiritual Struggle

I can't even help myself. I don't even know. I don't know how to turn the computer off.

I don't know what makes me do that every night. I don't know what makes me do this or that. I don't know what makes me go there.

Go into that chat session. Go and log into that horrific website. Go watch that filth.

Why do I end up doing that? Why can't I lower my eyes when I'm in an elevator, when I'm walking down the street? I can't even help myself. I don't know what to do. That's when you know Shaytan's got a pretty good hold on you.

He's got a pretty solid hold on you. And you've been sucked into a vicious cycle. It's just getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.

The Effect on the Heart

And you're not addressing it and it's making the problem worse. And it's destroying your spirituality altogether. Your relationship with Allah depends on the heart being clean.

Every time you're exposed to filth, more dirt, more blackness, more covers are poured on top of your heart. And it keeps on pouring and it keeps on pouring and it keeps on pouring to the point where you're listening to the word of Allah and you can't get yourself to even shed a single tear. It won't come because your heart has been made so hard because of all the exposure to filth, all the sin that your eyes are taking in all the time.

The Loss of Spiritual Sensitivity

And you don't even care anymore. You know a good heart, when it sees something inappropriate that doesn't coincide with the commandments of Allah, it is disturbed. It's not attracted, it's disturbed.

It says, no, that's wrong. Immediately the conscience kicks in. The alarm goes off.

But when you're at the point, when you're by yourself and you feel no guilt doing it, you just don't feel anything. You don't feel that it's wrong. The only thing, before you stare at a sister, you look around like, is anybody else watching? And then you take a good look.

That means the fear of Allah is completely gone. The only fear you have is that of the seen. There is no more fear of the unseen.

Allah's Knowledge of Hidden Acts

What a horrible spiritual state to be in. Allah says,

He knows that which deceives the eyes and what the breasts conceal.

He knows the stealing of the eyes. That little glance you caught, He knows that one.

That little glance you took. What to speak of the stare? And He knows what the chests are hiding. You know why I brought up this particular ayah? Don't even go near zina.

The Nature of Fahisha

It has always been considered a lewd, shameless, vulgar act.

And a horrible path. Allah describes it as a path.

A horrible path. In other words, a path has steps. A path is made up of steps.

Identifying Your Personal Path to Sin

You have to identify which step you're in. What makes you get into this? And for each of you, there's a process, there's a cycle.

You're in a room by yourself.

You're after school. You've got a couple of hours before your parents get home. You're among a bunch of friends that don't have any standards.

You have to identify what leads you to this sin every time. And you have to cut it in its tracks. You have to stop going down that path.

The Spiritual and Physical Murder Comparison

What's amazing to me about this ayah, where it's situated. Right after this ayah, Allah says, don't murder people.

And do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden, except by right.

Don't kill any innocent person, essentially.

Allah mentioned this crime first and murder second. Can you think of that? Like, we think of murder as this huge crime, right?

But Allah says, when you violate the dignity of a human being, that's fahsha. Looking at a human being in that way is violating your own and their dignity.

And when we kill a person, we have violated their physical, their right to life. So there's the spiritual murder, fahsha. And there's the physical murder, qatl.

There's two kinds of murder here. So Allah mentions the spiritual murder first.

The Decline of Moral Standards

Our standards have gone so low.

A movie comes out, you see a couple of trailers, you tell yourself, there's just one bad scene in it, it's okay. It's PG-13, it's not R.

What used to be R 10 years ago is now PG-13. What used to be PG-13 is now PG.

They put filthy scenes in everything now. And we don't even care about the spiritual price we're paying. It's affecting our prayer, it's affecting our du'a, it's affecting our character, it's affecting our family life.

It is. And we don't care. We just think, hey, that's life, bro, come on, live in the times.

It's alright. It's just what it is now, what can you do? So many of you don't care what kinds of pictures you put up of yourselves on your Facebook pages. I stopped going on Facebook for a reason.

I don't say that Facebook is haram or whatever, but for me personally, I couldn't do it anymore. I just couldn't do it. I stay in, we'll put something up on our bayna thing, like an announcement or this or that, but for socializing, just the things I saw were so disappointing, like how can you do that? You're Muslims.

How can you post pictures like that? Have dignity for yourself. Have dignity for your family. Guard your days.

The Foundation: Guarding the Eyes

Start with your eyes. Zina of the eyes, and everything else goes from there. Everything else goes from there.

InshaAllah ta'ala, I want to talk to you about this subject at length and do little small snippets and maybe portions from the Qur'an that deal with this subject, but the last thing I'll tell you today inshaAllah ta'ala at least, is something about the word fahisha, which I'm translating as shamelessness or lewdness or vulgarity.

The Etymology of Fahisha

The Arabic language has roots that are close to each other. Wahash and fahash.

Wahash actually means wild animal. Fahash means someone who acts like a wild animal. Shamelessness is described as behavior close to animal behavior.

Human Dignity and Natural Modesty

Allah has dignified us as human beings. The punishment on Adam alayhi salam was his clothes were removed. Our mother's and our father's clothes were removed.

That was a punishment from Allah. And immediately they recognized that they need to cover themselves. They didn't learn to cover themselves from a society.

It wasn't society that taught them to be shameless. Nowadays your anthropology professors tell you, it's society that makes us dress in clothes. It's a sociological thing.

We learn to dress and cover ourselves over history, but naturally we're just supposed to be the way we are like all other animals. Adam alayhi salam didn't learn anything from any society. He was given a consciousness and the moment his clothes were removed, he's trying to cover himself.

Our mother's trying to cover herself. We are supposed to be a people that guard ourselves with covering and we dignify others by not looking at them. Even if they don't have dignity for themselves, we should have dignity for them and not look.

Respecting Allah's Creation

Because they are in the end a creation of Allah. Even if they're a disappointing creation of Allah, they are a creation of Allah.

And we have more respect for ourselves and for humanity in general to not look at it as animals look at other animals.

Closing Supplication

May Allah azza wa jal make us spiritually healthy and alleviate us from this growing and ever increasing spiritual problem and that is of not being able to lower our eyes. And may Allah not allow us to be in company and in situations and involved in activities that lead us more and more towards this horrible, horrible path. May Allah azza wa jal clean our way or ease our way to a pure and healthier spiritual life.

BarakAllahu li walakum, wassalamu alaykum Quran Weekly

Encouragement for Sharing Knowledge

Assalamu alaykum Quran Weekly The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) told us,

(Tirmidhi hadith 2670)

The one who guides to good is like the one who does it.

Do me a favor and do all of yourselves a favor and share in the goodness if you benefited from these talks and these videos. Make it a point to share them with friends and family.

Get the word out. This is such an awesome project. I really, really appreciate the effort Quran Weekly folks have made and I pray that Allah blesses them even more and brings even more and more good from them.

The Importance of Gratitude

These kinds of efforts, Allah tells us:

Whoever does not thank the people has not thanked Allah. (Abu Dawud hadith 4811)

The hadith of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) teaches us that. So we should do that.

We should appreciate the effort that's being made here and the best way to appreciate their effort is to help them get more reward and get yourself more reward at the same time by spreading the word inshaAllah wa ta'ala. Thank you again, wassalamu alaykum