Keeping the Heart Alive - Corrected Khutba Transcript

And that's why we as human beings, we fall into this where we're not, we're not working properly, right? There's something wrong. And the human heart itself was created for only one purpose. It was only created to know and love Allah. It was not created for any other purpose.

The Hole in Every Heart

When we use the human heart for other than that purpose, that's why the heart breaks. That's why the heart becomes empty and that's why it doesn't work properly. You can't take a car and fill it up. You know, every human being basically has sort of this hole inside of them. And that hole can only be filled with one thing. That hole can only be filled with being close to Allah.

There's nothing else that can fill that hole. But the problem with us, and this is a human, this is an overall human problem, is we try to fill that hole with other things. And this is something that every person, you know, Muslim, non-Muslim, Christian, whoever, is trying to fill this hole because every human being has it.

It's that need for something. And so people try to fill it with different things and everyone kind of uses different things to try to fill it. Some people try to fill it with their jobs. Some try to fill it with money. Some try to fill it with status. Some try to fill it with physical pleasure. Some try to fill it with alcohol, drugs. You're trying to fill it. You're trying to escape the fact that you fill this hole.

But when you try to fill it with something that it was never meant to be filled with, it breaks. It doesn't work. It's like taking a car and saying, you know, my car is empty. You see the gas light and you say, okay, I have some orange juice in the back. Right? You're taking orange juice and you put it in the gas. What's it going to do? What's going to happen to your car?

First of all, is your car going to move? No. And second of all, what do you do to the car? You're actually destroying the car. Because you're filling it with the wrong thing. And the heart is the same way. When you fill the heart with the wrong thing, you're actually destroying the heart. And you're not, and it's not able to function properly.

A 10-Step Recipe for Success

So what I want to do inshallah, is give some sort of practical, what I would say, sort of steps or recipes of how to have ultimate, basically be ultimately successful in our path, in this life and the next.

Because we're all on a journey, right? We all know we started out, we were born. Everybody was born in this room, right? Everybody was born at one point. And everybody's going to die, right? Any arguments there? Nobody can argue with that.

These are two certainties. You were born and you're going to die. And nobody, no matter how skeptical you are, no matter what religion you believe in, can argue with those two truths, right? So the point is we're going on a journey.

We're going somewhere and we're going to die one day. And by the way, the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) actually has recommended this as a way to, he has actually advised us to remember our death, to remember that we are going to die. Because if you think about, if you remember that you're going to leave this place, you completely live differently.

The Traveler's Mentality

You will live completely differently. The person who thinks that they're going to live here forever, who doesn't remember their death, is very attached to this life and will want to maximize sort of physical pleasure or momentary pleasure because they don't think that they're leaving.

You know, one of the examples that sort of drives this point home is if you think about a traveler. A traveler, when you go, so you guys, actually this works in your case, as students. A lot of you guys are living, or all of you basically, are living in temporary housing. You're living in dorms or you're living in apartments that you know you're not staying in.

So let me ask you this question. How much effort, how much effort do you guys put into decorating your dorm room, your apartment? How much effort do you put into getting like the most expensive furniture, the most expensive carpets? How much? Zero. Zero, right? Okay, good.

How many like paintings did you put on the wall? You guys, okay, other than you, okay, so, you know, you guys get my point. Why do you do that? Now compare that to someone who's like feels that they're very settled in their house. They just bought a new house and they think they're going to live there, you know, for the rest of their life.

How does their house look different than your dorm or your apartment? You guys feel me? Like the difference in night and day, right? Like your furniture, mashallah, very humble and you don't care. You don't care, but you wouldn't, you wouldn't want that for your permanent house. Am I right? Right? Okay.

So there's a certain mentality. There's a certain mentality when you know that you're staying somewhere temporarily, you know that you're leaving, you don't get so attached. I mean, how many, how many of you are like super duper attached to your dorm room? Anyone? No.

You guys, you see that the reason you're not is because you know, I'm leaving this place. I'm leaving this place very, very soon. So I'm not going to get attached to it.

This is the mentality we should have in dunya, in this life. That's why the prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said:

(Sahih al-Bukhari 6416)

"Be in this life as if you're a stranger or a traveler."

Because when you feel that way, when you feel that you are traveling and you remember, and he tells us to remember death, when you feel that way, you naturally are not attached to that place.

Signs of This Life's Temporary Nature

And you'll take from it what you need. You take what you need from your university. You take what you need from your, from your dorm and your apartment, but you're not attached to it.

If you have to, someone comes and says, you have to get up and move. It's easy for you. It's easy for you to leave your dorm, am I right? And sometimes you guys have to leave, like you have to move to different places, you know, different years.

Right? Does it hurt anybody? Anybody here get hurt about that? It's easy, right? But when someone comes and tells you, you have to leave your house, some people get very hurt by that. Do you understand the attachment? Because the idea was, no, I was going to stay here. I thought I was going to stay here versus I knew I was leaving.

Completely different mentality in how you interact with that place and how you are in that place. So our mentality in this dunya should be that I'm leaving this place. This place is temporary. And the place that I'm going to is not temporary. The place that I'm actually preparing for is the one that lasts. This one does not last.

Nothing in this life lasts. And this is a sign for us. Even the fact that when you see a flower, or you see a, you know, any kind of plant or garden, Allah made it a sign that it doesn't last.

Do you guys ever think about this? Because this is something Allah is telling us in the Quran to think about. That look at these things, that no matter how beautiful the flower is, it only lasts for a limited amount of time. And over time, no matter how beautiful it started, come one week, two weeks, three weeks, what does it do? It wilts and then it dries up and you can, at some point you can just take it in your hand and just crumble it.

It's nothing. And it just, you could, it just blows in the wind. This is, Allah says this is the example of this life. This life is just like that plant, just like that garden, that for a while it's very beautiful and you feel very happy about it, but then it withers away. And what's left, what does Allah say is left? Either Jannah or Jahannam. That's what's left.

The 10-Step Recipe

So this is how we have to understand this life and we need to seek, like look at around the signs around us, they teach us about these things, that nothing here lasts. Another example is our youth. Like you guys, you don't feel this because you are all young right now, yeah? But if I were talking to a room of 60 year olds, 70 year olds, they would feel what I was saying.

I was young like yesterday man, where did it go? But even if you think about when you were in middle school, it doesn't seem like it was that far away. The point is that no matter how, you know, how youthful someone is or how beautiful someone is in their, at some point in their life, what happens?

Take the most attractive superstar, or I mean movie star. But what happens after 10, 20, 30 years to them? Nobody, nobody, no matter how much plastic surgery they, you know, try to, you know, to do, nobody will look the same.

Over time, you lose that beauty. And this is the sunnah of this life, that everything passes away except for one thing, and that is Allah. Allah is the only thing that's lasting.

So what we have to do is be careful not to hold on to what's passing away. And we need to hold on to what's lasting. We need to prepare for what's lasting.

Because it's just a foolish person who sits and puts all of the furniture, you know, it's like imagine that you know that you're moving to another house, and you sit and you take all the furniture from that house you're moving into and you put it in your dorm that you're leaving. It wouldn't make any logical sense, right?

What we do, we take from our akhira, the house that we're going to, and we fill our dunya, which is the house we're leaving, the dorm that we're leaving. We need to really just not, that's a foolish thing to do. Because we know that we're leaving this life, and we're going to the next. So furnish the next life. Because that's the life you're going to, and that's the one that lasts.

So I'm going to inshallah go through, this is what I would say, it's a 10 step recipe for success inshallah, in this path to our final home inshallah.

Step 1: Know Your Goal

The first one is what I talked about for a little bit, and that is know what your goal is. You need to know where you're going. If you're in a race and you don't know where you're going, you're never going to get there. You need to know what your goal is, it has to be very clear in your mind. And here, the goal is Allah.

So know Allah, know who Allah is, know what Allah wants from you.

Step 2: Know Your Purpose

Now, the second one, now that you know your goal, second, know your purpose with respect to the goal. This is also very important. If you're going to fulfill this purpose, you need to know what it is. And in our case, and in the case of the human being and all of creation, is that that purpose is to worship Allah.

So if you know this, then you can better prepare and you can better fulfill your purpose.

"I have not created jinn and human beings except to worship me."

So basically, number one defines your end, and number two defines your means. How are you going to get there? How are you going to get to Allah? Through 'ubūdiyyah, through worship of Allah.

And the question here, this doesn't mean, again just a side note, worshipping Allah doesn't just mean something you do at Friday Jum'ah, right? It's not just when you're praying. It's not just in Ramadan. We've said that worship of Allah is using any means that is pleasing to Allah to get closer to Him.

That's worship. So if I'm using my schooling, my education for the sake of Allah, that's a form of ibadah, that's a form of worship. And we know that everything can potentially be worshipped because Allah says that's the only reason He created us, which means that it needs, for sure it's something we could do at every moment, because He says that's our only purpose.

Step 3: Know This Life

Number three, know this life. Know this life. If you're going to be able to sort of master the dunya, you guys ever seen The Matrix? You guys know The Matrix? Okay.

So, so how does, how does he, what's his name? Neo. That's what I thought. How did you forget his name? Yeah, no, I was thinking Leo for a second, then I thought Neo, yeah, that's what I thought.

Anyway, how does Neo break out of The Matrix? He has to, in order to break out of The Matrix, he has to understand The Matrix. He has to, he has to master, the way to master The Matrix is to understand it. If you want to, if you want to break out of dunya, you're going to be in dunya, but you know how to master dunya, you have to understand dunya.

So what are the characteristics of dunya?

First, dunya is temporary. You have to understand that, or you will never, you'll get lost in it. If you don't understand that this dunya is temporary, that it has a beginning and it will have an end, you will get lost in it, you will get drowned in it.

And this is the concept we talked about with the advice of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم)be in this life as if you're a traveler, or a stranger.

Second, second aspect of dunya, that this life is imperfect. This life, dunya was never intended or designed to be perfect. The perfect life is in Jannah, inshallah. This life is imperfect by design and by its very nature. To expect this life to be perfect, again, you're going to get sucked in, you're going to get damaged by it, you're going to get hurt by it.

Because if you expect something to be perfect and it's not perfect, you're going to be disappointed again and again and again. So knowing that this dunya is imperfect. The only life that is perfect, in the sense of

Dunya

complete, is the hereafter. And that means actually that the hereafter is perfectly good or perfectly bad. You know how whenever we're in this life, think about the absolute best time of your life, the best period in your life, or even the best moment in your life. Think about it for a second.

Now, let me ask you this, during that time, was every single thing perfect or was there something, something, always something, that isn't perfect, right?

Okay, now think about the hardest time in your life, the worst, most difficult period in your life. Now let me ask you this, you might have felt at the moment that everything was horrible, right? But, was it really or was there any possible good in your life at that time? Your mom was still healthy, your kids were, your relatives were still healthy, you were still healthy, right? There was something. Even during that time, while you felt like everything was really bad.

So what's my point? My point is that in this life, that with hardship comes ease. So you always have a mix at every point in life. It's always a mix of both good and bad.

You never have all good and you never have all bad, you guys feel me? So no matter how bad it gets, it's not all bad. No matter how good it gets, it's not all good. This is dunya.

This is not hereafter. Hereafter is all good or all bad. There's no ease in Jahannam. There's no ease in Jahannam. We ask Allah for protection from that place because there's no ease. This life, we can always say, oh, you know, that thing was so hard or that time in my life was like this or that. But there's still ease in this life, no matter how bad it gets. That's not the case for hellfire. That's not the case for Jahannam.

Similarly in Jannah, there is no hardship in Jannah. No matter how good it gets here, there's always something that's hard, there's something that's imperfect. That's not the case in Jannah.

"There's no khawf in Jannah, there's no fear in Jannah and no sadness, no sorrow."

If you think about the two emotions in this life which torture people most, what is it? It's fear and it's sadness. It's depression and it's anxiety. Some form of it. Those are the two that Allah again and again in the Quran explains that there's none of that in Jannah. Those two specifically, khawf and sadness, huzn.

Those are the things that Allah says that we don't have in Jannah.

Okay, third aspect of dunya. To understand dunya in order to master it is that this life is a test. You cannot succeed if you don't know it's a test. I might give you, you know, your professor might give you a piece of paper and if you think that you're just supposed to doodle on there, that's one thing, right? But if

he tells you, dude, this is your test, in fact, this is your final exam, you're going to perform a little differently, right, than if it's just a scrap piece of paper, okay?

If people go through this life and think it's just a scrap piece of paper, they don't do very well. They think that everything has no purpose, nobody's watching them, you just do whatever you want, you just doodle on that paper.

So then they don't perform very well. But if you know that this life is a test, you were handed that final exam and your professor is going to grade it, you're going to do a lot differently. You're going to act a lot differently. You're going to do a lot better.

So if Allah has told us, in Surah Al-Mulk, for example:

"Blessed is He in whose hand is dominion, and He is over all things competent - [He] who created death and life to test you [as to] which of you is best in deed."

In order to test you, which of you are best in deeds. So if you thought there was any other reason why He created life and death, there isn't. This is the reason. This is the reason. This is the reason, you guys, that we are on this earth.

The reason why He created life and death is to test us which of us are best in deeds. So if we know that, we're going to respond much, much differently. We know we're being watched. You know you're being judged. You're in a competition, really.

And all of us, Allah says:

"And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord, and Jannah, whose expanse is like the heavens and the earth."

Allah is telling us to compete, to race. So we are in a competition. And there is a judge, and that judge is always watching. Allah is always watching. So He is going to judge, He is judging how we respond, how we act, to everything coming our way. Everything is a test. Everything that happens to you is a test. Everything that doesn't happen is a test. The whole thing is a test.

Lastly, number four in the understanding dunya is knowing how to succeed in this life, how to stay afloat in the ocean of dunya. Now if you think about dunya as an ocean, if you go into the ocean with a boat, what happens if the boat lets the water in? You start to sink, right?

Now if you think about this life, the dunya as an ocean, and think about the boat as your heart, as long as that boat stays on top of the water, on top of the dunya, on top of the ocean, and doesn't let the water in,

it's fine. It stays floating and it's okay.

But as soon as that boat allows water into it, that's when it sinks. And this is the same way with dunya. As soon as we let dunya into our hearts, and we start to become attached to dunya, and we start to love dunya, and dunya no longer is a means.

Remember we talked about the difference between means and end. When you make dunya your end, you will sink. It's just like a person who says the ocean is my end. What's going to happen to you if your ocean, if the ocean, where are you going? The ocean, that's where I'm going, that's my goal. If that's your end, you're going to sink.

But if you use the ocean as a means, actually I'm just passing through, I'm just passing through the ocean to get to the next continent, right? To get to the next place. That's how dunya is. We're just passing through it to get to the next place. But if we make it our end, and we let it into our hearts, that's when we sink.

Step 4: Plan for Tomorrow

Okay, number four in this recipe for success in this life and the next, is plan for tomorrow. So as students, you guys think a lot about your future. It's natural. You think about what am I going to do next year, what am I going to do after I graduate, what am I going to do with my career? These are all things that you think about.

Allah tells us in the Quran:

"O you who believe! Fear Allah and let every soul look to what it has put forth for tomorrow. And fear Allah."

So Allah is addressing here those who believe. Allah addresses different people in the Quran. In this case, He's addressing the believers and He says have taqwa of Allah, have fear of Allah, first advice.

"And let every nafs, every human being, every soul look to what it has put forth for tomorrow."

In this case, tomorrow, capital T. So we all spend our, you know, so much time planning on tomorrow, tomorrow as in, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, next year, next, you know, after I graduate. Allah here is telling us and reminding us, plan for the other tomorrow, the tomorrow after this life. And see what you're putting forth.

Remember the example of the furniture? What are you, you want to be, you're going to this house, you know you're going to this house. Nobody can deny that you're going to this house. Furnish it. Furnish it.

You know you're going to live there. So put, set things forth, you know, like send provision so that when you get there, you're not starving.

Right? You want to, you want to furnish that place. You want to stock up the fridge because you know you're going there. You guys, it's a certainty. Nobody can deny it. We're all going to die. We're all going to go there.

So set it up so that you, when you get there, you have something to live with. Right? So here Allah is saying out of His mercy, reminding us to look at what we're, what we've put forth for tomorrow.

Allah again says in the end of the ayah, He again advises us to have taqwa of Allah. He begins the ayah with taqwa, ends the ayah with taqwa, and in the middle, He talks about what are we putting forth for tomorrow. Look at what you're setting forth for tomorrow.

Step 5: Remember Allah

Number five, remember Allah. So here's what happens with human beings. We come to a lecture, we go to a khutbah, we go to a retreat, something like that, and we feel pumped. Right? We feel like there's like a spiritual high, maybe, an iman rush, we hope.

But then what happens a week later, two weeks later, three weeks later, a month later, what happens? Goes back down. This is the nature of the human being, right? That we, our iman, goes up and down. Right? So here's the problem.

If you come and tell me that you want to get in shape. Okay? So you want to have like, you know, you want to have like a healthy body. Or a nice looking body. Would I come and advise you, okay, just go work out for like, you know, a good three hours, and then, you know, you're good for the year. Are you going to get in shape that way? If you work out once a month, even. I mean, is that really going to do anything for you? Once every two months. Once every six months. It's not going to do anything for your body.

If you remember Allah once, you know, once in a while, once a month, once a week, or whatever. It's not consistent. It's not going to do anything for your heart. It's not going to, you can't, it's the same rules that apply to the physical body also apply to the spiritual self.

Another example is this. If I were to tell you, you know, like, did you eat today? Right? Nobody would come and tell me, no, I didn't eat today because I ate last week. I'm good, right? I'm good. I already ate last week. We don't say this because we know the body needs food on a regular basis. You guys feeling what I'm saying here? The body, if it does, if it's not fed regularly, it dies.

If the heart is not fed regularly, it dies. What is the heart? What is the food for the heart? It's the remembrance of Allah. It's the remembrance of Allah.

So it needs to be consistent in the same way that you consistently have to feed your body. To take the remembrance away from the self is like taking a fish out of water. That fish will suffocate and then die. The heart will suffocate and die without the remembrance of Allah.

And what I really want to emphasize is it has to be consistent. It cannot be one lecture and then, you know, you just, you don't remember Allah again for another three, four weeks. Then you go to another lecture. It doesn't work like that. You don't eat once and then don't eat for two weeks and expect that you're going to be okay.

Okay, so we have to find a way to make it consistent. This is the reason why we pray five times a day, right? We don't pray once a day. We don't pray once a week on Friday. We pray five times a day because Allah knows that this is our food. We need to remember him regularly.

And if we're not praying five times a day on time, know for sure that our heart is dying or is dead. For sure. Just the same way I can tell you for sure. If you're not eating, if you're only eating once a week, dude, you're dead. Okay, I can say that without any hesitation. Similarly, if we're not praying and praying on time, our heart is dead or dying. We cannot, it's our food. We have to consistently be feeding our heart.

Beyond the salah, the salah is like given, like basic, like not praying is actually among the kabair. It's among the major sins. And even not praying on time is also among the major sins. Something that I want to remind yourself and me is that there's nothing more important than prayer. You're in class.

You're not in class. You're at the mall. You're watching a game. You're playing basketball. Whatever you're doing, nothing is more important than your salah. Because your salah is your purpose for creation.

Imagine denying or ignoring your purpose of creation in order to, you know, watch a basketball game or in order to go to the mall. I mean, it's ludicrous, right? Because this is our purpose. This is why we were created. Everything else we do, you know, you do it. It's kind of like motions, right? It fills in the space. But this is our purpose.

So we can't ignore our purpose for the sake of other things. One example that kind of really, really like to get this point across is if you think about the needs of our body. What's one of the needs that our body has that we never deny? So I was thinking about this. What's a need that our body has that we never deny? Well, there's a couple, you know, eating, right? But there's another one. Using the bathroom. You read that article.

It's going to the bathroom, right? Okay. So you guys are all sitting here. We're having a lecture here. You know, you probably wouldn't want to get up and leave during lecture. Nobody wants to get up and leave

during lecture and pray, right? But if you need to go to the bathroom during lecture, let me ask you this. You really need to go to the bathroom.

Are you just going to sit there? No, you're not. I mean, you're just not. It's just not an option. You feel me? It's not an option. Similarly, if you're sleeping and Fajr time comes around and you need to use the bathroom. Since you guys are not, none of you are five years old or, you know, whatever.

You're not going to just sleep through it. Am I right? We don't do that anymore, hopefully. We don't. We'll get up and use the bathroom, right? So at Fajr time, we'll get up to use the bathroom, but we won't pray. In fact, we might get up to use the bathroom and go back to sleep. You feel me? Yeah.

Okay, you guys feel me? It sounds funny, right? But it's so true. Because what we do is we say, okay, no, what we do is we will comply with the demands of our body, but not the demands of our heart, not the demands of our soul. Because for some reason, we think our body, taking care of our body is more important than taking care of our soul.

And the reason why that's tragic is because your body is actually wasting away. Every single day, your body is dying. But your soul, it's the same soul you're taking to eternity. You realize that? It's the same soul. Like every single one of you, your body is just a shell. It's a container. And what really is there and what's really lasting is your soul. But that soul is what we neglect. And the body is what we take care of.

It's ironic and it's tragic. Because the body is passing away. And after 40, 50, 60 years, it's going to be no longer. And all that's going to be left is the soul and how you took care of it. And how you took care of it. That's all that's going to matter. And that's what's going to be forever in Jannah or Jahannam A'udhu Billah, is your soul.

So we need to take care of our soul. And if we're, again, we're getting up, we'll leave class to use the bathroom. We won't leave class to pray. Right? Even if you're taking a final exam, a final, and you need to use the bathroom, you don't care. You're going to go use the bathroom. You're going to do what you need to do, right?

Now when it comes to Salah, I mean you guys know this, but Salah, Allah is very merciful. He gives us an interval of time. It's not just 5 minutes, it's not just 10 minutes. It's a good couple hours usually. Maghrib, Fajr are the shortest. But even those are more than an hour.

So He gives us an interval of time. And so if we can't make time during that amount, then we have our priorities upside down. That's what it means.

So again, there's no way that we can succeed in this path to Allah if we neglect our Salah. It's absolutely the first thing in that path, and it's also the first thing you're asked about on the Day of Judgment. The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) told us that the first thing that anyone is going to be asked about is their Salah, is their prayers.

And if their prayers are okay, everything else inshallah will be okay. And if their prayers are not, nothing else is going to matter. Your Salah is first.

Then there are other forms of remembering Allah. We have the Qur'an. So regularly feeding the heart with the recitation of Qur'an. Reading Qur'an, listening to Qur'an, and also pondering on its meaning. Because this is a letter from Allah. It's like a letter, right?

And if you imagine getting a letter from a king. Imagine getting a letter from Obama. Okay, so Obama addresses a letter directly to you. Are you going to not even bother reading it? I mean, you guys can pretend that you wouldn't, but you would, okay? You're going to read it, and it's going to be important to you to read it.

And if it's in a language that you don't understand, are you going to get it translated? Yes, you are. Of course you are. You're going to get it translated. You're going to be like, dude, this is the President of the United States. He's writing to me. Like, I have to find out what he's saying. What does he want from me? Right?

Now think about this now. This is the Lord of the Universe. And He is addressing you. And do you not want to know what He has to say to you? Do you not want to know what He wants from you? This is what the Qur'an is. It's addressing you, and it's from the Lord of the Universe. So staying connected to that is essential also.

The other thing that I really recommend is having a regular weekly study circle. This is extremely important also to keeping the heart alive. That you have a circle. Even you do not need to have a shaykh or a shaykha. You just need to get together and remember Allah. Get together, read Qur'an, discuss the verses, discuss hadith, discuss a book, whatever it is.

If you're sitting there and you're coming together for the sake of remembering Allah, the angels come and sit with you. And we're told in the hadith that the angels will come and fill up the area between the heavens and the earth sitting with you. And it's so blessed by Allah, these gatherings, that in this hadith it says that there was a person who was passing through, and this person happened to have a lot of sins.

And that person sat with that group, and Allah says that even that person was forgiven, because a person who sits with such people will not suffer. So those gatherings are so blessed. Those are so important.

And if you can really, I mean, if there's any take home advice, it would be this, you know, holding on to your salah, holding on to the regular remembrance of Allah through the Qur'an and dhikr and that. But also these halaqat. If you can, like, action item is to set up these halaqat.

Set up a study circle and keep it consistent. It's so important that it stays consistent. And if you do that, then you're feeding your heart. And you're making sure that this, inshallah, this dip, you know, this crash

that happens after the spiritual high, it won't happen so much. Of course, we're still going to go up and down. Don't expect that you're ever going to be perfect or you're always going to be high.

Everyone goes up and down. Even the companions complained about this to the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم). So the point here is that that's natural. But when you do these things, you keep it from crashing, you know, like, really crashing. You keep it pretty good, still within the sunnah, inshallah. Okay. Okay.

Step 6: Guard Yourself From Shaitan

Number six. Guard yourself from shaitan. Okay. If you don't recognize that you have an enemy, you can't protect yourself from it. Shaitan is your enemy and he's an open enemy to you and to me. And Allah is warning us of this in the Qur'an many, many times. Shaitan is your enemy. Guard yourself from him.

How do you guard yourself from shaitan? First and foremost, actually your salah. Your salah is one of your major protections from shaitan. Allah says that when you remove the salah, when you remove the remembrance of Allah in general, the one who removes and turns away from the remembrance of Allah, Allah says that he appoints for that person a shaitan and that shaitan becomes an intimate companion for him. This is very scary.

So imagine that your closest companion is a shaitan. That's what Allah says happens to the one who turns away from the remembrance of Allah. When you stop remembering Allah, when you forget about Allah, you stop praying or you stop being in the company of those who remember Allah, there's a shaitan tied to you, chained to you, and he becomes your intimate companion.

So protection from shaitan is dhikr, is remembrance, it's our salah. If we remove the salah, we've opened ourselves to shaitan like unprotected. It's like entering a battlefield with no armor. We have a battlefield here. You guys, we have to realize we have a battlefield and if we're going to enter it with no armor, we're going to get hit.

So there's Quran, also protection from shaitan, any kind of dhikr, right? Salah, dhikr, supplication, remember there's supplications that you're supposed to say in the morning and the evening, those are also protection from shaitan.

Step 7: Protect Yourself From Your Own Self

All right, number seven is protect yourself from your own self. What does that mean? Within every human being, so we know that shaitan is the external enemy, but we have another enemy and that's the internal enemy. My own nafs is also an enemy against me.

So we know we have sort of like, you know, we have the evil part of ourselves, like the lower part of ourselves. This is a part of myself, you know, my desires, the part of me that drives me to lower things,

not to the remembrance of Allah, not to the worship of Allah, but it wants to fulfill the lower desires. That's my own self.

So I also have to guard myself against my own self, against my own nafs. And there are different ways to do that. Part of the ways to do that is through this whole process we're talking about, of remembering Allah and having that remembrance be constant.

Another aspect which is extremely important is tawbah. Who knows what tawbah means? What's tawbah? Yeah? Returning to Allah. Tawbah sometimes is translated as repentance. Literally tawbah means to return. It's when you've been, you know, distant from Allah, you're walking away from Allah, you're not near Allah, and then you stop and you come back. And you come back to Allah.

That's tawbah, to return. And this process of returning to Allah needs to be constant. We need to do this over and over and over. Because a lot of times in our lives we focus on other than Allah, and we live for other than Allah, and we walk away from Allah. We take other paths. And so we need to consistently be reorienting ourselves.

This is a constant process that we need to do. And repentance, we need to turn to Allah and seek forgiveness for our sins. This is like cleaning the wound. If we have a wound, if you have a wound and it's infected, before it can cure it, before it can be healed, you have to first clean it. And so tawbah is that cleaning, that cleansing process, where we turn to Allah, we ask Him for forgiveness.

And part of asking for forgiveness and a tawbah that's accepted, there's three requirements for the tawbah that's accepted. The first is a feeling of regret. So you feel regretful over your sin. You regret your sin. And you feel remorse over it.

The second is that you stop doing the sin. So you can't be continuously drinking or doing drugs or having a haram relationship, and then at the same time making tawbah because you're continuing to do it. So you need to stop the sin itself.

And then third, the intention never to return to that sin. This doesn't mean that we as human beings don't fall into sin again. Of course, we're still human, we're not angels. But we intend never to return to it. It's not like, okay, I'm going to make tawbah for today, but I plan on doing it again next week.

Right? That's not a tawbah. That's not a sincere repentance. And then fourth, if you've wronged another human being, that you give them back their rights. That's the fourth, if it involves another human being.

And there are other ways to basically address, kind of control the nafs. One of them is fasting. Siyam is a really good way to help keep the nafs under wraps, so the nafs is not controlling you. Your desires are not controlling you.

Also, controlling what you look at and what you listen to. So the heart, remember we talked about a heart that's sound, right? The heart has pathways to get into it. One of the pathways is our eyes. You have to understand that the eyes are a direct pathway to the heart.

Whatever I look at of the haram goes directly to my heart. And anytime I look at something haram, it's like it's putting a black stain on my heart. And if those black stains continue, so every time I look at the haram, that black spot goes on my heart. The next time I look at something haram, another black spot on my heart. Next time, another. Until what ends up happening is the entire heart gets covered up with these black stains.

And this is when you get into the case of a sick heart and eventually a dead heart. What you look at, it directly goes to your heart. So why does Allah tell us to lower our gaze? You know some people, they say, oh gosh, I can't even say it, it's so horrible. You know, I look but I don't touch. It's like, yeah, you can't say it with a straight face, you know? It's like, no.

What you look at is in and of itself not only a sin if you're looking at the haram, but it is directly affecting the condition of your heart. You're dirtying your heart by what you're looking at.

Similarly, what you're listening to. Your ears are the other pathway to the heart. When you're listening to garbage, basically, listening to the haram, that is also putting black spots on your heart. That's also putting filth in your heart. I mean, it's just like you're pouring filth into that vessel of the heart.

And then your tongue. What you're saying, your tongue is another thing you have to control in order to keep the heart from dying and from becoming dirty. So the heart, so these three, think of these three, the tongue, the eyes and the ears as all pathways to the heart.

Step 8: Guard Your Heart

Number nine is this issue of guarding your heart. Your heart, you think about your heart, you have to think of your heart as this very precious, very precious apparatus. Why is the heart such a precious apparatus? Because it's only by the heart that you can connect to Allah.

It's the heart that is going to allow you to know Allah and it's the heart that you're going to take on the day of judgment and whatever condition that heart is in, that's what's going to matter on the day of judgment. So guarding your heart, guarding your eyes, your ears and your tongue and also through your company.

Who you guys hang out with is extremely important in terms of the condition of your heart. And I can give you many a hadith to this effect, but the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) explains that good company is like going into a perfume shop. Okay, I give this example because you know whenever you guys go into like Bath and Body Works or something? I love that story. Yeah, I know.

So the Prophet (صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ) says that good company is like going into a perfume shop. Even if you don't buy anything, you leave smelling better than when you entered. Because you know in this case, if you go into Bath and Body Works, you try it on every sample, you know? So you come out smelling like every different line of whatever, like Apple and Pierre and all this different stuff.

You leave smelling good even if you don't buy anything. Good company, he compares it to the perfume shop. And bad company is like a blacksmith's shop. That even if you don't get burned by the blacksmith and his work, you come out with a nasty smell on your clothes. You smell bad. So this is the example that he gives us about good and bad company.

Even if you're trying to strive to be better and to be more on the path and basically stick to the path of Allah, but your company is bad, you'll start out by saying, Oh well, I'm not doing what they're doing, right? But I'm just hanging out with them. And then over time, what is it doing? It's actually poisoning your heart. Your company is extremely important.

And I know that, I mean obviously when you're in college, it's all about company, you know? You're always kind of hanging out with someone most of the time, right? So be very careful that if you don't have good company, you need to change your company. Because that's one of the poisons of the heart is bad company. And good company is something that's going to help you towards your path to Allah. Someone who reminds you of Allah, reminds you of the fact that you're going to die and that this life is temporary and you need to be furnishing that life.

You need to be in that type of company.

Step 9: Maintain a Personal Connection with Allah

And then lastly, maintain a personal connection with Allah. No matter what Shaykh you are studying with, no matter what books you're reading, no matter what knowledge you're getting, it does not substitute for your personal relationship with your Creator. You have to have time where you are building that relationship, where you're alone with Allah, that you're, you know, through dua, through prayer, through just, you know, that interaction with you and Allah, there's no substitution for it.

So it's not just about gaining knowledge, it's not just about learning, reading in books or learning and sitting with a Shaykh, but you have to be having that time with Allah, where you cry to Allah, where you ask for forgiveness from Allah, where you make dua. Dua is really a very important pathway to Allah. That you're constantly, you know, you're talking to Allah, your heart is connected to Him.

Closing

Inshallah, I hope that, you know, that these, you know, these were helpful and inshallah we can, we ask

Allah to make our path to Him easy and that inshallah He joins us in Jannah. Inshallah. So actually, you guys are more than welcome to leave.

Oh, I was also going to say, for those of you who don't have to leave, I can take questions. Yeah, that's actually what I was going to say. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, so feel free to ask her about any questions that you may have about what she said. I forgot to open the website. Yes, oh, okay.

She has an excellent website, mashallah, www.yasmeenmughahid.com So Y-A-S-M-I-N-M-O-G-A-H-E- D.com So it's her name.