Note: The following transcript was generated using AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
Peace and blessings be upon the most honored of the prophets and messengers. Our Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him and his family and his companions. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh to all the brothers and sisters who are tuning in at home to another episode of Abdus Sabeel.
Once again, I'm blessed to be joined by Ustad Muhammad Simhambu. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. How are you doing today? Very good.
So we previously did an episode on da'wah. We spoke about some of the conditions, the do's and don'ts of da'wah. And da'wah itself can almost be like a double-edged sword.
If you do it right, there's potentially a lot of rewards and a lot of khair that can come out of that. And if you do it wrong, then there's potentially a lot of damage, both for yourself as well as the person giving da'wah to. Today we're going to be talking about a topic that no Muslim should be watching, thinking, am I qualified enough to do this? Should I be doing this or not? This is something that all of us should be engaging on a regular basis.
And that is the topic of At-Tawbah. And of course, within that, we'll probably touch on Al-Istighfar as well. So repentance and seeking forgiveness.
So where would you like to begin InshaAllah? I would like to begin, first of all, with the praise of Allah and asking Allah Azza wa Jalla to exalt and mention and grant peace to our Messenger Muhammad ﷺ and his family and his companions. I would like to begin by the very first step in Istighfar and Tawbah, before everything else, is that Al-I'ti'Allah fu'udhu. That a person recognizes that I commit sins.
And people might say, how can you start with this? Everybody knows, we all know we commit sins. But it's surprising how often you hear people who, one way or another, subconsciously or otherwise, don't fully recognize how many sins they commit. So, of course, the evidence for this, the famous hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, كلُّ بَنِ آدَمَ خَطَّاء وَخَيْرُ الْخَطَّاءِ أَتَّوَابُونَ Every single one of the children of Adam are Khattaa.
Now Khattaa, he didn't say Khatih or he didn't say someone who sins or is a sinner. Khattaa, he makes mistakes all the time. This is Seerat Mubalighah, it's in the form of a word which indicates that this is something which is very frequent.
And in some of the ahadith it's mentioned that you sin Bil-Layli Wal-Nahar, all day and night. And what worries me sometimes is I sometimes meet people and they're practicing people. They're people who are practicing the religion of Islam, Inshallah Ta'ala, and who have made a great commitment to Islam.
And when you talk to them they say things like, Alhamdulillah, I don't have many sins. Or Alhamdulillah, as a practicing person, you say Istighfar, they say of course, I ask Allah's forgiveness. But Alhamdulillah, we don't do that many sins or we don't do any big sins.
And Wallahi, this is what we call Jahalun Murakab, it's compound ignorance. It means not only are you ignorant of this issue, but you don't know that you don't know it. You haven't realized that you don't know what you don't know yet.
This is so, so dangerous. Because if you look at the Prophet ﷺ and they said, We used to count the number of times the Prophet ﷺ used to seek forgiveness in one single saying. And we used to count it 70 times in one sitting.
You and me, how we're sitting in the car, in one sitting he would ask Allah's forgiveness and repent to him 70 times. This is the Prophet ﷺ, the one whose sins have been forgiven, the past and what was to come. Everything has been forgiven for him.
This is subhanAllah something that we need to realize that we are people who sin. And we sin all the time. And I want to just explain some of the ways that we sin.
Not specific sins, but the ways that we sin. So there are two major ways that you can sin. You can sin by doing something, but you can also sin by not doing something.
So people tend to think, well, today I didn't kill anybody. I didn't sign up for any riba. I didn't, let's say for example, I didn't use foul language with someone.
I didn't get angry. And they're thinking about certain sins and they're thinking about things that they did in terms of things that they were required not to physically do. And they didn't physically do them.
That's one aspect. And in reality, the sins that you get for not doing things are also huge. For example, that there were relatives of yours that had a right over you and you didn't make salah with them.
You didn't reach out to them. That there was a parent who needed something and you weren't there for them. That there was a right of Allah over you and you didn't fulfill it.
That there was something that Allah gave you and you didn't show gratitude. I mean just gratitude alone. Just one thing alone.
Just gratitude to Allah. Every single joint in your body has a right upon you to show gratitude to Allah for every single day. That's 360 joints in your bones and what have you.
And every single one of them, it is a right upon you to Allah to show gratitude for it. And that you can think about all the other things Allah has given you. If you try to count the blessings of Allah, you won't be able to reach them.
And not showing gratitude for them. There are so many things that we do which we abandon. Let's talk about another one.
الأمر بالمعروف والنهي المنكر How many times we walk past. Forget walk past. We are present in the practice of a munkar.
That if the sahaba radiAllahu anhu saw it, they would have... Perhaps Umar would have reached for a stick and they would have rebuked the person for it severely. And subhanAllah, we let it go completely. People do things in front of us that are completely haram and we don't stop it.
We meet non-Muslims and we don't make any effort to share it, to tell them about Islam, to stop them from doing what they're doing, to take them out from the darkness into the light by the permission of Allah. There are so many things we don't do. So that's one aspect which is all the things that we don't do that we're supposed to do.
And it's so true. People don't realise that they're sins. They don't realise that it's not something that they're doing.
I didn't sign a contract for river today. I don't do major sins. That's the first thing.
The second thing is the sins that you do that you're not aware of. So for example, many, many times we sin and we're not conscious of it. And one of the greatest blessings Allah can give you is to give you the blessing of realising when you sin.
For example, backbiting. How many people? The whole day. The whole day and they're backbiting.
Knowing that backbiting, and there are no sources that indicate, that backbiting is worse than riba. Allahu Akbar. And we backbite like it's normal.
You know, like you meet somebody and the first thing is to talk about someone else. And you know, there are sins you don't realise that you do. And then I want to talk about a third category of sins that these are maybe the most dangerous.
They're more dangerous even than the sins of the tongue. And the sins of the tongue are dangerous. And the Prophet ﷺ told us that whoever guarantees for me what's between his two jaws, مَا بَيْنَ لَهِ وَبَيْنَ تَخِذَي أَدْمَن لَهُ الجَنَّةِ Whoever guarantees for me what's between his two jaws and between his two legs, I guarantee for him paradise.
There's a category of sins that are more dangerous than this. And they are the sins of the heart. Because the worship of the heart is greater than the worship of the body.
That doesn't mean the worship of the body is not needed. It's an essential part of Iman. But the sins of the worship of the heart is greater.
Al-ikhlas, sincerity for the sake of Allah, loving Allah ﷻ, loving what Allah loves, hating what Allah hates, fearing Allah, hoping in Allah. These actions of worship are greater in the sight of Allah than, generally speaking, than the actions of the limbs. And that means the sins associated with them are far more dangerous than the sins that you do with your limbs.
So this is not fearing Allah as he deserves to be feared. Not being conscious of Allah ﷻ. Not loving what Allah loves truly. And not hating what Allah hates truly.
These type of sins, you know, not showing off, for example. A person showing off for sharing their intention with others. These sins, I mean showing off, it's termed, right, as shirk.
أَخْوَفُ مَا أَخَافُ عَلَيْهِمَا شِرْكَ الْخَفْيُّ The thing I fear for you the most is hidden shirk. What did Allah say about shirk? إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَغْفِرُ أَيُّ شَرَكَ بِهِ Allah does not forgive you to make shirk. And Allah did not say, شِرْكٌ أَكْفَرُ He said shirk.
You show off in something you're doing, Allah does not forgive it. إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَغْفِرُ So of course if you die upon that without repenting... That's when you die upon it. We're going to talk about that issue later as the issue of that, what does it mean that Allah doesn't forgive it? But here, so what it means by Allah doesn't forgive it is that if you don't repent for it, and you die with it, you will not be forgiven.
Now that doesn't mean that you will be with the kuffar في نار جهنم خالدين فيها forever because that's for shirk al-akbar. That's for when you make an act of shirk which takes you out of Islam. But this shirk al-khafi which is the smaller shirk, the shirk that doesn't take you outside of Islam, it means that there is a guaranteed punishment.
There is no forgiveness for it. If you die without tawbah, and how many times do we show off? How many times? Just not unconsciously. SubhanAllah, a person... I'm just mentioning a few things, and a person says, I don't do that many sins.
And this is why they say, the scholars see their sins as a mountain about to crush them. And the regular person, or the sinner even, even the disobedient person, or the regular person, they see their sins like a fly that they swat away. فسبحان الله The scholars do less sins than that person.
And they see their sins to be worse. And that person does more sins, and they see their sins to be less. For this, it is really important for a person to think about how much they sin, and the fact that they sin in things that there are whole categories of sins that we don't even know.
We don't even understand properly. This leads me to an important point, that to recognize your sin, apart from the tawfiq of Allah, which we'll talk about, and that is the greatest thing, that Allah gives you success, to know that you made a mistake. There is an aspect here that we need to talk about, and that is that to really understand your sin, you have to be like Hudhaifa, رضي الله عنه, when he said, كان الناس يسألون رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم عن الخير وكنت أسأله عن الشرب مخافة أيضا He said, the people used to ask the Messenger of Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم about good.
How do I get Jannah? What are the deeds that will bring me to Jannah? And I used to ask him about evil. How do I stay away from the hellfire? What are the sins? What are the worst sins? Because I was frightened of what happened to me. And so for us to really succeed in الاتراف, in confessing our sin to Allah, we have to really understand and seek knowledge and know what is wrong.
And that doesn't mean you have to test it out. And I say that just as a disclaimer. Because there are some brothers who have this idea, اللهم ستعين, that you should, you know, if you want to keep away from a sin, you should dabble in it, you know, so that really this is so common that you hear people have this mentality.
You mean like in the sense that, it would always be on my mind, what is it like to not do it? They say, for example their kids, they say let them have a little bit of freedom to keep them away from the bigger thing, you know, like let them dabble in a little bit of haram. This will keep them away from the major haram. For example, if you talk to them about Freemasonry, let them look but not touch.
You know, this is so common, this mentality. It's shocking how many people have this idea. And it's completely the opposite to what Islam says.
Islam tells you that the more you expose yourself to even a tiny thing, that tiny thing then leads to that which is worse. And in any case, you will be exposed to sin anyway. The hadith of the Prophet ﷺ, كل ابن آدم كُتِبَ عَلَيْهِ حَضُّهُ مِنَ الزِّنَةِ لَا مَحَالَ أو كَمَا قَالَ Every single son of Adam is going to commit zina and they have to do it.
This is a hadith, it's shocking. Every single son of Adam, meaning every human being will commit zina, لا محالة, it is impossible for them to escape. Then the Prophet ﷺ explained, وَالْعَيْنُ تَزْمِنُ The eye commits zina and the ear commits zina.
But the point I wanted from the hadith, is the end of the hadith from the Prophet ﷺ. He said, وَالْفَرْجُ يُصَدِّقُ ذَلِكَ أَوْ يُكَثِرُ أو كَمَا قَالَ He said, then the private parts follow through or they don't. فَسُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ How is it that if a person, this hadith shows you that your eye, your ear, your hand, your foot, they take you closer and closer and closer to Haram? Not like, let him, you know, let him just stay, you know, a little bit, let him experience something that he doesn't, you know, fall into a greater sin. It's not a vaccination.
Really, Wallahi, this is, it's not that you don't, you don't give a little bit of the sins so that you don't fall into the big sins. You run from that. يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا قُوْ أَنفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِيكُمْ نَارًا Or you will believe, save your family, protect your family, and yourselves and your family from a fire who steals men and stones.
This idea that, because I really see, it's very common, this idea that people say, you know, if, for example, a lot of people will criticise if a practising people or a practising person falls into sin, you know, openly, they'll say, you see, look, this is why, you know, they were, because they had too much, they were oppressed too much, you know, like they had too much, they had too much, they were too religious and too restricted. And then they went and did a big sin. But if they just, you know, did a little bit of a sin, they'd be okay.
It's like when you're on a diet and you're trying to avoid chocolate and you're like, let me just have a little bit, and that way then it won't be, it's easier than going cold turkey and not having anything at all. But of course, once you have a little bit of chocolate, you want the whole box. And that's human nature, you know, and that's, Islam never ever told us in any way, in fact, many of the evidence, I provide a couple, but there are many evidences that suggest that exposing yourself to even the smallest amount of sin, it leads, and I'll give an example of that, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he says, إياكم ومحقرات الدموع He said, keep away from the sins that people think are insignificant.
فإنها يجتمعن على الرجل حتى يهنئن أو كما قال They gather upon a person until they destroy him. And then he gives such a, the most amazing example. The example of a people who gather together in a desert and they bring food.
And when the food comes, there's no fire. So each man goes and brings one twig. And they go and bring a twig and they put it on the pile.
They go and bring a twig and they put it on the pile. They go and bring a twig and they put it on the pile. And another twig and they put it on the pile.
حتى جمعوا سواجا They brought together a big pile of, a big, big pile of twigs. And then they فأججوا نارا And then they set it on fire and it became a great, a huge fire. أو كما قال صلى الله عليه وسلم So the issue is really serious.
The small sins and the small things you do that lead to the bigger things. So of course in Islam we have sins that are كبائر and sins that are صغائر. The صغائر doesn't mean they are small.
It just means they are, they didn't reach that level of the كبائر. So the كبيرة, the sin which is a كبيرة, because this is our next stage and we have to know what the sin is, right? So to confess to our sin we have to know sin. So the basics of sin is that there are two categories of sin.
كبيرة and صغيرة. The صغيرة sometimes they call اللَّمَر in the Qur'an, the small sins and so on. So the كبيرة is any sin which we have and evidence that specifically mentions punishment, curse, anger, the hellfire.
It mentions the sin is great, is severe, anything like that. So any text that we have that mentions that this sin has a punishment. فَلَهُ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ We'll have a severe punishment or any sin that says فَعَلَيْهِمْ لَعْنَةُ اللَّهِ The curse of Allah upon them or غضِبَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ Allah is angry with them or anything that Allah said it is عَظِيم وَهُوَ عِندَ اللَّهِ عَظِيم It's severe in the sight of Allah or anything which Allah SWT or the Prophet SAW said it's major إِنَّهُمَا يُعَذِّبَانِي وَمَا يُعَذِّبَانِكُمْ كَبِيرٌ It's a major punishment or anything that threatens the hellfire or anything that has those parameters or similar to that is a كبيرة And the كبيرة isn't forgiven by just good deeds So what that means is when you do a كبيرة it requires you to repent it requires you to turn back to Allah it requires you to consciously ask Allah's forgiveness It's not like you just give charity to people and Allah forgives you or you just do something kind to someone and Allah forgives you or you pray your prayer and Allah forgives you or you make wudu and Allah forgives you or you go to Umrah and Allah forgives you or you go to Jumu'ah and Allah forgives you These are for the small sins or therefore the major sins along with recognition and tawbah and istighfar But there are two or there is a particular type of major sin that is among the most dangerous and that is the major sin which is actually a minor sin in itself but it's done continuously because a minor sin that you do continuously becomes a major sin So it's not the sin itself Let's take something very minor small a sin that is not there is no thing that says that it's a hellfire for you Let's say for example take a bad language for example not terrible things not like insulting people or whatever but somebody just crude language for example The fact that someone does it again and again and again it shows that they don't take this sin seriously and therefore the fact that they behave like that that's what makes it a kabeera not the sin itself The sin itself doesn't have to be a kabeera You know someone that say for example stubs his toe and says something wrong and it's not they didn't curse Allah they said a word they shouldn't have said but here the person who does it all the time the fact that they do it with continuity and not caring now it's uprooted it became a kabeer and it became something the person deserves punishment for and is not forgiven by being a good person and praying their salah and making dua they are not forgiven by that they have to recognize it and turn to Allah and repent and ask Allah to forgive this person So this is really dangerous as well and it leads into the first point about recognizing the sin there's a lot of minor sins we do continually we just keep doing it again and again and again and we're like look it's a minor sin I know it's wrong I'm not saying I don't care it's wrong and inshallah one day I'll get rid of it but the fact the person does it continuously and regularly that now gets upgraded to a kabeera and that's a big problem because now people are walking around with kabeer major sins that are not forgiven by just righteous actions they need now a tawba and they need istighfar so we talked about recognizing the sin there's one more prerequisite to tawba and this one is I was really sort of I think what we said so far was quite scary and quite worrying but this is something to bring relief to and the second prerequisite is to know that Allah forgives and this alone can get you out of so many problems there is a hadith in which the Prophet ﷺ narrates from Allah أَذْنَبَ عَبْدُهُمْ بَنْهُمْ my slave committed a sin and this slave he says أَقَالَ أَيْ رَبُّ he says my lord اغْتِرْ مِي بَنْهُمْ forgive me my sin doesn't mention that he made tawbat an-nasuha or that he like completely you know he was crying in the last third of the night he said my lord forgive me my sin forgive me اغْفِرْ لِي ذَنبِي Allah said my slave يَعْلَمُ أَنَّ لَهُ رَبًّا يَأْخُذُ بِالذَّنْبِ يَغْفِرُ الذَّنْبِ وَيَأْخُذُ بِالذَّنْبِ I have a slave who knows that he has a lord who forgives and punishes because of sins he forgives sins and punishes for sins this person all he did is say my lord forgive me with the recognition that Allah forgives and Allah can punish I know Allah can punish I know Allah punishes and I know Allah forgives then the person continues and they you know they commit the sin again اَعْجَ or ثُمَّ عَاجَ he goes back to that sin again and Allah says that my slave committed a sin and he says again this person اَعْجَ says my lord اَعْجَ so he gave back the same sin again and Allah says again that I have a servant يَعْلَمُ أَنَّ لَهُ رَبًّا يَأْخُذُ بِالذَّنْبِ وَيَأْخُذُ بِالذَّنْبِ he knows that his lord forgives and he knows that his lord takes to account, punishes for sins and then again the person does the sin again and he says اَعْجَ my lord forgive me my sin and again Allah says that I have a servant يَعْلَمُ أَنَّ لَهُ رَبًّا يَأْخُذُ بِالذَّنْبِ وَيَأْخُذُ بِالذَّنْبِ he forgives and he punishes do whatever you wish فَقَدْ غَفَرْتُ or he said he said I have forgiven him فَلْيَعْمَلْ مَا شَاء in some of the narrations I have forgiven him قَدْ غَفَرْتُ لَهُ فَلْيَعْمَلْ مَا شَاء let him do whatever he wants Allah SWT forgave him even though he didn't stop yeah he kept doing the sin but each time he really just asked Allah oh Allah forgive me and he knew that he has a lord that forgives and he knew that he has a lord that punishes فَلْيَعْمَلْ مَا شَاء every single person can say أَيْ رَبَّ فِلْيَعْمَلْ مَا شَاء my lord forgive me my sin knowing but the condition is what يَعْلَمُ أَنَّ لَهُ رَبًّا يَغْفِرُ الذَّنْبِ وَيَأْخُذُ بِالذَّنْبِ that you know that you have a lord that forgives sins and that same lord punishes so just by knowing that attribute of Allah SWT that Allah SWT is Allah is the one who is always forgiving Allah is the one who perpetually forgives Allah is the one who always accepts the repentance of those who repent just by knowing your lord and by knowing that Allah is severe in punishment Allah SWT can forgive you for that knowledge along with just istighfar and I think before we talk about tawbah we should talk about briefly about istighfar in this sense that istighfar is really it's really asking Allah to cover up the sin and to cancel out the consequences of that sin it doesn't necessarily mean that you necessarily at that moment stop the sin this is going to come later when we talk about shurut of tawbah conditions of tawbah it doesn't necessarily mean that you have totally left that sin or that you are so regretful that you cannot even bear to show your face or something like that it doesn't mean that it just means that you know your lord forgives and punishes and you ask him oh Allah don't punish me and forgive me for it you know sorry to interject yourself you know this concept of knowing that Allah forgives and punishes I think it's really important to just go into this a little bit more detailed because many people actually fall on one side of the two extremes that's very true for example they either believe that my sins are so much and so many that Allah will never forgive me and I've done so many evil actions Allah will never forgive me or some people also feel like I can do whatever I want and Allah is Allah Karim yeah he's going to forgive me whatever I do it's fine but knowing this knowing this that Allah Allah is the one who's telling you telling the person who feels like his sins are so heavy that Allah can forgive you and telling the person who feels like his sins are it's not an issue at all that Allah can punish you as well and telling and knowing this internalize this that this is coming from Allah the one who created you the one who's going to judge you on the day of judgment وَمَنْ أَصْنَقُ مِنَ اللَّهِ خَدِيدًا who is more truthful in speech than Allah he's the one telling you so don't let anybody trick you or deceive you not shaytan not another human being into thinking that either your sins are so heavy that Allah will never forgive you or that I can do whatever I want and Allah is will not punish me will not forgive me and that's why you know there's something amazing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said إِنَّمَا التَّوْبَةُ عَلَى اللَّهِ لِلَّذِينَ يَعْمَلُونَ السُّوءُ بِجَهَالَةٍ Allah said tawbah in the sight of Allah or Allah's Allah accepting your repentance is for those people who do evil out of ignorance and what I want from this ayah is not to talk about tawbah yet but to talk about the word بِجَهَالَةٍ everybody who sins sins out of ignorance of their Lord they don't know that Allah Allah's right over them and if we knew the right of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala over us we would behave in a very different way and if we knew Allah's names and attributes properly it would have a profound or it should have a profound effect upon the way that we behave and as you mentioned there are two aspects to the aspect of knowing Allah in terms of forgiveness one is knowing that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgives that He is الغفور الغفار التواب that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is الرحمن الرحيم Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said قُلْ يَا عِبَادِيَا الَّذِينَ أَسْرَفُوا عَلَىٰ أَنفُسِهِمْ لَا تَقْنَطُوا مِن رَحْمَةِ اللَّهِ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَغْفِرُ جُنُوبَ جَمِيعًا إِنَّهُ هُوَ الْغَفُورُ الرَّحِيمُ He said all my servants who have transgressed against themselves do not dispel the mercy of Allah Allah forgives all sins He is always forgiving and الرحيم the store of mercy Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us that He forgives everything there is no sin that is greater than Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala Allahu Akbar Allah is the greatest there is no sin that is too great for Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to forgive doesn't matter what it is even the sin that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala doesn't forgive He forgives it if you repent before that time comes and that is شِرْكِ اللَّهِ عَزَّ وَجَلِّ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَغْفِرُ إِنْ شُرَكَهُ and just on that topic and it's super important to think about how serious shirk is that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala who is Al-Ghaffar the one who is the perpetual forgiver said I will not forgive this sin but still Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgives it for the person who repents from it in this life before they die subhanAllah so a person to realize that you can't have sins that Allah will not forgive this is actually a sin in itself it's a كَبِيرَ مِن كَبَائِرِ الظُّنُوبِ and that is سُوءَ أَفْظَنْ بِاللَّهِ thinking badly of Allah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala He said about أَفْظَنْ مِنَّ بِاللَّهِ وَلَا أَنَّ السَّوْءِ the people who think evil thoughts about Allah عَلَيْهِمْ جَائِرَةُ السَّوْءِ وَغَضِبَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَا أَنَهُمْ Allah said that their evil thoughts will come back against them and Allah is angry with them and Allah has cursed them وَعَدَّ لَهُمْ جَهَنَّمًا and Allah has prepared for them جَهَنَّم subhanAllah the anger, the curse of Allah جَهَنَّم because they thought badly of Allah they didn't think good they didn't think well of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and part of that is thinking that Allah will not forgive me and I've done too many sins but on the other side you see people who this whole thing you know I mean the classical thing you hear in the Arabic speaking world is Allah you know Allah is Kareem but Allah is also ذُنْتِقَاب the one who is severe in punishment Allah is سَرِير حِسَاب Allah is شَدِيد العِقَاب severe in taking in taking people to account Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala destroyed people Allah destroyed nations subhanAllah if you think about the end of Surah Najm when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala goes through all the nations that he destroyed Quraysh was so scared when they heard these ayat they fell in sajdah the kuffar of Quraysh and they thought that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala was going to send his punishment upon them like at that time because he mentioned Noah and Aad and Thamud and the people of Lot عليه الصلاة والسلام عليه الصلاة والسلام وعليه الصلاة والسلام and the Anbiya عليه الصلاة والسلام and one by one Allah mentioned how he destroyed them and he destroyed many that he didn't tell us about subhanAllah individuals even Qarun خَسَفْنَا بِهِ وَبِدَارِهِ الْعَفْضِ the earth opened up and swallowed him up did he say Allah Karim Allah will Allah it's okay Allah will forgive me Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala opened the earth and swallowed him and destroyed him and mind you a person who cannot Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is always telling us that you have to fear Allah not just I mean how many times does this idea of الخشية والخوف والتقوى come in the Qur'an that fear and doing good deeds you know to protect yourself from Allah's punishment the hellfire يَوْمَ نَكُولُ الْجَهَنَّمِ هَلِمْ تَلَأْتِ وَتَكُولُ هَلْ مِن مَزِيدٍ on the day that Jahannam on the day that Jahannam that Allah will say to Jahannam are you full and Jahannam will say is there not more until Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will put his foot upon Jahannam Jahannam will not it will not stop being full of people subhanAllah this is it's not to be taken lightly Allah kareem Allah will forgive me Allah is kareem هو كذلك Allah is kareem and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is al-Ghafoor al-Ghaffar al-Tawwab no doubt and Allah is also the part of Allah's perfection is that this is you know where did this come from this Allah kareem thing it came from Christianity really Wallah it came from Christianity that's what I believe firmly that this belief it came from Christianity and that the the murji in general and the people getting who kind of take out actions from iman and you know that you know all these sins you do don't affect your iman I've got iman and that's a whole new topic iman is in my heart you know this sin you know it doesn't matter iman is in my heart iman is in iman is in your heart and your actions and your heart your actions reflect your heart but these people took it from Christianity they took it from Christianity and if you see Christians it is the same thing God loves you you know mass murder God loves you you know like don't worry you'll go to paradise you'll go to heaven just accept the basic of faith you know just accept a concept of faith do whatever you like because if you just can accept that there's you know there's a kind of there's a basic idea of faith you believe then you'll go to Jannah it doesn't matter what you do and that's not what we're told in Islam we're told about people subhanAllah they were with the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said for example the one who said shaheed this man is a shaheed and the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam said perhaps he's something else and that person went to the fire and the people who were with the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam and when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam passed by those two graves he said innama yu'adhibani wama yu'adhibani fi kabir innahuma he said innahuma yu'adhibani wama yu'adhibani fi kabir these two people are being punished and they're not being punished this is a major sin the people that were with the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam this is not like a person has to be balanced if they feel themselves get too far ahead of themselves where they start to just feel really relaxed and you know I feel this way every time I make dua I feel so just Allah forgive me Allah will not do anything Allah will not punish me this is the wrong way of thinking and the person needs to remember that people who had a higher position than you were punished and people were punished for things they did not think were big in the sight of Allah perhaps a person a person says a single word they don't think about it and it takes them into it takes them into Jahannam 70 years deep into Jahannam because of one word they said they didn't think about it one single word they said they didn't think what they were saying and it took them into Jahannam 70 years deep so a person needs to be balanced but if a person starts to feel despair you know I just feel my sins are too much how can I be forgiven no the person at that point you think of the ayat of forgiveness you think of the hadith of the people who were forgiven a man who had 99 scrolls as far as the eye could see and the only good deed that he that he found with him is a bitaka like a card which had written on it la ilaha illallah and that outweighed all of his sins and he went to Jannah and that hadith for example wa haqqu wa haqqu al-ibadi alallah an la yu'ajriba man la yushriku fihi shayya that the right of the people over Allah is that he will not punish the one that doesn't make a partner with him look at then what Mu'adh said when he heard this afa la ubashirun naas shall I not go and tell the people that you know if you don't make a partner with Allah Allah is not going to punish you the Prophet said la tubashiruhum fayattakilu don't go and tell them about this because if you tell them they might become reliant on it and they'll stop doing good deeds and then the punishment of Allah is very very severe and you see the people that were with the Prophet so one of the things that always strikes me when I think about the punishment of Allah and I think about the blessings that Allah has given us is to think about Banu Israil and I think there's a lesson in that in the statement of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam latat tabi'runna salana man kana qabla you're going to follow the ways of the people before you when you think about the fact that Allah gave them so much Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave them blessing upon blessing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala preferred them over all of the people Allah chose them out of all of His creation and yet subhanAllah when they disobeyed Allah Allah's punishment was very severe upon them some of them Allah turned them into animals some of them Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala put upon them al-maskana that Allah put Allah put humility and humiliation Allah humiliated them and Allah put al-maskana poverty upon them and Allah sent against them someone who's going to torture them throughout time generation after generation that Allah is going to torture them subhanAllah and they were the best of the people they were people that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala chose over all of it and Allah gave them prophets and Allah gave them scripture and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala chose them but when they disobeyed Allah Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala His punishment was severe so a person and then you have the prophets say you're going to follow them you people will follow them so a person really must take it so seriously that the punishment of Allah is something which is very real it's something which happens and even sometimes the punishment of Allah one of the things that scares me the most is al-istigraj that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala talks about how He takes the person unaware the person never ever realizes that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is leaving them and they call this istigraj and Allah is taking them step by step by step into punishment because that person disobeyed Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and turned away and Allah azza wa jal gives them a horrendous punishment by the fact that He doesn't make them realize what they've done they don't taste the consequences of their sins and one of the things Allah gives to the believers and to the people in general is opportunities to repent opportunities to ask Allah's forgiveness وَلَنُضِيقَنَّهُمْ مِنَ الْعَذَابِ الْأَدْمَةِ دُونَ الْعَذَابِ الْأَكْثَرِ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْجِعُونَ We give them some small punishments instead of the big punishments so they may return to Allah in repentance so if you're someone who is suffering from some of your sins and you know you can see that well, thank Allah show gratitude to Allah that Allah azza wa jal didn't do what He did to the other people and He just took them like that you know فَلَمَّا نَسُوا مَا ذُكِّرُوا بِهِ فَتَحْنَا عَلَيْهِمْ أَبَوَاذَ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ حَتَّىٰ إِذَا فَرِحُوا بِمَا أُوتُوا أَخَذْنَاهُمْ بَغْتَةً فَإِذَا هُمْ مُبْسِئِين Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said that when they forgot what Allah had given them as a reminder Allah opened the dunya for them every single thing from the dunya came to them and then when they were happy with what they were given Allah seized them suddenly and they were cut off from all chance they had no chance to do anything and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us about this استدرجهم من حيث لا يعلمون we will take them into a punishment when they don't realize it so it's really a blessing that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala makes you realize your sins it's a blessing that you suffer some consequences of those sins in the dunya to make you turn back to Allah and on another topic but also related as things that people don't realize is that sinning itself and this idea of recognizing and knowing Allah this is the reason why or one of the great wisdoms in why we sin the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us that if we didn't sin لَذَهَبَ اللَّهُ بِكُم Allah would have removed you from this earth and Allah would bring a people and they would sin and they would ask Allah's forgiveness and Allah would forgive them one of the great wisdom that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has made us sin for and has put sin on this earth for and has given us has decreed for us the conditions through which we sin and the circumstances through which we sin is that we recognize Allah and we ask His forgiveness and if we didn't do that لَذَهَبَ اللَّهُ بِكُم Allah would have taken you and got rid of you and brought you وَلَجَاءَ بِقَوْمٍ and Allah would have brought a people يُذْنِبُونَ they sin يَسْتَغْفِرُونَ اللَّهَ فَيَغْفِرُونَ لَهُمْ then they ask Allah's forgiveness and then Allah forgives them أَوْ كَمَا قَالَ صَلَى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ I really want to touch on the point that you mentioned about people who might be going through difficulties in their life right now and not realizing that that is an opportunity for you to get closer to Allah whether it be through dua whether it be through istighfar whether it be through tawbah someone might be watching this at home and really going through a difficult time and this is an opportunity our nature sometimes is like this right sometimes if things are going well we forget about Allah and it's only when things are going bad that we start turning to Allah and we start thinking about Him and oh Allah help me out of this situation this could be a blessing this difficult thing that someone's going through could be a blessing for them if it brings them closer to Allah it definitely is a blessing for them if it brings them closer to Allah so this is the question people ask am I being punished or am I being tested and the answer to that is that it's not the answer as to whether you're being tested or punished is not dependent upon your suffering it's dependent upon what you do with that suffering your reaction that's what makes whether you're being tested or punished if your suffering is taking you away from Allah then this is a time to be scared it's not a time to say this is the punishment of Allah because this is the small punishment that Allah gives you to make you realize to make you realize but if you're going away from Allah because of your suffering then that's a sign that you need to come back to Allah and repent and if it's the case that you're getting near to Allah then this suffering is mahtoo fadlillahi wa ni'mati it's a pure blessing from Allah and a grace from Allah because it's bringing you near to Him and that's sunnatullah that's Allah's way with His creation we are a people the more you give us the more we disobey Allah subhanAllah this is human nature nothing fills the stomach of Adam the children of Adam illa turab you know the only thing that will fill that person's stomach is the dust when they're buried in the grave there's nothing else that will fill that person's stomach you constantly want more and you can't and this the dunya generally if you become too attached to it it causes you to forget your sins and this is really where we're linking together some of the things that we've said that and we start talking about zuhr it's not about being poor nobody asks us to be poor Allah didn't ask us to live in poverty and Allah didn't praise poverty you don't find a single hadith where the Prophet ﷺ asks for poverty o Allah, Allahumma ja'anni faqirat o Allah, make me a poor person gather me together with the righteous but nobody asks to be poor but to not become fooled by this world and attracted to it to the extent that you actually start to forget why you're here and then you forget that you're sinning and then you forget Allah and you forget to make and you forget the one inevitable thing in this life which is death and we've just gone through two years of COVID where many of us might have seen family members many of us might have seen friends heard of people in the community or passed away and yet I feel like myself included I'm so desensitized to death I remember when I was growing up if there was someone who passed away in the community it would be a really big thing now it's like inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi wa rasool what's for dinner tonight? it's like it's brushed off so easily and we don't realize that death ultimately is going to come and that's when your day of judgment starts it's not about looking at the signs of the hour and this sign hasn't happened your day of judgment will begin when you die if that's what it comes before because there's nothing for you there's no chance for you after that except what you put forward in this life whether even sadaqah jariyah you had to have put it forward in this life and knowledge that people benefit from and the righteous shah the meek to help you not just being desensitized to death being desensitized to sin and this is another thing that I really worry about and I see it in myself and I see it in generally living in a world where almost everywhere in the world it's very hard to live in a place where people are all around you are practicing you see a lot of sin and you become desensitized to it it's not that you believe it's right or you start to believe that it's halal because that's really serious istihlal is kufr right it takes you out of Islam but it's you just become desensitized to it you stop really caring how many times you pass by whether it's the billboard or the people in the street not dressed properly or music playing from somewhere and it's like this is my daily life we pass this 500 times a day and when it shocks you is when you see somebody who doesn't live that life for example we had some of our mashayikh they flew to the UK they reached their duty free they got out of the airport they turned around they bought a ticket and flew back said I cannot be in this place this is not I cannot be in a place like this I cannot so literally came out of the airport took it said I'm sorry I can't took a ticket and took the next flight back and we wouldn't even consider anything wrong and we would just be like we just walk past if somebody asked you you would say yeah it's haram you know there's alcohol and cigarettes and pictures of people and whatever yeah it's haram but you know it's life you see it all the time what can you do lower your gaze try to avoid it don't shop there you know like but you don't feel the pain of it and that leads us nicely onto the topic of Maktouba which we haven't got to yet yeah we haven't got there yet it would have been an introduction but yeah we haven't got there yet why it leads us nice onto the topic of Maktouba is we talked about feeling the pain and Maktouba has three fundamental pillars to it or three fundamental conditions that have to be there okay and these three things I personally like to think about them as relating to past, present and future okay so as it relates to the past feeling regret for what you've done as it relates to the present stopping your sin and as it relates to the future intending never to do it again we're going to talk about each one of those in a little bit of detail inshaAllah the first thing is feeling regret and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala describes the Tawbah that has these three things as Tawbatan Nasuha Ya ayyuhal lazeena aamanu Thubu ila Allahi Tawbatan Nasuha All you who believe repent to Allah with sincere repentance and you know this word Nusha and Nasiha and Nasuha they all come around the meaning of acting sincerely, right? behaving in a sincere way a sincere repentance and we're not talking about Mujarrad istighfar we're not just talking about Astaghfirullah or Rabb al-firli we're talking about three fundamental things a person feels really you know true regret in their heart they really it hurts them and it pains them to think about that sin they did and this subhanAllah is something that is really hard to achieve I personally believe it's hard it's not easy to achieve it requires knowledge of Allah knowing Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala it requires knowing His greatness and knowing how bad it is to disobey Him it requires knowing your religion knowing the sin and knowing what's wrong in your religion and knowing that when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told you that something is haram He didn't tell you to make it hard for you Allah doesn't want to put in your religion any haraj Allah doesn't want to make things hard for you if something is haram in Islam it's really bad for you and it's haram because it's really bad for you and people subhanAllah think so badly of Allah they're like oh it's so difficult what we've been asked to do and you know they make it that this that the thing that Allah made haram it's a burden on them but it's actually for their best Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gave it made this haram rahmatan fikum and I'll give you one example that everyone can recognize and admit to alcohol alcohol is haram everyone knows that you won't find two Muslims who disagree about it inshaAllah that alcohol is haram and look at the people who it's not haram for them like for example the Christians who you know they claim it's not haram for them you know they even they drink it in their churches or whatever and just you know I mean I come from Newcastle which is a city that is known for heavy drinking I remember I came back to the train station one night and it was my fault because I wasn't thinking in my I wasn't thinking straight the train station is in the middle of town and it was late it was late Saturday night or Friday night and I just didn't like I was wearing my thawb you know like and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala saved me because I walked out and there were bodies like there were bodies just lying on the floor and you would think that there's been some attack they're just drunk rolling around like throwing up on the floor somebody's taking their clothes off and they're like falling over someone is punching somebody else someone's you know and this is just you know it's not the police are not even doing anything because they're just like this is welcome to Newcastle on a Friday night people are like staggering around giggling, screaming somebody's like taking their shoes off and dancing in the middle of the road you know they lost all you know that's why they call it khamar right because you khamar al aql it's like the khimar right what's a khimar? like hijab right what the woman puts on her head we call it khimar right like because it covers her head they call it khamar and they khamar al aql like your aql is completely gone and you see these people and the worst thing is not that the guy's rolling around in the drain that someone has you know akramakumullah used the bathroom and the other guy is rolling around on the floor where this guy's just used the bathroom it's not that that's not the worst thing the worst thing is they're going to come back they're going to wake up with a terrible hangover throw up again and then go the next night and do the same thing and alhamdulillah Allah saved me from that wallah I came out and I just alhamdulillah one thing is Allah put ar-ru'ab in their hearts Allah put terror in their hearts when they saw me with my thong and my rucksack Allahumma sa'ad they thought that the qiyamah came for them they ran from me otherwise I was terrified I thought oh my ya rab what have I put myself in but alhamdulillah they got really scared and they ran they all gave me terrified looks like what is this guy doing I mean probably some of them thought this is like I mean people think that you're a monk you're a priest they don't even know you know some of them thought I was there to hurt them whatever they ran but wallah one brother who was doing taxes and may Allah take him out of that job and give him a better job he saw me and he skipped the taxi queue and he pulled and he said salamu alaikum he said akhi ta'a ta'a come in I said subhanallah I didn't think I just took the train back from a lecture and I didn't even think that the train is arriving at like eleven o'clock at night or ten o'clock at night and you cannot describe the scene and it's not not even animals behave like this and then you think that Allah made this haram Allah made it haram to take away your enjoyment laaw wallah Allah made it haram to save your honour I mean what these people you look at them and you think akhi if someone took a picture of you and showed you when you were sober what would you say I mean what is like no izzah no honour no dignity nothing like you you wake up you don't even remember what you did that the night before and then to top it all off the person goes the next night and says do the same thing again and all of that you've spoken about so far about the intellect and the honour you're talking about an individual let alone the impact it has on the society on the society and all the the difficulty for the hospitals you just see there's a roll of ambulances the ambulances are just parked up like taxis there's more ambulances parked in a row than taxis drink driving which leads to people losing their lives akhi it's just how many of them wasted their lives wallah wasted not talk about religion let's not talk about they wasted their lives by you know turning away from Allah that's certainly true but just they wasted their lives like even their careers their life their happiness their relationships they don't even remember their relationships they don't know who they were with the night before he wakes up he's like Allah azawajal saved Jews and look at this issue for example Allah made zina haram and people will say oh you know why can't there's nothing wrong with this issue of having a relationship or boyfriend girlfriend look at the lack of izzah look at what these people go through he dumped me she left me tears you know like no rights for anyone no protection this woman is bringing up kids on her own she doesn't even know who the father is the kids grow up like that like subhanAllah nikah is not so easy nikah takes all of 15 seconds zawajtuka binti qabilt naam kharas yani like nikah takes all of 15 seconds Allah azawajal honoured you with Islam nahnu qawmun a'izzan Allah bil Islam we are a people Allah gave us izzah in Islam when something is haram it's not haram to make life hard for you it's haram because that thing is really bad for you and it's not bad for you in like this kind of abstract way it's like it's directly tangible bad for you you know in every way so this is really important so a person to recognise that they have to feel they feel that regret and I think if someone asked me to describe this I would say you know some sins that you've done when you think back on them it hurts you can't even think about it like you even go back and you're like yeah I can't my mind is even blotted it out because of how much it really hurts me to think about it and this is this is what we are trying to achieve this feeling of regret like I know you know whatever I was thinking at the time when I think back on it I'm embarrassed I'm sad about it I'm regretful about it I feel horrible about it I feel just you know just terrible your heart hurts you know your heart hurts from it and I think everyone watching this can identify with that that in some things that they've done inshaAllah bi-idhnillah in some things they've done they can yeah I know what that feels like the goal is to increase that to feel that about more of the bad things that we've done and not just the really really bad things that we've done but to feel it about more of the things that we've done and to do that requires it really does require knowledge of your religion it really does because you know for someone who doesn't have knowledge of their religion for them there are a handful of things that are really bad like it's really bad to kill people and it's really bad to drink alcohol and it's really bad they have like a handful of things but you know subhanAllah a person might commit shirk and not even think that that's something you know it's not that bad or miss a prayer for example so common yeah miss prayers you know like people have really you know subhanAllah one or two sins and you know sometimes you know just you find people like that like you find people for example they will do all sorts of sins but there's one sin they will not do like halal halal halal and I've actually physically seen with my own eyes with my own eyes I saw somebody come into my friend's takeaway completely drunk absolutely drunk and say that I will not eat the food unless the chicken is halal and you know subhanAllah I'm not going to even I'm going to say that perhaps Allah azza wa jal will guide that person through that that they have one sin it's better that they have that than nothing at all yeah perhaps Allah subhanAllah will save them from that because they have something in their heart that is still sacred about you know they have some part of Islam to them that is still sacred even though they've got themselves mixed up because halal meat is nowhere near the issue of alcohol but and that's what we're trying to identify here it's not the fact that it's about understanding the priority not the priority but understanding the weightiness of each sin missing a prayer for example in the UK or even in my community it's so common but it would be very very rare to see someone eat halal meat or even drink alcohol it's like in my community no way but missing a prayer yeah what's the problem it's no issue exactly and the person would still think that I am you know reasonably I'm a reasonably good Muslim you know my faith is strong in my heart and things like that and that's what Allah I wanted to highlight this again the one of the the dangers and the really horrible things that this belief of irja of the murjiya brought to us this false belief that was taken from Christianity and imported by the murjiya is that this idea that that your iman is in your heart and there is no effect in what you do and that person how will they ever make tawbah how are you going to make tawbah when you believe your iman is complete in your heart and you are doing there's nothing to make tawbah for according to you're just making tawbah like what's the word you're making nominal like a nominal tawbah right you're making just a nominal tawbah just like I'm sorry that you know my hand did something haram but alhamdulillah my heart is full of iman there is a piece of flesh in the body if it's upright the whole body will be upright and if it's corrupt the whole body will be corrupt reverse that understanding if your sins are corrupt something wrong with your heart your heart is corrupt there's something fundamentally wrong with your heart and it's really because I see so many people sin because of this you know they're like my heart is my heart no no iman is in my heart you know my iman I will never let go of my iman I don't pray at all fast I don't you know I do this and that and the other but I will never let go of my iman that's not iman that's just ma'rifah you just know islam and you know islam is the truth that's all mahalala you said my iman that's not nobody in the sharia calls this iman this is just recognition that islam is the truth the same as the likes of Abu Talib who recognize that islam is the truth there is no religion better than the religion of my nephew and you know that he praised islam in his poetry but this you know this is no different with the fact that you just kind of have something in your heart that iman is that I believe islam is true if you don't implement it and you don't practice it and we're not going to say that you know a person who has sins is not a muslim that's another extreme we don't declare a muslim to be a disbeliever because they're doing major sins but we're talking about someone who has who is mu'alib they've turned away from the religion in everything and they're not practicing anything from the religion at all and then they're like they really believe their heart is completely full of iman so this is really important to recognize that just because you recognize islam is true that's not in islam iman iman has conditions and it has and iman is what you believe and what you say and what you do and all of those have an influence on it so that's all part of recognizing the sin knowing how bad sinning is in islam and feeling regret and I want to emphasize again on feeling regret that the greatest part of feeling regret is knowing Allah the more you know Allah and that's why Ibn Qayyim he has a statement if I remember it correctly he said مَن كَانَ بِاللَّهِ عَعْرَفْ كَانَ مِنْهُ أَخْوَ وَلِعِبَادَتِهِ أَطْلَبْ وَعَن مَعْصِيَتِهِ أَبَدْ he said whoever knows Allah more fears Allah more and worships Allah more and sins and disobeys Allah less wow and this is just knowing Allah subhanallah and His names and His attributes and His actions it really does and that's why the Prophet s.a.w. was the one who feared Allah the most and did istighfar the most and some will say why do istighfar the most the one with the least sins he has no major sins at all any small error that he ever fell into is instantly forgiven any future error that he ever fell into is instantly forgiven and yet he makes istighfar more than everybody else because he knows Allah more جَسَدَا إِنَّمَا يَفْسَلْنَاهَا مِنْ أَعِذَادِهِ الْعُلَمَاءِ the ones who truly fear Allah are the ulama the scholars the ones who know Him and this here the word ulama here even sometimes the word scholar here can be deceptive in the sense that people think that that it means the mujtahid or the great scholar of fiqh here the word ulama means someone with ilm the more ilm you have the more you fear Allah and you don't really fear Allah until you are a person of knowledge and so that's to do with feeling regret and I think it's also really helpful to have things that you listen to lectures or even ayat of the Quran particular surahs that you read that you know will get you into that mode of thinking like a maw'idah like an admonishment something which really touches your heart and you realize because I remember when I started practicing I accepted Islam when I was 14 and I started practicing a bit later I was struggling to practice when I first became Muslim and when I started practicing there were a few things that I just wouldn't leave and I remember generally speaking you know I used to listen to a lot of really good lectures you know the lectures about jannah the secret of jannah about you know the mercy of Allah but sometimes you need a bit of bio-brimstone you need a bit of like you need somebody to give you a maw'idah that like makes you shake you know like and this actually brings me to an ayah in Surah Al-Mu'minun when Allah Azzawajal said وَالَّذِينَ يَعِطُونَ مَا آتَوا قُلُوبُهُمْ وَجِيلًا أَنَّهُمْ إِلَىٰ رَبُّهِمْ رَاجِيلًا those people who give what they give when their hearts are trembling knowing that they're gonna return to Allah Aisha, she misunderstood the ayah she said to the Prophet S.A.W. that this ayah must be the person who what who commits zina and steals and she mentioned some sins and she got the impression that this ayah has to be about the person who is doing major sins and their heart is trembling because of the major sins and the Prophet S.A.W. said to her لا يَبْنَتَ السِّدِيقِ he said no udoor for the Siddiq this ayah was revealed about the one who prays and fasts and gives charity the person who prays prays five times a day they fast they pray extra prayers they fast and they're so scared that Allah will not accept it from them and from this is for example to listen to for example a mu'ibah or a lecture about things like إِنَّنَا يَتَقَبَّلُ اللَّهُ مِنْ يَتَقِبَّلِ this ayah it has to come from the ayat that is the most scary of the ayat in the Quran among the most the ayat that just leaves you terrified Allah only accepts from the righteous it is possible that somebody would do the actions of the people of Jannah and Allah doesn't accept a single one from them because they were not righteous enough for this like these kind of things it is you know these type of things it really makes a difference and from them is what we said what you mentioned earlier about remembering death and that's why they said that what did Umar have written on his on his ring right كَفَا بِالْمَوْتِ why Allah death is enough of a of an admonition like if you want something to admonish you and make you scared if death doesn't make you scared you know كَفَا بِالْمَوْتِ why Allah the death is enough of a reminder for you and really to you know when we need to take lessons and when we stop taking lessons from people who when people pass away this is a really bad sign for a person when you're not when you become desensitized to death so this all is to do with feeling regret for the sins that you've done and you imagine if you were really on your deathbed at this moment and the angel of death came to you how much regret you would feel wallah you would regret even the the makruh even the mustahab that you didn't do even the extra dhikr you didn't do رَبِّ رَجِعُونَ my lord return me to this earth just give me one more moment on this earth the person would be full of regret but the shaitan decorates you know and beautifies your sins for you in your heart until you don't feel regret for them so this is this is regret and we move on to talk about stopping doing the sin and this is really important because for instance so this is the present now now we're in the present we've spoken about the past now we're talking about the present so these are all actions someone does in the moment but the action no no the action you're right the action relates to the past or the present or the future so relating to the past the person when they think about the past it hurts them they feel an nadama or an nadam they feel real sorrow and they really it really hurts them in the present they stop doing that sin and when we say stop you know they stop doing it right away and the prophet ﷺ he said إِذَا أَمَوْتُكُمْ بِشَيْءٍ فَأْتُوا مِنْكُمْ أَسْتَطَعْتُونَ وَإِذَا نَهَيْتُكُمْ عَنْ شَيْءٍ فَاجْتَنِهُ أَكْنَقَانَ he said if I tell you to do something do as much as you can and if I tell you not to do something immediately stop it the scholar said why did he put استطاع ability in the commands and he didn't put ability in the in leaving the sins because generally leaving a sin doesn't require it doesn't require there are very rarely in a situation where you cannot leave a sin leaving a sin is something you are capable of doing you're the one doing it you're the one who can who can leave it whereas praying standing up not everybody can pray standing up going to hajj financially yeah not everybody can go to hajj right, financially but leaving a sin this is not something generally that is attached to استطاع generally speaking what you need is توفيق from Allah but the actual ability not to do something wrong is something that everybody has بإذن الله تعالى you need Allah's help to stop doing it you need Allah's help and we did a nice you know a nice video with some of the young kids as part of the seat at the table in a reunion where we talked about addictions with them and we talked about like because okay a lot of people can understand leaving sin as in occasional sin but the one everybody struggles with is addictions how do I leave the sin that I just keep doing again and again and you know I think the first thing that maybe the brothers were expecting they were thinking that maybe I'm going to start telling them about techniques to leave the sin actually the first thing is realize you cannot leave the sin like that you يا عبد الله you cannot leave the sin أبداً you cannot leave unless Allah gives you توفيق إِيَّاكَ نَعْبُوهُ وَإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ you alone we worship you alone we ask for help oh Allah if you don't help me to leave this oh Allah I will never leave it so you need Allah's help to make tawbah you need Allah's help to leave the sin you need Allah's help not to do it again so this idea of stopping what you're doing it has to have determination عزيمة and hard work that you are determined and it comes from regret right if you really do regret then you're determined like that's it stop but what you can't do is be doing the sin and while you're doing the sin you believe that you made tawbah you can make istighfar you can be doing a sin and say أستغفر الله Allah you know don't punish me for it but you can't make tawbah you can't make that sincere tawbah while you're still doing that sin it has to the sin itself has to stop in the present you have to actually stop it and then when we talk about the future you have to intend not to do it again now you don't have to guarantee that you'll never do it again but you have to intend it that at this moment in time I really genuinely intend that insha'Allah I will never do this sin again I'm never going to do it again insha'Allah hu ta'ala it's gone never going to do it again and Allah knows what's in your heart it's not like when you say to yourself I'm never going to do it again but in the back of your mind yeah exactly and that's a lot of people they deceive themselves right they kind of tell themselves that yeah I'm not going to but in their heart and I believe to a certain extent that comes from still comes from regret you know like with enough regret you will never ever want to do that that sin again and that's why it's narrated about the young man who came to the prophet and asked permission to commit zina he said that when I came to the prophet there was nothing in my heart more desirable to me than zina and when I left the prophet there was nothing in my heart more hated to me than it and if you have that hatred for it in your heart insha'Allah you won't do it again and if you do it again then you will be quick to repent from it the problem with the future and leaving the sin is for a lot of people what happens is they fool themselves with temenni with hopes and with you know it's okay I'll make tawbah I'll make tawbah and you know the classical one we give for law there are lots of variations is I'll go to hajj next year I'm going to hajj I mean first of all we said hajj doesn't wipe out the major sins without tawbah so your hajj without tawbah is not going to help you in that regard of course it's going to make you near to Allah insha'Allah you'll get jannah but it's not going to wipe out that sin unless you make tawbah for it because the major sins are not wiped out by just performing good deeds whatever those good deeds are so this idea that I'm going to make hajj next year I'm going to repent and we all do it on a daily basis forget this I mean we kind of smile when people say you know like we despair inside but we'll subhanAllah you know when someone says that you know insha'Allah next year I'm going to make hajj so when I make hajj I'll be better but we do this on a daily basis that tomorrow I'm going to stop doing this you know later on today I'm going to stop doing this you know insha'Allah one more time and that's it I'm done you know like and that subhanAllah that insincerity it shows later on and Allah subhanAllah rarely does Allah give somebody tawfeeq to make tawbah when they have that feeling of of the fact that I will make it in a bit in a while they don't rush and that's why Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said ثُمَّ يَتُوبُونَ مِنْ قَرِيبٍ the one that Allah accepts their tawbah we said للَّذِينَ يَعْمَلُونَ السُّوءُ those who do evil through jahalatin out of ignorance ثُمَّ يَتُوبُونَ مِنْ قَرِيبٍ قَأُولَئِكَ يَتُوبُوا اللَّهُ عَلِيهِ then they quickly make tawbah some of the scholars said مِنْ قَرِيبٍ means before you die but even if it means before you die the word مِنْ قَرِيبٍ just means in the near future in the near time but some of the scholars of tafseer they said مِنْ قَرِيبٍ means before you die but here when will you die? we don't know we don't even know if we're going to make it to the end of this video you don't know so act now because your death could be coming very soon so if مِنْ قَرِيبٍ is when you die then this is even more emphatic than if مِنْ قَرِيبٍ means quickly because you don't know that you are not going to die in the next one minute in the next few seconds so ثُمَّ يَتُوبُونَ مِنْ قَرِيبٍ make tawbah before you die and if you haven't thought about that then ask yourself the question when are you going to die? and if you don't have an answer then make tawbah now because otherwise you don't know that's really interesting because when you first hear that at tafseer you might think that it's giving someone the thought and the mentality that I can delay it but actually you're right it's more emphatic to actually act now and when you bring it to the other ayah that Allah does not accept the tawbah وَلَيْسَ ٱلْتَوْبَةُ عَلَىٰ اللَّهِ the tawbah is not accepted by Allah الذين يَعْمَلُونَ السَّيِّئَاتِ the people who do evil deeds حَتَّىٰ إِذَا حَضَرَ أَحَدَهُمُ النَّوْتِ قَالَ إِنِّي تُكْفُوا الْآنِ when death comes to the person they say now I made tawbah Allah doesn't accept it the Prophet ﷺ told us that tawbah is accepted مَا لَمْ يُغَرْهِرْ as long as the soul didn't reach the throat and that's why some of the ulama they mentioned this as a fifth condition of tawbah and we've mentioned three they mentioned it as a fifth I'm coming to number four because number four is a big one but they mentioned it as a fifth one is that for tawbah to be valid it has to be done في زمنِ التوبة in the time that tawbah is accepted and the time that tawbah is accepted مَا لَمْ يُغَرْهِرْ until the soul has reached the throat or the sun has risen from the west and from this is the ayah in surah Al-An'am in which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala told us on the day that يَوْمَ يَأْتِي بَعْضُ آيَاتِ رَبِّكِ on the day that some of the signs of Allah come لَا يَنفَعُ نَفْسًا إِيمَانُهَا that the soul will not benefit from their iman if it hasn't لَمْ تَكُنْ آمَنَتْ مِنْ قَبْلُ أَوْ كَسَبَتْ فِي إِمَانِهَا خَيْرًا it didn't believe before and it didn't do good deeds with they didn't have iman and they didn't follow it with good deeds these ayat that we're talking about here is أَن تَتْرُعَ الشَّمْسُ مِنْ مَغْرِبِيَةِ that the sun rises from the west on the day the sun rises from the west there is no tawbah the door of tawbah is closed for those who are still alive at that time the door of tawbah is closed and Allah will not accept the tawbah of the people on that day that's it the chance for tawbah is gone now what you've done, you've done but for an individual the moment of death ما لديه حق till the soul reaches the throat so now we came to this fourth condition so we've talked about the past, present and future so the person looking at the past they feel regret that regret drives them to stop doing it and to commit never to do it in the future if they do do it in the future they quickly repeat the process but there is a fourth one and this condition is that if you did a sin that relates to the rights of other people or the rights of creation رَفُقَ الْإِبَاد then you have to make up for those rights and this is a topic you've done a sin that relates to it's not only the rights of Allah every sin relates to the rights of Allah every sin you do is an infringement of Allah's rights even if it's against the creation it's also against but Allah is غَفُورٌ غَفَّار تَوَّابٌ كَرِيم Allah forgives and overlooks Allah is Al-Ghaffar but the person you did this sin against is not Al-Ghaffar and that individual, that human being that you transgressed against or you took something of theirs or you committed backbiting or slander or you lied about them or you spread a rumor about them or you got into a fight with them or you spoke to them in an evil way or you didn't fulfill their rights they are not Al-Ghaffar they are not Tawwab they are not maybe even Rahim or their Rahmah if they are Rahim their Rahmah is not even comparable to not even the tiniest amount of the Rahmah of Allah SWT so it's not now we've talked about all of this and we will be worrying about you know, Allah's forgiveness but how much worse is it when your forgiveness is tied not to Allah but to somebody else and that's why these are sins and that's why the scholars they say the sins are three ذَنْبٌ لَا يُغْفَرُونَ a sin that will not be forgiven and that is shirk if you die upon it ذَنْبٌ لَا يُطْرَقُ a sin that will never be left Allah will not just leave it and let it go and that's the sin you do towards somebody else because from the justice of Allah Allah will not leave it somebody committed a sin against you Allah will not just say okay, never mind that one I'll let you off there's no let off for that one you will have to answer for it either you sort it out in this dunya or either you sort it out in the akhira but there is no way that it will be left and ذَنْبٌ يُغْفَرُ لَهُ وَيُطْرَقُ and a sin that is forgiven and overlooked and that is the sin that is less than shirk that is between you and Allah that doesn't involve the rights of other people this one even though we've been talking about how dangerous it is it's still nothing compared to the issue of رَقُوبَ الْعِبَادِ why? because you are relying on Allah's mercy alone when it comes to that sin it's less than shirk you've you're a Muslim and you've lived your life as a Muslim now you are relying upon the rahma of أَرْحَمَ الرَّحِيمِ the most merciful of those who give mercy what are you going to do when your forgiveness is attached to Abdullah and Fatima and Muhammad and Maryam how do you survive that? because they are not they do not have that rahma and you know people don't have rahma with you in the dunya so how will they have rahma with you in the akhirah unless Allah Azza wa Jal inspires them to have mercy that's your only you know your only tiny hope that you have is just that Allah Azza wa Jal inspires them to have mercy but Allahumma there is one solution fix it in the dunya and again this is where knowing the sin is so important how many times did we sin and we sinned against people and we didn't even know and we didn't even know subhanAllah we're driving on the road we don't know subhanAllah you know you fall in front of a car or somebody took their place in the queue any small thing at yawm al-qiyamah this person can come before you and say this is my haqq you took it from me haqq give me something for it what will you give them yawm al-qiyamah for it you can only give them your good deeds or you can only take their sins and some of these people have big sins and this is also another way of thinking about it if you can't think about it like this you want a different way of thinking about it why do you want that person might have kabair big sins this person who is mujrim a criminal and they did really evil things and their criminality becomes wars because you oppressed them in something really this issue of huqooq al-ibad is a big problem because it's now your tauba being accepted is conditional upon you either having made up for the sin or that person forgiving you and yes we can make du'a for Allah to inspire them to forgive us and there are some du'as or istighfa which imply that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala forgives you for even the things you don't remember you don't recognize for example Allahumma ufilli dhanbi kullah diqahu wa jillah awwalahu wa aakhirah sirrahu wa alaniyati oh Allah forgive me for all of my sins the small of them and the large of them or the hidden of them and the open of them the ones that diqahu wa jillah the small ones or the ones that are difficult to perceive and the ones that were huge it doesn't have to be small but the ones that are they were hard to spot and the ones that were huge the ones that I did early on and the ones that I have yet to do and the ones that I did secretly and the ones that I did openly and there is another one Allahumma ufilli maa qaddamtu wa maa akhartu wa maa asraftu wa maa a'alantu wa maa asraftu wa maa anta a'alamu bihi minni anta almuqaddim wa anta almuakhiru la ilaha ila anta oh Allah forgive me what I have done and what I have yet to do and what I did in secret and what I did in public and when I transgressed all the limits and what you know better than me and what here the sins all the sins Allah knows better than me but here the meaning is the things that you don't recognize you did and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows you did so you can ask Allah to forgive you for things that you don't even remember but here now there is a condition of that and that is when you do remember one you have to now behave as though you remember it and you have to now like say tawba and make up for things and if I believe inshaAllah ta'ala if a person genuinely every time they oppress somebody they try to make up for it Allah azza wa jal will inspire the people that they forgot about to forgive them Allah will inspire those people to forgive them if they are really sincere about making up for what they do remember and making up for what you do remember now is how do we start to explain the way that you make up for what you have done to somebody so the first one is the easier one and that is if you have if you have taken something physically like something tangible so we're not talking about the person's honor now we're talking about you infringed on their honor you've taken something tangible from them money that you shouldn't have or whatever it might be here you have to return that to them and you have to return that to them even if they don't know that you are the one who returned it or you are the one who took it because in the end of the day we don't want to make the situation worse you don't have to come to the person and say you know I took from you this but you have to make it up and this remember this is something what came in my mind it's not just about what you've taken like you stole something but even work how many times at work we don't fulfill our contract to our employer it is true wallah it's true you know we're contracted to work seven hours, eight hours a day and the person does six hours the person answers their own email does one of their own projects in that time without the permission of the employer now you've taken something from someone that was their money that was their haka you took it as if you had taken it from their bank account and stolen it you've taken it from them now so now you don't have to go back to them and say to them that you know yesterday when I was at work and I was supposed to work eight hours for you actually you know I spoke to my friend for an hour on the phone but what you do have to do is make that time up give them that hour back give them that time back and it's especially true of people working from home where it becomes even like if you're in the office at least you've got some kind of element of control your boss is there people are there if you're working from home it's very easy to fall into it it's very easy even in the office it happens even in the office it happens sometimes the whole office does it the whole office just goes off on a tangent so that's one thing physically giving it back but even in this just apologizing and asking for forgiveness you don't have to be specific about what you did like you don't have to say to them that you know yesterday at 6.55 you know AM or PM or whatever but just to say to them look you know we all have times where we fall short and I fear that there are times where maybe I didn't you know fulfill my contract with you or my agreement with you forgive me for it you know if I did anything I've always tried my best and if I fell short I've tried to make it up and you know forgive me for it and if someone asks you for forgiveness for something whatever it is backbiting, slander wallah I urge you to forgive them because this is how you get Allah's forgiveness وَلِيَعْفُوا وَلِيَصْبَحُوا أَلَا تُحِبُّونَا يَغْفِرُوا اللَّهُ رَبِّكَ pardon and overlook do you not want Allah to forgive you this tells us that Allah's forgiveness to you is according to also how much you pardon other people but someone comes and wallah when someone comes it's beautiful wallah the person is really sincere to come and say look I did something wrong forgive me for it if I went over a limit if I said something you didn't like forgive me for it you know now we come on to the intangible issues things that you can't measure you can't return back like someone's honour backbiting, slander rumour about them this is so severe and so dangerous but so easy to do here now the issue is how do I make up for it so the first thing is there is a way you can partially return that honour to them and that is by mentioning them in good where you mention them in bad and reversing the rumour if it's a rumour and telling that rumour is not true or saying good things about them in their absence defending them when people say bad things about them and so on you can that doesn't return the honour completely because you know they've still they've still had their honour has been infringed but still you have partially gone some way towards fixing the problem so somebody falls into backbiting and let's remind ourselves that backbiting is to mention about your brother or your sister in Islam that which they would not like you to say with it being true while it is true so you say oh I saw that brother the other day he's put on weight that's right he's put on weight you said that about him in his absence this is is backbiting even if he knows you said it and that's what the scholars they take from ... is that ... can include that which the person knows about so it's not like oh no I've said it to his face you know when I saw him I said ... you know you're fat like that you said it to his face but then the fact you said it to his face is backbiting even if you say he gave permission he doesn't mind he gave permission did Allah give permission Allah did not give permission so ... would one of you like to eat the flesh of your dead brother you would hate it so backbiting here now you said something about someone mention find those people you spoke to and mention him in good you know mention and mention what you ... you know ... such a lovely brother and Allah bless him and what I said about him is not even true you know I don't or even if you can't get away with it it's not even true mention him in good in the best way you can you know say ... what is that thing to say about him which of us for example it's weight you say which of us doesn't put on weight ... isn't it true and he looks really good for himself Allah bless him Allah give him good health you mention you undo all and it's a bit embarrassing because you have to now undo the things you said and you have to crawl back and you know like and ... you know unwind that that you know that thing that you've done so it's not easy but you have to make a habit of it because if you don't make a habit of it ... it will come back so you have to make that habit of mentioning that person in good speaking about people in good when people gossip just idle chat idle chat I don't think you can survive even two minutes of idle chat without doing something haram you know like it's just gonna it's gonna come out backbiting, lying slander, gossip something is gonna come out just talking like that it's just a person you know correcting themselves and so on so now you ... no no go for it because some people might ask is it still backbiting if they're doing it on their keyboard or their phone and it's online very true this comes under again ... the scholars say ... is with ... with your tongue and ... ... is with in a symbolic way and symbolism ... includes writing so writing about them pointing at them rolling your eyes sniggering behind their back or ... all of it is backbiting ... is for the person who backbites by speech or action that's the meaning of ... ... the person ... is either the curse of Allah or it is a valley in ... ... he said ... is a valley in ... a valley in ... for who for the one who backbites people through speech and action so it's a severe thing and you said backbiting was when it's true when it's true when it's false it's worse it's slander and slander is worse than backbiting so this issue here now we fixed it in a way in a portion by every person that I could find that I said that bad thing to I said good about that person and subhanAllah you know the difficult thing is with your friends it's relatively easy to recover from backbiting in that way but it's pretty difficult when it's an enemy of yours someone you don't like someone you have beef with problem with you know like you've been fighting they've said horrible things about you and then you said something horrible about them now you have to backtrack even if it is somebody who has this enmity between you and them so now this issue of backbiting you mention them in good to try to undo some of the harm but now the problem is that hasn't undone all of the harm you now have to ask them to place you to place you like they say to take this burden from you again you don't have to mention what you said but you come to them and say you know all of us we have times where our tongue gets ahead of us and I was sat the other day and I was intending to mention you in good and I think nothing of good nothing but good of and I said something wallah after I said it I thought that perhaps you wouldn't have liked it so forgive me for what I said and again the person should forgive if they want Allah to forgive them they should say I forgive you and forgive me if I had said something about you and so on it's a good opportunity to to get that you know the other way around forgive me as well if I said something the only time you are permitted not to say that is if by saying that you genuinely believe the situation will become worse that it will bring a greater evil now I don't think I think some people for example they may hear the statement of Shaykh Rasul Allah who spoke about not saying this to people when it causes a greater evil and greater harm and they kind of get themselves out of it they're like look Ibn Taymiyyah said don't do it and you know because they they convince themselves they convince themselves but if you genuinely believe that it's not going to cause a problem فهذا هو الاصل this is the basic principle when you go to someone and say you know Akhi Wallah all of us you know Subhanallah I was talking the other day and I had no intention to say something bad and Subhanallah I said something and I thought you know you wouldn't have liked me to have said that so forgive me likewise you know or you could say you know we're in a group and someone said something bad about you and I didn't I didn't speak up about it I Subhanallah I wanted to and the Shaytan overcame me and I didn't forgive me for what I said and tell them and I've gone and I've mentioned you in good to those people forgive me for what I said and Inshallah the person will will forgive you and if they even if they don't forgive you perhaps Allah will inspire them to forgive you because you did the best that you you did the best that you could if you really believe you know the person and you know that it's going to cause big problems maybe there's already been a big rift between you and it's on a knife edge and you know that just this will will really create maybe even will cause family to split or will cause relatives to break up or then in this case you are permitted to leave that and to go to the third thing and the third thing you should be doing anyway and that is to make dua for them and maybe even to give sadaqa on their behalf until you feel that you have made up for what you did and that's why it's always good to be good to people right? It's always good because you don't know ever if you're going to do a bullying to them at least I think you can you know like even though al-amal bin niyat so it doesn't help you that much but the habit of of just being good to people and helping people out and saying you know subhanAllah you know if I ever oppress a person I want to be somebody who inshaAllah I can go to them and say you know forgive me akhi and in my heart I know I tried for them I tried to do something good for them dua for them and most of us can't even do dua for the people we oppress you know even generally to ask Allah that oh Allah if I oppress someone raise their rank in general the Prophet SAW said this right? he said oh Allah anyone that I I insult anyone that I insult make it a cause for the raising of their daraj make it a a means of nearness to me subhanAllah can you imagine the Prophet SAW insulting someone that he doesn't subhanAllah like but he said that if if I insult somebody make it a means of nearness to Allah or as he said or a means of raising their rank it has a a nice story to it and that's the the story of Muawiyah rabiAllahu anhu when the Prophet SAW called him and he was eating so he didn't know that subhanAllah hasha wa kalla that he knows the Prophet SAW wants him and he will he will refuse he's eating and another sahabi called him back you know come and he said I'm eating then the Prophet SAW said call him again and he was eating so here the Prophet SAW said about him that may Allah not make his stomach may Allah never make his stomach full may Allah never make him feel satisfied Muawiyah said this was a blessing for me since the Prophet SAW said this to me I can survive on a small amount of food and I don't like it doesn't I don't feel the need to to overeat like I did before subhanAllah the Prophet SAW said it as a as a rebuke you know a gentle rebuke to him that eating still may Allah never make his stomach satisfied and Allah answered to the Prophet SAW that anyone that I and anybody that I say rebuke or I say something too harshly then make it a means of ministry and a means of raising their rank and Muawiyah himself talks about the the benefit of this in him that he didn't after that he did not feel he did not feel hungry or he did not feel that he needs to eat too much after that time for subhanAllah a person should ask Allah that if I oh Allah the people I'm not going to say if I oppress people because I oppressed them I know I oppressed them that whoever I oppressed you know that forgive them raise their rank in Jannah you know answer their dua until you feel that you have done something to repay that that doesn't excuse you going to people and asking forgiveness but at least it it starts to get you going in the right direction and there are some people you cannot ask their forgiveness because you've lost contact with them you know people you cannot like I've oppressed somebody and I don't have a way to contact them you know I'm just asking people for forgiveness even asking for forgiveness from Allah and from people for things that you maybe even haven't done what do you mean by that? so people you know asking Allah's forgiveness the Prophet SAW in a single majlis asks Allah's forgiveness 70 times there is no way the Prophet SAW did 70 sins the Prophet SAW didn't sin in the first place Allahumma illa you know what we said the inadvertent mistake that Allah SWT reveals it in the Quran straight away and how many times did that happen? the Prophet SAW is not sinning in that majlis but the Prophet SAW is asking Allah's forgiveness generally and also even if you you're not sure did I do something wrong? Astaghfirullah even a thought you're not sure was it wrong? Astaghfirullah you know and you make a habit of istighfar and tawbah even if you're not like even if it's not you could argue for yourself that no I don't know did I do something wrong? was that wrong what I did? don't wait to ask yourself was that wrong what I did? ask Allah's forgiveness even with people you might have said something you're not sure even if it's backbiting like people will say you know to me they'll send me a question and say like did I is that backbiting? why are you waiting? just go and ask the person to go and say to the person like you know forgive me I'm not even sure that I said something you wouldn't like but I'm frightened maybe I did forgive me you know so yes it's good to ask if it's backbiting because they'll learn from the future but like there's nothing wrong with being cautious we call it al-wara like being cautious out of the fear of Allah just you know make istighfar a few more times ask Allah's forgiveness where if you think you might have done something somewhat apologize even if you you know even if you didn't do it that's such good etiquette when you see people like that and the person says I'm sorry wallah did I you know and you didn't do anything wrong you didn't do anything wrong at all so it's just a habit that will allow you to recognize more mistakes that you make and inshallah will stop those ones slipping through the net that you don't recognize so this issue of making up for things and there are some complicated masaa'il in that people talk about for example the one that comes to comes to mind is people talk about you know I obtained my qualification in my job fraudulent and now I have a job based on that qualification and all my income is from that job and my income is from that job but what is the is the situation here so this one it has to see depending on the circumstances we first of all ask the person are they able to do the job effectively and responsibly and they're able to fulfill their contractual obligations and if that's the case then bi'idhnillahi ta'ala they make tawbah for what they did they repent for what they did and inshallah they can remain within that employment and they're able to fulfill that job but it gets more complicated when the person says actually you know I actually can't fulfill that job so then the question is are they able to gain those skills sort of subsequently and can they for example someone asked Sheikh bin Baz about an imam in the masjid he's an imam of the masjid and he can't recite the Quran he didn't obtain it for him he just he got made imam of the masjid from whatever means but he cannot recite the Quran properly so the Sheikh answered him that you can learn you don't need to quit your job you can just you need to learn it to fulfill it but then you have some people who are in a position where they're a danger to people they've got a job as a doctor and they're not qualified you know there was a story and Allah only knows best about the authenticity of it of somebody who was a pilot who was not a qualified pilot they'd obtained their degree in a false way now you're putting people's lives at risk every time you get on that seat and you fly that plane you're putting somebody's life at risk the person has to leave that job but there are some difficult ones like that which it's better instead of taking an answer from a video it's better for a person to ask about their particular situation like this happened to me and you know this is the thing there are two things I really want to mention about sins one is don't expose your sins why this is subhanallah I don't know why people do this you know even if you're asking a question why do you have to mention it's me you know Ustaz I'm writing to you because last week I did this I'm thinking no no not just last week when you wrote this email you were singing why did you tell me about it say that there was a brother say you know I know someone you know yourself right I know someone who did this don't expose your sins it's mentioned that like the Prophet s.a.w. said all of my ummah will be forgiven except for the people the people who they commit sins openly Allah concealed the sins for them and then they go and they say last night I did this and that and the other people do this on social media they post their sins it's like they did something haram and then they they post their sins or a picture or even they tell people about it and they're like astaghfirullah and usually it's with istighfar as well you know astaghfirullah last night I did leave it between you and Allah Allah is a sitir the one who covers all the sins between you and Allah what's that the hadith about yawmul qiyamah when the person Allah is alone with his slave Allah takes his slave privately and says to him didn't you do this sin didn't you do that sin and the person says yes my lord until they believe that they're going to be destroyed and Allah says like I concealed it for you in the dunya I forgave it for you today concealed it for you in the dunya meaning that to get that secret forgiveness you have to it has to have been mastoor meaning Allah concealed it for you so how are you going to go and remove the sitir that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala put for you Allah gave you this blessing that you sinned and Allah covered it up Allah covered it up that's why just on a side point some of them used to make dua and ask that oh Allah don't allow me to see my sheikh's mistakes and my teacher's mistakes because like subhanAllah from that point even to that point subhanAllah so this idea of covering up Allah covered it for you why you why are you taking the cover of Allah away the second one that a person's deeds are destroyed through or a person gets destroyed by is the hadith about the people who come with good deeds like the mountains mountains of good deeds and all of it tends to dust there are people إِذَا خَلَوْهُمَ حَارِمًا لَّا إِنتَ هَقُولَ when they're alone with what Allah made haram they fall into it now this someone might say well don't all of us do sins in private yes for sure but this is a person who this is their nature their nature is in public they're super careful not to sin but in private they don't care about what they do it's not doing a sin in private because all of us might do a sin in private but it's not doing sins in public and making a big effort in front of people but not having that same care so then why are you making that effort in front of people because of those people not because of Allah because Allah can see you in both situations because Allah sees you in both situations so look this happens to everybody also people do fall into this we are naturally more observant we benefit from having good people around us and we are further away from sin but don't make it your nature that you're a person that you know everyone's gone yalla had all the sins I can do it doesn't matter and then when someone comes it's like no sins it's gone like the bad speech or what they're watching or what they're doing you know because they are worried about their honour and their irt in the sight of the people but they're not worried about their status in the sight of Allah those are the people who their good deeds are turned to dust yalla so it's really important that we avoid these two things so have you noticed how the two are kind of opposites of each other in a way the person who does something in secret and then exposes their own sin and the person who doesn't do sins in public but then does them in secret so these are the two things that destroy your deeds and wipe out your deeds telling everybody about the sins you did and being a person whose habit day in day out or regularly is that you're not you don't care about sins as long as nobody can see you doing it قَوْمٌ إِذَا خَلَوْا بِمَ حَارِمِ اللَّهِ اِنْتَهَكُوهَا كَمَا قَالَ صَلَى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ الْقِيْبُرُ that if they are alone with what Allah made haram they fall into it wallah it covers a lot of things it's been yeah and there's still I mean there's so many this is I mean this is your your life is asking Allah's forgiveness and making mistakes and making up for them this is like such a fundamental life lesson because this is this is what you do you know this is what your whole life every day every night it's just making mistakes and sinning disobeying Allah so you need to have these skills of of tawbah how to make tawbah and how to and I just come back to if I was to come back to one thing I would just come back to the fact that you can't make tawbah without Allah's help everything you mention in this video you and I could leave this car and we could practice it or we could leave this car and practice Islam again yeah and it shouldn't be just a case of tawbah comes when you commit that really really really really evil sin like we mentioned at the start there's so many sins that we commit on an hourly basis on a minutely basis that we commit sins and it should be something that's frequent you know sometimes it's funny because you know I've got a background in finance right so sometimes I think like this I think of like my life like a P&L so like good deeds are going to be like revenue and then bad deeds are going to be like cost and the aim is to maximise your revenue and minimise your cost and then you have the profit at the end a lot of corporate companies even they tend to focus on the revenue line like overly focus on that and neglect the cost line until something like COVID hits and suddenly mass redundancies and there's to reduce our off-dates and stuff like that and I feel like myself I'm like this as well when it comes to the deans it's all about ok what extra deeds can I do what good deeds but it's not necessarily the same attention that should be going into the cost line which is of course the sins and it's only when you really you feel it when you really commit you know something like a really evil deed then you start thinking oh I need to make toga but really that should be if companies did the same thing if companies monitored their off-dates then when something like COVID comes it doesn't need to be redundancies because it's it and that's it I feel like that's a a very scary way to live life because ultimately if Allah forgives you if you seek forgiveness and you do toga and Allah forgives you you don't have to worry about being judged and that's that's where we come on to the topic of what the result of toga is the result of toga is it's not that Allah forgives you that's that's whoever makes toga Allah accepts the toga whoever makes toga it's like they didn't have a sin in the first place that's one but that's not the biggest one the biggest one is that Allah turns your sin into a good deed so you get two things out of toga the first is it's like you never did the sin to the point that some of the scholars said some of them said and it's a mas'ala khilafiyah they're different some of them said you will not even find that sin written in your deeds on the kalamah it's not there at all you will not see it written some of them said you'll see it but you'll not be affected by it you'll see it but it will not it will not hurt you it will be like greyed out you see it but it's it's not you're not held to account others said you will not see it at all as if you never did the sin and then Allah said Allah will take their sins and replace them with good deeds so you come and all these sins you've done are hasanat all these sins you've done are all good deeds and Ibn al-Qayyim said something amazing just on the topic he said there Ibn al-Qayyim he said that somebody and I don't want to misquote him but approximately roughly what he said is that a person may do a sin that is more beneficial to them than a thousand good deeds now here it doesn't mean better like better because it's a sin but the outcome of it was more beneficial to them than if they had done a thousand good deeds because it was the sin that made them wake up you know it was the one that said to them wake up and realize what you're doing and we know some people and subhanAllah what we see of them we see of them in good and we know that in the past they lived a different life and subhanAllah maybe it was one sin they did that made that whole that made that change but no doubt we should recognize even the small ones but sometimes that big one in itself at least if you're going to do something with it at least at least at least if you're going to do something with it do you know turn it into a good deed and make it the turning point in your life we also need to mention the advice of the Prophet ﷺ when he sent him to be a judge and a da'ia in Yemen and he said ابتق الله حيث ما كنت وأتبع السيئة الحسنة تمحوها وخالد الناس بخلف الحسن I actually just want to explain in light of what we've already said the first one to have taqwa of Allah wherever you are that's to shield yourself from sin to shield yourself from punishment by doing as many good deeds as possible and keeping away from as many sins as possible being scared of sins being scared of a fire shielding yourself from Allah's punishment by doing good deeds and keeping away from sins we've spoken about that follow up the bad deed with a good deed this is so easy this is like it's not even regret, cry like just you did something wrong now do something right do something good and Ibn Taymiyyah رحمه الله تعالى he mentioned in this that if you can do it in the same vein the same type of deed as the one you sinned in this is even better that person for example sinned by let's say they spoke about Allah without knowledge so then they go and seek knowledge and they speak about Allah with knowledge now exactly what they did wrong they do right if you can but it's not necessary to be exactly they could have spoken about Allah without knowledge and given sadaqa but ideally in the same vein as the same type or the same sort of deed that they did that they try to do that they try to do that deed in a good way immediately after وَأَتْبِعَكَ and the Prophet ﷺ said follow it up he didn't say after a while do good he didn't say do good deeds for example he didn't say fear Allah wherever you are or have taqwa of Allah wherever you are do good deeds he said follow up the bad deed and straight away afterwards one after the other you did a bad deed now do a good deed وَخَالِقِ النَّاسَ بِخُلُقٍ حَسَنٍ treat people with the best of manners and this is where we talk about be careful about people's rights huquq al-ibad treat people in the best possible way don't be someone who oppresses people because oppression this is the muflis تَهْدُرُونَ مَنَ الْمُفْلِسِ the Prophet ﷺ said to the companions do you know who is the muflis they said yeah the bankrupt one is مَنْ لَا دِنَارَ لَهُ وَلَا دِرْحَمْ and they said the one who has no dinar and dirham they're bankrupt right the bankrupt person is the one that doesn't have any dinar and doesn't have any dirham the Prophet ﷺ said the muflis is the one who comes on the Day of Judgment and then because of all that oppression that they had done to people سَبَّهَذَا وَشَتَمَهَذَا وَأَخَذَ مَالَهَذَا taking the wealth of someone and oppress someone and so on that Allah ﷻ takes their good deeds and then gives the bad deeds of the person they oppress and the person they end up so the sahaba they took the standard answer for who is the bankrupt person the bankrupt is the one who has got no dinar and dirham he's got no money the Prophet ﷺ told us and he mentioned different types of oppression شَتَمَهَذَا he insulted this person وَأَخَذَ مَالَهَذَا وَضَرَبَهَذَا he beat this person he took this person's wealth each one of them comes and takes some of his good deeds and when he has no good deeds left they give their bad deeds to him and then the person is wrapped up and thrown into the fire because the person didn't didn't bring any good deeds and has just got a record of bad deeds because of all the people they oppressed so خَالِقِ النَّاسَ بِخُلُقِ الْحَسَنِ it's not just about good manners but just being someone whose habit is not you know I try my best not to oppress people and that requires the statement of Allah ﷻ خُذْ الْعَفْو وَأَمُرْ بِالْعُرْضِ وَأَعْرِضْ عَنِ الْمُجَاهِرِ that take to pardoning people be somebody who doesn't hold grudges with people and command that which is good or you know to follow that which is customary and turn away from the people who are ignorant because those people are just going to cause that oppression and argumentation between you and them so those are some of the things were like the topic is huge yeah we could go on for another couple of hours I feel like one thing I want to add on to that I feel like we haven't done the issue of taddeel of justice this taddeel that Allah ﷻ does you know these ayat I think this will give a lot of hope to people who may be in that camp who are thinking that you know what I'm never going to be forgiven for this those ayat was the end of Surah Al-Hurqan where Allah ﷻ talks about Ibadur Rahman and he says وَالَّذِينَ لَا يَدْعُونَ مَعَ اللَّهِ إِلَهَ الْآخَرُ وَلَا يَقَتُلُونَ النَّفْسَ مَّتِي خَرَّمَ اللَّهُ إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ وَلَا يَزْنُونَ وَمَنْ يَفْعَلُ ذَلِكَ يَلْقَى أَفَامًا يُضَاعَفْ لَهُ الْعَذَابُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَ وَيَخْرُدَ فِيهِ مُحَانًا إِلَّا مَنْ تَابَ وَآمَنَ وَعَمِلْ أَعْمَلًا صَالِحًا فَأُولَئِكَ يُبَدِّلُ اللَّهُ سَيِّئَاتِهِمْ خَسَنَاتٍ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورَ بَخِرْنَا We touch on this and I feel like we really should go into it in a little bit more detail because this is one of my favourite passages in the Qur'an where Allah begins by talking about those who refrain from some of the most evil deeds in our religion Yeah, that's it, that's the point.
Allah mentions the worst of the deeds Shirk, murder, unjust killing of soul and zina So subhanAllah, sometimes a person who says I don't think that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and I don't see how will Allah forgive me So subhanAllah, you look at this, Allah told the person who committed shirk and murder and zina that Allah will replace their bad deeds with good Except for what is the condition? لَمَن تَابَع They have to have tawbah, right? We've talked about tawbah They have to have iman, they have to have iman and they have to follow it up with righteous deeds and that's why it's not this whole I believe in it in my heart, I'm a good Muslim in my heart You have to make tawbah, you have to believe in Allah and you have to do the righteous actions that are a part of that iman and Allah highlighted them because so many people don't do them It would have been enough to have said إِلَّا مَن تَابَع وَآمَنِ Because iman includes good deeds, right? But Allah emphasized the amr as-salih because that is what is going to cause those deeds to be wiped out because this is a connection with the hadith of Mu'adh The two are the same وَأَتْبِعِ السَّيِّئَةَ الْحَسَنَةَ تَنْفُهَا The good deeds you do, إِنَّ الْحَسَنَةَ يُسْهِبْنَا سَيِّئَةً The good deeds cause the bad deeds to go away and Allah will replace those bad deeds Allah will replace what? Shirk, murder, zina Allah will replace them with hasanat Like you said, not just wipe them out which would be enough of a mercy That would be enough But the fact that someone could come on Yawm al-Qiyam with a mountain of bad deeds and that mountain of bad deeds is turned into a mountain of good deeds and it's also interesting because in these same ayaat that's one extreme right? A person who may be thinking that Allah is never going to forgive me I've done so many evil things The other extreme we mentioned towards the start of this episode as well was the other side to Allah is a qur'an kareem, he's going to forgive me Allah even in these very same verses He's talking about the evil وَمَيَّبْ عَذَلِكَ يَلْقَى أَثَامًا They're going to meet an evil punishment يُضَعَفْ لَهُ الْعَذَابُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ It's going to be multiplied for them on the Day of Judgment وَيَخْلُضَ فِيهِ مُحَانًا And they're going to stay in their مُحَانًا Humiliated, disgraced There's a fa'idah lughawiyah here as well The word مُحَانًا comes from the root letters هَا وَأَنُونَ And at the start of this passage where Allah talks about عِبَادَ الرُّخْمَنِ He says وَعِبَادَ الرُّخْمَنِ أَلَّذِينَ يَمْشُونَ عَلَى الْأَوْضِ هَوَنَ Which comes from the same root letters هَا وَأَنُونَ So at the start he's using the word هَوَنَ As a praise for people who walk upon the earth Humbly, not arrogantly And then a few verses later Same root letters from a different word هُونَ And مَا هَوَانَ Allah is talking about them being disgraced, humiliated But the way to get out of that is like we mentioned تَوْبَ إِمَان And أَمْلُ الصَّحِبِ And it's interesting because either you accept Humility in this world And then honour in the Akhirah Or either you take false honour in this world And humility in the Akhirah You get in humility one way or the other You choose where you want that هَوْنَ To be Like you want to humiliate yourself in this world In the sense of be humble And submit before Allah And lower yourself before Allah And Allah will raise you in Yawmul Qiyamah Or you choose to be arrogant in this world And Allah SWT will humiliate you in Yawmul Qiyamah سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ It's a very profound The ayat are profound You know someone might say that تَوْبَ They've understood the importance of it They still have this issue of Commitment We touched on it earlier But commitment is over and over and over again Should they wait until they're Better In a better state of إيمان Or should they just make تَوْبَ every time Make تَوْبَ every time And even if you can't make تَوْبَ حتى if you can't You don't even You're so into it You can't even feel regret for it Do some of the شروط of تَوْبَ And if you can't bring all of it Bring some of it and bring استغفار Because we said استغفار doesn't require Those شروط But when we say استغفار It doesn't require those conditions It doesn't mean you don't need to do any of them When somebody says for example I can't I just can't bring myself to regret it But I'm not going to do it And I'm intending not to do it again I just can't bring myself to hate it I just can't bring that regret in my heart So I'm just going to make استغفار And intend to do it again You're going to bring whatever you can Because that's how you're going to get Allah's تَوْفِير To be able to truly make تَوْبَ later on So you make Even if it is a partial تَوْبَ Or somewhat of a تَوْبَ That you Look, I'm not sure if I'm never going to do it again But I am going to stop doing it now I am going to stop doing it now And I'm going to ask Allah to forgive me That is how you get تَوْبَ You don't get تَوْبَ necessarily by Perfectly bringing all of these different conditions As if it's just so easy Instead, look, right now I'm going to stop I'm not sure if I'm never going to do it again I'm going to try And I'm going to I'm asking Allah to cover it up I'm asking Allah to forgive me I'm asking Allah to purify me And not make it happen to me again Purify my heart and so on Don't make it happen again And then I'm working towards not doing it again And then as I'm learning I'm working towards building my feeling of regret You know, it's not this case that we wait Until our iman is at such a level Where we have total regret And total By that time you've already reached your destination You've already reached your goal Instead, you're working towards it So it's a constant struggle And a constant To just, maybe someone say Look, even I can't say I'm stopping it now But I am really intending not to do it again Okay, now you haven't brought تَوْبَ But you've brought some of it So make istighfar Ask Allah to forgive you And now let's work on stopping Make istighfar Ask Allah to forgive you Recognize you have a Lord that forgives and punishes And until you can do it like that Until Allah SWT You know, blesses you And has mercy on you And honors you with the ability to make تَوْبَةً نَصُوحًا True and sincere تَوْبَةً Asalaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh I think I've personally benefited the most From the concept of not really recognizing How many sins we commit And how we so easily fall into them And some of the ones that we easily fall into Are the ones that require that fourth condition of تَوْبَة The ones where it's against that The creation of مخلوقات Against the other human beings And they are so easy to fall into And it's so easy to not recognize either You're just talking amongst friends And that fighting slander We have Fariq Rafiq already benefited from that Seyit Mubarak Allah InshaAllah We'll try and do another episode at some point Mubarak Allah Asalaamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
