Note: The following transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Asalaamu Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. Welcome to another episode of A Seat at the Table. And with me I have two esteemed guests, Jazakumullahu Khayran, we have Adam, we have Ibrahim, and we're going to be talking today a little bit about addictions.
Now, when we talk about addictions here, I'm asking you guys to draw on your experiences of what you've seen in school, in uni, with your friends, generally speaking, with people you know of, inshallah ta'ala, we're not dealing with anything personal or specific, but just we really, really want to know the kind of issues people are facing from your experiences that you've seen, you've observed, your friends and so on, and hopefully some solutions to those in the light of Islam, in the light of the Qur'an and the Sunnah. So can I start with you, Adam, you can start it off, what are you thinking about? No, it's a very important topic, and I think one of the biggest challenges they face in this day and age is addictions. And which addiction do you think we can start talking about? What do you think is, if I was to ask you, number one addiction that people your age, you think they have, what is it? I think generally, in this era, it's everything to do with the internet.
So that includes social media, that includes online gaming, and chatting with people, and I think that's one realm of addictions. Okay, cool. So let's start, why don't we start like this? Let's start with some general guidelines for overcoming addiction in Islam.
The first thing is to realize that you can't achieve anything without Allah's help. And I think this is the biggest mistake, in my view, that most people make when they're dealing with addictions, is that they believe that they have to find it within themselves to overcome that addiction. But if you look at what we ask Allah, اللهم رحمتك أرجو فلا تكلني إلى نفسي حرفة عين Don't leave me for a blink of an eye.
If you leave me to myself, even for a blink of an eye, I'm going to mess up. So it's not the case that you can overcome an addiction by yourself. And that leads you then, if you start thinking of an addiction as something that I need Allah's help to overcome, I can't overcome it by myself, then you start thinking of it very differently.
You start thinking about du'a, you start thinking about the issue of sabr, about patience, in the sense of patience in keeping away from sin, and you start thinking about the condition of the heart, and you start thinking about things other than the direct consequences. For example, if someone's addicted to their mobile phone, okay, switch your phone off, keep your phone away, give your phone to someone else. Those are all valid solutions.
But they ignore the bigger issue here, which is that you can't achieve anything without Allah's help. And therefore, you need to turn to Allah to ask Allah's help to get rid of these habits. And human beings, they have habits, right? Like we know that people habitually make mistakes.
كُلُّ بَنِ آدَمَ خَطَّةً وَخَيْرُ الْخَطَّاءِنَا التَّوَأَبُودُ
All of the children of Adam frequently make mistakes. That is the nature of people. You make mistakes, you make it again, you make it again, you make it again.
But one of the most important things here is, I believe, is the role of istighfar. And we're going to inshallah come on to this when we talk about some specific addictions. But just as a last sort of introductory point, why I think istighfar is so valuable is a lot of people who are suffering from addictions struggle to make tawbah.
What do I mean by that? They struggle to feel real regret for what they've done. They struggle to stop doing it, which is a condition of tawbah, right? They struggle to make an intention never to do it in the future because their intention is that, you know, give me another five minutes and I'll be doing it again. So they struggle to bring any of the conditions of tawbah.
Those three are the conditions? Those are the three conditions of tawbah. If you don't, if it doesn't involve the rights of someone else, the fourth one being making up for what you did, if you stole something or, you know, backbiting or what have you. So people struggle with these three things.
They struggle to feel regret because they're still addicted. They're still enjoying the feeling of their addiction. They are still doing the same.
They haven't managed to stop it. And they're struggling to find the resolve in themselves to say that I'm not going to do it again. But istighfar doesn't require those three things.
It just requires realizing that if you keep on doing this, there's going to be, in fact, what does istighfar require? Two things. The person knows.
يَعْلَمُ أَنَّ لَهُ رَبًّا يَغْفِرُ الذَّمْبُ وَيَأْخُذُ بِالذَّمْبِ
That's what istighfar requires.
Two things. That you know that your Lord forgives and you know that your Lord punishes. So you realize that, okay, if I don't stop what I'm doing and if Allah doesn't forgive me, I'm going to be in trouble.
And so if I don't get forgiveness from Allah, I'm going to be in trouble. And there's going to be consequences. Consequences in the dunya, which we've seen from the phone, the social media.
There are consequences to this addiction in the dunya, right? And there are consequences which are greater in the akhira, even worse in the akhira. So when the person realizes, okay, I'm doing something wrong, and I'm doing something, I have to, you know, there's going to be a problem for me if I keep doing this. It's going to lead me to a problem in the dunya and the akhira.
Consequences. Consequences. So the meaning of maghfira is actually to cover something up.
The word, the root word itself is to cover something up. So it's like you're saying to Allah, regret, you know inshaAllah I'm working on it, but just take this problem away from me and stop the consequences happening to me. The punishment, the hardships in the dunya and the akhira.
So the sekhwar stops the punishment from happening for that. You're asking Allah, don't cover up the sin. Take away the consequences, take away the punishments, even if the person hasn't yet got to the point where they have complete regret.
So I feel at this, recognizing that Allah is the one who forgives and Allah is the one who punishes and I need Allah's forgiveness and I am doing something wrong, but I'm still struggling with it. I'm still going on. I haven't got through the process yet.
That in itself can be enough that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says to the person, i'mal ma shi'ta faqad ghafartu lak. Do whatever you want, I've forgiven you. And that hadith mentions the one who does the sin over and over again, right? But he knows, anna lahu rabban yaghfiru zanb wa yakhuzu bil zanb.
He knows, I have a Lord that forgives and a Lord that punishes. And I know I need Allah's forgiveness, so I ask for Allah's forgiveness. And that's the beginning, is that every time this person does this sin or has this addictive habit, the first thing is they recognize it.
Okay, I am addicted. You know, like, I know it's funny, but you know, when they get together, the non-Muslims, they get together and they do those like, you know, halaqat or circles for people who are addicted, and he has to put his hand up and say, hi, you know, I'm Tim and I'm an addict, you know. Acknowledge it.
You don't have to acknowledge it to other people, this is the kuffar, they have this. They acknowledge it to other people and they sit in a circle and say, hi, my name is Tim and I'm an addict. But what they really need is you need to acknowledge it to Allah, that oh Allah, I messed up, I'm doing something wrong, I know it's not good for me, I know there are consequences, I'm not taking it lightly, I know you can punish me for this, but I also know that you can forgive me for it.
So forgive me for it. That's really important. And dua, asking Allah to help you to overcome it.
فَلَا تَكِلْنِي إِلَى نَفْسِي طَرْفَةَ عَيْنٍ
Don't leave me to myself for the blink of an eye. If the issue is, and I'm sure we'll get onto this later, issues regarding fahisha, immorality, looking at things that shouldn't be, chatting to people they shouldn't be and what have you, then asking Allah, اللهم طَهِّر قَلْبِي وَحَسِّنْ فَرْجِي Oh Allah, purify my heart and give me chastity and make me someone who is chaste. So give me chastity, purify my heart, like the Prophet ﷺ made dua to that young man who came and said, يَا رَسُولُ اللهِ إِذِنِي بِزِنَةً Oh Messenger of Allah, allow me to fornicate, give me permission to fornicate.
And in the end of the hadith, the Prophet ﷺ makes dua for him and says, اللهم طَهِّر قَلْبَهُ وَحَسِّنْ فَرْجِي Oh Allah, purify his heart and give him chastity, grant him chastity. That in itself is just asking Allah, recognizing that Allah is the one who is going to help me to overcome this addiction that I have and this problem that I have. And that I think is a big, big step forward, استغفار, recognizing it and then taking specific actions because we've said that if you just rely on Allah and you believe that that is تَوَكُّل, it's not تَوَكُّل until you do the أسباب, in your hands.
And this is where we get on specific things and we start talking about specific addictions and we spoke about mobile phone. So I have a question, like how does a person do استغفار? So there are many, there are many forms of استغفار, right, in the sunnah. The simplest of which is just to say استغفر الله, I ask Allah's forgiveness.
There are some, the one that is called سيد الاستغفار, is part of the morning and the evening أذهار, اللهم أنت ربي لا إله إلا أنت خلقتني وأنا عبدك وأنا على عهدك ووعدك ما استطعت أبوء لك بنعمتك علي وأبوء بذنبي فاغفر لي فإنه لا يغفر الذنوب إلا أنت This is called سيد الاستغفار, the king of استغفار, the best استغفار The head of it, the chief of it, the best you can do. But even for someone to say استغفر الله العظيم الذي لا إله إلاه الحي القيوم أتوب إليه Whatever form of استغفار they find from the sunnah, but the key is to recognize I have a Lord that punishes and forgives and I need Allah's forgiveness, I need Allah's help. But now we said needing Allah's help, okay, I need Allah's help and I trust in Allah to help me.
But I still have to do my part. Allah doesn't need me to do it because Allah doesn't need me to do anything. But the sunnah of Allah, the way of Allah with His creation is you have to come with a means.
وَمَنْ أَرَادَ الْآخِرَةَ وَسَعَى لَهَا سَعِيَهَا
If you want the Akhira, you have to go and run for it and work for it. You cannot just say I want the Akhira, I want Jannah, wishful thinking. You know, exactly.
لَيْسَ الْإِمَانُ بِالتَّمَنِّي
Iman is not wishful thinking. It's you have to actually go and work for it. So now you look at this sin and say, okay, you mentioned the sin of the phone and the addictions and whatever related to the internet.
So a person has to look at how is the shaitan getting into this. And I also think it's an important point here, a person is really important that they blame themselves and realize their own role in this problem. Because a lot of people blame other people, right? You know, and if you look at the ayah, وَقَالَ الشَّيْطَانُ لَمَّا قُضِيَ الْأَمْرُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ وَعَدَكِمْ وَعَدَ الْحَقِّ وَوَعَدْتُكُمْ فَأَخْلَفْتُكُمْ وَمَا كَانَ لِيَ عَلَيْكُمْ مِنْ سُلْطَانٍ إِلَّا أَنْ دَعُوتُكُمْ فَاسْتَجَبْتُمْ فَلَتَلُومُونِ وَلُومُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ I called you, the shaytan will say, I gave you dawah, you answered.
Don't blame me, blame yourselves. So yes, the shaytan takes advantage, but he takes advantage of what's in your heart. So asking Allah to renew your iman, اللَّهُمَّ جَدِّدْ إِمَانَ فِي قَلْبٍ O Allah renew the iman in my heart.
Asking Allah to purify your heart, because the shaytan isn't bringing something to your heart that's not already there. He's giving you dawah to something that is there already. He's watering the plant over there.
And then looking at what is already, you know, from the things, if it's the phone, what can I do to get rid of it? Like what can I do to cut it down? What can I do to reduce the amount of time I'm on it? What can I do if my haram usage of my phone takes place at certain times, how can I get the phone away from me at those times? Or how can I use technology to reduce this happening to me while making istighfar all the time? So we'll pause that thought on the phone, because we're going to come back to it. I want to hear a bit from Ibrahim, because I want to bring you into the conversation a bit. What do you see among people your age, a bit older than you, a bit younger than you, what are they struggling with in terms of addictions? I see people, they're addicted to a particular sport, and they waste their time watching it, playing it.
That's a good one. I like that. There are some who say it's haram, but they're wasting a lot of time.
That's very true. That's very true. There are some addictions that are not necessarily haram in and of themselves, in the sense that if you did it, for example, being addicted to your phone, right? The fact that I have a phone or use a phone is not haram.
But when that addiction is now stopping me from the salah, it's stopping me from bir al-waleedin, it's stopping me from doing good, it's stopping me from memorizing. Or it's leading to evil also. Yeah, or it's leading me into something.
So now this becomes a problem. And this addiction to sports, many of these sports have munkarat in them. They have things in them.
And I think Sheikh Abdul Rahman did a really nice job of explaining some of the issues around, for example, football and so on. And I think really the point that he made, which struck me, to be honest, out of all the things he said, is that if you're watching something that contains munkar in it, Islamically forbidden things, how can you enjoy and then give your time to something and enjoy and take pleasure out of something which contains so many forbidden things to it? And that's the problem with sports, is that the sport in itself might be fine. And you or three of us, we go kick a ball around outside.
We might do it as well or exercise. Exercise might be, football might be a different one. But exercise maybe.
But three of us could go kick a ball around outside. There's no issue with that. The problem is when you then go to a huge, a multi-million-billion-dollar industry, which is built on gambling and betting, which is built on people not covered properly, which is built on music and all different types of things.
A person can watch it and say, I don't want those things. I just want to watch the skill of the guy. But in reality, if there's so much munkar in it, how do you enjoy that thing? As if you're accepting it.
And then that's one thing. But then now we're talking about addictions, right? So then a person finds that, you know, I'm not going to salah because the game's on. And it can be football.
It could be cricket. It can be whatever. It could be any different sport.
I'm not going because the game's on. I'm busy. I can't come.
I'm busy playing. I'm busy watching. And it takes over their life.
That's something where, yes, a person has to make istighfar. They have to ask Allah's help. But now what are the isbab? How does that individual now start to remove themselves from that? I believe the key thing here is you cannot just take something away.
This is a principle in addiction. So I want everyone at home to watch this one, right? You can't just take something away. You have to fill it with something else.
So, for example, I cannot just say, today I'm going to stop listening to music. Silence. You know, like that, it doesn't work.
You don't. It's very hard to have the resolve. You need to fill it with something else.
So, for example, if the person is constantly glued in front of the TV, let's find a sport that they can practice outside that will give them, take away their energy, that will leave them too tired to come home and be addicted to it like that. You know, be connected to it like that. And then where's this addiction coming from? Is it coming from notifications on the phone? Is it coming from they subscribe to various things? Cut down on some of the people that are around as well.
Yeah, people around them. Cut down on some of the subscriptions. People around you is a big one.
Because who is it? You know, you are, like they say, as sahibu sahib, right? Your companion pulls you around, you know, pulls you to what they're doing. So you've got to look at who is around you. If people around you are all addicted to something, it's very hard for you to stay away from it.
And if you stay away from it one day, the second day you'll fall into it, right? So another thing here that I really want to talk about in addictions is how a small sin can lead to a big one. So if you look at people who are addicted to, let's say, for example, let's say we're talking about watching things they shouldn't be on the phone. How much of that comes from the fact that their eyes wonder when they're outside? Yeah.
They're driving down the street and they're, you know, admiring the view that they shouldn't be. And instead of keeping their head down, and then they go home. And what happens? Phone is there, open the phone, and they look at something else.
And then that goes to something else. And the next time, something else. And that doesn't stop there.
And then the next time they're going to places and they're meeting people they shouldn't be. And the next time, these sins are cumulative, right? Sometimes you're looking at, well, how can I stop this addiction on the phone? And sometimes the problem is not on the phone. The problem is before you even got on the phone.
Where did you get to that? What were the steps that led to that point? So for me, with regard to the games and things like that, I would say one of the greatest things you can do is for you personally to, for this person, to find something which occupies their time. It's like an alternative. Like to find something to really occupy, make your time busy.
You know, the worst thing you can have is idle time, you know, free time. That just, because the free time, Shaytan is telling you to do everything, you know. The soul is always telling you to do something wrong.
So we talked about the phone. We talked about games. Briefly, I think we should talk about one thing that people will be thinking about is substance abuse.
Whether it's alcohol, whether it's drugs, smoking. Friends are a big thing in this. Because I would ask that person, how did you start, let's say drinking, smoking, whatever, drugs.
How did you start? A kid, you didn't wake up one morning and there was a bottle of, you know, something on the table. Somebody gave it to you. And maybe still until now, people are feeling with it, especially drugs.
Is that there has to be a dealer, right? There has to be somebody giving it. So that's one aspect. The other thing is that I think people should not be embarrassed to seek help in this.
Because these things can have a medical aspect, which means it is not easy if you're drinking to stop drinking like that. It's not easy at all. Like it sometimes can require some advice, but not help from the world, right? Because you want to conceal your mistakes and conceal your sin.
But just you find a particular person who has some expertise on this, they can give you advice. I think drugs are the most difficult. I think smoking and alcohol, alcohol is probably second and probably smoking is the easiest of them to quit without external help.
But even that patches and whatever else people have to do to get off of that addiction. But that on itself will not work without trusting Allah, without asking Allah, without du'a, without reading the Quran, without turning to Allah, without salah. The prayer stops immorality and wrongdoing.
So if you're doing immorality, I would say to anybody who is doing something immoral or something wrong, something's wrong with your prayer. Go back and look at your salah. Something's wrong.
The khushu'a is not there. The time is not there. It's not in the masjid.
Something's wrong with your salah. Because if your salah was right, it would stop you from doing those things. So that's an aspect.
So a person trusting Allah, but I believe personally, especially when we're talking about recreational drugs, that it's not an easy, it can be hard for a person to get rid of. And they shouldn't be frightened to ask for support from someone who has experience, whether medical or otherwise, or someone who can say, look, this is what we need to do for you. Who you're around, taking yourself away from people, taking away from the source.
And that's a standard thing with addiction, right? What's the source of your addiction? It's the phone. It's that dealer. It's the bar.
It's my friends. It's whatever. The source of it, distancing yourself from that source.
The person who killed 100 people, what was the advice he got in the end? To leave the land. Go. Go and leave and go and live somewhere else.
Now, you don't have to go and leave the land, but leave that, distance yourself from the source of the problem. That I feel is a major thing. We still have maybe a couple more minutes.
We can just talk about one or one. Maybe if I was to say, which one have I not mentioned? I have a question regarding the substance abuse. A lot of people I've spoken to, a lot of times the young ones, like the teenagers who are in school and stuff, when it comes to drugs and substance abuse and smoking and stuff like this, they don't do it because of the medical reasons.
They're not addicted to it medically, like nicotine and those. They're rather addicted to it just because their friends do it and they want to look cool. Yeah, absolutely.
So it's very easy to get into that. Then it turns into that. It turns into it by step.
So for this, it is absolutely the friends and people are so scared that if I leave my friends, what is going to happen? But in reality, those friends are not people who anyways want a good for you. And I've got, I'll leave you with a principle. And that is that when you do something for the sake of Allah, not only will Allah love you, but Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la will put love into people's hearts for you.
There will be people who will love you. But when you do something for the people, not only will the people not accept it because people are fickle, right? They don't care. But also you bring Allah's anger upon you.
إِنَّ الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا عَمِلُوا الصَّالِحَاتِ سَيَجْعَلُ لَهُمُ الرَّحْمَنُ وُدًّا
If you do what pleases Allah, Allah will put love in people's hearts and you'll find friends who will care for you and really who will look after you and you will look after them.
But when you do things for people, you find the friends don't care about you and you bring upon yourself the anger of Allah. So that's all we have time for in this episode.
Jazakumullahu khayran guys. It's really beneficial. I think we definitely need to do a part two to this one at some point.
And that's what Allah made easy for us to mention. Allah knows best.
والصلاة والسلام على نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين
