Secrets On The Path To Allah - Corrected Khutba

Secrets On The Path To Allah

By: Yasmin Mogahed

Opening Supplications

"I seek refuge with Allah from Satan, the accursed."

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

"Peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah."

"Peace and blessings be upon you all."

Thank you for coming out. Alhamdulillah, the weather has completely flipped. It's like record highs after record lows, right? I'm really passionate about this topic.

And I'm really happy to see so many young people here today because this is the future, right? When you really want change, you have to change it at the root. And so what I want to do today in talking about our relationship with Allah, I want to begin by discussing some issues that I think or some methods that I think that we're getting wrong. And then I want to talk about how to fix it.

The Problem: Islam Reduced to Lists

So to start out with, I think there are some very, very vital, very crucial and very devastating mistakes that we're making in the way in which we're actually teaching Islam, in the way that parents and teachers are training their students or their children and their students. And that is this.

I think for a long time, somewhere along the line, we have sort of turned Islam into just a list of haram and halal. Okay? So Islam has been sort of all the beauty of what Islam is has sort of been minimized to just being a list, you know? Maybe like think of a list that you put on your fridge, right? It's haram to do this and it's halal to do this. And it's haram to dress like this and it's halal to dress like this. And it's haram to eat like this and it's halal to eat like this.

Now, all of those things, these are the rules, the ahkam of Islam. Are they important? Yes, yes. Okay, you got a hundred on that. They are important. They are necessary. But I'm talking about something deeper here.

I'm talking about the fact that Islam has been reduced to only haram and halal.

The Problem with Fear-Based Teaching

Now, the problem with doing that is that here's what happens. So kids growing up, a lot of times when they're taught about Islam, before even they reach the age of like four, they already know basically like two words about the deen that they're being taught.

One is haram and the other is hellfire or jahannam. So there's this methodology of teaching through fear. You guys feel me? Anyone feel me? Anyone.

Okay. There's a methodology of teaching children through fear. Now, I'm not talking about (تَقْوَى - taqwa). Taqwa is something a little bit different than what I'm talking about. I'm talking about fear like you fear a bully or like you fear the police or like you fear someone who's just going to hurt you.

And the problem with teaching your children that way or teaching students that way is that imagine for a moment that a child their entire life is told, you know what, you better watch yourself because if you do this, the police is going to get you.

If you do that, the police is going to get you and throw you in jail. If you do this, the police is going to... As that child grows, now you might be warning them for their own good, right? But let me ask you a question. What happens to that child's relationship with the police? What happens to that child's perception of the police? How does that child feel about the police? Does that child want to have a really close relationship with the police? No, right? What is that child going to feel about the police? That child is basically going to want to avoid the police.

Does this sound familiar? And so what happens is that when we teach our children the deen in this way, where it's all about punishment and wrath and haram, it leads youth as they grow up to just not want to have anything to do with religion. Let me just stay away from religion completely because no matter what I do, I'm going to go to hell. Weird kinds of thinking like that.

It starts to actually create a sense of unhealthy fear, which is different than taqwa. Unhealthy fear that leads to despair and hopelessness. Does that make sense? All right, not if you understand.

It's not the healthy kind of fear that makes you do better. It's not the healthy kind of taqwa. It's the unhealthy kind of fear that makes you say, you know what, let me just stay away from religion completely.

Let me just stay away from Allah completely because no matter what I do, I'm going to do something wrong and I'm going to go to hell. It's this fear that isn't healthy. It's actually demoralizing and paralyzing.

It makes a person fall into despair.

The Prophetic Method

Now one thing we have to understand is this is not the way that the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) taught people about Islam. When you study the seerah of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم), when you study how the Qur'an came down, there's a very, very profound hadith in which we're told that if the

first verses to be revealed were about do not commit zina, for example, or do not drink alcohol, then people would have said we will never give up zina and we will never give up alcohol.

This is profound. If the first verses were like this, people would have rejected it. They would say, no, we're not going to believe these things.

They were so entrenched in these behaviors, they wouldn't have left it. Why? Because you're starting with rules. You can't start with rules because if you start with the rules, people will just reject them.

Building the Foundation First

So the hadith goes on to say that the first verses to be revealed weren't about rules. They weren't about give up alcohol or give up zina. The first verses that were revealed, and if you study the Qur'an, you study the first verses, especially the verses that were revealed in Makkah, you find that they were verses about our relationship with Allah, about the Day of Judgment, about these concepts that create an attachment to Allah.

They weren't talking about rules at the beginning. They were talking about loving Allah, about not wanting to displease Allah, about the concepts of right and wrong, about the fact that there is ultimate retribution, that we're going to be asked when we leave this life, that this life is not the end. So you understand, it was building these concepts first.

See, if you look at a tree, right? For a tree to be firm, what does it have to have? Roots. And not just roots, but firm, deep roots. Roots that go down and roots that go out wide.

So for a tree to be firm, see, if a tree isn't firm, what happens when a wind blows? It knocks it out, right? It knocks it down. A strong wind can even pull a tree out from the roots. But the deeper the roots, the harder it is to knock down a tree, right? And this is what happens with a believer.

The believer has to have firm roots first in order to be able to handle the trials that come. What are these trials? Well, there's a lot of trials. There's a lot of pressure.

Not just peer pressure, but just all around us, there's a lot of trials. There's a lot of deception. And in order for us to be able to keep ourselves on the straight path, we're going to have to have firm roots.

Now, what builds the firm roots? What makes roots firm? It is in the love of Allah. It's in the attachment to Allah. Taqwa, the healthy kind of fear.

Understanding Healthy vs. Unhealthy Fear

Now, let me talk for a moment about, I just talked to you about unhealthy fear. What is healthy fear? Well, let me ask you guys a question, right? Think about the person in your life that you love most. Just bring to mind your mom.

No, I'm just kidding. Think about the person in your life that you love the most. All right? Everyone have someone in their head? Y'all don't love anyone? Yes, okay.

I like interactive audiences, so just use your head. Say yeah, say no, that's fine. Okay.

Now, think for a moment about what would happen if that person that you love the most is angry with you. Or, that person that you love the most wants to cut you off. Doesn't ever want to see you again.

Doesn't ever want to speak to you again. Says, you know what, I have nothing to do with you. How does that feel? Right? Immediately, people have a reaction.

A visceral reaction to that. It brings about what? What emotion? Just throw it out. Sadness.

Pain. What else? Anger. Okay.

What else? Desperation. What else? Regret. Okay.

What do you feel when you think about losing the person you love most? You feel afraid. You feel fear. That makes us feel a deep sense of fear.

Oh, my God. Now, did I say to you that that person was going to abuse you? Or that person was going to slap you? That person was going to, you know, put you in the hospital? All I said was, they would be displeased with you. You guys understand what I'm saying?

And so, this is the essence of taqwa, isn't it? If you love Allah, you fear displeasing Him.

If you love Allah, you fear being disconnected from Him. And, in fact, that's what scholars say. It's that the worst punishment of the hellfire, even more than the physical burning and the boiling water and all these terrible, you know, experiences that are described, the worst punishment of hellfire is being disconnected from Allah.

It's the fact that the people in hellfire, they don't get to see Allah. They don't get to speak to Allah. There is a (حجاب - hijab), as Allah tells us, or a veil put between them and Allah.

They are disconnected from Him. And even as far as Allah says that today you will be forgotten. Can you imagine your own mother saying that to you? Saying, you're forgotten.

Today you're forgotten. I've disowned you. I don't remember you.

That is, it's a very deep fear that that would bring about. Now imagine it's not your mother, but the Lord of the universe, Allah, saying that. That, in fact, scholars say, is the worst punishment of hellfire.

The Root of Healthy Fear: Love

Now that fear comes about from what? What was the root of it? Love. It was love and attachment. But let me ask you this question.

What if it's a complete stranger? Someone you don't care about? Someone you don't even know comes and says, I never want to talk to you again. Like, literally a complete stranger comes up to you in the mall and says, by the way, I never want to talk to you again.

Anyone? Who cares, right? You don't have any reaction to that because you have no relationship with this person.

You don't care about displeasing a complete stranger, right? So this is the essence, really. The essence, the root of our relationship with Allah needs to be having an attachment.

So what happened when the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) brought Islam? It began with building a solid foundation in the attachment to Allah.

And then, after the companions had built a solid bond with Allah, then these rules came. And many of these rules came later on in Medina. So if you look at the Qur'an and you study the Qur'an, you find that most of the ahkam, the rules, you know, the harams and the halals, the do's and the don'ts, they were madani.

Meaning that they came down in Medina. They were not at the beginning of the message. They were in the second part, in the madani portion.

The Mistake in Our Teaching Method

So this is something that I think we're doing drastically wrong. Is that we are beginning, we are teaching from the beginning, we don't have a foundation in the bond and the love of Allah. The love of Allah. And instead, we're only teaching rules.

We're teaching haram and halal. And then, we're using Allah, which is like, I think, it's just the most terrible thing to do to your kid. Is that you're using Allah to try to control your kid.

So how do you do that? Because, like, you want your kid to do something, right? So what do you do? Or you want them to stop doing something. If you don't, and I'm talking, like, kid meaning, like, four year old, five, I'm not talking about, like, an adult kid. Like a little kid.

If you don't stop doing this, Allah is going to punish you. Okay, that's really great, because what you've done now, you've made Allah the bad guy. Like, do you understand what I'm saying? So what you've put in this child's head is that Allah is just about punishment.

Allah is just about punishment. So now this child grows up with an unhealthy avoidance out of unhealthy fear of Allah. And it's no wonder that youth grow up and they're just like, just avoid it altogether.

And it's because of that imbalance.

Allah's Mercy Supersedes His Wrath

When Allah speaks about Himself, what does He say about Himself? Allah, when He speaks about Himself, He says:

"My mercy supersedes my wrath." (Hadith Qudsi - Bukhari 7422, Muslim 2751)

Allah says that. My mercy, in a hadith, He says, My mercy supersedes my wrath. So Allah's mercy is greater than His punishment. But we teach the other way around.

We teach the other way around. And it is extremely harmful to the iman of these children, of these people that we're teaching. And not just children, but when someone comes into the fold of Islam, a convert or a revert, what's the first stuff we teach? Okay, now you've got to change your name and stop celebrating Valentine's Day.

Like, that's number one. Right? Like, okay, that's the first thing you're taught. But that's not the way to go about it.

The first thing needs to be about building the bond with Allah. And it is no surprise that people end up straying, that people aren't able to stay on the straight path. Because if you don't have those firm roots, the first strong wind, and it just knocks you down.

Do you understand the problem? And even this is how we're teaching our converts or our reverts. We're not giving them strong roots. We're teaching them, here are the rules.

Right? So then what happens? The first test that they go through, and they can't handle it because they didn't have those strong roots.

And this is what's happening to our youth.

Building the Foundation: Love Through Knowledge

So, what is very, it's very, very important, and I'm not saying that the rules are not important. I'm saying that there is a methodology, there is a prophetic methodology. And it was about teaching the foundation in the love of Allah. And in healthy taqwa.

And then introducing the rules. Now how do you do that? How do you build that foundation? The foundation comes, now I said to you that we need to love Allah, right? But how do you love someone? Like think about a human being. Are you going to love someone that you don't know? Again, this stranger in the mall comes up to you and says, By the way, I'm never going to speak to you again.

Right? You don't have any reaction to that. Why? Because you don't love this person. You don't love this person.

Why? Because you don't know them. Y'all are amazing. You can't love someone you don't know.

The way to love someone is to know them. You have to know and remember that person, and learn about that person in order to love them. We can't love the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam if we don't know the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. We can't love Allah if we don't know Allah. So it's about beginning a path of knowledge of Allah.

Now how do you do that? Well there's no better way than through His own words. Through His own words, which is the Qur'an. The words of Allah and the Hadith. As you start to remember Allah more, now this is the concept of (ذِكْر - dhikr), and the role of dhikr in our lives.

Dhikr is how we get to know Allah. By reading the Qur'an, by studying the Qur'an, and by remembering Allah throughout our day and throughout our lives.

The Importance of Consistent Dhikr

Now something that you're going to find interesting is in the Qur'an, when Allah talks about dhikr, when Allah talks about dhikr, He doesn't just tell us to remember Him. Or He doesn't just say, But there's another word that's added.

Does anyone know what it is? And the word means a lot. So when Allah talks about dhikr in the Qur'an, He doesn't just talk about remembering Allah. Because see, here's the thing.

We can remember Allah once a week, right? Like other religions who remember God once a week, if they remember God once a week. We can remember Allah just once a week on Friday. But is that enough? The answer is it's not.

Why? I'm going to tell you why. Dhikr is like oxygen. It's simply like oxygen.

Now, could you breathe once a week and be okay? No. Okay. You guys are seriously amazing.

You can't breathe once a week and be okay. You can't remember Allah once a week and be okay. What about if you only breathed for 29 to 30 days a year? You feel me? What am I talking about? Ramadan, right? What if that was the only time you breathed? You wouldn't live.

And this is the issue. And truly, I believe there's a few reasons why we're suffering. There's a few reasons why we're suffering.

Two Reasons for Our Suffering

The first is we don't have firm roots. We don't have a foundation. So any wind that comes, it's knocking us down.

Any trial, it's knocking us down. Not only individually, but as a community. You guys understand what I'm saying? Individually and collectively.

We don't have firm roots. And part of the reason for that is that we haven't really built our love for Allah. And we haven't taught our children.

Instead, we're just teaching rules. So that's one problem. Another reason why I think we're suffering is that many of us are low on oxygen.

Just the same way that someone comes into the hospital and they check their pulse oxygen, they check their oxygen level. If it's low, that person isn't going to be able to survive. So I think what's happening to us is that our oxygen level, and I'm talking about spiritual oxygen, our spiritual oxygen level is very, very low.

Why? We just simply aren't remembering Allah enough. It's really very simple. See, someone can go to the doctor and be like, Doctor, I have no idea what's wrong with me.

I'm having all these problems. I'm so lethargic, I'm so weak. And you know what? The doctor can come and give them a million different cures, right? But if the person isn't breathing, none of those other things are going to matter, right? So that's really the essence of our problem, is that we just don't have enough spiritual oxygen.

We just don't remember Allah enough. We don't remember Allah enough.

The Foundation: Salah as Spiritual Oxygen

So how is it that we can incorporate this spiritual oxygen in a practical way in our lives? What do you guys think? Salah, first thing, right? I want to just take a moment and talk about the importance of the salah.

And the reason I want to do that is if I don't do that, I'd be like a nutritionist or like a personal trainer coming up here and talking to you about, you know what, this is, eat organic, eat raw, you know, exercise, but none of you are breathing. I'm missing the forest, right? I'm missing the forest for a leaf. I'm missing the most essential thing if I'm not going to talk about salah.

Are you guys feeling me? Yes? So I have to talk about salah. If we're going to talk about spiritual health or having any relationship with Allah, we have to talk about salah. Because the prophets I've said and told us that the salah is the essence, right? He told us a few things, and I'm just going to remind you and myself of these things.

The Importance of Salah in Hadith

First, he told us that the difference between a believer and a kafir, a disbeliever, is the salah. Okay? You feel me? He didn't say the difference between a believer and a disbeliever is drinking alcohol or zina or any of these other terrible sins. He said salah.

Do you understand? I want that to just be absorbed. The other thing the prophets I've said and told us is that the first thing we're asked about on the Day of Judgment is salah. That's the first thing.

And then he goes on to say that if your salah is in order, then that person will be successful. And if it is not, then that person will have failed. So it won't matter that you ate organic if you're not breathing.

You feel me? It won't matter. You have to breathe just to stay alive, and then we can talk about eating healthy and exercising. Right?

Okay.

Salah Cannot Be Delayed

Now, the salah. Another thing I want to mention about it is that it is just like oxygen, and oxygen isn't something that you can delay. You know what I mean? Like, if you're having a really important exam, like, say you're taking the most important exam of your life, you're taking the MCATs, or you're taking the LSATs, or you're taking whatever exam it is that you're taking, are you going to say, well, because I'm taking this exam, or because I'm studying for this exam, I'll breathe tomorrow? Or I'll breathe next week, or maybe next year? You can't say that, right, anyone? What's going to happen? You will die before tomorrow, because you have to breathe to be able to stay alive.

And so you're never going to put off breathing in order to study for an exam. You're never going to put off breathing in order to go shop at the mall. You're not going to put off breathing because you're in a bad mood that day, right?

This is another thing that, this is another tactic that Shaitaan uses, is that when you're down, and everyone's going to get down, I guarantee it, it's just part of dunya, isn't it? We have ups and we have?

Downs.

Anyone not have downs? Exactly. So the point is, you're alive, you live in dunya, therefore you're going to have times where you're down. You're going to have times when you don't feel like it.

You're going to have times when you don't have energy. You're going to have times, maybe, when you feel really, really, you know, heavy, and not motivated. Now, in those times, let me ask you this, what would happen if you stopped breathing? You'd die.

So you wouldn't just be down anymore, you'd actually die. You'd feel weak. And this is what happens spiritually.

You might feel down, but if you stop praying, you're not just going to be down, it will be a spiritual death. Do you see? And this is the trick that Shaitaan uses, is that when you're down, he wants you to give up on your salah. Even if you're down because maybe you committed a sin.

Maybe you feel ashamed of yourself. And this is another trick. If you feel ashamed of yourself, Shaitaan sometimes comes and says, look at you.

Look at you, you hypocrite. You're so two-faced, right? You're a hypocrite because you're committing this sin, which you know is wrong, and then you're going to go pray. You see? This is a classic trick of Shaitaan.

He wants you to lose hope. He wants you to despair. So he wants you to give up.

The Analogy of Sickness

It's like a person who gets sick. Suppose you have the flu. Anyone ever got sick before? The flu, alright? Now say you have the flu and you're sick.

And then you think, you know what? Because I'm sick, I'm going to stop breathing. Makes no sense, right? What's going to happen to you? You're going to get sicker until you die. And this is the problem, is that when you're down, even if you've just committed the worst sin in the universe, right? If you choose at that point not to pray, you're only going to make it worse.

And what can happen is that what Shaitaan is trying to do is to make you go lower and lower and lower. Because you don't just get down like this when you leave oxygen. You get down, down, down, down like this.

And it goes fast. And then eventually it's a spiritual death. And when a person is spiritually dead, a lot of bad things happen after that.

And I'll just give you a few of them. One of the things that happens when you're spiritually dead is that you can no longer see the difference between right and wrong. And something else happens.

You start to see wrong as right. And you start to see right as wrong. Black becomes white and white becomes black.

This is why, this is why if you ever look at a person who starts to move away from the deen, it always has to start with the salah. So, for example, a person doesn't just wake up one day, pray five times a day, doing their adhkar, doing all that, and wakes up one day and says, I'm going to take off my hijab. That's just not how it happens.

It's just not how it happens. Here's how it happens. It happens because you slowly start to move away from the remembrance of Allah.

That's fine. But the problem is when that becomes your focal point. The problem is when that becomes your greatest concern, is how you look and how you dress and what's in fashion and what isn't and how to tie your hijab and how to do your contract.

And that's it. And what this celebrity is doing and what that celebrity is doing. Like we're supposed to care that they're eating a burger or whatever.

Or that anyone cares that you're eating a burger, right? There's a new world that we live in. And it's like haram to eat something without taking a picture of it first and posting it. It's weird.

Weird habits. Weird things. I'm asking you to take a step back and to realize, is this what matters? Right?

The Facebook Unfollow Feature

Right now, I'm not even talking, it's haram to follow like burgers, like various ways to eat a burger, right? But is it useful? Like, is it useful? And then to put more healthy food in your fridge.

Like stock up your fridge with healthy food, right? Because you are what you eat. So whatever's in your fridge is what you're going to eat. Whatever's on your newsfeed, whoever you follow, whoever you keep as your closest friend, whoever you're around, it's going to be what you become.

It's going to be what you consider most important. So fill it with more healthy food, right? Now we bring in the organic raw food, right? More healthy people to follow. More healthy pages.

Because you have every kind of thing on social media, don't you? You have every option. You choose. Y'all know what I'm talking about? And by the way, let me just tell you a secret about Facebook.

There's this thing called Unfollow. And no one has to know. And please use it.

Like, I'm serious. I'm serious. Use it.

Remember that your newsfeed is your fridge. And that's what you're going to eat that day. So make it more healthy.

Make it something that's going to enrich you. Follow people that are going to make you learn something, that can inspire you, that can teach you. So use social media to develop yourself rather than to sip poison.

You understand what I'm saying?

Summary: The Believer as a Bird

Okay. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to just wrap up and then give you time to ask questions, inshallah. And then we have books available at the end.

But just to reiterate, I'm just going to just sort of bring it all together, full circle, inshallah. First is the importance of having solid roots. Having a solid connection with Allah. This is a prophetic way.

This is a prophetic methodology of how to train qurbiyah and the training of another human being and of ourselves, is to have solid roots in the relationship with Allah. There's a very powerful analogy given by Ibn Qayyim, where he said that a believer, in his path to Allah, is like a bird. And the head of the bird is the love of Allah. See, the love of Allah is our driving force.

If you cut off the head of a bird, it's dead. Right? So the head has to be the love of Allah. That's the driving force of a believer in their path to Allah. Then he says that one wing of the bird is hope. And one wing of the bird is fear.

So you have the head, which is love. That's the driving force. And then you have one wing, which is hope.

This is (رَجَاء - raja'), or like hope in Allah, that you have hope that Allah will forgive you. You have hope that you will go to Jannah. You have hope that even when you mess up, you keep going.

That's extremely important. Because one of the tactics of Shaytan is despair. Shaytan will tell you, every time you mess up, every time you slip, he'll say, just stay there.

Right? There's no point. There's no point in praying. You're a hypocrite.

You committed this sin. There's no point in going to the masjid. Look at the things you're doing outside.

But that's a trick. Because Allah wants you to go to Him, even when you mess up. And especially when you mess up.

Especially when you mess up.

The Example of Adam vs. Iblis

Look at Adam, alayhis salaam. Look at Adam.

Look at his story. Why does Allah tell us his story? Because it's a lesson. What did he do? He ate from a tree he wasn't supposed to.

Right? You all learned this story when you were like three, right? He ate from a tree he wasn't supposed to. But then what did he do? He asked for forgiveness. He humbled himself.

"Our Lord, we have wronged ourselves, and if You do not forgive us and have mercy upon us, we will surely be among the losers."

He said, we've wronged ourselves. He didn't even blame Shaytan, which is very interesting, right? He said, we've wronged ourselves.

This is taking responsibility, which is like the first step.

And he's humbling himself. And then he is asking for forgiveness. He's not despairing.

He's not losing hope. He's saying, we've wronged ourselves. And if you don't forgive us and have mercy on us, we'll be among the losers.

That's what Adam a.s. did. Now look what Shaytan did. Shaytan messed up.

What did he do? What did he do? Before that, what did he do? He refused to bow, right? He was told to make a sajdah, and he refused.

He was arrogant, and he refused. But let me ask you this question.

Has anyone in their entire life ever missed a fajr? Like, ever? Like, ever? Okay, you don't have to answer that question. Alright. How many sajdahs are in fajr? Two times two.

Yeah, four. Okay. So let me ask you this question.

Who's worse? Now you're getting scared. Who's worse? Someone who misses one sajdah or someone who misses four? Okay. Four is worse, right? So how come we're all not going to hell? Hopefully.

We're not prideful, but there's something else. Ask for forgiveness. Exactly.

We ask for forgiveness. It's not, look, look. No one's perfect.

No one's perfect, and Allah knows this. It's not a mistake. Allah knows that He created angels who are perfect, and He created humans and jinn who are not.

He says, and He knows that this is part of the design. There's a hadith that says:

(Tirmidhi 2499, Ibn Majah 4251)

"All the children of Adam are sinners, and the best of sinners are those who repent."

All the children of Adam are going to commit sins. And the best of them are who? Not the ones that don't commit sins. The ones are who repent. Do you understand? So, the difference between us and shaitan, inshallah, is that we repent. We don't give up, and we repent, and we keep going.

And if you look at the, when you look at the story of Adam next to the story of shaitan, you see that one of them didn't, one of them was commanded not to eat from the tree and ate from it. One of them was commanded to bow and didn't bow. But their endings were very different.

Their endings were very different. One became cursed, became like the most cursed until the end of time, and one became a prophet.

Is that, do you understand? Adam, alayhi salam, humbled himself, he didn't lose hope, and he repented.

And Iblis, on the other hand, his reaction was to blame Allah, as someone said. He blamed Allah, and he became more and more rebellious. Instead of humbling himself, and instead of repenting, you know what, I was wrong.

Forgive me. He didn't do that. He blamed Allah, so he didn't take responsibility, and he rebelled more against Allah.

He said, okay, since you kicked me out, I'm going to try to take as many people with me to hell. Give me time. That's all he asked for.

He said, give me time. Why does he want time? He wants time so he can take as many of us with him as possible. So, this is the difference.

So, not losing hope, not falling into that trap, and making sure that we are oxygenated spiritually, and that our environment is healthy.

Questions and Answers

About the Books

So, the first question is, what is your book about, and what made you decide to write it? Okay, so my book, I have two books.

One is called Reclaim Your Heart, and one is called Love and Happiness. And what inspired me to write both of these books was my own journey, actually. So, all of us together are on the same journey, right? We are all in dunya trying to get our way to Allah.

We're all in the same place, ultimately, is with Allah. And in that journey, we go through stuff, right? We go through pain. We go through loss.

We go through happiness. We go through, you know, all these various experiences. And as I went through these experiences, I learned a lot of things, and I wrote about it.

And so, what I try to do is share what I've learned through experience, because I'm in it, right? I'm not, like, writing about something that I don't, like, didn't experience. But, like, I'm talking about things that I've experienced in order, and my goal, my hope, is to help others. Because I hope to try to help other people get out of dark places.

And to try to help other people not maybe have to go through the same stuff that I went through. Because there's a lot of stuff that I write in these books that I wish I had read a long time ago. Because, I mean, you know, everything's meant to be.

But there's things that are avoidable if you just, if you know what it is that you're doing wrong. But a lot of people don't know what they're doing wrong. And they continue to go through the same cycles of disappointment and pain and mistakes.

So it's really, really important that we understand how to avoid these things. So, essentially, Reclaim Your Heart is about, you know, getting through this life without allowing the dunya to own you. And how to get through loss, and how to get through, you know, not only loss, but also gifts.

Because, see, Allah tests us with both good and bad, right? Allah tests us with difficult things, but Allah also tests us by giving us the things that we love. So how to pass both tests, and that's a very, very important concept. Often people think that tests only come through loss, or tests only come through pain.

No, the person who's been given money is also being tested. The person who's being given power is also tested, right? Or fame, or any of these things that people want is also a test. And then love and happiness is also, you know, I actually, let me go ahead and just read that intro really quick.

Things fall apart, and they break sometimes. Like many of you, my journey hasn't always been easy. Pain is very real, and so is loss.

Sometimes it's hard not to let the weight of what we carry, or the memory of what we've lost, take over. Many of us know the reality of struggle, and so many people suffer in silence. It is hard, it is hard not to give up when we face the repeated disappointments of life.

Like some of you, I have known loneliness, I have known defeat, and I have fallen many times chasing mirages and broken many bones building castles in life's fading sands. Sometimes all it took was one solid wave to destroy what I had spent years building. So I decided to give it a voice, all of it, the tears, the pain, and the lessons.

The things which I saw and learned and gained along my life path needed a voice. I wanted to give back in hopes of helping myself and others survive. But then, it wasn't only about surviving.

I didn't only want people to survive inside their storms. I wanted people to thrive inside their storms. And so I wrote as I walked through my own.

The words found in this book became my voice and my letter to the world. They became my deepest attempt to not just pick myself up, but others along the way. I wrote because just as we will fall in life, so will we rise.

That's the thing about this world, it never gives us only one kind of path. There is pain, yes, and loss, and even darkness. But there is also light, there is hope, there is beauty, and there is also love and happiness.

About Allah's Mercy and Tests

That's not a good friend. Or someone who who drinks. Or who, you know, who has certain types of relationships with the opposite gender.

That's not going to be a good khalil. Because the problem with having that as your khalil is you become like them. And that's just absolute prophetic advice because it's human nature.

You become like the person closest to you. This is also why it's very important you're very careful who you marry. Because you become like them.

And they become similar. If you marry a person who doesn't fear Allah, or you marry a person who doesn't pray, it's very, very dangerous because you will become influenced by that. So you have to be very careful who you take as your closest friend.

It's one thing, again, to have non-Muslims in your class or at work, but it's another to take them as your best friend. And when they're doing things which are completely against, you know, drinking or dating or drugs, it's very dangerous to you. And what I would say to you is this.

If you have a choice between drinking poison or drinking nothing, which one's better? No, obviously nothing, dude. The poison one? If you have a choice between, in the moment, like, say you have two choices, right? I say, hey, I have some poison for you or you can refrain from drinking anything. Which one's better? Obviously refrain, right? So what's the point here? The point is it's better to have no friends than to have bad friends.

You understand what I'm saying? Even if you have to be alone. No, dude, I'm serious. It's better to have no friends for a time.

It's not going to last forever. It never lasts forever. Even if it's for a limited amount of time, even being alone is better than being with bad company.

Because it's the difference between drinking poison and drinking nothing. And let me tell you this. Let me tell you another secret.

Dua is powerful. Okay? Dua is powerful. Ask Allah to send you good friends.

Ask Allah. If you have no one good around you, go on your own and ask Allah to send you good friends. And He will.

But don't say, well, I've got no other choice, so I'm going to go to the poison group. Because they will kill you. And I'm just going to say one other thing to you.

The Regret of the People of Hellfire

In the Qur'an, it says that the people in Hellfire, you know what they're going to say? There's a couple things that they say, but one of them is I wish I had not taken so-and-so as a friend. Why? Because he

misled me. He took me to the wrong path.

This is an actual direct quote from the people of Hellfire that that's what they're going to regret. They're going to say, I wish I didn't take this one as a friend, because this one led me astray. It's the people around us sometimes that lead us astray.

So they're going to regret that. So it's better to be alone for a time than to be with someone who leads you to Hell. Simple as that.

And again, make dua for good friends. Make dua for good company. Make dua for a good spouse.

And Allah hears the dua. Another thing that the people of Hellfire will say is:

"What put you into Saqar?" They will say, "We were not of those who prayed."

I was not among those who prayed. So when they're asked, what made you enter Hellfire? And they'll say, we were not, the first thing they say is we were not among those who prayed.

So you see the theme here. Do you understand? Yes?

Distinguishing Good and Bad Friends

So I have a bit of a question. Who aren't Muslim as bad friends? And people who are Muslim as good friends? So how can we make that distinguishing? How can we make that, like, how can we tell the difference?

Okay, good question.

So I'll repeat it. He said sometimes we just automatically label anyone who's not Muslim as a bad friend and anyone who is Muslim as a good friend. You're right.

That's not necessarily the case. First of all, everyone who's Muslim isn't necessarily a good friend. Because you can have a Muslim who drinks and does drugs and dates and who is a terrible, or mocks someone who prayed, is a terrible influence.

So absolutely, it's not just because they're Muslim they're a good friend. When I'm talking about a good friend, I'm talking about someone who reminds you of Allah. Someone who helps you to do what's right.

Someone who encourages you to pray. Someone who prays with you, right? Someone who you go to hell and go with. Not just because they're Muslim.

Now when you talk about non-Muslims, you're right. Not just because you have a non-Muslim friend doesn't mean that they're you know, drinking and dating and taking drugs and I'm not saying that. But you have to also be careful because the essence of the belief is different, right? Even if they're not doing

those things, and maybe they're not encouraging you to do them, but the essence of the belief isn't there.

And so they're also not encouraging you to get closer to Allah, right? Even if they're not telling you to go clubbing with them, but they're also not helping you to get closer to Allah. So what I'm saying is, if you want to make it to Jannah, you want to do your best to have as much support as possible, right? So you want to be around the people who are going to support you the most in getting to Jannah. Do you understand? Okay.

Closing: The Essence of Worship

That's what I tell my kids. That you don't have to memorize the certain du'as like if you can't, like it's a language barrier or something. Learn to talk to Allah in your own language, like speak to Him to help you to deal with the strong... Perfect.

Thank you for saying that. That's a great way to end. She's absolutely right.

You don't, Allah, you don't have to talk to Allah in any specific language. Allah understands everything. Even if you don't open your mouth, Allah understands the du'a in your heart.

You can talk to Allah in any language, but she's absolutely right. Get in the habit of speaking to Allah. You can't become friends with Allah unless you have a conversation with Allah.

That you go to Allah for help. That you go to Allah when you're suffering, when you're in pain, when you don't know what to do, and you make du'a. So du'a is... I want to just end with this advice of the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم).

"Du'a is the essence of worship." (Tirmidhi 3371)

The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said, that du'a is the head of worship. It's the brain of worship. And in another hadith:

"Du'a is worship." (Abu Dawud 1479, Tirmidhi 2969)

That du'a is worship.

The essence of worship is in that relationship with Allah of communicating with Him in any language.

"May Allah bless you and reward you with good."

"And Allah knows best."