Note: The following transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Insha'Allah my beloved brothers and sisters, in this last episode I want to speak about some things that will aid us and support us in repentance. If we come with these 15 points, Insha'Allah it will help us in repentance and it will also help us as well in staying away and avoiding sins and shortcomings.
1. Sincerity
The first one is having sincerity and turning to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. This is from the greatest thing that helps a person stay away from a sin, avoid a sin, and it also helps a person to repent. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala told us in the Qur'an about the story of Nabilullah Yusuf. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us in that verse that Nabilullah Yusuf was prevented from falling short and committing a sin because he was a sincere person; he had Ikhlas. Our enemy Shaitaan, when he promised to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala and made the oath that he's going to misguide us, said, "Allah, I'm going to misguide them all. I'm going to make sure they all come to Jahannam with me." Then he gave an exception, saying, "The ones I will not be able to misguide are the ones who are sincere."
This shows that our enemy Iblis has admitted that sincerity is a factor that's going to work against him, so we need to come with it. My beloved brothers and sisters, sincerity helps with repentance; it also helps with staying away from sins. Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah in his Kitab al-Ubudiyah said that if a person is sincere, has sincerity in his heart, he's a sincere individual. Allah Ta'ala will choose that person, give life to that person's heart, bring you close to Him, and prevent you from anything that may harm you. Anything that goes against servitude, anything that goes against what pleases Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, Allah will protect you from it. If you are sincere for Allah Ta'ala's sake, He will choose you, give life to your heart, and protect you from everything that may harm you.
Sincerity helps; it goes a very far distance. It will take you somewhere very far. So we need to adorn ourselves with sincerity.
2. Love of Allah
The second point is that we have to fill our hearts with the love of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. We love Him Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, and the way to attain the love of Allah is in two ways: trying to attain beneficial knowledge and coming with righteous actions. This fills your heart with the love of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. The more you adorn yourself with knowledge and learn more about who Allah is, study His names and His attributes, the love of Allah will increase in your heart.
The more you implement what you know and act in accordance with it, the more your love of Allah will increase. The Prophet ﷺ told us that the person who performs the obligatory prayers, comes with the wajibat, and then adds on to the voluntary acts, righteous actions, Allah will love you. And once Allah loves you, what will He do? Allah will be your hearing, and you won't hear except that which is good. Your eyesight will only see that which Allah Ta'ala wants for you. Your hand that you grab with will be protected from anything that's not right. Your legs will be taken to the right places, the good places.
Then the hadith says, "If he asks me for something, I give it to him. And if he seeks refuge in something from me, I'll protect him from it." That person has reached and attained love. Love protects you; it brings about repentance. People who love Allah Ta'ala do not want to anger Him, so they stay away from doing sins. And if they do sins, they hasten to ask Him for forgiveness.
When they do the sin and go against what Allah Ta'ala prohibited, or they stay away from that which they were told to do, they remember that they have done a crime and a sin. As soon as they remember that they've done a sin, they remember how evil their action was and they remember Allah Ta'ala.
I ask you all a question: How could someone remember Allah at a time when he's committing sin? It can only come from if there was a relationship with Allah prior to this action of yours, if you had a bond with Him before. If you loved your Lord, and you're a human being, you can make a mistake. It may occur from you, but your heart was connected to Allah. The minute you slipped, you remember your Creator. You start thinking over your actions: Why did I say this? Why did I do this? Why did I act in this particular way? You start accounting for yourself. That is a person who's got love in his heart.
3. Struggle
The third thing that helps with repentance, my beloved brothers and sisters, is that you have to struggle. We are in a consistent, continuous battle with Shaytan and our nafs. We have to fight every single day. We can't give in to our desires. Allah Ta'ala said, "The ones who fight and strive and exert effort, those are the ones who are going to guide them to the right path." Repentance comes from struggling, putting effort in, and hard work. The people who are like that will attain it. If you surrender and give in, this nafs will take you to destruction and it will bring you all sorts of harm.
Abdullahi Mubarak said in lines of poetry, "The person, you will see them dwelling in evil, and they become slaves for their nafs." Have we not seen people, subhanAllah, who are drug addicts? They are deeply into sins, and then what happens is, those people, when you look at them, they are crying for help. They are dying. They are thinking of committing suicide. They are emotional and they feel loneliness. They are always crying that no one cares for them and no one wants them. All of this is because this nafs is an enemy of Allah.
If you do not become a slave of Allah, you are going to definitely be a slave to your desires and Shaytan. Ibn Al-Qayyim said, "They ran away from being slaves to Allah, and they ended up becoming slaves to their nafs and Shaytan."
"Did I not command you, O Children of Adam, not to worship Shaytan? Indeed, he is to you a manifest enemy." He diverted you to worship Shaytan. Is he going to take you to a good place? Is he going to give you what you want? Or is he going to take you to a path where you're going to be consistently struggling and you're going to be consistently in stress, pain, and agony?
Sulayman ibn Abd Malik was said to have never loved reciting poetry, and there was only one line of poetry he ever read. He said, "If you do not disobey your Hawa, your desires, if you don't disobey it, your desires will lead you to places where you're going to be slandered."
It's going to take you to a destructive path. You're going to be the story of the town. You're going to be the discussion of the city. People are going to be dwelling over your honor and your reputation, all because you followed your desires. And that's always the case. We all know that when we do something wrong, it always ends up becoming accusations. So the best way to do is do not obey your desires.
4. Shorten Your Hopes
The fourth thing that aids and supports you in repentance is قَصْرُ الْأَمَل وَتَذَكُرِ الْآخِرَةِ. Looking at this world as though it's short. Remembering that this life is very short and always reminding yourself of يَوْمُ الْقِيَامَةِ, the other stage in our life, the real and ultimate life. Consistently reminding yourself of that. The poet said, "Shorten your thoughts and your desires in this world, and you will find success."
Look at this dunya as though it's short, something very small. You're going to find success if you do that. To show a person is really smart and clever, the evidence to show that so and so is clever is when you see him see this dunya to be very short. That is a person who is truly smart and clever.
Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab narrated that the Prophet ﷺ said to him, "Be in this dunya as a stranger or a person who is crossing a road." Like a traveler. Be in this world, a stranger and a traveler. And that's all you should see yourself in this dunya. You're a stranger. How is a stranger when he goes to a village? He's a stranger. You are a stranger in this dunya, and you are like a traveler.
When the morning would come, he would never wait for the evening. He used to say, "If the morning comes, do not wait for the evening. If the evening comes, do not wait for the morning. Take your health and benefit from it now. Use your life now and benefit before death comes to you."
For that reason, Ibn Aqeel, may Allah have mercy on him, in his book Al-Funoon, said something very powerful, extremely powerful, a very deep statement. He said, "No one's actions become pure and his situation becomes rectified unless he comes with قَصْرُ الْأَمَلِ."
If you want your actions to be good and if you want your life and everything about your life to be rectified, then be a person who sees this dunya to be very short. He went on to say, "Anyone who counts his time and his lifespan and looks at it like a deathbed, your whole entire actions will become perfect."
If you just look at this entire world as a stepping stone, if you look at it as a moment you wake up and then you go to sleep, if you look at it that short, you'll make sure you work hard. A lot of the people who are doing sins, if you ask them, "Repent," they say, "No, no, I'll do it when I'm 40." They don't believe in قصر الأمل; they think they can live for too long.
That same person, if an angel or someone came to them or even a doctor came to them and said, "You are not going to live more than 7 days," does the person remain the same or does he change? He changes. He rectifies his situation; he starts to work hard, goes to the masjid, and spends his life in the masjid. Many people we've seen have been told, "You have cancer; you're not going to live for more than a month." That person was found to be in the front line every day in the masjid.
So when you live your life with قصر الأمل like that, you'll do good. You will repent every time you do a little mistake.
5. Preoccupy Yourself with Beneficial Things
The fifth thing that helps a person to repent and rectify their situation is الاشتغال بما ينفع. You need to preoccupy yourself, my beloved brothers and sisters, with that which will benefit you. وتجنب الوحدة والفرار. Stay away from being alone and stay away from free time where you're not doing anything. Sins creep in when a person is not doing that which is beneficial.
If you're laughing, joking, or using your gadgets, these things bring about sins; they creep in like that. Also, being alone—if you know you're a person whose nafs is not really pure yet, you know your nafs is going to call you to things which are haram—don't be alone and don't be by yourself. Stay away from that.
Also, don't make yourself free; always do things, whether it be reading or exercising. Do things which are beneficial for you, either for your hereafter or your worldly affairs. Preoccupy yourself with something; busy yourself with something. Do not sit around and just do nothing. This is detrimental for you and it pushes you to sins.
Walid Ali can look at the wolf. The wolf, when it wants to hunt and catch the herd of sheep or even the goats or the deer or the buffaloes, tries to take one outside the jama'ah. It tries to take it out. If once that buffalo or that baby cub leaves the rest, it destroys it. It destroys it while it's with its family and it's with its mother and father and it's with the herd. It won't even dare to go inside because they're going to all kill him.
The Prophet told us something similar to that. He said to us, "The wolf eats the sheep that's alone." The Prophet was trying to say that Shaytan does the same. Shaytan takes you away from the jama'ah; he takes you away from the masjid, from your family, and from good, righteous people. You get away from them, and the minute you start to become alone, he has you by yourself. He whispers to you, tells you things, and brings thoughts to your mind that are not good.
Try to be around good people, noble people.
6. Stay Away from Triggers
The sixth point is to stay away from things that bring the urge, that bring about the desire. Stay away from things that are going to remind you of evil doings or things that are going to remind you of the sins. Stay away from those things. Some people have problems with gadgets; maybe that's where their problem comes from. Stay away from it.
Some people have problems particularly with the people they're hanging around with; they're the ones that are making them do this. Stay away from them. If you look at a lot of people, it is that one look that they give to something that just brings about so many problems. They're watching TV series, and then something comes from there; they see things and become addicted to watching indecent things. Stay away from all of this.
Or they are with a group of people, and he knows that he hasn't got a job. He's looking for a job, and his friends are making good money; they're selling drugs. What does he do? They keep telling him, "Oh yeah, you know what? I've got fifty thousand; this last week I just made fifty thousand."
This person has walked away from all of this. Stay away from those people. What they want to do is bring you back to those darknesses and those evil doings. Stay away from things that bring those thoughts into your mind. Go to people who are simple, easy, and humble, who will only remind you of that which is good.
7. Befriend Righteous People
The seventh thing that helps you and supports you in repentance is befriending righteous people. Being with good people and staying away from the evil doers is connected to our previous point. Righteous people and noble people are always going to push you to that which is good. They are of a lot of value and a lot of khair for you.
If you hang around with bad people, you're going to regret it in this world and you're going to regret it on the Day of Judgment. You're going to regret it for being with these people, looking up to these evil doers. They will have a bad effect on you. The good people, on the other hand, you will benefit from their presence. You will benefit from everything regarding them.
If they are silent, you see the beauty in their silence. They are being silent at the time when it's appropriate. And when they speak, you hear the wisdom in their words, as the poet said. That's the good people. Their silence is just beauty, and their speech and their utterance is wisdom, showing you how smart and clever they are.
8. Consider the Consequences
The eighth thing that helps and aids you in repentance is looking at the ending of everything. This thing I'm doing, where is it going to lead me to? The way I'm acting, where is it going to lead me to? Al-Imam Ibn Al-Jawzi said in his Kitab Sayyid al-Khatir, a very powerful statement. He said, "If a smart person distinguished between fulfilling his desires in the minute that he's fulfilling his desires and also compared that to how long? An hour you're going to do zina, okay, one hour you do zina. And guess what? That one hour of zina that you're going to do, you're going to regret it for a very long time."
I remember a brother who committed zina with a woman, then she got pregnant from it. He told her, "Do an abortion." She said, "I didn't do any abortion," and his life went down. He was only 15. At the age of 15, he was a father, you see, and now he has to raise that child and be part of that child's life. All of it happened in what? He said to me, "It happened in an hour."
I said to him, "One hour of joy that you were looking for has now become what? It has become you spending the rest of your life in regret." You're not going to regret having a child, but you've got a child from a wedlock. This is not your child in Islam, Shara'an. So look what you've done to your child, etc.
So compare the joy that you're looking for and the evil outcome that it's going to have. Ibn al-Jawzi said this is what a wise person should do. But to be honest, he said, the wise person would have, if he's wise and smart, compared the two and realized, "You know what? The truth is, the regret I'm going to be in for a very long time is going to hurt. I'm going to stay away from it."
If anyone gives me anything in this world, I don't want it because I know the regret that's going to come from it. But Ibn al-Jawzi said that what's going to push you away from all of that is غَيْرَ أَنَّ سَكْرَةَ الْهَوَى تَحُولُ بَيْنَ الْفِكْرِ وَذَلِكِ. Thinking like that, what gets, what blurs it and takes you away from thinking correctly is the desires.
So the person says, "But I never saw it like that. I never saw it like that. It was only an hour." What did the person see it as? The person saw it as something else because the desire was pushing him to it.
9. Ponder the Benefits of Leaving Sins
The ninth point that's going to help and aid you in repentance is استحبار الفوائد, thinking and pondering on the benefits of leaving sins. I advise you to go to the Kitab Ibn al-Qayyim wrote, الدعوة الدواء. In there, he mentions the benefits of leaving sins. From them is that Allah Ta'ala gives that person. The benefits of leaving sins is that Allah Ta'ala increases your Iman.
Also, Allah Ta'ala gives you beauty and nur. Allah gives you haybah, respect amongst the people. Allah Ta'ala also gives you shyness. Allah also Ta'ala gives that person Iman increasing. Allah also gives them a high station. Allah, so many things. So you need to go and look at the benefits of leaving sins and what it has.
10. Patience
Number ten is thinking and pondering over أن الصبر عن الشهوة أيسر من الصبر على ما تجيبه الشهوة. To be patient from fulfilling your desires is easier than being patient on fulfilling your desires. I mean to be patient from not fulfilling your desires and not doing what your nafs is calling you to is actually easier than going out and fulfilling your desires.
The patience that's required from you after what it does to you. And I kind of mentioned that in the statement of Ibn Al-Jawzi where it leads you to so many things that you have to be patient. Again, patient. Why? Why do you have to be patient for ten years for something you've done for one hour? Or twenty years for something you've done for an hour?
Was it not easier to be patient for fulfilling that desire that minute than the ten-year patience or twenty-year patience that you have to be in? Think about that.
11. Recognize the Harm of Sins
Number eleven: Look at the harm that sins have and the evil outcome that it has. Wallahi, many of us already know that. Humiliation, disrespect, how the person is so weak and vulnerable because of the sins that they do. You'll see it. I mean, you go and you see, go to London, go to the underground. You see poor people begging, alcoholics begging for food.
The humiliation that sins have put them through. Some of the Salaf saw a man walking on the streets, begging and asking. They said, "This person forsook Allah when he was young, and now Allah has forsaken this person at the age that he or she is in." That's the harms of sins. You're humiliated; you have no honor anymore.
12. The Power of Du'a
Number twelve: Du'a, supplication. The du'a, the supplication helps with repentance. To say, I meant to say that which the Prophet ﷺ used to say, "رَبِّ اغْفِرْ لِي وَتُبْعَ عَلَيَّ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ تَوَابٌ رَحِيمٌ." Begging Allah ﷻ and supplicating to Him ﷻ. Supplication helps and aids you in repenting. It also helps you to stay away from the sins.
وَقَالَ رَبُّكُمْ وَدُعُونِي أَسْتَجِبَ لَكُمْ. Your Lord, Allah ﷻ, He said, "Supplicate to Me, beg Me. I will accept your du'a." وَلِذَٰلِكَ رَبِّ اغْفِرْ لِي وَتُبْعَ عَلَيَّ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ تَوَابٌ رَحِيمٌ. Begging Allah ﷻ and supplicating to Him.
He said, "مَا ضَاقَ بِالْمَرْءِ أَمْرٌ فَاسْتَعَدَّ لَهَا عِبَادَةَ اللَّهِ إِلَّا جَاءَهُ الْفَرَجُ." There is not a person who has been put through hardship and is suffering and prepares himself for worship, except Allah opens all doors for them.
وَلَا أَنَاخَ بِبَابِ اللَّهِ ذُو أَلَمٍ إِلَّا تَزَحْزَحْ عَنُ الْهَمُ وَالْحَرَجُ. There is not a person who knocks on the door of Allah سبحانه وتعالى who is suffering and is going through pain except Allah removes from that person the حرج, the distress and the pain and the agony that that person is enduring or feeling.
13. Observe the Condition of Sinners
The 13th thing that will help you in repentance is النَّظَرُ فِي حَالِ الْعُصَاةِ. Look at the situation of the criminals; look at the people who are sinning. Are they in any good, or are they actually in harm? Shaykh al-Husayn said something very powerful: "مَنْ أَرَاجَ السَّعَادَةَ الْأَبَدِيَّةَ فَلْيَلْزَمْ عَتَبَةَ الْعُبُودِيَّةَ." Anyone who wants eternal happiness should remain at the door of servitude.
Hasan al-Basri said something very powerful: "إِنَّهُمْ وَإِنْ تَغْتَقَتْ بِهِمُ الْبِغَالَ وَأَمْلَجَتْ بِهِمُ الْبَرَاضِينَ فَإِنَّ ذُلَّ الْمَعْسِيَةِ لَا يُفَارِقُ قُلُوبَهُمْ." These people, however much they have the dunya and they've been given the glamours and the glitters of this dunya and they feel like they're enjoying themselves, they've got airplanes, they've got cars, they've got everything, "فَإِنَّ ذُلَّ الْمَعْسِيَةِ لَا يُفَارِقُ قُلُوبَهُمْ." The humiliation of sins doesn't leave their hearts.
They humiliate those people; when you sit with them, you feel how weak they are. "أَبَى اللَّهُ إِلَّا أَنْ يُذِلَّ مَنْ أَعْصَاهُ." Allah refuses to accept to humiliate the people who are sinners. Allah is going to always humiliate the sinners.
14. Patience and Endurance
Number fourteen: الصبر والمصابرة, patience and endurance, especially in the beginning. It's harder to be patient halfway into the sin; it's easier to be patient at the beginning. That's why it's important to have الصبر والمصابرة في بداية الأمر. Be patient; don't look, don't buy the gadget, don't stay by yourself, don't talk to this person. The beginning is easier.
15. Seek Support
Last but not least, the fifteenth point is to present your situation to someone who can help you. Go to someone who can help you, who can advise you, who you can consult. Sharing is caring, and also a problem shared, a pain that's shared, is a problem that's halved. If you go to someone who is righteous, noble, a person who keeps your secret, presenting your situation to that type of person will definitely help you and support you in repentance.
These 15 points that I mentioned are the 15 points that I believe, if we all come with them, will help us to repent and turn back from our mistakes and even avoid the sins before they even start.
I ask Allah, رب العرش العظيم, the Lord of the thrones, that He forgives us for our sins and our shortcomings. I also ask Allah to forgive me for any mistakes or shortcomings I might have come with whilst delivering this series.
سبحانك اللهم وبحمدك، أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله، أستغفرك و أتوب إليك. السلام عليكم.
