Understanding the Heart's Journey to Allah

Allah is the Greatest In the name of Allah, the One, the One The One, the One, the One Who was not born, nor was He born And there is no one like Him Alhamdulillah, hamdan kathiran tayyiban mubarakan fih, hamdan da'iman sarmada, la yankat'u abada, wala yankus madada. Alhamdulillah, the glory of his face, the greatness of his authority, the perfection of his beauty, his majesty, and the grandeur of his blessings. And the blessings and peace be upon him. Allahumma ja'alna minhum. Ameen. Ya Allah, help me be with you as though I were to see your infinite beauty. Allahumma ja'alni laka ka'ani ara kamala jamalik. Allahu Akbar. Ya Allah, let us be, help us be to you, with you, as though we witness your perfect and infinite beauty. إِنَّهَا لَا تَعْمَلْ أَبْصَارُ وَلَكِنْ تَعْمَلْ قُلُوبُ الَّتِي فِي الصُّدُورِ As though an answer comes and says, as Allah Azza wa Jalla says, verily, the heart, verily the eyes do not go blind. What goes blind is... the heart inside the chest. In other words, oh my servant, you can see my infinite beauty with your heart if your heart is not blind. If my heart is not clouded, obscured, and blind, my heart is created to see divine beauty and divine majesty. But we have ascertained also... The divine majesty is beauty. Allah is beautiful in His majesty. Keep that in mind. Allah is beautiful in His majesty. Allah is beautiful in His majesty. All His attributes. whether attributes of majesty, جلال, such as القهار, such as العدل, such as المنتقم, such as العزيز, جلالي attributes, or جمالي attributes, such as الرحيم, الغفور, الكريم, المغني, سبحانه وتعالى, المعطي, سبحانه وتعالى, الرؤوف, both are beautiful when you contemplate deeply. for Allah described all his attributes as beautiful وَلِلَّهِ الْأَسْمَاءُ الْحُسْنَةُ أَسْمَاءُهُ جَلَالِيَةٌ وَجَمَالِيَةٌ وَهِيَ كُلُّهَا أَسْمَاءٌ حُسْنًا and all his names as Allah says in the Quran whether therefore of majesty or of beauty are beautiful سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَحَالَ so even when we fear him there is beauty Beauty in that fear. Even when we have awe and reverence of him, deeper there is beauty in that. There is kamal also in that. Lahu subhanahu wa ta'ala. إِنَّهَا لَا تَعْمَلْ أَبْصَارُ وَلَكِنْ تَعْمَلْ قُلُوبُ الَّتِي فِي الصُّدُورِ I am veiled, I am kept remote from Allah's beauty, not because it is not available, but because I do not see it. But because I do not see it. كَلَّا بَلْ أَرَانَ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ مَا كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونَ كَلَّا إِنَّهُمْ عَلْ رَبِّهِمْ يَوْمَئِذٍ لَمَحْجُوبُونَ The hijab against the Lord subhanahu wa ta'ala, the veil on our hearts. against experiencing the very special, personal, experiential, spiritual way, experiencing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is due to the qalbin veil. محجوب Not that Allah is not. الله لا يحجبه شيء أليس كذلك؟ How could finite cover infinite? How could finite hide infinite? We are hidden, we are mahjoub, we are concealed, we, our hearts, do not see. Yet he is, as he said, nearer to us than our jugular vein. ونحن أقرب إليه من حبل الوريد لكن لما أدرنا أعين بصائرنا أعين قلوبنا عن الله عن غير الوجهة لله إلى الله سبحانه وتعالى حرمنا من رؤية جماله عز وجل Because we deliberately to turn away the gaze of our quloob away from him, though he is, so we don't see him. We don't see his beauty. And what veils my qalb are the stains of my heart, my dear brothers and sisters. And therefore we continue what we left off earlier today, matters of the heart. It's all about the heart. صاروا ولكن تعمل قلوب التي في الصدور and when the قلب is veiled and as we mentioned earlier the قلب has a dimension of it towards the نفس and a dimension of it towards the روح and when are we veiled when our قلب's dimension is all towards the نفس And our qalb becomes a nafs. Our qalb is a nafs. So again I say to you, or to someone, or to something, I agree with you. I. I love you from the bottom of my heart. Actually, from the deep abyss of my nafs. Because my heart is just the same. Our master, the great scholar, the noble saint, may Allah have mercy on him, Sultan of the saints, as he was known, Sayyidi Abdul Qadir. al-Jilani, the faqih of Baghdad in both Hanbali and Shafi'i fiqh as well as the most beautiful of the time, transparent heart. أَهْلِ الْعِلْمِ وَأَهْلِ الصَّفَاءِ أَنَّهُ سُلْطَانُ الْأَوْلِيَةِ رحمه الله تعالى He was with an audience, big audience that he addresses, رحمه الله تعالى, in matters of their deen and in matters of related to life and to the hearts. And Allah gave that man كَرَامَات اللَّهُ يُكْرِمُ أَبْدَهُ بِمَا يَشَاءُ Allah honors and ennobles and dignifies his servant as he pleases. Sometimes without the servant knowing. And of what Allah Azzawajal bestowed upon that wali, servant of Allah Azzawajal, is al-kalamu ala al-khawatir, ala khawatir al-qulub. This karama is mentioned about him by most scholars, including the critical... scholars of fiqh such as Ibn Taymiyyah even and Al-Imam Al-Dhahabi. These are the grand names of Hadith and of Fiqh and so on. That Allah gave him those karamah. And he was sitting in an audience and one of the persons of the audience audaciously, with perhaps a little lack of adab, but maybe not knowing, not knowing himself, he says, Ya Shaykh, We spoke about the secrets of the hearts. Eh, Sheikh, tell us about the premonitions of the heart. The last one of yore, he says to him, إِيشْ تِرِيدْ تَعْرِفْ أَنْتَ عَنِ الْقُلُوبِ وَأَنْتَ كُلَّكْ نَفْسٍ هكذا, it is written even in the Fath al-Rabbani. What do you want to know about the hearts and you are totally a self? What is the matter with you wanting to know about premonitions of the heart and you are totally a self? Allah Akbar. And you are all a self. I must liberate my heart from my self. To be able to see divine beauty, to be able to see the divine reality embedded in everything created. To see the attributes of Allah in everything, whether in prosperity or in adversity. Whether things go well for me or don't go well for me, because some of us see an inverted... Remember, for most of us, let's say it this way, remember Allah only when things are bad. Ya Allah, help me. And when things are so well, we are so deluded, so mahrur, so arrogant, so mutakabbir, that we don't think that God has anything to do with our prosperity. prosperity, intellectual prosperity, social prosperity, ease at any level. We don't connect that. We connect that to my high IQ. We connect that to my hard work. Work hard you get. I worked hard, I got. And we belittle those who are not as fortunate as we are. Simply we say, because you didn't work as hard as I did. And we forget Allah Azza wa Jal. وَمَا بِكُمْ مِنْ نِعْمَةٍ فَمِنَ اللَّهِ Whatever you enjoy of favor, of that which pleases you, ni'mah, it is from Allah. Internal or external favors. And some of us know Allah only also when we are happy. It's the opposite. Some of us know Allah when we are happy, when we are at ease. Alhamdulillah, Allah has been so good to me. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. And then if befallen by calamity, by hardship as though Allah doesn't exist. Why me? What did I do? I don't deserve this. I prayed. I fasted, especially those who pray and fast of us. I prayed, I fasted, I was in dhikr, I turned to Allah in du'a. Why this happened to me? Why this happened to my child? Why this happened to my relatives? Why? SubhanAllah. As though, in reality, I have never known that Allah is in ultimate control. ما شاء الله كان ما لم يشاء لم يكن What Allah wills will be. What Allah does not will, will not be. Some of us are like that. فلا أرى الله لا أعرف الله في كونه I do not see, now seeing is spiritual, I do not see divine presence, majesty or beauty all the time. Only as it suits my nafs. That's why he told him, you are a full nafs. You're not a heart yet. My heart is taken over by the tentacles. Imagine the tentacles of the nafs. And the heart takes the identity of the nafs. And it is that nafs that loves, that nafs that hates, that nafs that agrees, that nafs that disagrees, that nafs that consents, that nafs that does not consent. That nafs that drives forward or that nafs that withholds back. And yet, in my ignorance of my own nafs, I say my heart loves, my heart distastes, my reason accepts, my reason rejects. And yet, as we have... I hope understood earlier that my reason is simply subservient to what? To the condition of my qalb. The qalb conditions my reason and my reason articulates what's in my qalb. In the language and in the logic of my environment. I must say like Sayyiduna Ibrahim alayhi salam, in this life, Ya Rabbi help me come to you. And so I say, Inni dhahibun ila Rabbi. So I say, Sayyiduna Ibrahim said, I am going to my God, to my Lord. I am going. إِنِّي ذَاهِبٌ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِ And Allah says about him in the Quran, وَإِنَّ مِنْ شِيْعَتِهِ لَإِبْرَاهِيمِ إِذْ جَاءَ رَبَّهُ بِقَلْبٍ سَلِيمٍ جَاءَ رَبَّهُ بِقَلْبٍ سَلِيمٍ Ibrahim says, I'm going to my Lord. And Allah tells us that Ibrahim came to his Lord. How did he come? Walking? Is Allah in space and in time? Is Allah confined in causality? Ta'ala Allahu an thalik aluwan kabira Allah tells us He came to Allah with His qalb salim. Idh ja'a rabbahu bi qalbin salim So the movement towards Allah عز و جل is not Physical movement, of course. It's a spiritual movement. It's the change that takes place in my qalb. As I change inside of me, my character inside of me, my inner image inside of me changes. When I change from arrogant to humble. From selfish to generous. From angry to calm and patient. From greedy to benevolent, etc. From ignorant to more knowing. From demanding to gentle and kind. From unjust to just and even muhsin. When those things, from lack of rahmah, could be a alim who lacks rahmah, lacks merciful love. lacks merciful love. From lacking merciful love to being rahim. These changes of phases of the qalb is what constitutes movement towards Allah Azzawajal. That's al-qurbu min Allah Azzawajal. kullama tazayyanat sifati wa kharashtu an sifati al-bahimiyat was sabu'iyyati was shaytaniyyati ila sifatil malaa'ikiyyati kullama taqarrabtu min Allahi azza wa jal hadha huwa al-qurbu min Allah this is drawing nearer to Allah azza wa jal for as long as my attributes change from cattle-like attributes of a nafs, or predatory-like attributes of a nafs, or shaytani-like attributes of a nafs towards angel-like attributes of the nafs, I have moved forward towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala إِنِّي ذَاهِبٌ إِلَىٰ رَبِّي So in life, my dear sisters and brothers, when we are faced with challenges of any sort, come back, do this, don't do that things that are I would say not befitting of a seeker of the divine do you see that it's not befitting of a seeker of the divine The quality of what I seek determines the way we should be, isn't it? If what we seek is cheap, we're going to be cheap. If the quality of what we seek is mediocre, then the way we shall reach it is mediocre. the manner, the fashion, the modality. But if what we seek is grand, nay, this is divine, then I should do that with the most beautiful possible ways. It will determine and identify my mode and the modality. Of seeking my aim, my grand aim, my dear sisters and brothers. إِنِّي ذَاهِبٌ إِلَى رَبِّي If anything calls us back, things that are base, things that are low, things that are selfish or greedy or impolite even, let alone unethical or immoral or criminal, let alone that. Even in a moment where the qalb is so connected to Allah and I am drawn to do something just normal and average at that time the heart will say please forgive me one of the salihat women as sayida who which one which one no that's not the one I mean this one The wife of Sayyidi Ahmad ibn Abi al-Hawari, the great student of Al-Imam Abu Sulaiman al-Darani. He says to us about his saintly wife. He had a wife who was a waliya. He's wali and his wife was a waliya. Allahu Akbar. Baytun ahabbahu Allah. This is a household beloved to Allah Azza wa Jalla. So he said, I called her once, you know, for some regular chores at home. Ya Rabia. And he said, and she doesn't answer me. She did not answer me. That's not her. her habit. She's polite. And she did not. He said an hour later, and he did not insist. He was a wali. He was a character. And a while later, she comes back to me and says, here I am, Sayyidi. What happened, Ya Rabia? He said, please forgive me. Kuntu fi halin ma'Allah. Oh, Akbar. I was in a condition spiritual with Allah. I could not. I could not respond. I am sure his joy only increased, his love for her only increased. سَمِحْنِي يَا سَيِّدِ كُنْتُ فِي حَالٍ مَعَ اللَّهِ Forgive me, Ya Sayyidi, I was in my heart. In a hal, in a hal, with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. إِنِّي ذَاهِبٌ إِلَى رَبِّي Subhanallah. Rasulullah ﷺ was asked once, ما الإسلام؟ What is Islam? He answered, صلى الله عليه وآله وصحبه وسلم, الإسلام أن يسلم قلبك لله تعالى. This is the all-encompassing generic answer to what Islam is. Everything else comes within it. He answers in this case, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Al-Islam is when your heart surrenders that is lovingly to Allah. Your qalb. My moods in my qalb. my drives in my qalb, my likes in my qalb, my dislikes in my qalb, my hopes in my qalb, my wishes in my qalb, my dreams in my qalb. All of them are lovingly subservient to what Allah loves. And yuslima qalbuka, not lisanuka, not your tongue, not only your external senses, not your body, not only your intellect, intellect academically speaking, speaking. You know when I like to make a difference when I say intellectual between academic things, ideological things, intellectual things and things that have seeped into the heart after that. There's a difference between the two. So he said an yuslima qalbuka lillahi ta'ala second and consequently wa an yaslaman nasu awil muslimuna min lisanika wayadik al qalbu awil قلب أولا فإذا أسلم القلب أسلمت الجوارح وسلمت الجوارح مما لا يرضي الله عز وجل And then he said, and that your limbs and your senses or that people and Muslims are safe from your tongue and your hands. إِذَا أَسْلَمَ قَلْبِي هَكَذَا أَكُونَ But if I am rude with my tongue, rude, let alone abusive, and let alone arrogant, and let alone backbiting, and let alone lying, and let alone testifying falsely, if my qalb is with Allah, then people are safe from my tongue. People are safe from my tongue. My family is safe from my tongue. My children are safe from my tongue. My neighbors, my co-workers, my Muslim brothers and sisters. and everyone else, because the khalaq of a Muslim is all-encompassing. I am not true with one and a liar with one else, with someone else. وَأَنْ يَسْلَمَ الْمُسْلِمُونَ مِنْ لِسَانِكَ وَيَدِكْ يَدِكْ Your hand, which connotates my power. Whatever power I have, financial power, political power, military power, social power, family power, work power, employer over employee power. Any power I have, people are safe from me. This is Islam. It begins with the heart, then the senses translate it. of having a relationship with Allah as though I were to see his infinite beauty as we said لأنها لا تعمل أبصار ولكن تعمل قلوب التي في الصدور because it is not the eyes that go blind but it is the hearts inside of our chests that go blind and we need to remove the veil of darkness upon our hearts A man came to Rasulullah ﷺ and asked him, in what al-Imam ibn Muwajah and others related, أَيُّ النَّاسِ أَفْضَلُ These are practical consequences now. أَيُّ النَّاسِ أَفْضَلُ Ya Rasulullah, tell us, who amongst people is... best, most virtuous. And ayunasi afdhal in the language of Rasulullah ﷺ I believe because this exists in many many texts they mean by it in other words something very good, not necessarily in the superlative form, not necessarily that there's nothing else like that. أَفْضَلْ though in the superlative form, grammatically speaking, it means here simply comparative form. أي من أفضل الناس أي من أفضل الناس of those who are best of people and most virtuous of people of them not these and no one else. He says صلى الله عليه وسلم كل مخموم القلب هكذا بذل أي الناس أفضل يا رسول الله كل مخموم القلب صدوق اللسان quote, end quote كل مخموم القلب صدوق اللسان everyone whose heart is مخموم do you know what مخموم means? that's why I'm not going to translate it for now every مخموم of the قلب everyone whose قلب is مخموم The tongue is saduq, but saduq you know, right? Saduq means very truthful, very truthful, saduq b'siqatil mubalagah, and that's it. exactly what the companions said you see it's a beautiful fiqh issue the companions didn't know everything about the Quran even though they were the masters of that language and they needed the teaching of the teacher to tell them what it means The Mujtahidoon of the Sahaba, the masters of the language, said they didn't understand the word that Rasulullah ﷺ mentioned. What did he mean? What did you mean by مخموم القلب? صدوق اللسان we know. فما مخموم القلب? He answered ﷺ هو التقي النقي لا إثم فيه ولا بغي ولا غل ولا حسد What is مخموم القلب يا رسول الله? He answered not responding in the linguistic definition of مخموم and I shall mention that later but he gave them what he means by مَخْمُوم القَلْبِ He used a word that literally has a meaning, but he meant by that not the literal meaning, but the consequence of that literal meaning. And he says, first, التَّقِيُّ تَقِي One who is Allah conscious. يَتَّقِي غَبَبَ اللَّهِ يَتَّقِي مَا لَا يُرْوِ اللَّهِ التقي is a person who keeps away and does his or her best to keep away from that which Allah is not pleased with. with does not love keeps him or her distant or remote from Allah keeps away from the probable consequences of the wrath or the anger or the displeasure of Allah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala يتقى التقي اللهم اجعلنا من المتقين النقي النقي means what? clean clean remember earlier today the qalb that is what? أجرد أجرد أجرد نقي clean, purified At-taqiyyun naqiyy, la ithma feehi, wala baghya, wala ghilla, wala hasad, wherein there is no ithm. Ithm is the inclination on our part to transgress. Any type of transgression. وَلَا بَغْيِ بَغْي is the inclination on our part to aggress, to be aggressive. أَبْغِي عَلَى غَيْرِ I aggressed something, somebody. I committed an aggression against somebody. بَغَيْتُ عَلَيْهِ وَالْأَيَادُ بِاللَّهِ In which there is no, he said, no إثم, no بَغْي, وَلَا Ghila, al-ghil vindictiveness, ghalal ma'a, water boils when inside of me I feel that boiling condition inside of me to take revenge and to hate and to be spiteful and grudgy. La ghila feeh, wa la hasad. And you all know what hasad is. Translated sometimes as what? Hmm. Not just jealousy, oh, it's envy, violent envy, because it's inside something improper, negative, nafsani, shaitani, nafsani, shaitani. So when you feel that, that's hasad. Jealousy as jealousy is just, it's not necessarily negative. But when there is that tendency inside of us to want what the other has, but with an internal violent feeling, internal violent feeling, that's hasad. He said, this is al-makhmoom al-qalb, al-qalb. Al-qalb, makhmum al-qalb. What is khumama in the Arabic language? Khumama wal-kumama. Garbage. Khamamtu al-bayta ayy kanastuhu. The verb the house means I swept it I cleansed it, I cleaned it I removed all the dust and the garbage and so on The qalb is swept clean from the garbage inside From the garbage inside. Hasad is garbage. Ghil is garbage. Ghish is garbage. Haqq is garbage. This is garbage. Allah loves that heart that is clean from garbage. So every time, sisters or brothers, you vacuum the house, remember this. Wallahi, I'm telling you, there is nothing that is there that does not teach you something about you and Allah. So if you are one who is aware of Allah always, yes, when you clean you say, Ya Allah, tahir qalbi. When you wash your hands, Ya Allah, wash my qalb. When you see the dirt from your hands coming out, you see the dhunub, stain, coming out through tawbah. Ya Allah, grant me tawbah. Nothing that happens that is not connected to Allah. We simply do not connect. But everything is there to teach me, always, about tawheed. about my relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, about the opportunity to connect with Allah azza wa jal in a very strong way until the moment of my last breath. Sayyiduna wa mawlana Rasulullah ﷺ once was with a child, a child. That child's name was, all of you know, Anas ibn Malik. who's very smart and spiritually intelligent mother said I give you this child for your service Ya Rasulullah when he was five or six or seven or less than that I give him to you for your service a mother doing that for her child I would give my soul when it is born to Rasulullah to serve under his shoe to rear me in his household. Allahu Akbar. That mother was so intelligent and so spiritually special. Allah gave her that thabat to say, take this child, Ya Rasulullah, I want him to serve you. And the great gift is that Rasulullah accepted. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And now this is a child. Nowadays we live in a time when we say teaching should always be entertaining. And we don't teach our children values that are adult values. Positively spiritual. spiritually, morally, adult values. No, no, let them play, let them have fun, let them come on. We changed and we want our children to be toys themselves until we grow and we are 50 and 60 and we still play with toys at our level. A bumper sticker said on one car I read, the one who dies with most toys is the winner. Yeah. Children have toys, and we call ourselves adults, and we have toys. And some of us never graduate. He teaches this child, he teaches this child! SubhanAllah. He tells him, يَا بُنَيْهِ First of all, he treats him, he calls him, يَا بُنَيْهِ Oh my son. The fuqaha of a lot of beautiful things that they have said about this word, Rasulullah calling the young Anas, my son. And they have tafri'at, wastintajat, beautiful fiqhi conclusions and moral conclusions. It's just wonderful. Anyways, he says to him, يَا بُنَيْهِ A child. When Rasulullah ﷺ passed away, Anas was probably no older than maybe nine or so, or ten. He tells him, يَا بُنَيْهِ A child, listen to this. Scholars and du'a and students of ilm and the regular people like me. Listen to that. يَا بُنَيْهِ If you can or can't become or be, and your heart is not a cheat for anyone, then do it. For that is from my sunnah. Allahu Akbar. O my son, if you are able to wake up every morning and to retire every evening, while in your heart there is no gish, no ill feeling or ill intent in your heart for anyone, please do that. That is my sunnah. Have you heard of sunnah like this? That is my sunnah. Sunnah al-quloob, sunnah al-ahwal, sunnah al-sifat, sunnah al-jamal al-quloob. The sunnah of this kind, not only the sunnah, alhamdulillah, of the external appearances. Most of us, perhaps, have never heard the word sunnah at the level of the quloob. It is the sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ to have a makhmum qalb. It is the sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ not to have a makhmum qalb. to have gish. It is a sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ to be rahim and ra'uf, mercifully loving, lovingly merciful and kind and gentle. It is the sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ to be muhsin, benevolent and magnanimous. It's a sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ to forgive and forgive even 70 times a day to the same person. It is the sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ. All of these are texts. He said, وَذَلِكَ مِنْ سُنَّتِي وَمَنْ أَحْيَا سُنَّتِي كَانَ مَعِي فِي الْجَنَّةِ أَوْ قَالَ وَمَنْ أَحْيَا سُنَّتِي فَقَدْ أَحَبَّنِي وَمَنْ أَحَبَّنِي كَانَ مَعِي فِي الْجَنَّةِ That is my sunnah, and whosoever revives or resuscitates my sunnah has hubb from me. And who has hubb from me, shall be with me in Jannah. Allahumma rizuqni hubba nabiyyika sallallahu alayhi wa sallam bihubbika ya Allah. Allahumma rizuqna hubba nabiyyika. بحبك يا الله لمرزقنا حب نبيك بحبك يا الله يا أرحم الراحمين I need to work on this sunnah My qalb My qalb wants to be with Allah as though it sees infinite beauty of Allah. First, أحتاج أن أتخلى قبل أن أتحلى. أليس كذلك؟ I need to liberate before I fill up. I need أتفرغ قبل أن أملأ. يبنى آدم تفرغ لعبادتي أملأ صدرك غنى. As Rasulullah ﷺ mentioned that Allah says, You empty first, يا ميعبد. Empty and I fill up. أخمم ذلك القلب Cleanse, اكنس ذلك القلب first. Remove the garbage. Remove the garbage. The inclinations inside, the attachments inside. inconsistent with divine beauty. Are you with me? Remove the garbage inside of my qalb that is inconsistent with divine beauty and garbage is inconsistent with beauty in general. divine beauty in particular. Let me do that. أَتَخَلَّىٰ قَبْلَ أَنْ أَتَحَلَّىٰ You don't wear jewels on your body, sisters, or you don't wear beautiful clothing on your body, brother, while underneath that clothing is so much dirt and stench. First, remove that. and put the huli for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not enter the heart that is not clean one of the salihun Sidi Abdul Qadir al-Jilani comments on this hadith of Rasulullah s.a.w. in this beautiful way which connects to what we said when Rasulullah s.a.w. said إِنَّ الْمَلَائِكَةَ Look how they live, these people. What they hear is always connected at the deeper dimensions to Allah عز و جل. When Rasulullah صلى الله عليه وسلم said, إِنَّ الْمَلَائِكَةَ لَا تَدْخُلُ بَيْتًا فِيهِ Kalbun wala sawar. End of quote. Hadith al-Sahih. As all of you know, or most of you know, or some of you know, this authentic hadith teaches that Rasulullah ﷺ said, verily, the angels, malaikat al-rahmah, the special angels, malaikat al-istifa'a, malaikat al-ikram, malaikat al-hifdh, and so on, not al-malaikat al-kiram al-katibun. Those are always with us even if we go into the dumpster. إِنَّ الْمَلَائِكَةَ Do not enter a house or a space or a room in which there is a dog or images. The point is, Sidi Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, look where he takes it, besides the fiqh-y apparent dimension of that. He says, rahimahullah ta'ala, if the malaika, these nawrani creatures of Allah azawajal, these special creatures of Allah azawajal, do not enter a space, a house, in which there is a dog, and there are images. Angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog. In your qalb there is a wild dog. And images, images, sculpted relationships, sculpted attachments that I have for other than Allah Azza wa Jal, that are so deeply imprinted and rooted and in my heart. I love this and I love that and I have such a strong attachment to something that is not permitted by Allah azza wa jal. That is outside of the divine loving consent. Images in my qalb. Asnaam in my qalb. Idols in my qalb. How would I expect with those attachments that I have for other than Allah, which I don't have for Allah. And I say Allah is in my qalb. God is in my heart. Allahu Akbar. If every claimant were to be given in accordance to his or her claims, then a person who does not have a heart at all would claim and say, my heart is burning out of love. Did you understand? لَوْ اُعْطِيَ كُلُّ مُدَّعٍ بِمَا يَدَّعِي لَدَّعَ الْخَلِيُّ حُرْقَةَ الشَّجِيحِ If every claimant were to be given in accordance to his or her claim, just because of claim, then the one who doesn't have a heart, assume a person doesn't have a heart, a creature doesn't have a heart, would also say, my heart is burning out of love. إِنَّ الْمَلَائِكَةَ لَا تَدْخُلُوا بَيْتًا There is a dog in it, and there are no pictures of it, he said, may Allah bless him and his family and companions. He said, may Allah bless him and his family and companions, they do not meet in the heart. لا يجتمعان في قلب They cannot be together in the same heart. Two things cannot be together in the same heart, said he ﷺ. This is sunnatu rasoolillah, sunnatu al-quloobi min sunnani rasoolillah ﷺ. What is that, ya Rasulullah? Al-imanu wal-hasad. Al-Imanu wa al-Hasad He said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, who said? The doctor Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam If I have hasad in my qalb The moment I have hasad said what happens to iman it's not there it's not there out of the rahmah of Allah he doesn't treat me as a kafir or as a murtad rahmatun min Allah fathlun min Allah joodun min Allah samahatun min Allah safhun min Allah maghfira tun min Allah and now يَحْكُمَ عَلَيَّ بِالْكُفْرِ أَوْ بِالْرِّدَّةِ Subhanahu wa ta'ala that he doesn't judge me on account of that condition as a murtad Well, he has an apostate or as a kasr At the moment I have hasad inside, what happens to iman? Why? He said so. He said, الإيمان والحسد لا يجتمعان في قلب They cannot be in the same heart. سبحان الله سبحان الله He also said, صلى الله عليه وآله وصحبه وسلم, لا يجتمع شح وإيمان في قلب رجل مسلم. End of quote. لا يجتمع شح وإيمان في قلب رجل مسلم. What is shuh? Miserliness, greed, the internal greed, that when we are so self-focused and self-centered, whether it is about materially speaking... or emotionally speaking, or morally speaking, a person who is amongst us, نفساني الشحيح لأن النفس بخيلة شحيحة أمارة بالسوء If my cousin is a person who is amongst us, Qalb is a nafs, and that nafs is noted to be known as greedy, selfish. That's why we say selfish, nafsani. Selfish, nafsani. Shuh and Iman cannot be together in the same heart of a Muslim person. Allah Akbar. Allahu Akbar. And I say, Ya Rabbi, inni ureedu an akuda laka ka'annani ara kamala jamalik. And I say, Ya Allah, I want a love to be to you, with you, as though I witness your infinite beauty. So you hear something in your heart saying, Ya Abdi, clean your heart. And you will see. Ya Rabbi, I want to see with my eyes. I want to see the beautiful nature outside. Your beautiful creation outside. I want to see. Ya Abdi, open your eyes. And remove the dirt in your eyes. And you will see. This is what I'm reminding myself and my sisters and brothers of. Another characteristic. Sad Rasulullah ﷺ. الحياء والإيمان قرنا جميعا إذا رفع أحدهما ورفع الآخر حديث صحيح أيضا Al-Hayā'u wa al-Imān. Hayā'and Imān, you all know Imān, right? Imān, we call faith. Al-Imānum ma waqara fil qanb. Imān and Hayā'are forever joined together. If one of them is lifted, then the other one is lifted. That means what? Follow me. If at a moment I lose haya, what happens? It's not there. If I totally lose haya, I will totally lose iman. And if I lose iman, I will lose haya. To the extent I have less of Iman would mean in this case, to the extent I have more or less of Hayat. Ya Ibadullah, I remind myself in you in such a world. of delusions, ghoror, not illusions only, of delusions. Delusion is when we assess ourselves more than what we really are. Al-maghroor. Shaytan is the ultimate gharur and maghrur. Why? Because he assessed himself more than what he really is and what Allah allowed him. فَلَا يَغُرَّنَّكُمْ بِاللَّهِ الْغَرُورِ Allah says, don't allow the deluder delude you as he was deluded. Delusion is assessing yourself more than what you are and that's not reality. Delusion is assessing yourself more than what you are and more than what you are is not real. That's not your real value. Don't be deluded. Don't be deluded. وَلَا يَغُرَّنَّكُمْ بِاللَّهِ الْغَرُورِ الحياء, as I said, and iman cannot be together in the same heart. So I say, my dear brothers and sisters, let us not be deluded in assessing ourselves in a world in which there are so much delusions, a world which makes us, many of us, evaluate ourselves more than what we really are, intellectually and spiritually and physically and otherwise. You and I must remember that our essential nature is what? حقيقتنا الذاتية، أصلنا الذاتي، صفتنا الذاتية، ما هي؟ الفقر الفقر العدم Our essential nature and quality is we were not. عدم Nothingness, non-existence. And even once we existed, our existence depends on the one who created us. فنحن فقراء ذاتيا Essentially, we are in need. That's our essential attribute. To be deluded about what? All of us, when we are deluded, it's because we don't know ourselves. We might have forgotten that we are essentially bankrupt, that we are essentially poor and needy, that we are essentially non-existent. And therefore... In this world, because of what it is, it makes us lose a quality that is so essential for our qulub and in our relationship with Allah عز و جل, and that is al-hayat. Hayat in every aspect. We call hayat sometimes bashfulness. Bashfulness, humility, and so on. But all of those are, I think, are characteristics, are elements of Hayat. None of them describes Hayat fully. I remind you that the word حياء is so special. Because in the Arabic language حياء comes from which verb? حياء وستحياء And what is حياء? To live. What is استحياء? To keep alive, to keep alive, to resuscitate, to revitalize, to bring life back. Istahya means also to show haya. Only in the Qur'anic Arabic, it is that way. Istahya means to be in haya, but it also means to keep alive. And that means if I don't have haya, I don't have any other way to live. I don't have HAAA See? That's the Arabic language. If I don't have HAAA and they're all here, deep. I don't have HAAA Allahu Akbar إِذَا لَمْ أَسْتَحِي إِذَا لَمْ أَسْتَحِي إِذَا لَمْ أَسْتَحِي If I do not show Hayah, I have not kept alive. I have contributed to death. To spiritual death. That's why Rasulullah ﷺ about this character of the heart, he said, إِنَّ لِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ خُلُقًا أَوْ إِنَّ لِكُلِّ دِينٍ خُلُقًا وَإِنَّ خُلُقَ الْإِسْلَامِ الْحَيَاءُ He says everything has a khuluq. Khuluq here means a defining characteristic. And the defining characteristic of Islam is Hayat. Haya in eating, haya in drinking, haya in walking, haya in speaking, haya in looking, haya in studying, haya in teaching, haya in communicating, haya in gender relationships, haya with parents, haya with children, haya with teachers, haya with elders, haya with younger. Haya. It's a constant of our deen. It's not a variable. Brothers and sisters, I beg of you, and Allah is the one who owns the hearts, may He open your hearts and mine to this truth. Be careful. Don't allow haya'to be taken away from you, and much of it has been taken away from us. You don't have to lose hayat to be modern. You don't have to give up your hayat to be democratic. You don't have to give up your hayat to be balanced and moderate. You don't have to give up your hayat to be free. It's what we own, what we have, what characterizes us. If you give up your haya, you have given up your Islam. If you give up your haya, you would have given up your iman. If you give up your haya, you would have given up the symbol of Islam. The defining character of Islam. My sister, you don't have to lose your hat to be modern, or free, or happy, or intelligent, or democratic, or moderate, or happy. My brother, my brother, the scholar, the da'iyah, the student, the parent. The very committed, the less committed, we do not have to lose haya'to be accepted as the fiber of our deen, as the core fiber of our deen. And a qalb without haya'is a naked qalb. A qalb without haya is a naked qalb, and a naked qalb is exposed to the elements. It can be hurt at any time. It's not protected. My dear sisters and brothers. Hardships and difficulties are part of the nature of this life. Call them challenges, if you will. Spiritual challenges, intellectual challenges, social challenges, moral challenges, physical challenges, political challenges, all sorts of challenges, financial challenges, all sorts of challenges, through every receptor in the human nature. of information. Eyes are subjected to hardships. Ears are subjected to hardships. Tongues are subjected to hardships. Hands and legs and sexual drives and food, eating drives, all are subjected to challenges. It's life. Nobody will ever live without those challenges. And yet, most of us, I would say, perhaps everyone, إِلَّا مَنْ رَحِمَ رَبِّي We strive to live to avoid any and every hardship and challenge. And we call it problem. No, it will never happen. It will never happen. هَذِي الدُّنْيَا دَارُ بَلَاءُ وَلَيْسَ الدَّارَ نَعْمَاءٌ هَذِي الدُّنْيَا دَارُ فَنَاءُ وَلَيْسَ الدَّارَ بَقَاءٌ This is dunya as you all know in the Qur'an and in the Sunnah and in every human experience. It is the fact. So, I need to adjust my qalb to that. And if my qalb responds to that in the proper way, my qalb will only be enriched. Versus when I receive those challenges and those difficulties and hardships, I express restlessness and discontent and displeasure and even grudge and anger and even worse. that only will turn against me and I will continue to suffer psychologically. Isn't it true? But if we accept it as part of the nature of life, and that Allah intends to enrich us if we are muwahid, to enrich us through those experiences of jalal, hardship. and difficulties are experiences of divine jalal, majesty. And Allah is jaleel. Can we remove the attribute of qahar from Allah? And that's Allah without qahar, without aziz, without muntakim, without adl, without jabbar. Is that Allah? Ta'ala Allahu anhalik. Allahu is bi kulli isma'ihi wa sifatih. Allah is with that and with Rahim, Kareem, Muhsin, Ra'uf, Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Is that too? When we experience these challenges, they are manifestations of divine... Jalal, majesty. And divine Jalal expressed to me, think with me, divine Jalal expressed to me means what? Allah is making himself known to me. Did you hear that? Because I claim, if I claim, I want to know Allah. I want to be with Allah as though I see him. Okay, my abd, here I am. And he manifests himself to me through an expression of jalal, an illness, a death, a pain. A grief, a sorrow, while I am striving to be that special muwahid. And he says, here I am, ya afdi. See me. As I hope you saw me, we saw him when he, subhanahu wa ta'ala, showed himself to us through his attributes of jamal. And I had a good job. And I had a good family. and I had good children and I had wealth and health at some time. Did I recognize him or did I not? If I recognized him then, he would help me to recognize him now when he shows himself in jalal to me. And then I say, Allahumma wafiqni li aqbala qaba'ik. At least I say, Ya Allah, help me accept. your divine decree. That I cannot change, but help me see its beauty in its majesty and accept it. Ya Rab. A poet said, Rahimahullah Ta'ala, Because one of the Salihun said, ورود الفاقات أعياد المريدين One Salih said, ورود الفاقات أعياد المريدين وَرُودُ الْفَاقَاتِ They're coming upon a person of challenges, of lack of having, of impoverishments. That condition is considered عِيد, plural, عَيَاد. It's considered عِيد of the مُرِيد. The murid, however, the one who wants Allah Azawajal. The one who wants to be with Allah as though he or she sees Allah Azawajal. When al-faqat come upon him, them with that irada and irada where is the irada in the qalb irada for Allah when Allah expresses himself to them through alfaqat oh that's my eid Allahu Akbar. And they go to Allah crying and weeping and connecting to Allah. رَبِّ لَكَ الْحَمْدُ اغْفِرْ لِي تُبْعَلَيْي ارْحَمْنِي اعِنِّي اغِثْنِي And in that condition when they are supplicating to Allah عز و جل In that condition so sincerely and lovingly they have connected to Allah. They have connected to Allah. And they wish to remain like that all the time sometimes. So the poet said, قَالُوا غَدَنِ الْعِيدُ مَاذَا أَن تَلَابِسُهُ قُلْتُوا خِلْعَةَ سَاقٍ حُبَّهُ جَرَعَ خِلْعَةَ سَاقٍ حُبَّهُ جَرَعَ Fakrun wasabrun huma thawbaya, thawbaya tahtahuma qalbun yara ilfahu al-ayyada waljumaa Allahu Akbar. They told me tomorrow is Eid, what shall you wear? Eid, not think with me. The Eid of the Mureed. They told me tomorrow is Eid, what shall you wear? I answered, the cloak of a water giver. Whose hub love I drank. Are you with me? They ask me, what shall you wear? Tomorrow is Eid. Eid, Eid for the murid. I said, khil'a tasaqin. The cloak given to me as a gift by the water giver. Whose love, hub love, I drank. Faqr wa sabr huma thawbaya. Faqr, destitution, need, and patience in that are my garments. are my garments. فَقْقُرٌ وَصَبَّرٌ Those are the garments the saqi gave me. Those are the garments the water giver gave me. Underneath which lies a heart, qalbun. With that, yara ilfahu al-a'yada wal-jum'a. A qalb that sees his beloved every Eid and every Jumu'ah. Wal-jum'a, not necessarily the Jumu'ah, the day of Jumu'ah. But the moment of Jam'ah Jam'ul Qalb ala Allah Jam'iyatul Qalb ala Allah Allah Majma'a Qulubana Alaik A Qalb that sees his beloved every Eid Eid is what comes again and again and again every Eid when the when your my heart is dispersed when the heart is dispersed when the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed when the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed We will not know Allah. But when the qalb is fully collected upon Allah Azzawajal, a moment of that is the Eid. And whether in prosperity or in adversity, faqr, there is sabr. That's the cloak with which I go meet my Lord, my beloved. أَحْرَى الْمَلَابِسِ أَن تَلْقَى الْحَبِيبَ بِهِ يَوْمَ التَّزَاوُرِ فِي الثَّوْبِ الَّذِي خَلَعَا The most preferred of garment to wear on the day of meeting with the beloved is the garment he gave you as a gift. And what was the garment he gave him as a gift? فَقْرٌ وَصَغَرٌ Ya abdi, tafarag. Empty your qalb. And I fill up. And I will be there. And he says finally, ad-dahru li ma'atamun. Ad-dahru li ma'atamun in ghibta. In ghibta. Ya amali. وَالْعِيدُ مَا كُنْتَ لِي مَرْءًا وَمُسْتَمَعًا الدَّهْرُ لِي مَأْتَمٌ إِنْ غِبْتَ يَا أَمَلِي And he says, Allahu Akbar, time, all time becomes a morning space for me. All time becomes a mourning field for me when you are absent. Oh, my desire. When an individual loses that presence in his qalb with Allah Azzawajal. When this mureed loses the jam'iyah, the collectedness, the... focus the one drive towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. When one loses that, and then the qalb is here and there, and he says, when that moment happens, all time, moment, but that equals like infinite time for me of mourning. Allahu Akbar. And what is my Eid? And that's why the Eid that he mentioned first. When is Eid? What is Eid for me? As long as my heart sees you and hears you. As long as I'm in that hal, in that hal, in that condition, that's my Eid. مَا دُمْتَ لِي مَرْءًا وَمُسْتَمَعًا That's why he says, rahimahullah ta'ala, somewhere else, someone else, فَلَا أَلْبَسُ النَّعْمَى وَغَيْرُكَ مُلْبِسِي فَلَا أَلْبَسُ النَّعْمَىٰ وَغَيْرُكَ مُلْبِسِي وَلَا أَقْبَلُ الدُّنْيَا وَغَيْرُكَ وَاهِبِي وَلَا أَقْبَلُ الدُّنْيَا وَغَيْرُ كَوَاهِبِي Says He, رحمه الله تعالى I will not accept to wear النعمة, the fine clothes if other than you dresses me. Excuse me. I will not accept The feathers of dresses, if other than you, Ya Allah dresses me. What is this na'mat to dress? Akramak Allah ya Bani. Bismillah. This person, this qalb, says, anything that comes to me of good, and of prosperity, and of ease, and of beauty, and of comfort, if it is not from you, I don't want it. If it is not from you, if you have not permitted it, if you have not sent it, if you have not willed it for me, loved it for me, I do not want it. وَلَا أَقْبَلُ الدُّنْيَا وَغَيْرُ كَوَاحِبِي And all dunya, all dunya, wealth and power, if it comes to me and it is not from you, I will say no. I will not accept it unless it is a gift from you and you only, Ya Allah. My dear sisters and brothers, one of the Salihun said, in a few minutes we have left, وربما وردت عليك الأنوار فَوَجَدَتِ الْقَلْبَ مَحْشُوًّا بِالْآثَارِ لا إله إلا الله فَارْتَحَلَتْ مِنْ حَيْثُ نَزَلَتْ الله أكبر فَارْتَحَلَتْ مِنْ حَيْثُ نَزَلَتْ رُبَّمَا وَرَدَتْ عَلَيْكَ الْأَنْوَارِ This qalb, ya Allah, I want to be with you as though I see your infinite beauty. So I claim, so I claim. Allah sends some Anwar from him. Anwar is a metaphor for anything that is beautiful and useful to my relationship with him, of knowing him, subhanahu wa ta'ala, and of... Subhanahu wa ta'ala, connecting with him in deeper ways and feeling the ease and the delight in doing that. Something very special in my relationship with him, Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Anur, a light, not in the physical sense, that makes something in my relationship with him, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, possible or easy or delightful even. Anwar. Maybe the lights have appeared on you. And the anwar of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala are available. Imagine them roaming in space, spiritual space, and they want to land in your heart. And they want to land in your heart. Allah always does that. And they want to land in your heart. فَوَجَدَتِ الْقَلْبَ مَحْشُوَّةً بالآثار And it found the heart filled and saturated with created things. Al-Athar. Because created things are just relics. They're not really, really that sense. The only real Allah is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because everything in essence was nothing. Relics. And it found my heart filled with relics. Attachment to this, attachment to that, hate for this, love for that, grudge for this, acceptance for that, spite. for this, like for that, hope for this, dislike for that of created things, nafsani. And it filled my heart, it found my heart filled with that, so it came to land, it did not find a landing ground. and a landing space, so it returned. So it returned. Subhanallah. My heart could be like that. Allah has sent his ni'mah, has sent his anwar, has sent his beauty for me to behold, but I did not prepare my heart to receive. لا تستبطئ من ربك النوال، واستبطئ من نفسك وجود الإقبال Allah is the Greatest. As He said, رحمه الله تعالى, لا تستبطئ من ربك النوال واستبطئ من نفسك وجود الإقبال Do not accuse your Lord as being late in sending you the grace. Accuse yourself in being late, in being ready. سبحان الله Ya Allah, ij'alna minalladhina yistami'una alqawla fayttabi'una ahsana. Allahumma tahhir qulubana. Allahumma zayyin qulubana laka wa liyawmi al-ardi alayk. Allahumma ja'alna na'buduka ka'annana narak. Allahumma ja'alna na'buduka ka'annana narak. Allahumma tahhir qulubana. بِكَ وَبِفَضْلِكَ وَبِرَحْمَتِكَ يَا أَرْحَمَ الرَّاحِمِينَ يَا رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ My dear brothers and sisters, of what I remind myself and you of, the least we can do, the least we can do, and woe on us if we don't even do that, raise your hands to Allah and pray. And ask Him to change the heart. Ask Him to make the heart receptive. to his grace that is everywhere, to his lights that are everywhere. Make our hearts ready to receive and make us leave this dunya in that condition where our hearts have been fully receptive to your anwar. Ya arham ar-rahmin, ya rabbal alameen. My dear brothers and sisters, please don't forget each other in dua. Don't forget this ummah of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in dua. Dua. Don't forget the kafir in dua. Don't forget the munafiq in dua. Don't forget the fasiq in dua. Don't forget ourselves in dua. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala change the conditions of the world to make it a more beautiful world. A world in which His beauty is experienced and seen and witnessed by all, if not by most, if not all. And in these days... these two days that I have been with you, if I have said anything wrong, or anything improper, or anything that Allah knows, and maybe some of you know, is not pleasing to Allah, I ask for your forgiveness. I ask for your pardon, after asking for the forgiveness and the pardon of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because in such a case, it is only my fault. My ignorance, my nafs, and the impact of shaitan upon my nafs. I seek refuge in Allah عز و جل that I remind you of him and yet myself forget him until we see you some other time, بإذن الله, in a condition of obedience of Allah عز و جل. May Allah bless and guard and protect you and your offspring and your loved ones. ones, and your relatives, and your neighbors, and may he make you lights for those around you. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

Allahumma ja'alna minhum. Ameen. Ya Allah, help me be with you as though I were to see your infinite beauty.

Allahumma ja'alni laka ka'ani ara kamala jamalik. Allahu Akbar. Ya Allah, let us be, help us be to you, with you, as though we witness your perfect and infinite beauty. إِنَّهَا لَا تَعْمَلْ أَبْصَارُ وَلَكِنْ تَعْمَلْ قُلُوبُ الَّتِي فِي الصُّدُورِ As though an answer comes and says, as Allah Azza wa Jalla says, verily, the heart, verily the eyes do not go blind. What goes blind is...

the heart inside the chest. In other words, oh my servant, you can see my infinite beauty with your heart if your heart is not blind. If my heart is not clouded, obscured, and blind, my heart is created to see divine beauty and divine majesty. But we have ascertained also...

The divine majesty is beauty. Allah is beautiful in His majesty. Keep that in mind.

Allah is beautiful in His majesty. Allah is beautiful in His majesty. All His attributes. whether attributes of majesty, جلال, such as القهار, such as العدل, such as المنتقم, such as العزيز, جلالي attributes, or جمالي attributes, such as الرحيم, الغفور, الكريم, المغني, سبحانه وتعالى, المعطي, سبحانه وتعالى, الرؤوف, both are beautiful when you contemplate deeply.

for Allah described all his attributes as beautiful وَلِلَّهِ الْأَسْمَاءُ الْحُسْنَةُ أَسْمَاءُهُ جَلَالِيَةٌ وَجَمَالِيَةٌ وَهِيَ كُلُّهَا أَسْمَاءٌ حُسْنًا and all his names as Allah says in the Quran whether therefore of majesty or of beauty are beautiful سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَحَالَ so even when we fear him there is beauty Beauty in that fear. Even when we have awe and reverence of him, deeper there is beauty in that. There is kamal also in that.

Lahu subhanahu wa ta'ala. إِنَّهَا لَا تَعْمَلْ أَبْصَارُ وَلَكِنْ تَعْمَلْ قُلُوبُ الَّتِي فِي الصُّدُورِ I am veiled, I am kept remote from Allah's beauty, not because it is not available, but because I do not see it. But because I do not see it. كَلَّا بَلْ أَرَانَ عَلَىٰ قُلُوبِهِمْ مَا كَانُوا يَكْسِبُونَ كَلَّا إِنَّهُمْ عَلْ رَبِّهِمْ يَوْمَئِذٍ لَمَحْجُوبُونَ The hijab against the Lord subhanahu wa ta'ala, the veil on our hearts. against experiencing the very special, personal, experiential, spiritual way, experiencing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is due to the qalbin veil.

محجوب Not that Allah is not. الله لا يحجبه شيء أليس كذلك؟ How could finite cover infinite? How could finite hide infinite? We are hidden, we are mahjoub, we are concealed, we, our hearts, do not see.

Yet he is, as he said, nearer to us than our jugular vein. ونحن أقرب إليه من حبل الوريد لكن لما أدرنا أعين بصائرنا أعين قلوبنا عن الله عن غير الوجهة لله إلى الله سبحانه وتعالى حرمنا من رؤية جماله عز وجل Because we deliberately to turn away the gaze of our quloob away from him, though he is, so we don't see him. We don't see his beauty. And what veils my qalb are the stains of my heart, my dear brothers and sisters.

And therefore we continue what we left off earlier today, matters of the heart. It's all about the heart. صاروا ولكن تعمل قلوب التي في الصدور and when the قلب is veiled and as we mentioned earlier the قلب has a dimension of it towards the نفس and a dimension of it towards the روح and when are we veiled when our قلب's dimension is all towards the نفس And our qalb becomes a nafs.

Our qalb is a nafs. So again I say to you, or to someone, or to something, I agree with you. I.

I love you from the bottom of my heart. Actually, from the deep abyss of my nafs. Because my heart is just the same. Our master, the great scholar, the noble saint, may Allah have mercy on him, Sultan of the saints, as he was known, Sayyidi Abdul Qadir. al-Jilani, the faqih of Baghdad in both Hanbali and Shafi'i fiqh as well as the most beautiful of the time, transparent heart.

أَهْلِ الْعِلْمِ وَأَهْلِ الصَّفَاءِ أَنَّهُ سُلْطَانُ الْأَوْلِيَةِ رحمه الله تعالى He was with an audience, big audience that he addresses, رحمه الله تعالى, in matters of their deen and in matters of related to life and to the hearts. And Allah gave that man كَرَامَات اللَّهُ يُكْرِمُ أَبْدَهُ بِمَا يَشَاءُ Allah honors and ennobles and dignifies his servant as he pleases. Sometimes without the servant knowing.

And of what Allah Azzawajal bestowed upon that wali, servant of Allah Azzawajal, is al-kalamu ala al-khawatir, ala khawatir al-qulub. This karama is mentioned about him by most scholars, including the critical... scholars of fiqh such as Ibn Taymiyyah even and Al-Imam Al-Dhahabi.

These are the grand names of Hadith and of Fiqh and so on. That Allah gave him those karamah. And he was sitting in an audience and one of the persons of the audience audaciously, with perhaps a little lack of adab, but maybe not knowing, not knowing himself, he says, Ya Shaykh, We spoke about the secrets of the hearts.

Eh, Sheikh, tell us about the premonitions of the heart. The last one of yore, he says to him, إِيشْ تِرِيدْ تَعْرِفْ أَنْتَ عَنِ الْقُلُوبِ وَأَنْتَ كُلَّكْ نَفْسٍ هكذا, it is written even in the Fath al-Rabbani. What do you want to know about the hearts and you are totally a self? What is the matter with you wanting to know about premonitions of the heart and you are totally a self? Allah Akbar.

And you are all a self. I must liberate my heart from my self. To be able to see divine beauty, to be able to see the divine reality embedded in everything created.

To see the attributes of Allah in everything, whether in prosperity or in adversity. Whether things go well for me or don't go well for me, because some of us see an inverted... Remember, for most of us, let's say it this way, remember Allah only when things are bad. Ya Allah, help me. And when things are so well, we are so deluded, so mahrur, so arrogant, so mutakabbir, that we don't think that God has anything to do with our prosperity.

prosperity, intellectual prosperity, social prosperity, ease at any level. We don't connect that. We connect that to my high IQ.

We connect that to my hard work. Work hard you get. I worked hard, I got.

And we belittle those who are not as fortunate as we are. Simply we say, because you didn't work as hard as I did. And we forget Allah Azza wa Jal. وَمَا بِكُمْ مِنْ نِعْمَةٍ فَمِنَ اللَّهِ Whatever you enjoy of favor, of that which pleases you, ni'mah, it is from Allah.

Internal or external favors. And some of us know Allah only also when we are happy. It's the opposite. Some of us know Allah when we are happy, when we are at ease. Alhamdulillah, Allah has been so good to me.

Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. And then if befallen by calamity, by hardship as though Allah doesn't exist. Why me?

What did I do? I don't deserve this. I prayed.

I fasted, especially those who pray and fast of us. I prayed, I fasted, I was in dhikr, I turned to Allah in du'a. Why this happened to me?

Why this happened to my child? Why this happened to my relatives? Why?

SubhanAllah. As though, in reality, I have never known that Allah is in ultimate control. ما شاء الله كان ما لم يشاء لم يكن What Allah wills will be.

What Allah does not will, will not be. Some of us are like that. فلا أرى الله لا أعرف الله في كونه I do not see, now seeing is spiritual, I do not see divine presence, majesty or beauty all the time.

Only as it suits my nafs. That's why he told him, you are a full nafs. You're not a heart yet. My heart is taken over by the tentacles.

Imagine the tentacles of the nafs. And the heart takes the identity of the nafs. And it is that nafs that loves, that nafs that hates, that nafs that agrees, that nafs that disagrees, that nafs that consents, that nafs that does not consent.

That nafs that drives forward or that nafs that withholds back. And yet, in my ignorance of my own nafs, I say my heart loves, my heart distastes, my reason accepts, my reason rejects. And yet, as we have... I hope understood earlier that my reason is simply subservient to what? To the condition of my qalb.

The qalb conditions my reason and my reason articulates what's in my qalb. In the language and in the logic of my environment. I must say like Sayyiduna Ibrahim alayhi salam, in this life, Ya Rabbi help me come to you. And so I say, Inni dhahibun ila Rabbi. So I say, Sayyiduna Ibrahim said, I am going to my God, to my Lord.

I am going. إِنِّي ذَاهِبٌ إِلَىٰ رَبِّهِ And Allah says about him in the Quran, وَإِنَّ مِنْ شِيْعَتِهِ لَإِبْرَاهِيمِ إِذْ جَاءَ رَبَّهُ بِقَلْبٍ سَلِيمٍ جَاءَ رَبَّهُ بِقَلْبٍ سَلِيمٍ Ibrahim says, I'm going to my Lord. And Allah tells us that Ibrahim came to his Lord. How did he come? Walking?

Is Allah in space and in time? Is Allah confined in causality? Ta'ala Allahu an thalik aluwan kabira Allah tells us He came to Allah with His qalb salim. Idh ja'a rabbahu bi qalbin salim So the movement towards Allah عز و جل is not Physical movement, of course.

It's a spiritual movement. It's the change that takes place in my qalb. As I change inside of me, my character inside of me, my inner image inside of me changes. When I change from arrogant to humble. From selfish to generous.

From angry to calm and patient. From greedy to benevolent, etc. From ignorant to more knowing. From demanding to gentle and kind. From unjust to just and even muhsin.

When those things, from lack of rahmah, could be a alim who lacks rahmah, lacks merciful love. lacks merciful love. From lacking merciful love to being rahim.

These changes of phases of the qalb is what constitutes movement towards Allah Azzawajal. That's al-qurbu min Allah Azzawajal. kullama tazayyanat sifati wa kharashtu an sifati al-bahimiyat was sabu'iyyati was shaytaniyyati ila sifatil malaa'ikiyyati kullama taqarrabtu min Allahi azza wa jal hadha huwa al-qurbu min Allah this is drawing nearer to Allah azza wa jal for as long as my attributes change from cattle-like attributes of a nafs, or predatory-like attributes of a nafs, or shaytani-like attributes of a nafs towards angel-like attributes of the nafs, I have moved forward towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala إِنِّي ذَاهِبٌ إِلَىٰ رَبِّي So in life, my dear sisters and brothers, when we are faced with challenges of any sort, come back, do this, don't do that things that are I would say not befitting of a seeker of the divine do you see that it's not befitting of a seeker of the divine The quality of what I seek determines the way we should be, isn't it? If what we seek is cheap, we're going to be cheap. If the quality of what we seek is mediocre, then the way we shall reach it is mediocre.

the manner, the fashion, the modality. But if what we seek is grand, nay, this is divine, then I should do that with the most beautiful possible ways. It will determine and identify my mode and the modality.

Of seeking my aim, my grand aim, my dear sisters and brothers. إِنِّي ذَاهِبٌ إِلَى رَبِّي If anything calls us back, things that are base, things that are low, things that are selfish or greedy or impolite even, let alone unethical or immoral or criminal, let alone that. Even in a moment where the qalb is so connected to Allah and I am drawn to do something just normal and average at that time the heart will say please forgive me one of the salihat women as sayida who which one which one no that's not the one I mean this one The wife of Sayyidi Ahmad ibn Abi al-Hawari, the great student of Al-Imam Abu Sulaiman al-Darani. He says to us about his saintly wife. He had a wife who was a waliya.

He's wali and his wife was a waliya. Allahu Akbar. Baytun ahabbahu Allah. This is a household beloved to Allah Azza wa Jalla. So he said, I called her once, you know, for some regular chores at home.

Ya Rabia. And he said, and she doesn't answer me. She did not answer me. That's not her.

her habit. She's polite. And she did not. He said an hour later, and he did not insist.

He was a wali. He was a character. And a while later, she comes back to me and says, here I am, Sayyidi.

What happened, Ya Rabia? He said, please forgive me. Kuntu fi halin ma'Allah. Oh, Akbar. I was in a condition spiritual with Allah.

I could not. I could not respond. I am sure his joy only increased, his love for her only increased.

سَمِحْنِي يَا سَيِّدِ كُنْتُ فِي حَالٍ مَعَ اللَّهِ Forgive me, Ya Sayyidi, I was in my heart. In a hal, in a hal, with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. إِنِّي ذَاهِبٌ إِلَى رَبِّي Subhanallah.

Rasulullah ﷺ was asked once, ما الإسلام؟ What is Islam? He answered, صلى الله عليه وآله وصحبه وسلم, الإسلام أن يسلم قلبك لله تعالى. This is the all-encompassing generic answer to what Islam is. Everything else comes within it.

He answers in this case, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Al-Islam is when your heart surrenders that is lovingly to Allah. Your qalb. My moods in my qalb. my drives in my qalb, my likes in my qalb, my dislikes in my qalb, my hopes in my qalb, my wishes in my qalb, my dreams in my qalb.

All of them are lovingly subservient to what Allah loves. And yuslima qalbuka, not lisanuka, not your tongue, not only your external senses, not your body, not only your intellect, intellect academically speaking, speaking. You know when I like to make a difference when I say intellectual between academic things, ideological things, intellectual things and things that have seeped into the heart after that.

There's a difference between the two. So he said an yuslima qalbuka lillahi ta'ala second and consequently wa an yaslaman nasu awil muslimuna min lisanika wayadik al qalbu awil قلب أولا فإذا أسلم القلب أسلمت الجوارح وسلمت الجوارح مما لا يرضي الله عز وجل And then he said, and that your limbs and your senses or that people and Muslims are safe from your tongue and your hands. إِذَا أَسْلَمَ قَلْبِي هَكَذَا أَكُونَ But if I am rude with my tongue, rude, let alone abusive, and let alone arrogant, and let alone backbiting, and let alone lying, and let alone testifying falsely, if my qalb is with Allah, then people are safe from my tongue.

People are safe from my tongue. My family is safe from my tongue. My children are safe from my tongue. My neighbors, my co-workers, my Muslim brothers and sisters. and everyone else, because the khalaq of a Muslim is all-encompassing.

I am not true with one and a liar with one else, with someone else. وَأَنْ يَسْلَمَ الْمُسْلِمُونَ مِنْ لِسَانِكَ وَيَدِكْ يَدِكْ Your hand, which connotates my power. Whatever power I have, financial power, political power, military power, social power, family power, work power, employer over employee power.

Any power I have, people are safe from me. This is Islam. It begins with the heart, then the senses translate it.

of having a relationship with Allah as though I were to see his infinite beauty as we said لأنها لا تعمل أبصار ولكن تعمل قلوب التي في الصدور because it is not the eyes that go blind but it is the hearts inside of our chests that go blind and we need to remove the veil of darkness upon our hearts A man came to Rasulullah ﷺ and asked him, in what al-Imam ibn Muwajah and others related, أَيُّ النَّاسِ أَفْضَلُ These are practical consequences now. أَيُّ النَّاسِ أَفْضَلُ Ya Rasulullah, tell us, who amongst people is... best, most virtuous.

And ayunasi afdhal in the language of Rasulullah ﷺ I believe because this exists in many many texts they mean by it in other words something very good, not necessarily in the superlative form, not necessarily that there's nothing else like that. أَفْضَلْ though in the superlative form, grammatically speaking, it means here simply comparative form. أي من أفضل الناس أي من أفضل الناس of those who are best of people and most virtuous of people of them not these and no one else. He says صلى الله عليه وسلم كل مخموم القلب هكذا بذل أي الناس أفضل يا رسول الله كل مخموم القلب صدوق اللسان quote, end quote كل مخموم القلب صدوق اللسان everyone whose heart is مخموم do you know what مخموم means? that's why I'm not going to translate it for now every مخموم of the قلب everyone whose قلب is مخموم The tongue is saduq, but saduq you know, right?

Saduq means very truthful, very truthful, saduq b'siqatil mubalagah, and that's it. exactly what the companions said you see it's a beautiful fiqh issue the companions didn't know everything about the Quran even though they were the masters of that language and they needed the teaching of the teacher to tell them what it means The Mujtahidoon of the Sahaba, the masters of the language, said they didn't understand the word that Rasulullah ﷺ mentioned. What did he mean? What did you mean by مخموم القلب?

صدوق اللسان we know. فما مخموم القلب? He answered ﷺ هو التقي النقي لا إثم فيه ولا بغي ولا غل ولا حسد What is مخموم القلب يا رسول الله?

He answered not responding in the linguistic definition of مخموم and I shall mention that later but he gave them what he means by مَخْمُوم القَلْبِ He used a word that literally has a meaning, but he meant by that not the literal meaning, but the consequence of that literal meaning. And he says, first, التَّقِيُّ تَقِي One who is Allah conscious. يَتَّقِي غَبَبَ اللَّهِ يَتَّقِي مَا لَا يُرْوِ اللَّهِ التقي is a person who keeps away and does his or her best to keep away from that which Allah is not pleased with.

with does not love keeps him or her distant or remote from Allah keeps away from the probable consequences of the wrath or the anger or the displeasure of Allah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala يتقى التقي اللهم اجعلنا من المتقين النقي النقي means what? clean clean remember earlier today the qalb that is what? أجرد أجرد أجرد نقي clean, purified At-taqiyyun naqiyy, la ithma feehi, wala baghya, wala ghilla, wala hasad, wherein there is no ithm. Ithm is the inclination on our part to transgress.

Any type of transgression. وَلَا بَغْيِ بَغْي is the inclination on our part to aggress, to be aggressive. أَبْغِي عَلَى غَيْرِ I aggressed something, somebody.

I committed an aggression against somebody. بَغَيْتُ عَلَيْهِ وَالْأَيَادُ بِاللَّهِ In which there is no, he said, no إثم, no بَغْي, وَلَا Ghila, al-ghil vindictiveness, ghalal ma'a, water boils when inside of me I feel that boiling condition inside of me to take revenge and to hate and to be spiteful and grudgy. La ghila feeh, wa la hasad.

And you all know what hasad is. Translated sometimes as what? Hmm. Not just jealousy, oh, it's envy, violent envy, because it's inside something improper, negative, nafsani, shaitani, nafsani, shaitani. So when you feel that, that's hasad.

Jealousy as jealousy is just, it's not necessarily negative. But when there is that tendency inside of us to want what the other has, but with an internal violent feeling, internal violent feeling, that's hasad. He said, this is al-makhmoom al-qalb, al-qalb.

Al-qalb, makhmum al-qalb. What is khumama in the Arabic language? Khumama wal-kumama. Garbage. Khamamtu al-bayta ayy kanastuhu.

The verb the house means I swept it I cleansed it, I cleaned it I removed all the dust and the garbage and so on The qalb is swept clean from the garbage inside From the garbage inside. Hasad is garbage. Ghil is garbage. Ghish is garbage. Haqq is garbage.

This is garbage. Allah loves that heart that is clean from garbage. So every time, sisters or brothers, you vacuum the house, remember this. Wallahi, I'm telling you, there is nothing that is there that does not teach you something about you and Allah.

So if you are one who is aware of Allah always, yes, when you clean you say, Ya Allah, tahir qalbi. When you wash your hands, Ya Allah, wash my qalb. When you see the dirt from your hands coming out, you see the dhunub, stain, coming out through tawbah. Ya Allah, grant me tawbah. Nothing that happens that is not connected to Allah.

We simply do not connect. But everything is there to teach me, always, about tawheed. about my relationship with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, about the opportunity to connect with Allah azza wa jal in a very strong way until the moment of my last breath. Sayyiduna wa mawlana Rasulullah ﷺ once was with a child, a child.

That child's name was, all of you know, Anas ibn Malik. who's very smart and spiritually intelligent mother said I give you this child for your service Ya Rasulullah when he was five or six or seven or less than that I give him to you for your service a mother doing that for her child I would give my soul when it is born to Rasulullah to serve under his shoe to rear me in his household. Allahu Akbar.

That mother was so intelligent and so spiritually special. Allah gave her that thabat to say, take this child, Ya Rasulullah, I want him to serve you. And the great gift is that Rasulullah accepted.

Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And now this is a child. Nowadays we live in a time when we say teaching should always be entertaining. And we don't teach our children values that are adult values. Positively spiritual.

spiritually, morally, adult values. No, no, let them play, let them have fun, let them come on. We changed and we want our children to be toys themselves until we grow and we are 50 and 60 and we still play with toys at our level.

A bumper sticker said on one car I read, the one who dies with most toys is the winner. Yeah. Children have toys, and we call ourselves adults, and we have toys.

And some of us never graduate. He teaches this child, he teaches this child! SubhanAllah.

He tells him, يَا بُنَيْهِ First of all, he treats him, he calls him, يَا بُنَيْهِ Oh my son. The fuqaha of a lot of beautiful things that they have said about this word, Rasulullah calling the young Anas, my son. And they have tafri'at, wastintajat, beautiful fiqhi conclusions and moral conclusions.

It's just wonderful. Anyways, he says to him, يَا بُنَيْهِ A child. When Rasulullah ﷺ passed away, Anas was probably no older than maybe nine or so, or ten.

He tells him, يَا بُنَيْهِ A child, listen to this. Scholars and du'a and students of ilm and the regular people like me. Listen to that. يَا بُنَيْهِ If you can or can't become or be, and your heart is not a cheat for anyone, then do it.

For that is from my sunnah. Allahu Akbar. O my son, if you are able to wake up every morning and to retire every evening, while in your heart there is no gish, no ill feeling or ill intent in your heart for anyone, please do that. That is my sunnah.

Have you heard of sunnah like this? That is my sunnah. Sunnah al-quloob, sunnah al-ahwal, sunnah al-sifat, sunnah al-jamal al-quloob.

The sunnah of this kind, not only the sunnah, alhamdulillah, of the external appearances. Most of us, perhaps, have never heard the word sunnah at the level of the quloob. It is the sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ to have a makhmum qalb. It is the sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ not to have a makhmum qalb.

to have gish. It is a sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ to be rahim and ra'uf, mercifully loving, lovingly merciful and kind and gentle. It is the sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ to be muhsin, benevolent and magnanimous.

It's a sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ to forgive and forgive even 70 times a day to the same person. It is the sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ. All of these are texts. He said, وَذَلِكَ مِنْ سُنَّتِي وَمَنْ أَحْيَا سُنَّتِي كَانَ مَعِي فِي الْجَنَّةِ أَوْ قَالَ وَمَنْ أَحْيَا سُنَّتِي فَقَدْ أَحَبَّنِي وَمَنْ أَحَبَّنِي كَانَ مَعِي فِي الْجَنَّةِ That is my sunnah, and whosoever revives or resuscitates my sunnah has hubb from me. And who has hubb from me, shall be with me in Jannah.

Allahumma rizuqni hubba nabiyyika sallallahu alayhi wa sallam bihubbika ya Allah. Allahumma rizuqna hubba nabiyyika. بحبك يا الله لمرزقنا حب نبيك بحبك يا الله يا أرحم الراحمين I need to work on this sunnah My qalb My qalb wants to be with Allah as though it sees infinite beauty of Allah. First, أحتاج أن أتخلى قبل أن أتحلى. أليس كذلك؟ I need to liberate before I fill up.

I need أتفرغ قبل أن أملأ. يبنى آدم تفرغ لعبادتي أملأ صدرك غنى. As Rasulullah ﷺ mentioned that Allah says, You empty first, يا ميعبد.

Empty and I fill up. أخمم ذلك القلب Cleanse, اكنس ذلك القلب first. Remove the garbage.

Remove the garbage. The inclinations inside, the attachments inside. inconsistent with divine beauty.

Are you with me? Remove the garbage inside of my qalb that is inconsistent with divine beauty and garbage is inconsistent with beauty in general. divine beauty in particular. Let me do that.

أَتَخَلَّىٰ قَبْلَ أَنْ أَتَحَلَّىٰ You don't wear jewels on your body, sisters, or you don't wear beautiful clothing on your body, brother, while underneath that clothing is so much dirt and stench. First, remove that. and put the huli for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala does not enter the heart that is not clean one of the salihun Sidi Abdul Qadir al-Jilani comments on this hadith of Rasulullah s.a.w. in this beautiful way which connects to what we said when Rasulullah s.a.w. said إِنَّ الْمَلَائِكَةَ Look how they live, these people.

What they hear is always connected at the deeper dimensions to Allah عز و جل. When Rasulullah صلى الله عليه وسلم said, إِنَّ الْمَلَائِكَةَ لَا تَدْخُلُ بَيْتًا فِيهِ Kalbun wala sawar. End of quote. Hadith al-Sahih.

As all of you know, or most of you know, or some of you know, this authentic hadith teaches that Rasulullah ﷺ said, verily, the angels, malaikat al-rahmah, the special angels, malaikat al-istifa'a, malaikat al-ikram, malaikat al-hifdh, and so on, not al-malaikat al-kiram al-katibun. Those are always with us even if we go into the dumpster. إِنَّ الْمَلَائِكَةَ Do not enter a house or a space or a room in which there is a dog or images. The point is, Sidi Abdul Qadir al-Jilani, look where he takes it, besides the fiqh-y apparent dimension of that.

He says, rahimahullah ta'ala, if the malaika, these nawrani creatures of Allah azawajal, these special creatures of Allah azawajal, do not enter a space, a house, in which there is a dog, and there are images. Angels do not enter a house in which there is a dog. In your qalb there is a wild dog.

And images, images, sculpted relationships, sculpted attachments that I have for other than Allah Azza wa Jal, that are so deeply imprinted and rooted and in my heart. I love this and I love that and I have such a strong attachment to something that is not permitted by Allah azza wa jal. That is outside of the divine loving consent. Images in my qalb.

Asnaam in my qalb. Idols in my qalb. How would I expect with those attachments that I have for other than Allah, which I don't have for Allah. And I say Allah is in my qalb.

God is in my heart. Allahu Akbar. If every claimant were to be given in accordance to his or her claims, then a person who does not have a heart at all would claim and say, my heart is burning out of love.

Did you understand? لَوْ اُعْطِيَ كُلُّ مُدَّعٍ بِمَا يَدَّعِي لَدَّعَ الْخَلِيُّ حُرْقَةَ الشَّجِيحِ If every claimant were to be given in accordance to his or her claim, just because of claim, then the one who doesn't have a heart, assume a person doesn't have a heart, a creature doesn't have a heart, would also say, my heart is burning out of love. إِنَّ الْمَلَائِكَةَ لَا تَدْخُلُوا بَيْتًا There is a dog in it, and there are no pictures of it, he said, may Allah bless him and his family and companions. He said, may Allah bless him and his family and companions, they do not meet in the heart.

لا يجتمعان في قلب They cannot be together in the same heart. Two things cannot be together in the same heart, said he ﷺ. This is sunnatu rasoolillah, sunnatu al-quloobi min sunnani rasoolillah ﷺ.

What is that, ya Rasulullah? Al-imanu wal-hasad. Al-Imanu wa al-Hasad He said, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, who said? The doctor Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam If I have hasad in my qalb The moment I have hasad said what happens to iman it's not there it's not there out of the rahmah of Allah he doesn't treat me as a kafir or as a murtad rahmatun min Allah fathlun min Allah joodun min Allah samahatun min Allah safhun min Allah maghfira tun min Allah and now يَحْكُمَ عَلَيَّ بِالْكُفْرِ أَوْ بِالْرِّدَّةِ Subhanahu wa ta'ala that he doesn't judge me on account of that condition as a murtad Well, he has an apostate or as a kasr At the moment I have hasad inside, what happens to iman? Why?

He said so. He said, الإيمان والحسد لا يجتمعان في قلب They cannot be in the same heart. سبحان الله سبحان الله He also said, صلى الله عليه وآله وصحبه وسلم, لا يجتمع شح وإيمان في قلب رجل مسلم.

End of quote. لا يجتمع شح وإيمان في قلب رجل مسلم. What is shuh?

Miserliness, greed, the internal greed, that when we are so self-focused and self-centered, whether it is about materially speaking... or emotionally speaking, or morally speaking, a person who is amongst us, نفساني الشحيح لأن النفس بخيلة شحيحة أمارة بالسوء If my cousin is a person who is amongst us, Qalb is a nafs, and that nafs is noted to be known as greedy, selfish. That's why we say selfish, nafsani.

Selfish, nafsani. Shuh and Iman cannot be together in the same heart of a Muslim person. Allah Akbar. Allahu Akbar. And I say, Ya Rabbi, inni ureedu an akuda laka ka'annani ara kamala jamalik.

And I say, Ya Allah, I want a love to be to you, with you, as though I witness your infinite beauty. So you hear something in your heart saying, Ya Abdi, clean your heart. And you will see. Ya Rabbi, I want to see with my eyes. I want to see the beautiful nature outside.

Your beautiful creation outside. I want to see. Ya Abdi, open your eyes. And remove the dirt in your eyes. And you will see.

This is what I'm reminding myself and my sisters and brothers of. Another characteristic. Sad Rasulullah ﷺ.

الحياء والإيمان قرنا جميعا إذا رفع أحدهما ورفع الآخر حديث صحيح أيضا Al-Hayā'u wa al-Imān. Hayā'and Imān, you all know Imān, right? Imān, we call faith. Al-Imānum ma waqara fil qanb.

Imān and Hayā'are forever joined together. If one of them is lifted, then the other one is lifted. That means what? Follow me.

If at a moment I lose haya, what happens? It's not there. If I totally lose haya, I will totally lose iman.

And if I lose iman, I will lose haya. To the extent I have less of Iman would mean in this case, to the extent I have more or less of Hayat. Ya Ibadullah, I remind myself in you in such a world. of delusions, ghoror, not illusions only, of delusions.

Delusion is when we assess ourselves more than what we really are. Al-maghroor. Shaytan is the ultimate gharur and maghrur. Why? Because he assessed himself more than what he really is and what Allah allowed him.

فَلَا يَغُرَّنَّكُمْ بِاللَّهِ الْغَرُورِ Allah says, don't allow the deluder delude you as he was deluded. Delusion is assessing yourself more than what you are and that's not reality. Delusion is assessing yourself more than what you are and more than what you are is not real.

That's not your real value. Don't be deluded. Don't be deluded.

وَلَا يَغُرَّنَّكُمْ بِاللَّهِ الْغَرُورِ الحياء, as I said, and iman cannot be together in the same heart. So I say, my dear brothers and sisters, let us not be deluded in assessing ourselves in a world in which there are so much delusions, a world which makes us, many of us, evaluate ourselves more than what we really are, intellectually and spiritually and physically and otherwise. You and I must remember that our essential nature is what? حقيقتنا الذاتية، أصلنا الذاتي، صفتنا الذاتية، ما هي؟ الفقر الفقر العدم Our essential nature and quality is we were not. عدم Nothingness, non-existence.

And even once we existed, our existence depends on the one who created us. فنحن فقراء ذاتيا Essentially, we are in need. That's our essential attribute.

To be deluded about what? All of us, when we are deluded, it's because we don't know ourselves. We might have forgotten that we are essentially bankrupt, that we are essentially poor and needy, that we are essentially non-existent. And therefore...

In this world, because of what it is, it makes us lose a quality that is so essential for our qulub and in our relationship with Allah عز و جل, and that is al-hayat. Hayat in every aspect. We call hayat sometimes bashfulness. Bashfulness, humility, and so on.

But all of those are, I think, are characteristics, are elements of Hayat. None of them describes Hayat fully. I remind you that the word حياء is so special.

Because in the Arabic language حياء comes from which verb? حياء وستحياء And what is حياء? To live. What is استحياء?

To keep alive, to keep alive, to resuscitate, to revitalize, to bring life back. Istahya means also to show haya. Only in the Qur'anic Arabic, it is that way.

Istahya means to be in haya, but it also means to keep alive. And that means if I don't have haya, I don't have any other way to live. I don't have HAAA See? That's the Arabic language. If I don't have HAAA and they're all here, deep.

I don't have HAAA Allahu Akbar إِذَا لَمْ أَسْتَحِي إِذَا لَمْ أَسْتَحِي إِذَا لَمْ أَسْتَحِي If I do not show Hayah, I have not kept alive. I have contributed to death. To spiritual death.

That's why Rasulullah ﷺ about this character of the heart, he said, إِنَّ لِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ خُلُقًا أَوْ إِنَّ لِكُلِّ دِينٍ خُلُقًا وَإِنَّ خُلُقَ الْإِسْلَامِ الْحَيَاءُ He says everything has a khuluq. Khuluq here means a defining characteristic. And the defining characteristic of Islam is Hayat. Haya in eating, haya in drinking, haya in walking, haya in speaking, haya in looking, haya in studying, haya in teaching, haya in communicating, haya in gender relationships, haya with parents, haya with children, haya with teachers, haya with elders, haya with younger. Haya.

It's a constant of our deen. It's not a variable. Brothers and sisters, I beg of you, and Allah is the one who owns the hearts, may He open your hearts and mine to this truth.

Be careful. Don't allow haya'to be taken away from you, and much of it has been taken away from us. You don't have to lose hayat to be modern.

You don't have to give up your hayat to be democratic. You don't have to give up your hayat to be balanced and moderate. You don't have to give up your hayat to be free.

It's what we own, what we have, what characterizes us. If you give up your haya, you have given up your Islam. If you give up your haya, you would have given up your iman. If you give up your haya, you would have given up the symbol of Islam. The defining character of Islam.

My sister, you don't have to lose your hat to be modern, or free, or happy, or intelligent, or democratic, or moderate, or happy. My brother, my brother, the scholar, the da'iyah, the student, the parent. The very committed, the less committed, we do not have to lose haya'to be accepted as the fiber of our deen, as the core fiber of our deen.

And a qalb without haya'is a naked qalb. A qalb without haya is a naked qalb, and a naked qalb is exposed to the elements. It can be hurt at any time.

It's not protected. My dear sisters and brothers. Hardships and difficulties are part of the nature of this life.

Call them challenges, if you will. Spiritual challenges, intellectual challenges, social challenges, moral challenges, physical challenges, political challenges, all sorts of challenges, financial challenges, all sorts of challenges, through every receptor in the human nature. of information.

Eyes are subjected to hardships. Ears are subjected to hardships. Tongues are subjected to hardships. Hands and legs and sexual drives and food, eating drives, all are subjected to challenges. It's life.

Nobody will ever live without those challenges. And yet, most of us, I would say, perhaps everyone, إِلَّا مَنْ رَحِمَ رَبِّي We strive to live to avoid any and every hardship and challenge. And we call it problem. No, it will never happen. It will never happen.

هَذِي الدُّنْيَا دَارُ بَلَاءُ وَلَيْسَ الدَّارَ نَعْمَاءٌ هَذِي الدُّنْيَا دَارُ فَنَاءُ وَلَيْسَ الدَّارَ بَقَاءٌ This is dunya as you all know in the Qur'an and in the Sunnah and in every human experience. It is the fact. So, I need to adjust my qalb to that.

And if my qalb responds to that in the proper way, my qalb will only be enriched. Versus when I receive those challenges and those difficulties and hardships, I express restlessness and discontent and displeasure and even grudge and anger and even worse. that only will turn against me and I will continue to suffer psychologically. Isn't it true? But if we accept it as part of the nature of life, and that Allah intends to enrich us if we are muwahid, to enrich us through those experiences of jalal, hardship.

and difficulties are experiences of divine jalal, majesty. And Allah is jaleel. Can we remove the attribute of qahar from Allah? And that's Allah without qahar, without aziz, without muntakim, without adl, without jabbar. Is that Allah?

Ta'ala Allahu anhalik. Allahu is bi kulli isma'ihi wa sifatih. Allah is with that and with Rahim, Kareem, Muhsin, Ra'uf, Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Is that too? When we experience these challenges, they are manifestations of divine...

Jalal, majesty. And divine Jalal expressed to me, think with me, divine Jalal expressed to me means what? Allah is making himself known to me. Did you hear that? Because I claim, if I claim, I want to know Allah.

I want to be with Allah as though I see him. Okay, my abd, here I am. And he manifests himself to me through an expression of jalal, an illness, a death, a pain.

A grief, a sorrow, while I am striving to be that special muwahid. And he says, here I am, ya afdi. See me.

As I hope you saw me, we saw him when he, subhanahu wa ta'ala, showed himself to us through his attributes of jamal. And I had a good job. And I had a good family.

and I had good children and I had wealth and health at some time. Did I recognize him or did I not? If I recognized him then, he would help me to recognize him now when he shows himself in jalal to me. And then I say, Allahumma wafiqni li aqbala qaba'ik. At least I say, Ya Allah, help me accept.

your divine decree. That I cannot change, but help me see its beauty in its majesty and accept it. Ya Rab. A poet said, Rahimahullah Ta'ala, Because one of the Salihun said, ورود الفاقات أعياد المريدين One Salih said, ورود الفاقات أعياد المريدين وَرُودُ الْفَاقَاتِ They're coming upon a person of challenges, of lack of having, of impoverishments.

That condition is considered عِيد, plural, عَيَاد. It's considered عِيد of the مُرِيد. The murid, however, the one who wants Allah Azawajal.

The one who wants to be with Allah as though he or she sees Allah Azawajal. When al-faqat come upon him, them with that irada and irada where is the irada in the qalb irada for Allah when Allah expresses himself to them through alfaqat oh that's my eid Allahu Akbar. And they go to Allah crying and weeping and connecting to Allah. رَبِّ لَكَ الْحَمْدُ اغْفِرْ لِي تُبْعَلَيْي ارْحَمْنِي اعِنِّي اغِثْنِي And in that condition when they are supplicating to Allah عز و جل In that condition so sincerely and lovingly they have connected to Allah.

They have connected to Allah. And they wish to remain like that all the time sometimes. So the poet said, قَالُوا غَدَنِ الْعِيدُ مَاذَا أَن تَلَابِسُهُ قُلْتُوا خِلْعَةَ سَاقٍ حُبَّهُ جَرَعَ خِلْعَةَ سَاقٍ حُبَّهُ جَرَعَ Fakrun wasabrun huma thawbaya, thawbaya tahtahuma qalbun yara ilfahu al-ayyada waljumaa Allahu Akbar. They told me tomorrow is Eid, what shall you wear?

Eid, not think with me. The Eid of the Mureed. They told me tomorrow is Eid, what shall you wear?

I answered, the cloak of a water giver. Whose hub love I drank. Are you with me?

They ask me, what shall you wear? Tomorrow is Eid. Eid, Eid for the murid.

I said, khil'a tasaqin. The cloak given to me as a gift by the water giver. Whose love, hub love, I drank. Faqr wa sabr huma thawbaya.

Faqr, destitution, need, and patience in that are my garments. are my garments. فَقْقُرٌ وَصَبَّرٌ Those are the garments the saqi gave me.

Those are the garments the water giver gave me. Underneath which lies a heart, qalbun. With that, yara ilfahu al-a'yada wal-jum'a.

A qalb that sees his beloved every Eid and every Jumu'ah. Wal-jum'a, not necessarily the Jumu'ah, the day of Jumu'ah. But the moment of Jam'ah Jam'ul Qalb ala Allah Jam'iyatul Qalb ala Allah Allah Majma'a Qulubana Alaik A Qalb that sees his beloved every Eid Eid is what comes again and again and again every Eid when the when your my heart is dispersed when the heart is dispersed when the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed when the heart is dispersed the heart is dispersed We will not know Allah. But when the qalb is fully collected upon Allah Azzawajal, a moment of that is the Eid. And whether in prosperity or in adversity, faqr, there is sabr.

That's the cloak with which I go meet my Lord, my beloved. أَحْرَى الْمَلَابِسِ أَن تَلْقَى الْحَبِيبَ بِهِ يَوْمَ التَّزَاوُرِ فِي الثَّوْبِ الَّذِي خَلَعَا The most preferred of garment to wear on the day of meeting with the beloved is the garment he gave you as a gift. And what was the garment he gave him as a gift?

فَقْرٌ وَصَغَرٌ Ya abdi, tafarag. Empty your qalb. And I fill up. And I will be there. And he says finally, ad-dahru li ma'atamun.

Ad-dahru li ma'atamun in ghibta. In ghibta. Ya amali.

وَالْعِيدُ مَا كُنْتَ لِي مَرْءًا وَمُسْتَمَعًا الدَّهْرُ لِي مَأْتَمٌ إِنْ غِبْتَ يَا أَمَلِي And he says, Allahu Akbar, time, all time becomes a morning space for me. All time becomes a mourning field for me when you are absent. Oh, my desire. When an individual loses that presence in his qalb with Allah Azzawajal. When this mureed loses the jam'iyah, the collectedness, the...

focus the one drive towards Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. When one loses that, and then the qalb is here and there, and he says, when that moment happens, all time, moment, but that equals like infinite time for me of mourning. Allahu Akbar. And what is my Eid? And that's why the Eid that he mentioned first.

When is Eid? What is Eid for me? As long as my heart sees you and hears you.

As long as I'm in that hal, in that hal, in that condition, that's my Eid. مَا دُمْتَ لِي مَرْءًا وَمُسْتَمَعًا That's why he says, rahimahullah ta'ala, somewhere else, someone else, فَلَا أَلْبَسُ النَّعْمَى وَغَيْرُكَ مُلْبِسِي فَلَا أَلْبَسُ النَّعْمَىٰ وَغَيْرُكَ مُلْبِسِي وَلَا أَقْبَلُ الدُّنْيَا وَغَيْرُكَ وَاهِبِي وَلَا أَقْبَلُ الدُّنْيَا وَغَيْرُ كَوَاهِبِي Says He, رحمه الله تعالى I will not accept to wear النعمة, the fine clothes if other than you dresses me. Excuse me.

I will not accept The feathers of dresses, if other than you, Ya Allah dresses me. What is this na'mat to dress? Akramak Allah ya Bani.

Bismillah. This person, this qalb, says, anything that comes to me of good, and of prosperity, and of ease, and of beauty, and of comfort, if it is not from you, I don't want it. If it is not from you, if you have not permitted it, if you have not sent it, if you have not willed it for me, loved it for me, I do not want it.

وَلَا أَقْبَلُ الدُّنْيَا وَغَيْرُ كَوَاحِبِي And all dunya, all dunya, wealth and power, if it comes to me and it is not from you, I will say no. I will not accept it unless it is a gift from you and you only, Ya Allah. My dear sisters and brothers, one of the Salihun said, in a few minutes we have left, وربما وردت عليك الأنوار فَوَجَدَتِ الْقَلْبَ مَحْشُوًّا بِالْآثَارِ لا إله إلا الله فَارْتَحَلَتْ مِنْ حَيْثُ نَزَلَتْ الله أكبر فَارْتَحَلَتْ مِنْ حَيْثُ نَزَلَتْ رُبَّمَا وَرَدَتْ عَلَيْكَ الْأَنْوَارِ This qalb, ya Allah, I want to be with you as though I see your infinite beauty.

So I claim, so I claim. Allah sends some Anwar from him. Anwar is a metaphor for anything that is beautiful and useful to my relationship with him, of knowing him, subhanahu wa ta'ala, and of...

Subhanahu wa ta'ala, connecting with him in deeper ways and feeling the ease and the delight in doing that. Something very special in my relationship with him, Subhanahu wa ta'ala. Anur, a light, not in the physical sense, that makes something in my relationship with him, Subhanahu wa ta'ala, possible or easy or delightful even.

Anwar. Maybe the lights have appeared on you. And the anwar of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala are available.

Imagine them roaming in space, spiritual space, and they want to land in your heart. And they want to land in your heart. Allah always does that. And they want to land in your heart.

فَوَجَدَتِ الْقَلْبَ مَحْشُوَّةً بالآثار And it found the heart filled and saturated with created things. Al-Athar. Because created things are just relics.

They're not really, really that sense. The only real Allah is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because everything in essence was nothing. Relics. And it found my heart filled with relics.

Attachment to this, attachment to that, hate for this, love for that, grudge for this, acceptance for that, spite. for this, like for that, hope for this, dislike for that of created things, nafsani. And it filled my heart, it found my heart filled with that, so it came to land, it did not find a landing ground. and a landing space, so it returned. So it returned.

Subhanallah. My heart could be like that. Allah has sent his ni'mah, has sent his anwar, has sent his beauty for me to behold, but I did not prepare my heart to receive. لا تستبطئ من ربك النوال، واستبطئ من نفسك وجود الإقبال Allah is the Greatest.

As He said, رحمه الله تعالى, لا تستبطئ من ربك النوال واستبطئ من نفسك وجود الإقبال Do not accuse your Lord as being late in sending you the grace. Accuse yourself in being late, in being ready. سبحان الله Ya Allah, ij'alna minalladhina yistami'una alqawla fayttabi'una ahsana.

Allahumma tahhir qulubana. Allahumma zayyin qulubana laka wa liyawmi al-ardi alayk. Allahumma ja'alna na'buduka ka'annana narak. Allahumma ja'alna na'buduka ka'annana narak.

Allahumma tahhir qulubana. بِكَ وَبِفَضْلِكَ وَبِرَحْمَتِكَ يَا أَرْحَمَ الرَّاحِمِينَ يَا رَبَّ الْعَالَمِينَ My dear brothers and sisters, of what I remind myself and you of, the least we can do, the least we can do, and woe on us if we don't even do that, raise your hands to Allah and pray. And ask Him to change the heart. Ask Him to make the heart receptive. to his grace that is everywhere, to his lights that are everywhere.

Make our hearts ready to receive and make us leave this dunya in that condition where our hearts have been fully receptive to your anwar. Ya arham ar-rahmin, ya rabbal alameen. My dear brothers and sisters, please don't forget each other in dua.

Don't forget this ummah of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam in dua. Dua. Don't forget the kafir in dua.

Don't forget the munafiq in dua. Don't forget the fasiq in dua. Don't forget ourselves in dua. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala change the conditions of the world to make it a more beautiful world.

A world in which His beauty is experienced and seen and witnessed by all, if not by most, if not all. And in these days... these two days that I have been with you, if I have said anything wrong, or anything improper, or anything that Allah knows, and maybe some of you know, is not pleasing to Allah, I ask for your forgiveness.

I ask for your pardon, after asking for the forgiveness and the pardon of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Because in such a case, it is only my fault. My ignorance, my nafs, and the impact of shaitan upon my nafs. I seek refuge in Allah عز و جل that I remind you of him and yet myself forget him until we see you some other time, بإذن الله, in a condition of obedience of Allah عز و جل. May Allah bless and guard and protect you and your offspring and your loved ones.

ones, and your relatives, and your neighbors, and may he make you lights for those around you. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.

Transcript for:Understanding the Heart's Journey to Allah

Transcript for:
Understanding the Heart's Journey to Allah