Why Does Evil Exist Hardships & Struggle on the Path to Allah
By Yasmin Mogahed | 2026-01-10T03:28:45.665947+00:00 | Topic: Trials
What is Love?
Ustadha Yasmin Mogahed - MAS-ICNA Convention
Opening
As-salamu alaykum. I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan. In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.
Peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and upon myself and all my companions. May Allah open my heart and ease my affairs. And solve the knot of my tongue, so that they understand my words.
How many minutes do I have? How many minutes do I have? A bit less than 20. Okay, a bit less than 20. So I got to talk to you about what is love in a bit less than 20.
So, this is a big topic. I'm going to do my best. And I'm just going to do this.
The Importance of Understanding Love
This is a huge conversation. And it's a very, very important conversation. Like, I truly believe that there isn't a more important conversation.
And that's a big statement. I do not believe that there is a more important conversation than this conversation. Which is, what is love? And I'm going to tell you why I believe this is such an important conversation.
In fact, the most important conversation we can have as human beings. And that is because the way that our Creator designed us, is that our greatest and most powerful motivator is love. Our greatest and most powerful motivator, this is our fitrah, this is our design, is love.
It is love, ironically, for the wrong things, that make nations go and bomb other nations. It is love of power. It is love of wealth.
It is love of domination. It is love that will make a person give up their life for another person. It is love that will make a person shoot another person because they want their sneakers.
It is love of wealth or love of status. And so we all need to be talking about love. Because love is extremely powerful.
And if we love the wrong things in the wrong way, we can actually destroy the world. That is a fact. And we are seeing the world getting destroyed because of that wrong love for the wrong things.
We have entire governments, entire nations, that have no problem killing women and children because they love to stay in power. We're seeing that right now. So talking about love, this isn't a small topic.
This isn't like a, you know, we're just sitting here talking about rom-coms. This is a very deeply important topic. And we need to understand what love actually is and how loving in the wrong way can in fact not only destroy you, but can destroy the world.
So that's big. That's important. I want to begin by saying this.
Focusing on Romantic Love
I'm going to narrow my topic to romantic love. Alright, that's what I'm going to talk about. Now in the topic of romantic love, I'm going to say a few things.
I'm going to list a few mistakes that we make or a few pitfalls that we fall into in terms of this, under this topic of romantic love. The first one I'm going to begin with is what I believe is the most important. And that is this.
It is a mistake that so many people make. It is a mistake I made. It is a mistake I think the sister was saying she made.
Many people make this mistake. And that is this. Allah created love.
The Heart's Compartments
And I'm going to put it this way. Allah created different kinds of love. Allah created, for a more clear explanation to simplify, Allah created different compartments within our heart to contain love and different kinds of love.
Now, everything is fine as long as you keep the proper love in the proper compartment. And I said earlier that I'm going to talk a little bit about my book. My book is basically centered around this concept.
Is that there are different compartments within the heart. And each compartment is created for a specific kind of love. And as long as you keep everything in its proper compartment, you'll be okay.
But the moment that you put things in the wrong compartment within your heart, that is when the real damage happens. And you guys are probably wondering what I'm talking about. I'm going to give you an analogy before I explain what I'm talking about.
Have you all ever gone to a gas station before? Okay, excellent. And when you get to the gas station, imagine one day you get to the gas station and you pull up and you realize that you just think that gas is
too expensive that day. But you notice that there's a sign for orange juice.
And orange juice happens to be on sale because it's Sunny Delight. It's not real juice. And you say to yourself, you know what, I'm a little cheap and I'm going to just put orange juice in my gas tank because it's cheap.
What's going to happen to your car when you put orange juice in the gas tank instead of gas? Because it's cheaper. Anyone? Any mechanics in the room? You all don't have to be a mechanic to know that you're going to destroy the car. Fair enough? You're going to destroy the car.
Not only is it not going to run, but you've actually broken the car. You feel me? Okay. So within the human heart, there is a compartment just like a gas tank.
And that compartment, just like a gas tank, is only made to hold a certain type of thing. A gas tank is only created to be able to handle gas, filling it up. But if you put orange juice in that gas tank, you destroy the gas tank and you destroy the entire car.
The Core of the Heart - For Allah Alone
Now what does that have to do with the human heart? See, there's this part in the heart, and I will call this the lube of the heart. It is the very most central, most inner part of the heart. This isn't normal love.
No. This is the center of our existence. This is what I live for and what I will die for.
This isn't just love. This is worship. It's the kind of love that becomes worship.
But it's not worship in the sense that you're praying to this thing. People don't pray to money, but they worship money. And the reason why they do that is because their love of money is in this central part of their heart that was only created for the love of God.
So you understand what I'm saying? I'm saying that within the human heart, there's an innermost part that's like a gas tank. It's only created for gas. In the case of the heart, it's only created for the love of God, Allah.
This is, in other words, I'm going to call this an ilah. When you become Muslim, every single day when you pray, as a believer, you say this every single day. Many times a day you say:
La ilaha illa Allah
Do we even know what we're saying? We don't actually know what we're saying.
We're not only saying there's no God but Allah. Because then you think, okay, there's no creator but Allah. This is true.
But essentially what we're saying is that there's nothing that goes in the core of the heart except for Allah, except for God. Whatever language you want to say it, the creator, the ultimate, the almighty is the only one who goes in that central part of my heart and of my life. That's what la ilaha illallah is at a core level.
The Consequences of Misplaced Love
And that is why a person will become destroyed, destroyed, destroyed if they put anything else in that core level. Just like the car becomes destroyed when you put orange juice in it. Just like a car becomes destroyed because you put orange juice in the gas tank.
A human being, a society, a family, the entire world becomes destroyed if you put anything else in that core level other than God. What does that mean? It means if I put money there. It means if I put status there.
It means if I put power there. It means even if I put another person there. You guys following? I'm talking to a room with a lot of women.
And you know, subhanallah, no one teaches us this. I will tell you I wasn't taught this. Because I was taught, you just love.
You just love. Love is always just it, right? It's always, I wasn't taught that there's a wrong and a right way to love. I wasn't, in my Islamic upbringing this was not taught to me.
And I had to learn it the hard way. And I'm talking blood, sweat, and tears. And that's how Reclaim Your Heart happened, by the way.
That's how my book happened. Is blood, sweat, and tears. Learning this one lesson.
Just this one lesson the hard way. And I'm here to tell you the easy way. I'm telling you.
I'm telling you don't do it. Because what happens is even another human being. And I'm talking now your spouse.
Yeah? Like your spouse. Well, you're supposed to love your spouse. But if you put your spouse in that central most part of the heart that's saved for Allah.
And I'll give you examples. You will actually be destroyed. And when I say you'll be destroyed, I mean that you will endure a lot of pain.
I'll just put it that way. You will endure a lot of pain and you actually cause a lot of pain. Because no one, Allah did not create the human heart to have the capacity to even contain anything else in that central part of your heart.
It's like taking something other than Allah and making it an ilah. Believe me an ilah is not just a stone idol.
An ilah is not just a stone idol that you pray to.
An ilah is essentially at its root. If you study the term, if you study the root of the word ilah. You see that it is anything that you put at the center of your existence.
It becomes that which dictates every single thing you do or don't do. It dictates why you live, why you die. It dictates how you act and how you don't act.
An ilah is a master. An ilah is a master. And the problem is, this is a lesson you always have to remember.
Whatever you love most in life is your master. Simple as that. Whatever you love most in your life is your master.
If that is money, then you are a slave to money. If that is your spouse, then you are a slave to your spouse. If it is your children, and now I'm talking about something that's just like blows your mind.
The Wrong Way to Love Children
As a woman, especially as a mother, and as a father. We definitely ain't taught this. That there's a wrong way to love our children.
What? There is a wrong way to love your children. Why do you think we have so many problems with the whole mother-in-law issue? Do you want to know the reason? Anybody want to know the reason? This is the reason. It's because the dynamic to begin with from day one was unhealthy.
I'm telling you guys something maybe we don't want to hear, but it's the truth. The dynamic was unhealthy from day one. Because that boy, that son of yours was never supposed to be in that part.
That part is saved for Allah. Your life was never supposed to revolve around your children. I know, it's like what? Your life was never meant to revolve around your children.
It's unhealthy. And actually your life is supposed to revolve around Allah. This is something we're not taught.
But it's unhealthy and it creates unhealthy consequences. And yes, that is why we have an issue then when the son grows up and now he's getting married. And all of a sudden there's a competition.
There's not supposed to be a competition between a wife and a mom. That doesn't even make any sense. But the fact that there is, is only because the dynamic from day one was unhealthy and it was wrong.
They taught you that you're supposed to revolve your life around your son, namely your son. They taught you that that's actually how to be a good mom. It's not how to be a good mom.
It's unhealthy. Your life continues to revolve around Allah
It's unhealthy. Your life continues to revolve around Allah, whether you're married or unmarried, whether you're a mother or you're not a mother. And only when your central point in your life is Allah, your greatest and deepest devotion and love is for Allah, only then, only then, and mark my words, only then will you have healthy relationships with the creation.
Only then can you have a healthy relationship in a marriage, and with your children, and with your friends, and with your colleagues. Only, only if you're putting everything in the right compartment. I'm not up here to tell you that you're not supposed to love your children.
For God's sakes, we love our children to death. I'm not here to tell you you're not supposed to love your spouse. I'm not even telling you not to love money.
Quranic Warning About Loving Halal Things
Love these things. Allah has made it halal. But what does Allah warn us from? Allah warns us in the Qur'an:
"Say, [O Muhammad], "If your fathers, your sons, your brothers, your wives, your relatives, wealth you have obtained, commerce wherein you fear decline, and dwellings with which you are pleased are more beloved to you than Allah and His Messenger and jihad in His cause, then wait until Allah executes His command. And Allah does not guide the defiantly disobedient people."
Allah, in this ayah, gives us a list of all halal things. All halal things. Say, if your fathers, meaning your parents, your sons, your children, and Allah lists eight, I think, halal things to love. And He says your parents, your children, your spouse, your siblings, your wealth, your business, where you fear decline.
Is any of this halal? Is any of this haram? Does the ayah say your boyfriend, or your gambling, or your drinking habits? No, all halal. But Allah warns us, if any one of these things (أَحَبَّ إِلَيْكُم مِّنَ اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ) is more beloved to you than Allah and His Messenger, that's when you face a problem. Because even the halal, if it's loved in the wrong way, will cause much damage.
And this damage will be to yourself and others. So the first thing I wanna say is this, we have to put things in their proper place. When we say (لا إله إلا الله), when we say there's no llah except for Allah, what we are saying is that nothing else goes in the core of our hearts, and in the core of our lives, nothing else do we revolve our existence around except for our Creator.
And that can't be our money, it can't be our business, it can't be even our children or our spouse. It can't be status, it can't be power, it can't be our career, it can't be these things. And I'm gonna tell you guys another secret.
How to Know You're Loving Wrong
Remember how I told you about orange juice in the gas tank, right? How do you know? How do you know that you're loving something in the wrong way? I'm gonna give you a very easy way to know. It's gonna hurt like heck. It's not gonna feel good.
It's not gonna feel right because the car knows that you just put orange juice inside of the gas tank. The car feels it. It doesn't run right.
It's not gonna run at all. So the way that you and I will know that we have things in the wrong compartment is that we become tormented by that which we put at the center where only Allah should be. Is that making sense?
If that is your business, you will not sleep because of your always your worry about your business.
If it's your career, you won't be sleeping. You'll need to start taking pills to just calm yourself down because you put... And that's a sign. It's because you put it in the wrong compartment.
If it's your children, same thing's gonna happen. They are going to torture you. And I'm not talking the normal torture.
Yeah? I'm talking a different kind of level of torture, of torment. If it's your spouse, even your spouse, you'll know because you'll feel it. You'll feel that pain.
And that's Allah showing us we need to move things around. We need to put Allah back at the center. You know when I mentioned this whole thing about us mothers when we raise our children and if we have that dynamic incorrectly, what happens when they get older is it's kinda like, well, I did tawaf around this boy my entire life and now you think you're gonna come and take him away? Right? Fair enough.
You weren't supposed to be doing tawaf around him ever. Like, this concept that your life begins and ends at your son was never healthy. No, that's not what it means to be a good mom.
What it means to be a good mother is you have Allah at the center and then you love your children and then you love your spouse and then you love everyone else but Allah's at the center. You don't put Allah aside. You don't put salah aside because you got soccer practice.
You feel me? Oh, but I have to take my kid to X, Y, Z, every kind of activity in the universe but I'm missing my salah. That means my priorities are off or I gotta cook this so I'm missing salah. That means that my priorities are off and you're gonna find this.
If someone that you love doesn't like your hijab, doesn't like it, doesn't look nice, someone you wanna marry, or someone that you're already married to doesn't like your hijab, well, now it's a question what's at the center, right? Because you're being actually told to choose. We have to make sure, make sure that we have the right thing at the center. If it is not Allah and His messenger, if it is not Allah and His messenger, we suffer and then we make others suffer.
Focusing on Surface vs. Deep Connection
So that's the main thing I wanna emphasize and I actually don't have time to get to the other points because I had less than 20 minutes to talk about love. But I will say this very quickly. I will say this very quickly.
I do go into more detail about all this in my book but something else I wanna say quickly and I won't have much time to emphasize it. Some other pitfalls we fall into when it comes to romantic love. One of the big ones is that we focus on the surface and we miss what's inside.
Now, obviously, in terms of appearance, yes. This is an obvious thing. I think many of you already know about this.
But there's another level of this which I've seen and I've experienced and that is that a lot of times we mistaken, as the sister said, what I call surface romance. We mistaken surface romance for deep connection. And the two are very, very different.
See, you might have a man or a woman who does these things for you. These things or these gestures that the sister was mentioning. The roses and the surprises and all of that.
And you may believe, you may believe that that means that you have a connection. But there is a very, very big difference between surface romance and deep connection. Deep connection is about... These are big terms.
Deep connection is about compatibility. Deep connection is about vulnerability. Deep connection cannot only just be in these gestures.
So I advise you and all those who are looking, for example, for marriage, look deeper. And one last thing I want to say, I will tell you and everyone who advises you will tell you, look for dean, look for character. Absolutely those are a must.
But I will also tell you that it is not enough. It is not enough. And I'm going to say this and I know this from experience.
What I speak about I know from experience. That it is not enough. And there are many examples, namely even in our tradition.
We know, for example, great people, Zayd and Zaynab, they were both amazing characters. They had amazing morals. And dean.
But they were not compatible. They were not compatible and so they actually got divorced. And so what I want to say to you is that yes, you look for dean.
Yes, you look for character. But it is necessary but not sufficient. It is not sufficient.
You have to, have to, and I cannot emphasize this enough. You have to look for compatibility. You have to look for compatibility.
And I'm not just talking about surface compatibility. I'm not just talking about I'm from Egypt, he's from Egypt and so we're compatible. Right? That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about a deeper level of compatibility and that's again a whole other discussion. Very inspiring words. And a lot of questions that came from them.
Questions and Answers
A lot of questions. Thank you. But with that being said, please don't hold your hopes really high in me asking your questions because there are a lot.
Some of the questions were answered through the talk so I might not go back to those. And some of the questions are from the audience. So our first question is how do you put Allah back at the center of your heart?
How to Put Allah at the Center
Okay, great question.
Next time we shouldn't only have 20 minutes. This is a huge question. But I'm going to give you guys the shortest answer I can think of.
Okay? So in order to take care of the body we have certain needs. Alright? Everybody knows them. One essential, most essential need for a body is what? Before water.
You can live for a few days without water. But what can't you live with? Oxygen, folks. You cannot live more than a few minutes without oxygen.
Okay? Or seconds. Oxygen is essential for you to stay alive physically. You also need spiritual oxygen to stay alive spiritually.
The spiritual oxygen is your salah. You cannot have any relationship, you cannot claim to have a relationship, a true deep relationship with your creator if you aren't praying. And you aren't praying on time.
And that's a fact. And that's just like a fact. You have to pray and you have to pray on time.
And that's the most, that's the foundation of your relationship with Allah. That's why it's the first thing you're asked about on the Day of Judgment as the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said:
(Sahih At-Tirmidhi 413)
"The first thing for which a servant will be called to account on the Day of Resurrection is his prayer. If it is good, he will be successful and prosper. If it is bad, he will be unsuccessful and will lose."
if it's in order then the person will succeed in it. And if it's not, the person will have failed.
The salah is number one. That's your oxygen. It's keeping you alive.
Same way if, you know, you don't say, you know what, I'm really busy today. I'm studying for an exam so I'm going to breathe tomorrow. You don't say, I'm going to breathe tonight because I'm on Facebook or I'm at the mall.
Like it doesn't work out like that. Or I'm in a meeting, a very important business meeting so I'm just going to breathe in a few hours. You feel me? You can't do that physically.
You know you can't do that because you'll die. And it's the same thing spiritually with your salah. You will not survive unless you are taking the oxygen spiritually of the salah and make sure it's on time.
If I gave you a prescription as a doctor and said, ma'am, I'm very sorry, you're very ill and you need to take this medicine or sir, you need to take this medicine, it's keeping you alive but you have to take it five times a day at certain times. There's no one who's going to say, well, today I was busy so I'll take all five doses before I sleep.
Right? You're never going to do that because otherwise you'll die.
No one's going to say, I'm going to miss a few doses because I had something else to do. You feel me? So the essential thing is your salah and the more that you can solidify your salah, the more you will solidify your relationship with Allah. The salah, you know, first step is doing them and doing them all on time and then the second step is trying to work on your khushu'a, on your concentration and one of the biggest parts of learning and building the concentration is learning the unmeaning of what you're saying.
Even if you don't speak Arabic, you can learn the meaning of salah. If you were speaking to a king or a king gave you a letter and it was in a language you didn't understand, you'd probably go through the effort of at least translating it, right? So we have the Quran, this is the word of not a king but Allah and if we don't understand the language, we need to at least go through the effort of translating it and the same thing when you're speaking. If you have a best friend and you're talking to them but you're speaking in a language that you don't understand like you're speaking Chinese, how close will your relationship be? When you're speaking to someone, you need to know what you're saying.
So when you're speaking in salah to Allah, at least learn what you're saying for those parts of the salah, the minimum at least. And then I'm gonna add something else and that is that the relationship with the Quran. Make sure it's a daily relationship and that you're understanding, you're not just reading but you're understanding.
Again, the example of the letter from the king and Allah is high above any analogy. And finally, I'll say this. In order to take care of the body, you need to, oxygen, you need to feed the body obviously and the food of the body is the Quran and the remembrance of Allah but you also, and I'm gonna add one other thing, the adhkar.
If you can add adhkar into your daily routine, you will find that your relationship with Allah will become much, much stronger and your emotional and psychological state will become much more stable.
And that's also something I've learned experientially. Lastly, you have to protect and clean the body.
No one says, I don't need to take a shower today because I did that last November or last October. That would be problematic and no one would want to be around you. And that's because you know that you have to consistently clean your body because dirt and sweat consistently build on the body.
Right? And in the same way, our hearts are constantly getting dirt on them from our sins and that cleaning is istighfar, is the repentance that the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) used to do a hundred times a day:
Sahih Muslim 2702
"The Messenger of Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) used to frequently say: 'Glory be to Allah and praise be to Him, I seek Allah's forgiveness and I repent to Him.'"
Right? And then what about us? So we have to constantly be asking for forgiveness. Istighfar consistently is cleaning. That's your shower. Alright? Internal shower. And protecting the body, we need to protect our ears, our eyes, and our tongues because these are the openings to the heart.
So that's kind of like in a nutshell like an hour long lecture but that's kind of in a nutshell how to take care of your heart and your relationship with Allah. That actually took care of a lot of questions. So perfect.
Dealing with Love Interests When Unmarried
My next question or the audience's next question is how do you deal with those feelings of love when you're unmarried especially if there is a love interest involved? That's a very good question. How do you deal with matters of the heart when especially there's a love interest? Mashallah, sister Yasmin, she talked about all of the you know we're talking about the end goal, love. So alhamdulillah that covers part of that.
But the practical steps of you know you have a love interest you have to ask yourself is there something I can actually do about it? Am I at an age where I can actually get married? Is the person that I love or have a love interest in is he or she is he or she at an age where they can get married? Is this something that's feasible? If it's somebody if you're in a situation where it's not feasible because of age or because of whatever then it's okay number one I should say it's okay that you think somebody is special. That you have a crush on them. That's normal.
Right? But that second question is extremely important. Is there anything I can do about it? Number one if they're already engaged or married like them and that's it it's done with. Okay mashallah great he's a great person now move on.
And if it's because of age or because of you know you've tried for so many years and parents are just saying no that's another issue. You have to move on. It's not the end of the world.
Right? If there is something you can do about it go through the halal means don't go through the back door. Don't say you know what I want to really get to know this person for three months and we're going to meet at Starbucks only so it's super halal because it's a public and then we're going to tell our parents because if I tell my parents ahead of time they're going to freak out and they're going to force me to marry this person. And then we're going to be married for five years like listen to me.
Engaged engaged for five years and that's another torture that opens a lot of doors for things that could happen. Right? That we yes yes being engaged for five years is not a good idea. So go through the front door.
Go through the front door. You know sisters if a brother is ready to man up and go talk to your father or your wali you've got the right guy. This is a good start.
If he says no no you know what like I said we have to make sure we have a deep connection. This deep connection that Sister Yasmin talks about this comes later. You just want to make sure there's some you know surface compatibility there's some start there's some place that you can start from to move forward.
You go through the right channels. Yes brothers you have to go to the sister that you're interested her wali. Ask for for say may I speak to your father may say yes you have to do that.
If you don't have the courage to do that and you want to go through the back door already the relationship is starting on the wrong foot. So that would be just a few nuggets of advice inshallah may Allah make that process easy inshallah. If I could just add something oh sorry clap for her okay I don't want to interrupt.
I just wanted to add something and that is I'm noticing a trend more so with the coming generations than my generation I guess and that is a lot of people just want to chit chat you feel me? They just want
to chit chat and they want to keep chitting chitting chatting okay and chit chatting too and it's really fun and it's cool but don't want to actually commit. Please to those people say ain't nobody got time please be realize that your worth your worth is far too high to waste your time with people just looking to chit chat okay if a man if a man as she said is actually serious about wanting to get married he will want to approach your wali your father early on in the whole conversation and if you find that he is absolutely hesitant about that step then he may be a chit chatter and ain't nobody got time for chit chatters I promise you and so what I'll say to you is please save yourself a lot of headache and heartache and time and don't even go down that road alright so one is are you at a stage where you can get married that's very important obviously but the other is is this person actually serious about getting married or are they just looking to fill up some time because it's fun and this whole idea let's just be friends oh no I'm very serious and I'm looking for marriage and I'm not interested in just chit chatting so make sure that you have you know one of the best like indicators is okay can you talk to my dad and realize talking to someone's dad doesn't mean you're gonna do nikah the next day in 24 hours talking to someone's dad just means I'm serious about the intention of marriage it doesn't mean that now you're khalas that's it you're stuck talking to someone's dad doesn't mean you're stuck it just means that I am serious about this process and we need to reinstitute that that you know that tradition please please God let's go back to that but we as women have to kind of have boundaries not kind of we really have to have boundaries and men too brothers too so I just wanted to add that little thing.
Self-Love and Comparison to Others
so that can lock in the next question is kind of taking us back towards the beginning of the session and it asks concerning the topic of loving yourself what if you feel like you have no real potential because you're constantly being surrounded by perfect great people how can you stop comparing yourself to others can I just say something there is no such thing as perfect people there's no such thing I promise you it's a filter it's a filter okay I'm telling you that this is one of the biggest problems of social media like I I mean I love social media it's a great tool for so many great things and I can go on and on about that but one of the the challenges of social media is that it gives the ability to sort of photoshop your life yeah and if you and they have done studies to find that people who spend more time on social media also have also tend to be more dissatisfied with their own life and that's because the nature of social media is that you can photoshop it you're not you're not you're taking a picture in the glamorous moments right and so it gives a very skewed image of a person's life it even gives a skewed image of a person's face right because it's not really what they look like I mean thank God for some of these filters right but the reality is do not ever ever look at social media and then compare yourself to what this is it's like comparing yourself to a a model in a magazine that has been photoshopped like literally they took like an eraser I'm not exact they took an eraser and they took off parts of her waist and then took off parts of her arm and they enlarged certain parts you feel me that's what they do with photoshop but that's the same thing with social media so number one no one's life is perfect no one is perfect you're not perfect and neither is anyone else we have to start to accept and love ourselves accept and love the way Allah designed us Allah did not design
us as perfect because he already has angels right we're not even designed sinless that's the design of Allah it's not a mistake you understand what I'm saying Allah didn't do it by mistake Allah has a design and a plan for us and his design and his plan is that we will make mistakes but the best of us are those who repent are those who get back up when they fall but to say that there are people out there they just don't fall they hover you know this is the problem like we have this weird kind of idea even about like like our public figures and our shuyukh and our teachers that they don't actually walk on the earth they hover you know they just they're like part of the a different kind of realm that's not true that's not true they're just as human as everyone else even prophets were human Allah sent prophets as human beings for a reason so that it's the same as us we can relate so no don't fall into that deception of thinking that anybody is perfect.
Balancing Love of God with Showing Affection
our final question for the night inshallah the question states that there have been marriages that have fallen due to two religious spouses so how can we stop this other extreme form of relationship other extreme so it's instead of someone who loves who loves their spouse too much it's like because I love God too much I can't give you that affection oh dear God oh I'm sorry alright this is like my chance to rant alright my people no that's messed up so here's the thing I'm gonna tell you guys a big secret okay the Prophet nobody loved God more than him and if you study how he was with his wives I mean it's it's like stuff that we would be like oh my God you know like I'll give you an example he's asked in a public place like a public setting who do you love most can you imagine like one of our shuyukh in like one of these big settings who do you love most and he goes Aisha my wife you know what I mean he's publicly he's not just showing affection in private in this case affection verbally obviously he's publicly announcing his love for his wife (صلى الله عليه وسلم) he said Aisha and then he and this companion this is the beautiful thing the companion thought he was gonna say him you know and so he's like no no no from among the men because he's thinking he's next and he goes her father but the point is that even when he's mentioning Abu Bakr he uses Aisha as the reference point even the way he's talking about her he doesn't even say Abu Bakr he says her father so and the way he used to be with his wife صلى الله عليه وسلم you know if he'd see her drinking from a cup he would put he would see where she put her mouth and put his mouth on the same spot on purpose that's how he showed he showed affection and there are many examples of this affection that they had this idea that you're so lost in God you can't show affection that's messed up I'm sorry but you're just lost you're not just lost in God and the reality is the reality is that not showing affection is not a sign of spirituality it's not a sign of it's actually it may be a sign of having a hard heart and the reality and that's you know the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) once saw a man okay there was a man who thought he was boasting and he said I have all these children and I've never hugged or kissed them he thought he was like getting extra points for that and the Prophet صلی :said الله عليه وسلم
Sahih Al-Bukhari 5997
"What can I do for you if Allah has removed mercy from your heart?"
what can I do if Allah's taking the mercy out of your heart you understand like if mercy and compassion has been taken out of your heart what can I do for you this is not a it's not a sign of piety that you don't show affection the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم) was the most in love with God and he was the most affectionate so that's what I want to say about that.
End of Session
May Allah forgive me and you, for He is the Forgiving, the Merciful. May Allah expand our hearts and ease our affairs and guide us to the straight path.