 salamu alaykum rahmatullah hope everybody is doing well alhamdulillah so we're going to continue on in our series that we've been talking about the seven big obstacles on the path to Allah and we're on a last time just as a kind of recap so far the first big obstacle that we covered was knowledge and the importance of prioritizing knowledge before one gets active in their path to worship because if you and I worship without knowing we won't be performing the worship correctly we won't be practicing the religion correctly and then that may or may not have any value with regards to acceptance the second then when someone realizes and starts to learn is this this impulse that comes into to repent and to to really realize the level of mistakes that we've made to turn to Allah and sincere repentance and so that's the second big hurdle that the traveler on the spiritual path is going to face it's knowledge and then it's repentance and now he's getting into kind of like smaller hurdles what he calls impediments of which there are a few in the section that we're in um and so one of them we talked about last time is the dunya and everything the dunya contains and the lore of the dunya and the lore of wealth and the world and prestige and fame and power and um and all of the things that will tempt someone with the dunya talked about the ways so the second now what we're going to get into for today is um the impact that we associate with have on us and on our spiritual state so this is this is really really important because all of us we have people we interact with whether we interact with them at work whether we have friends that we interact with and and then acquaintances and others and there there is a spiritual impact that sometimes we're not aware of and other times we are and people are having on us so the first thing i'm going to just mention before we get into section is again all of this depends on the level of practice that someone desires to have when it comes to their spiritual path that everybody's level of practice is going to be different and so your standards for how much you apply this are going to be different the majority of what we're talking about the majority of it is not um obligatory or hot on right but that that is a different category what we're talking about now are virtuous things for someone to do when they are really trying to get close to Allah and really trying to have a state where in this life they've achieved a state of tranquility and nearness to Allah and that allows them to achieve achieve inshallah the higher stations in the next life and so just just want to set that context because you and i need to decide how much we apply what it is that we're discussing and learning to to our own life and for anybody who has the text i don't know if anyone's following along in the text we're going through the text but the section in the text is very um you you could say intense for the time that we live in like it's it's we're basically and i'm trying to give give a lot of context to it so if you are following along in the text just be mindful that that is meant usually what he is describing is meant for someone who's like devoted their entire life to knowledge and to the path of like scholarship and spiritual travel and that won't really apply to us and so we have to basically make sure that it applies to us in the context it is that we live in from the love um and everybody will be at a different stage in this so someone if we're still for example working on getting down our five daily prayers and we're still trying to pay those consistently on time and this will apply different and the type of hanging out with will apply differently than someone who's at a state where they're constantly vigilant about every thought that enters their heart and trying to prevent any negative thoughts that may distract them from a love for even a few minutes um preventing hard there's like different parts of the of the spectrum here and so um that's that's kind of going to keep mine so um with that let's start with the impact that people have on us and this there comes in various narrations in in Ayaz and the Quran in general the people we associate with that we hang out with that we spend time with that we whose company we are in we will be spiritually impacted by them even if we think that we won't because the way this works is there's an outward effect and an inward effect outwardly you and I see what someone is doing we see what someone is not doing and that may impact our understanding of um our own religious practice or impact our own understanding of what it is that we want to do but inwardly there's also an impact so people of goodness and light just by being in their presence you might not even exchange words and that light impacts your heart and impacts your your your spiritual state and this is um and there's there's various uh ways to kind of discuss it the most important example is the impact of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that his light was so overwhelmingly powerful that just being in his presence completely transformed someone even if they never got a chance to properly to him because there was so much newer emitting from his heart and then that newer was transmitted to the sahaba and it was similar and such that it was it was at the point where even some of the scholars for example when one of the great scholars adi abu bakr bin al arabi he walked into the presence of imam ghazali for the first time imam ghazali was in his virtual retreat he had kind of retreated away from the world over a period of time to work on himself and he wasn't seeing that many people um at this time and it was like he's it was as though this it was the first time i'd ever seen the sunrise it's like as though the sun had risen over for me with how much light was present and that experience and the overwhelming um positive spiritual experiences he had when entering the the present of this great imam and this is one of the great scholars of the umma not of course at the level of the sahaba or of course the level of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam so the spiritual state will owe somebody and someone is either in a spiritual state of light a spiritual state of darkness or somewhere in between there's different types of hearts that are um that that are out there you have the heart of a pure sincere purified believer which is upright and it's filled with light you have the heart of the the disbeliever who who knows the truth but covered without that heart is completely dark and then you have the heart of the hypocrite who knows that it's out there but doesn't want to do it and that heart is upside down it's flipped upside down and then there's hearts in between in terms of level of light what does that that that that exists imam alayhi describes this in his book the marvels of the heart so this now the the impact of that person the the heart that they have will impact our state being in their presence and um it's we can't see someone's heart we can't see their spiritual state but what we've evaluated on not in an arrogant judgmental way but you evaluate on is the actions that someone does and whether not it will it will affect us positively or negatively to spend time with them and knowing just being in their presence or watching their their their videos on youtube or tv shows that they're in or it will impact us especially if we get to develop a longing and attachment to them whatever the heart as long as is attached to and really thinks a lot about that person will impact that heart will impact your state that's why the people who are constantly thinking about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam they're constantly that yearning to be with him and to meet him and to and have this love for him that their state starts to develop a sunnah type of character that they develop a a a prophetic character to the way that they approach those things because the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is the one who they look up to the most and the one who is their role model so the spiritual state will impact you the second though is outwardly so now let's say that you and i are with someone and they minimize what Allah has made important and that does happen so prayer time comes in it's muslims and there's a big deal is fine we got to watch the games the super bowlers play us or whatever whatever whatever and next thing you know prayer time's gone and nobody can and now the person you you and i are going to think well hold on a second they're also muslims they didn't pray why do i got to do it is it really that big if nothing has happened to them what's what's the big deal if i don't do it one what's one prayer going to do as it is the subtle impacts that start to happen on the heart and we we are affected then by the state of somebody and if a significant percentage of people minimize something we may be at risk of minimizing it and when somebody who we're hanging out with who is a positive when they magnify something that we don't even think is a big deal but it's a big deal and we're like we learned from it we're like oh that i didn't realize that i shouldn't do that i didn't realize that that could have an impact on me but they'll they'll teach us and they'll magnify things and and they'll do it usually with gentleness and with looks and with subtle with subtleness um but that is uh one of the things that that will happen so we may fall on or in this case we may minimize something that we're supposed to do that another thing that will happen is we may fall into something impermissible and there's something around so it's it's very easy in fact many times someone doesn't even want to do a certain sin but if everyone around them is doing it they're like uh fine like you'll feel peer pressure is a very very real concept it's a very very real thing that happens so we may fall into the hum because we see everyone else around us doing something impermissible and we're like oh it's fine it's not it's not um you know the the end of the world um so that's that's one category we're falling into around the second one which i mentioned is minimizing the haram in our mind so serious doesn't missing a person really really really big deal like it's a it's it's it's for the person who's taking this spiritual path seriously they should they should apply some of the talk about missing the prayer and the the significance of it seriously for people who are um that not even for all it's better if they focus more on things that will move them to and because where context is really important why we're talking about where someone is out of the spirit but it's important for someone to know if you are taking the that seriously that there are hadith with problems I mentioned the person who misses a prayer it's the difference between us and the kufar is the prayer and their scholars have had the opinion in the religion of Islam credible scholars including the hanbali matah that missing the prayer will take you out of the full Islam in that year so the sin it is it's not the dominant view and it's not the view of of vast majority but just it's important to know that that's there you don't want to tell someone who's not praying at all that opinion because that will really demotivate them but for someone who is like oh I take it lightly that should be we should discuss we should mention that to ourselves so we start taking it more seriously right but these are things which are important to know because it will impact the type of people it is that we hang out with these are the categories where we may desire to do something um that will impress other people so this could be in a religious context or in a worldly context but like it's very normal for the human being to want the recognition and the praise and the attention of other of the of other human beings but spiritually that's a disease of the heart if it's done for religious reasons it's called reactivist temptation where someone is trying to get like usually someone might be fasting and you're hanging out with a group of people and it might be like an extra enough to fast and you'll find a way very subtly to slip it in there so someone can know that you're fasting and so they can praise you and say if you're doing extra fast it's really great to know and you you know just think oh yeah I'm just so hungry today and you'll find a way to so the next we'll find a way to slip something in that that's on the religious side on the normal side in the worldly side someone might just want people's attention and they might do things but with people we someone flex or anything that's called you're flexing right you're literally like trying to show off something to get attention that's look down upon our demon we don't most of us we shouldn't be doing that um for the most part right but but that's another impact that it may have so there's varying degrees of impact that the company will keep will have on us and um Imam al-Razali's biggest point and this first section is that the right and the wrong people will distract you from Allah and so if you know that it's distracting you're from Allah you you and I need to minimize it until we're ready to hang out with people again and hopefully be a means of um helping ourselves and helping them get closer to Allah but if we're if we are distracted from we are created to do and to worship and there are people who are impacting us in that way we need to second we need to we need to evaluate um whether or not it's wise to hang with those people and this is again we're going to get some of the details but like it doesn't apply to family and um like blood relationships because blood relationships you have no choice have to you can't you can't you can't distance yourself from blood relationships but these are relationships where you have a choice and where we have a choice because we're not the best group of friends to be with right now right probably a group of friends I should avoid for a good period of time um and then maybe maybe at some point I could try to be a um that hopefully a better influence on them but we all I'll know you know when when that will happen and so the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he said in abid that the um being with good company uh is like for example if someone is hanging out with the the musk the person who makes perfume or cologne or something like that where even if you don't engage in making the perfume you'll walk away smelling good and you'll walk away having enjoyed the pleasant smells of that right and he said that being in bad company is like the person who is a blacksmith which you know we don't really hang out with blacksmiths much anymore so it's a little bit harder to understand in our time but you know the but the one who is um that constantly around uh iron and coal and these types of things and he says that you either they'll burn your clothes or you'll walk away with with like dark sun on you and with a bad smell right because of the nature of that environment he's not commenting on like the the procedure of those occupations like that this is simply just to help us as a metaphor understand good company versus bad company but really what's happening is that it's the spiritual state of that person and the actions that they do that will impact us that will impact us and that will impact us at the heart level and then the heart is either begins to be transformed in a positive way or begins to be transformed in a negative way and so we just need to um need to keep that in mind and Allah says in the Qur'an Allah says in the Qur'an that Allah says in the Qur'an that Allah says in the Qur'an that He commands us that oh you who believe have mindfulness of Allah and be with the people of truth with the Sadiqeen. He didn't even tell us you have to be a person of truth he said just be with the people who should be truthful but from the status of the Sadiqeen to be with that because being with somebody in a group of people will help us will help us and it will be a means of bringing us closer and closer to um that to Allah. So um now we're going to get into a few of the categories of people that we should um or or trades that someone might have or a group might have that we should work on um avoiding. So the first is that in terms this is in terms of like we're hanging out with people willingly right there's unwilling and there's willing unwilling here at work co-workers etc i mean that's that's there's not only so much you can do right but and there's like the friends we make intentionally and the people we want to hang out with and be present with intentionally. The first is that um those who just openly disbelieve in Allah or who are unsure about their belief that will have a very negative spiritual effect on somebody um and so the the the approach here should be that we avoid friendships relationships and and having intentionally making company with people who are not believers or who openly disbelieve right and um sometimes it's a little bit hard to to accept that um because we are in a society in which uh it's it's very very slow society the vast majority of people don't believe especially in the Bay Area but it's important for someone's own preservation again we're talking here about it's not halal or halam it's not halam to be with someone like this it's simply the impact it's going to have on your spiritual state why is that it's because you might go through something and you might be trying to process it from a spiritual lens you might be like i wonder what god is trying to do you know oh for example right now tech unfortunately just tens of thousands of people are being left across every big tech company right now someone who's a believer might be like okay Allah is testing me perhaps there's some you're gonna try to find the wisdom in that if you if someone was affected by by losing their job but someone who doesn't believe in Allah you're trying to talk to them about that and you're like perhaps Allah is testing me and and there's like dude no it's just the economy i don't know what you're talking about what do you mean god is testing you like they're not they're not gonna understand they think it's the economy and it's all you know google's fault their mess fault it's all this person they they won't see Allah as the ultimate one responsible for our risk and that yes it is a means that the means in this situation is economic circumstances um that's the sub up but at the end of the day the um the one who is doing all this is Allah and so you and i are trying to process and we're like yeah you know what it is it's all and then we're just gonna start to get like confused and we're not gonna in our belief system where we might lean towards making dua more and trying to be more patient we'll just be like we won't even engage in those things because we're just like okay well i'm i'm not inclining towards the system of belief that i am i was raised with or have been taught rather than i'm just going to go with whatever philosophy someone else has and this is where philisophical worldviews become really really important um in our religion everything it is that we believe will impact how we view the world everything and that's why when someone spiritual state they start to work on their spiritual state their iman will impact the light of their iman will impact how we see everything that goes on around us and if someone does not have a religious belief there's some philosophy that they're prescribing for to right it's like either you philosophize or someone else philosophizes for you for us the belief here is our religion is Islam but for other people if they might be capitalism maybe the philosophy that they follow it might be consumerism it might be um that uh no no no you know they might liberalism might be no any any ism that they might follow that that might be the worldview that they prescribe now that starts to impact us and it starts to seep into our worldview and it's against the teachings of our worldview that starts to get dangerous so again you see these are very very subtle things but that's why the disbelief can be so dangerous to the believer um and i remember someone was asking me one something online about uh that should they spend time debating with atheists they were like it's starting to impact my faith because he would he he was like yeah the arguments are i don't know how to respond to the arguments and so if you don't know how to respond to the argument make you think that you don't have you know your faith doesn't have arguments but the the answer was like you were not qualified to have those debates for the most part we're not we're theologians right and so they should let leave those debates to them don't engage with people even in a in an attempt to do you're trying to do that one but they're not going to listen at the end of the day and it might end up impacting your faith it might end up impacting someone's e-mine so that's the first category is to be very very very careful here and someone might be at a point where they are um for example we would say like well what about the prophets of salmon sahaba right they they did they they obviously were trying to do that what to the wider arabian peninsula and then they went out throughout the world um you didn't have to know what level is your state either you are impacted or you are impacting so you have to okay am i in a position now where i can be one who's giving guidance and ideally i'm that hopefully impacting them in a positive way or am i getting impacted and perhaps Allah might make us the means that someone to be hanging out with someone who's a who doesn't believe and then they might you might guide them to the religion or you might guide them to start thinking about God and then eventually one day inshallah Allah will guide them that could happen but it's not advised at the beginning stages of the spiritual path to think that that's going to happen because um we may get confused we may get negatively impacted and the first priority for the believer especially for the person who's traveling the spiritual path is to protect themselves that's the first priority that Allah says that who uh and save yourselves and your family from the fire he starts with yourself and then your family and before going on and considering you know anybody else second is anyone engaged in like really obviously major sins right so the categories here would be smoking partying clubbing right like this just anybody who while they're engaging in those things right or if they spend a lot of time talking about those things so if you have a group of friends that went out you know someone has a group of friends that went out clubbing for the weekend and then you're hanging out with them on you know sunday or whatever and they're just talking about what they did that's going to impact us it's going to and what it's going to do with number one is you're going that there is a sense for someone might be like uh wait what like they won't they won't like it but they'll feel impact like wait what wait I don't do that I don't do that you start to have open questions or shaytan might have what's up or on the other side you'll just turn it you'll just someone will just become like arrogantly judgmental be like oh dang you're still doing that I'm way past that like you'll just someone will start becoming and that's also not good because that will impact your spiritual state in the opposite direction or you think you're better than somebody you this is not none of this is assuming that we're better this is all assuming we're weak and we're so weak that anyone's state will impact us negatively this is not with an assumption that oh I'm better than somebody so I can't hang out with them that's the opposite of the spiritual path the spiritual path is about humility and um and submissiveness before um before so you we don't we don't in this turn into like the the haram police or things like that's not the goal the goal is focus on yourself and avoid anyone who's going to have a negative impact so that one is pretty um pretty clear it's just like we we know if someone is constantly caught up in those things limit the engagement to like events in which you they probably won't be talking about that like some type of more public event or something like that and just you just you just okay how's it going or like a group dinner with a bunch of friends and and it's just kind of very very much like that's not going to be the topic of conversation obviously not engaging with them in those types of in those types of things the third one and this definitely will um apply to to us is like people who they just really like to gossip and it just gets a little too much and now there's no way to back out because most of us are too shy or don't know the right tactful way to tell someone to stop backbiting or just not and but that really just both the person saying it and the person listening have the same because it takes a listener for the person saying it to the person's not going to like sit in front of the mirror and say I'm really crazy people might but most people won't just sit in front of the mirror and talk about it they need someone to listen so this one is is important to remember that it's it's advised it's um we have to protect our own state and we can't hang out with people who this is the main thing that they do again if someone might slip we're going to all slip into backbiting at some point in our life and we hope we have friends or loved ones um family members etc who will correct us and who would generally bring us back but i'm talking here about like the dominant state like more than 50 percent of the conversations or 40 to 50 percent of the conversations are about other people and it usually starts off not like that the house so-and-so doing oh yeah they're good you know like yeah he's good you know maybe he recently got a new job and like i don't know how he got a new job he's stupid they'll just they'll come maybe not bad but like it'll be very very like it'll start a little bit subtle and the next thing you know they'll ramp up and get to the point of like just dissing on their character and you're like what's the what why did that need to happen but at that point we might be absorbed in it and we might be contributing to it oh yeah that happened that happened and then the minute someone tells you can't tell you something about this you should know that person should be avoided that's a very dangerous person and if you and i are that that person who likes to hear the latest news about people who we are in a very very precarious state because that's a very very easy in road for shaitan to pollute communities and to pollute groups of friends and to pollute relationships all it takes is and i know some just the other day someone was telling me that someone else in their family told them something about some something that they said to like a rishta or something that they were offered and it just like created that opinion you know them and then the person who told them this you know family member has a bad opinion of you now i'll create a damage between that relationship all because one person decided that they had to relay the news of what someone else did and that's called namima in our religion tailbearing and it's very dangerous it's it's it's likely it's likely about but worse it's like backbiting but worse just to kind of spread gossip about people so if we're in that state we know already we have of work to do we talked about this in the section of um of repentance but if we are affected by people in the state or if we're around people in the state this one is pretty clear there's not really a way around it you just kind of have to leave leave that that group and you have to minimize the hanging out and it takes tact they might you might have someone who all they do and this includes like talking bad about anyone in their life someone could just hit you up and all they want to do is talk bad about their mother-in-law that you're backbiting it there's not like mother-in-laws are an exception or you know your boss is an exception and no no no these are human beings right like it's it's it's it's still considered backbiting and so you you and i now have to remember it will affect your spiritual state darkness starts to enter and laziness and worship kicks in and the desire to do extra good deeds the desire to be in a state of kudur and presence with Allah will decrease versus people of goodness and we'll talk about what what qualities to look for for inshallah they'll elevate your spiritual they'll you'll only hear them tell like good either either stories or or that experiences that they've had like you'll feel you'll feel lighter walking away you'll feel a sense of kind of elevation and tranquility when walking away from those gatherings they're usually talking about something related to some of the stories of the great pious people or something beneficial something of benefit or they're not talking much but we're just listening and it's nice to also just have people who are going to listen to some some beneficial conversation so that's the third category and we're getting more and more subtle the next one is someone constantly complaining groups who are constantly complaining and where it's not as serious in terms of like just leaving it but if it starts to impact our character we have to check ourselves and then we have to find gentle ways to explain to that person that complaining is not going to get us anywhere there's a difference here between complaining is defined as someone is when we're in a state where we're not looking for advice we're not looking for a solution we just want to just talk about it we're just like oh my god this happened and this happened and just we have and we're like someone tries to say well have you tried this like I don't care I don't want to hear that I just want like I don't that that means okay we have left the realm of like constructive problem solving and we're now in the realm of complaining and Allah says in the Quran that if you are grateful I will increase you but if you are not grateful Allah says my punishment is severe and the scholars they say that Allah has a physical law the more grateful gratitude someone shows and gratitude manifests on the tongue and it manifests in the body in terms of like if someone is constantly praising and thanking Allah for all the blessings that they've given them Allah gives them more it's a metaphysical law if someone is constantly complaining about things in their life and not noticing the blessings Allah gives them more to complain about and they'll just they'll stay in the complaining cycle and they won't be able to see like we especially living on the line like pretty very privileged societies in the west with well a lot more than our basic needs met there's very little that we have to complain about and again we might need to get advice from someone but it's it's go to anyone who's really struggling in the Muslim world and they'll trade spots with us any day and so we have to we have to feel a little bit of of have a dub in front of Allah that Allah is watching me and I'm complaining about this situation in my life and and all these negative things when I could be focusing on the positive things and again this this this doesn't apply to like just talking to a therapist or a counselor or a someone who can give you guidance you might you might need to like tell them all the negatives that have happened so that you can get guidance from the therapist in therapy that's that's these are exceptions we're talking about average conversations where the majority of the topics are about complaining here the goal is you either change the topic we have to change topic or we find an excuse to kind of leave for a little bit and come back when that you know that the constant complaining is over but if it's against between two people and you leave them they'll probably complain about you even get mad so that's not always going to work I just have to kind of be wise about it the next one is if if someone curses a lot and this is just you can see all of these have to do with the tongue because the tongue really is the the gateway to a lot of the sins that we will do and so if someone is just constantly dropping different different curse words and they just like there is no control in tongue here you have to check that did that affect my heart and did affect me have you and have you and I started cursing more because we were around someone like that and it does happen if you're around um like often now in in corporate America people just left and right they just don't care anymore they used to be some manners they just don't care they're constantly cursing so it will affect someone you'll someone will get you'll get mad and you'll you'll almost say something that's not this is not our way we're not supposed to speak like this but it has an effect and so it becomes even more impactful when it's our friends and everyone is just treating it lightly and dropping f bombs here and saying this word and this word and then we're just like we just take it super lightly and and it would also apply to like inappropriate sexual innuendos and these types of things that if someone is constantly in a in a state of just inappropriate jokes and that's not for the spiritual aspirant that's not good for company to keep that's not a good company to keep and for men if there are people who make misogynistic or inappropriate jokes about women that's that is completely haram and that you should not consider that person a real man because the process on them never degraded women it's not from our tradition and and and usually Muslims don't do this but there are people unfortunately who have this type of mindset and this type of approach and so the respect and dignified conversations are possible but the culture we live in is full of like jokes about our moms and just all sorts of great oh no one does that anymore that was like back in the day but but but uh it's i don't think so but um it's full of just all sorts of weird things and you go to a Muslim country and it's someone like says something about your family remember you're going to punch him in the face it's like you have so much respect for them you have so much respect for your or for your sister or for someone like this like it's not to be to be taken lightly but if we're affected by the wrong type of people and this does happen in secular societies i notice often people like really don't like their parents like they're like oh my god i gotta see my parents this weekend and non-muslims and you're like and and i gotta go to a family reunion like most Muslims are pretty excited if they're about to go see like you know all their cousins or something like that they're gonna have biryani they're gonna hang out they're gonna they're gonna have a good time but many people who are who don't have family as a core part of the values they don't like that and now that's first effect someone else's that you're like yeah why am i so into this am i doing something that's like not not cool or not right then it's just very subtle and so you you have to know how firm someone's values have to be firm in order to kind of defend themselves against this and then the sixth category here is if if a group is just i think we mentioned this at the beginning but it's just very lazy with their ebada with the worship so this is where if you can be the one who helps establish the prayer in a gathering where no one is establishing the prayer but if you're going to be impacted by no one else establishing the prayer and you're like oh maybe i should just go right corner right while everyone else is like you know doing something else then that you eventually after five 10 15 times hanging out there you have to reevaluate whether or not that's good for your spiritual state and whether or not we are comfortable with with people who are they're not taking this stuff seriously and they're open to advice here right but it's different if someone is like able to establish the prayer that's a very very good thing and that would be considered better than avoiding something like that but it just depends on you again as i said in the beginning everyone's state is going to be different and you have to just know where you and i are at with regards to what we can apply what we can apply so that's that's kind of individual people and there's many many many others um imama rizali in the text he really gets into a lot more it's it's it's it's basically being careful about hanging out with anyone who's going to distract you from a lot and so like it's talking about um just various categories of people that i think for us most of us living in the west spend the time we live in it might not necessarily apply but just in case people are curious um there are various haditha some that are important to mention so one time um they mentioned that uh says that we were in the company you know the messenger of Allah when it was mentioned about fitna a time corruption in fitna and he said if you see that people in general breaking their contracts and their trusts carry very little weight and um then he said that what should we do and he went out to list a few qualities we're gonna mention here what should they do in that case and he said stick to your home and keep your tongue to yourself expect what you uh accept what you know to be right leave what you know to be wrong and adopt the pattern of the elite meaning this the spiritual elite the people who are really practicing the religion like seriously and discard the pattern of um what you see the common society doing just like because that's not no longer going to be the religious way that's important to remember the context where the prophet sallallahu sallam is speaking to is that this sahaba couldn't imagine groups of people just wanting to pray like it just it's just so far from that from from their mindset they just couldn't see like a bunch of Muslims hanging out not wanting to practice the religion how could that be you as a Muslim he has prophecy so he's telling them about a time that's going to come and he says that these are going to be the days or you can't trust really anybody around you can't trust them with your secrets you can't trust them with business you can't trust them with other types of things um and uh and he says that you he says that um you will live if you're granted a long life you will live through a time when there are many preachers very few scholars questioners are many but few can answer their questions and he says it will be a time when the hawah the caprice is a director of knowledge and so he's even warning against it again this is why mamakazali really takes on this kind of spin to it when he talks about people avoiding people who you think are people of knowledge but they're actually just people who are using their own desires to get something from the religion like some people use the religion to become very very prominent and famous and um they're doing it in the name of qurhan or in the name of the sunnah in the name of knowledge but really there is a deeper deeper intention so he's kind of talking about that um he says that when another hadith um by the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam that when uh the salat has been put to death when the ritual prayer has been put to death when bribery has been accepted as the norm and the religion has been told for a sold for a tiny slice of the dunya that seek salvation seek salvation and the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallallahu alaihi mentioned is you really just just kind of try to avoid being too intermixed with society um like the pandemic when the first hit where it's like everybody's just in a state of being alone um chilling in places so he's not saying do that entirely but he's saying be very careful if this becomes the mass corruption of society well what is he mentioned first the prayer being put to death and then second he says that bribery being accepted and then the religion being sold for a tiny slice of dunya these are the main things and this is unfortunately a good portion of the muslim world but this is the case where just people it's a muslim country adhan is going off and it's common you to get anything done you gotta bribe someone you gotta like pay them a little bit like you'll wonder what's in it for me what's in it for me and if you don't have something in it for them you better call someone powerful to tell them to get that thing done for you otherwise they won't get get it done just because it's like their job or something and then the religion has been told sold for a tiny slice of the dunya so someone compromising their values because of some money again it could be a bribe or someone compromising their values because of that something of the dunya some position or some status or something like that so that's the the the category he's been saying is that if they're going to distract you from worship be careful we're talking now a little bit more I've zoomed out which is like if someone is going to impact us in the practice of the religion then we should be be mindful but I did want to kind of mention some of the the narrations here so the second now gets into gatherings that are going to harm us so there's there's a being with people and then there's like large gatherings it is that we might attend so we'll start here by one of the sayings of one of the great scholars of our religion he says in the hikam in his famous aphorisms that don't keep company company means that we actually like spend time with them I don't keep company with anyone whose state does not inspire you and whose speech does not lead you to Allah he's very much directing this again at the person traveling the spiritual path he's not directing this is saying it's haram or that it's that it's impermissible but he's saying that if you want to be elevated spiritually in most of your days right try to identify people who when you do need social time you're gonna hang out with people who direct your state to Allah and who will direct you and me to Allah and will inspire us and motivate us and we've all been there we've all had a time where we like hung out with a group of brothers or for sisters group of sisters that where we feel like oh man I'm really feeling like like I can do this we might be feeling a little down a little unmotivated and then we'll hang out with someone and they'll give us some just a normal conversation or they'll give us some advice and we'll feel uplisted and we'll feel more motivated to take the spiritual path seriously so so companionship is important which is why this Sahaba they're called companions today all hung out with each other they would all have times of laughter and joking and relaxing and eating food and this is all normal but they would that they knew what their goal in life was and they knew if I only have 60 or 70 years roughly on average to live probably shorter that I got to make it work that I can't let moments go by where I let a whole year where I was hanging out with the wrong people who affect me and then a whole year where I was hanging out you know and just it adds on and adds on until next thing you know we are very very different than the person we want it to be and we have to be we have to be careful and then he says and another thing that you and I might be in a bad state he says you might be in a bad state then associating with someone who outwardly is in a worse state than you makes you see virtue in yourself makes you see virtue in yourself what does that mean so there's hadith where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us that I think most of us have probably heard this from someone maybe our parents or others that in in religion it matters of religion we should look to people who are doing more than us and in matters of dunya we should look to people who are less privileged than us that's the the mindset of the believer and what does it mean look to people who are doing more than people who are doing more worship who are doing more good in the world we're doing more form of service who are who are better akhlaq and better character we should look to them when it comes to matters of religion why because it'll inspire us and it will make us like okay yeah I can do more they're doing it I can do it too right and um and in the matters of dunya we should look at people who are less fortunate and less privileged and then we'll feel grateful alhamdulillah for everything I have we flipped it we're in the the dunya we're always looking at oh my god he has so much money she has so much money they're famous this and we're constantly we want more and more and more and in the end we're like well at least I'm praying they're not praying so it's probably fine right like we just we just make we just kind of balance it out by making it seem like well the vast majority of people aren't doing anything I'm doing something so I'm probably just fine like back to doing you know back to living life the way I want right and that's what what he's saying here in this hadid that we shouldn't do and what ibn atal al-asqandari is saying that you might be already you and I we are in bad spiritual states I mean like I can speak for myself at least that there's a lot of work to do and we know that work that we have and we feel that shy in front of Allah when we think about the state of our heart but he says if you hang out with someone who's in a worse state in a worse state right then you might start to see virtue in yourself you might be like it's not so bad yeah yeah I'm doing you know and that and and that's not a good thing spiritually spiritually the person is always not in like a self-deprecating way but in like a trying to improving it to Allah some we should always be like I got work to do I gotta keep going I gotta keep going I should never feel content the one who's content with their spiritual state at that point it comes in one narration Allah becomes discontent okay and the discontent with their state Allah's content with them and so this means here we should never be impressed with ourselves we should never think of ourselves highly as like oh I'm all bad like I got a good disc I did that and all the tricks of the nuffs and we'll get into it later in the book you'll talk about that Riyadh and which have been some of the big big tricks that will come for the spiritual traveler and the way to cure that because those are big ones when when someone starts to worship they're very subtle and that starts to all which is great and impressive and it starts to really make someone they're they're they're let's blow up their head right and the scholars of the spiritual science they'll just put a pin pop the balloon and then bring us back to reality and help us be like oh then hold on it's it's um I have to keep me grounded so that's the the impact that people are going to have so now we think about gatherings right and this is I'm really kind of tried to make this more about gatherings that um I feel like are very common in our communities I might have left some out um and I might be talking about ones that don't apply to us and I'll be that's a good thing so first is like so again for the spiritual traveler social gatherings where there's inappropriate things going on we should avoid those are gatherings should actively try not to even enter into those those places so if there's active amounts of like a party type of atmosphere where people are smoking smoking anything all types of smoking including hukka are categorically haram and religion not permissible and the fatawa for that have been revised from some of the earlier fatawa once they learned the danger of tobacco and because some of the muslims didn't know um earlier on that some of the fatawa said hukka was makrub but it is now like very clearly haram smoking cigarettes is haram smoking vape pens is haram juice it's called jewel pens all that stuff it's all impermissible right so if there's like a gathering we go to and someone has a hukka out and someone else is doing this someone else doing that there's loud music bumping if you are serious about the spiritual path you're gonna why it's not because you're better than those people because there are jinn energies that are gravitating towards those running looking for gatherings like this so the angels we know in one narration they run if they um gravitate towards gatherings of vicar gatherings of knowledge and gatherings of goodness they love that and so you'll feel if you're if we ever are blessed to go into a really um and hopefully in jumma this is the case as well we'll feel a site type of upliftment because there was so much angelic light that was present in those gatherings that that will impact you and to enter you gatherings of haram or gatherings of darkness will bring jinn and sheathen and this is where bad problems start to happen to people like spiritual spiritually negative problems start to happen to people because in order to be impacted by seher black magic which is very real and we ask that Allah protect all of us and our families and our children from this but these types of things are real jinn and sheathen usually need to be present and if someone is now somebody who the jinn and sheathen they gravitate towards they want to be with them they are uh constantly around them then they are more prone to being affected by these negative by these negative impacts and it's such a time that we live in that there used to be a time when one of the scholars uh have uh that uh called them as aghafi he mentioned this recently there used to be a time when the the jinn and the sheathen they were more hidden unless they had like a reason to do something he said now it was a time as we get closer to the end of time where they're raising and they're out there looking for people to attack and looking for people like to attach to to mess with to mess up their family mess up their marriage mess up their state all these types of things so we go to these gatherings and we're bringing dark energies and bad things with us back into our homes and it's a very very very real effect so that's the the first type of uh gathering um and the the second one would be um and this this is uh very common in in our communities is weddings where there's just like you can very very barely differentiate that that that wedding from the wedding of a non-muslim that's a gathering in which if you have you attend as if you give the gift you know you you stay for a little bit you mingle and as soon as the haram starts the person who's traveling the path they they they at least they're outside in the main hall or something like that not in the place um where everyone else is but they don't don't engage because weddings are also the same thing if if there's haram um going on and there's haram dancing women dancing in front of men mixed dancing going on it turns into a club basically where there's loud music there's lights everyone is in the same room together and that is just the impact that will have on your spiritual state is significant it's significant and we have um maybe this is just in the desi community and hopefully not in others but at least in the desi community this is very this is completely gotten out of control and it's like you won't even be able to at the beginning of the wedding someone will start with oran and a dua and then at the end it ends like this you're just like what how did what what happened here right and nothing means that it's completely permissible to have fun to have a little music to have some you know some some some halal dancing at a wedding men dancing with men women dancing with women that's completely permissible and okay at weddings especially like it's a time of festivity but the level of intermixing that's gone on and to participate in that is not meant for the person who's taking the path seriously it's not meant for any muslim but unfortunately in the time we live in um it's widely widely widely applied and so you and i have to be on guard over our spiritual state when we're in these circumstances if someone has to go to this like you you got to go it's a family event um not going will have a worse impact in maybe seen as you cutting ties or something or you know reducing ties or something then you go seeking a less protection from any darkness that will be present there because what's one of the fastest ways when men and women are dancing in the same room and there's a lot of music that the jinn enter and the shiaqi enter again it's they they seek out these types of gathers even worse that some muslim weddings now have alcohol being served and and that's like if you start to see the alcohol come out any gathering where there's alcohol we'll talk about happy hours in a second any gathering of alcohol get out as as soon as it's possible to get out not like ah i think you throw the cup of wine it's not going to be a runaway not that but um uh some people might do that but that's not wines you just you just subtly leave make your make your exit because the minute you now start to interact with people who themselves are drinking there's there they're a little bit you know there's there's starting to get a little bit tipsy and then slowly and then words are slurring and now they're literally you can even smell it in their breath it will start to affect you spiritually and physically it will affect you like you won't even smell good anyway um and uh and so that is like another bad bad bad sign and so someone should now evaluate hold on a second are the people who i hang out with and the people who invite me to these things where are they at in terms of their spectrum of what their gatherings look like there's people who their gatherings are just kind of like you know they're doing a few things that probably aren't aren't the best but for the most part they're permissible and then there's like all the way in the other end of the spectrum where someone is just like it's you literally can't differentiate between a non-muslim wedding and um the muslim wedding and then you have some that are like very very fun festive occasions but there's no no haram going on there's no no impermissible activity and there's still festivity and people still having a good time but there's a respect of of uh what what our religion says that we should respect so we have to be very very careful uh here the next one is if someone is still um that unmarried gatherings that will make you really inclined and will sure up the desire towards the opposite gender should be avoided for the most part i'm not saying like you should never hang out with that and that's not what i'm saying i'm saying that you that if there's a lot of laughing joking borderline flirtation that begins between um a non-mehram man and a non-mehram woman that's now a door for shaytan character eventually what someone they exchange numbers makes you know start talking and most of the time that unless someone is very sincerely making the intention for marriage and they make that clear upfront and they have some boundaries drawn in that process of like hi we're really just talking for the sake of getting to know each other for marriage and they try to do something permissible way most of the time this this will lead to um fit that this will lead to um inappropriate behavior and so you have to avoid what would this have to do they would avoid permissible things this is this wouldn't be because they're permissible they would avoid permissible things just so that they couldn't get near haram they would they would there's one there is in 70 degrees between them and and something haram they would just i'm not gonna get close to it because if i get close to it i couldn't potentially fall into it so i'm just gonna be like way distant we should at least be and you might you might be someone who's called you know you're such a square such a loser such this you're like come on dude it's not a big deal this is gonna happen or like you know if the sister is like someone is gonna make us feel like we're not not cool or we're not doing what everyone else is doing totally fine you should know you're good with a lot you're good just don't be arrogant annoying and judgmental about it don't that's the big thing is like we are not in a place to be like making other people feel low about themselves the person who's taking their dean seriously is always in a state where we're trying to uplift everyone around us we're trying to uplift everyone we should always make them feel um not like what someone is doing is okay but never make someone feel hopeless or make them feel judged or low right we find excuses to excuse ourselves if i say i gotta go this i have something to do i have a big you know presentation coming up and you just find a reason to excuse yourself from something like this but if you know and you're excited very specifically because you know you're going to have a chance to flirt with someone you probably shouldn't go i think that that would be a sign like no no i'm doing the wrong thing right i should probably stay away because the first thing that begins is the zina of the eye the eye has a zina as a as a fornication and as does every part of the body and it starts with just looking and then the gaze turns into something else and then it turns into something else and the next thing you know um that someone is uh without realizing caught up in the head off the next category would be um navigating uh that happy hours at work and gatherings where alcohol is present and now someone doesn't know this might be for a non for someone who comes from a non-muslim family and they're invited to a like a family gathering and this is present and you have to be tactful about how you manage that and for us that if we're working and we are um people are drinking and now they even have like alcohol in offices but that if someone is drinking uh a lot of people are drinking we're getting we get invited after work for drinks or there's like a big company event it's happy hour usually now because of covid um these types of things have been minimized but they still do they do happen if this is like absolutely essential and obligatory for someone to go to meaning like your job is on the line and it's like part of let's say you have a client meeting and you're in the world of consulting and you like it's part of the meeting and they're going to be drinking at the meeting you go you see protection from a lot and you do one of the one of the protection figures that we covered in the last class um beforehand now there's an inshallah there's like force you'll that they'll put over you for some period of time that you won't be affected as much in inshallah but if there's there's yes yeah so it's um there's a few those strongest one or one of the stronger ones is the where the women know we that i would recommend everybody um at least in circumstances where we know we're going to be going into a place that's not good we do it's it's w i r d i'm a no we and a w a w i um but there's others and that one takes like five minutes or so to read um you find on youtube you can just follow along but it's it's creates like spiritual protection right and at minimum again if we don't know we i so of course see the three the three goals go to a lot of other people other than us with presence and asking a lot to protect us obviously we'll also do do it but these dickers have some strong laws in there as well um if there is a way out of them and it's not obligatory and like we know that a lot of people don't go it's like if someone has a family and they have to get home to their kids most of the time they're usually not going to be there for after work days so there is a way out of them we find the person who's taking the path seriously they will not go to these gatherings they'll be like nope i'm not going to go there because it's going to affect someone's iman and or or their light rather their noor which ultimately impacts their iman and so you will you and i will find ways to avoid those gatherings and um using the time but i definitely know before it was difficult that there was pressure usually to go to after work events where there's alcohol present and someone is usually asked if you're the only one not drinking why aren't you drinking um and then you'll get into discussion about that and some people are respectful and others are not that respectful and then you have to navigate that and now you're feeling like you're the only one who's not doing something and then there's just this constant kind of worry that starts to come in the the perception keep in mind here a lot of people will have asked well what about my career i have to go for networking what am i my career progress this is where the you know the ceo's gonna be there and so on and so forth um at the end of the day if i'm not obligated to go and you have you can find an excuse out and you do so for the sake of a lot you have nothing to worry about a lot is in control of this entire nizam and this entire universe is in control of our careers and control of our jobs and control of our risk he's in control of promotions he's in control of who gets a job who doesn't who's laid off Allah is in control we have nothing to worry about so that's where taqwa comes in Allah will throw these subtle tests out and as you get closer and closer as you try harder and harder the tests become more and more subtle and they'll just met you from nowhere and you'll be like oh uh someone will be that and your whole team will come to you and be like oh do you want to go for drinks and then now you're gonna be like what do i do and you just you have to you have to be in the right state to be like no i'm good i got i got i got to go home and my family or something like that and you'll be just fine no one will think twice about it because they won't even remember because they're probably the memory will be affected by all the alcohol they drink but even if you remember the intellect doesn't stay sharp anymore when you drink a lot so the it won't have any impact on you like that is guaranteed have zero and no one is going to write in someone's performance review or they didn't come to this happy hour on Tuesday like that's not going to happen but the takua test will happen and Allah will start to throw these tests at the spiritual traveling the um really the thing the final gathering is just one where like you're gonna feel on the last session we talked about the dunya where you're gonna feel like lured into the dunya like attracted into the dunya and this is not a this is this one is one where you have to be more subtle to avoid gatherings in which everything is about competing with everybody else so it's like who has the nice clothes who has undesigned clothes who has the designer bag who has the designer car who has or fancy car who has the luxury car who has the luxury watch and it's just it's like uh it could be there's no nothing permissible impermissible going on but the the one who's serious doesn't needs to make sure their eye does not get caught up in those things actually a level of lowering the gaze where the first level of lowering the gaze lowering is from the haram there's another level of lowering the gaze which is lowering the gaze from the fault of the muslims and there's another level of lowering the gaze where it's lowering the gaze from anything that will lure you towards the dunya and so you and i if we like see something super like oh my god that's so nice what a nice watch and and and now the heart starts to incline you know i should have Rolex too and you're like how much money do i have saved up enough to roll and you start to just think about the Rolex and now that becomes like your heart is inclining towards a piece of metal let's just say right and and it's insignificant at the end of the day but it starts to incline that is for the spirit nothing haram about it nothing haram again we're not talking about haram here we're talking about spiritual spiritual path for the one who's traveling the path they'll just you try not to to to engage in those types of conversations when the the topic is all about the dunya it's just about like you know everyone is just competing with each other and and and and again not and then we should be very very gentle with how we approach these types of things um and then finally i thought it would be good to add like virtual gatherings because we do have virtual gatherings for example if someone plays a lot of like video games there's a lot of like chat rooms now and different apps like discord and you will be affected by the people who you're engaged with in those areas that their state and what they're doing will affect you i mean there's no there's really not any reason for someone who's really trying to take the path seriously to like be playing a bunch of online video games like shooting a bunch of people probably in the muslim country and like i did it like that's that's very odd that those types of games even exist but if someone is doing that and playing some video game or something we should be mind the who we're in the the virtually being affected by because friendships do form based on fun playing you know online video games or whatever or any i can't think of like other good virtual examples but any virtual example where you are spending time with people their state will affect you right um if it's intentional and there's like a social element to it so it should just be we should be careful about it and then um the last thing virtually is who are we influenced by so um there's like a lot of uh people who we might follow on the internet celebrities or people who are like influencers that are on the way to be celebrities or something like that um and if we're really into someone and we're into their life and if we know like one or two details about their life that we have no business knowing we have to be careful of how much they're influencing us if they are not people of goodness if there's like people who are benefiting us but if they're just talking about some things have inconsequential and we're really we're just like oh i wonder what they're doing right now and like people who have started to follow these that started to form these kind of um like it's it's they're you could say it's a community but it's really a bunch of people who are really into that person i don't know how to discuss not a cult but it's it's it's almost like that where there's like a certain types of celebrities where everybody wants to know what's going on and they're just like super into it like the royal family i just don't understand what is it about the colonizing royal family that created problems for hundreds of years in the whole world and why everyone's into the royal family and talking about the royal family and so you don't want the state of the heart of the royal family to affect you that's not you really don't and to watch oh what's harry and may what harry and megan doing and what are these persons doing oh my goodness and then the queen died and it's like they for the muslim especially especially if you have have any family who ever was in the muslim world they just did i mean it was it was it was murdering raping and pillaging was what what their reigns did right and now they're the descendants of those reigns but it's insignificant for us but to be gravitated towards that that's a sign of like i got to attach because you don't want to be attached to these types of people we really don't and we have to be careful that the latest thing that comes out and we just like gravitate towards it we gravitate towards it we gravitate towards it the muslim is is is not one who follows the latest trend when it comes out if it's not in line with with our principles and and so really it comes down to anything that serves a desire in the heart the highest level of desire is haram desire right so anything that's a sexual desire or desire to do something haram to smoke to drink to to to enter into impermissible environment to start doing something and to look at the impermissible but then it's also a desire where it's not haram but it's not going to benefit you so desire for the dunya desire for prominence desire for fame and so on desire to just like be into vain conversation um and and so on so that is the the next uh that's really the next category and really again we just have to know what our our our state is and what level we can apply this to just want to reiterate that everybody should not apply this equally everybody apply this kind of custom based on your own mindset otherwise it will create problems and be very very gentle in terms of applying this with family um if your mom starts talking about like the queen or england or the king of england do not just smile and say something right like do not start to get into oh my god who cares about the king of england they're just a bunch of killers and muslims like that's not that's probably not the right idea have you know adab and respect for your mom unless you're like really close friends and you can kind of mention that um and the the final two principles we'll mention here and then we'll end here inshallah opening up questions is really having a balance with socializing in general so mama ghazali his whole point here is that these hadith are indicating that as times get worse worse and worse the prominence of of individual time and what's called um in ramadan it's it's a kaaf which is isolating for worship but what's called uzzala or seclusion or um that halwa spiritual seclusion becomes more and more significant becomes more and more important and so in our time we need socialization we need times to hang out with people we need time to hang out with that good fellow fellow muslims and others but we should have a portion of our time where we get used to alone time if we're really extroverted we have to find a portion of our time where we tune into a level of alone time and if we're introverted we might already be doing this and you know ideally spiritually that's that's probably a good thing right um they were probably already we might need to make sure we spend a little bit more time with with others in order to to um especially if there are people who could be beneficial to us but the alone time is really really important and for the one who as the more and more someone travels the path the more and more the desire kicks in to just sometimes want to be alone just be alone with Allah you're sitting in a room you're just thinking of Allah you're just doing thicker you're rereading something beneficial you just you it doesn't feel like a burden it's not like oh i gotta go pray and this is like no and so for the for the you might have alone time during prayer this is probably more common sometimes for women for men ideally men are playing congregation um but but if not then uh the alone time might be during the prayer but ideally there's a alone time or just every day or every i remember one of my teachers mentioned that every day or once a week try to have just just someone on one quiet time of Allah ideally in like when it's dark outside so ideally in the nighttime like post maghrib, post isha, or before fajr and just where it's you sitting with Allah and now it's your time with him and this is what's going to create what's called um an intimacy with Allah in your relationship with Allah where someone is going to really start to get into a a desire where they just want to speak to him in the heart and they just want to talk to him and converse with him Allah says remember me and I'll remember you and so they're a companion they're like who are you with and who are you hanging out with and you're just like well Allah says if I remember him he's remembering me so really that person is now in the highest gathering they're in the gathering of with Allah and the angels well if they get to a state where they actually experience that they're in their states but that's a very that's a different topic and and at the same time the balance here should be that whoever the Prophet ﷺ encouraged us to spend time with we should spend time with while making righteous intentions so we might know the hadith where it was asked oh messenger of Allah who is most deserving of my company and he says your mother and he says that after that who is most deserving of my company your mother because after that who's most deserving of my company says your mother because after that who's most deserving of my company says your father right and so we know that if it's spending time with parents in general it's very virtuous but that's that that if done with good intentions especially even if sometimes there's there's disagreements and things that that may happen because that happens in families that's like a very very very good thing very good thing spiritually to do right to spend time with parents and spend time with family and siblings with the right with the right intentions and ideally if someone is doing something impermissible or questionable or haram with family there's enough of a connection with someone you can gently guide them away from that that's probably not the best thing to do right but it's important obviously to spend time here but everybody else when it comes to to the vast majority of other people we have to be calculated and careful and apply this and then when we are searching for friends we've been given traits for who to look for or for for what to look for so ideally there's there's four or five traits here first is people who they have value for the deen inwardly and outwardly in some portion of their life it's valuable and that's shown as well it's important to have people especially in America in the time we live in who outwardly they care about Islam what do i mean inwardly outwardly there's inwardly you might be like well my relationship between me and Allah is between me and Allah and it's private and so like that person may never want to talk about religion they may never want to pray with other people they're just like it's just i have my own religion that's up to them but that's not the way of our deen the way of our deen is that someone is outwardly and inwardly present and practicing right and so we have to make sure that there is ideally some level of value and if it's not there if it's not there then we decide how much time we're going to spend okay maybe instead of every week we reduce it to one some month and we try to for those other two or three weeks we try to find people we're going to benefit our spiritual state we're going to benefit our spiritual state the one exception here is arrogant religious people this is actually called out in many of the books of the scholars that hanging out with arrogant religious people will do more harm for you than hanging out with most non-muslims and the reason for that is because the he says that it's better to be with an ignorant person who's aware of their faults who's aware that they have a lot of work to do than an arrogant person who's full of themselves the scholar who's arrogant and full of themselves who thinks that they have nothing to work on that's a very dangerous person to be around and hopefully that's not really the case for the vast majority of people but sometimes that can happen where we might hang out at the religious gathering and all everybody wants to do is look down at everybody else in fingerpoint and talk about that they do this and this group is wrong they're wrong they're going to hell and that person's probably gonna have that room in hell and they're just constantly finger pointing at everybody else and just no concern for themselves it's just this arrogant looking down that is a very dangerous person hanging out very very dangerous and we should just just not think of that as like really we're hanging out with person religion we should think of that as we're hanging out with the person of arrogance and a lot haters only allowed allowed to be proud that's it no one else is allowed to be proud everybody else must be humble we have nothing to be proud of at the end of the day we have to be humble before Allah so that's that's a very damn otherwise people who value the Dean and really and of course everyone has flaws might be time where someone's ego or nafs comes out I'm talking about it's a dominant state is one of arrogance we should be careful second trait is people who take the prayer seriously and this will usually be shown it will be clear to somebody but you don't want to hang out in a gathering where you have made awkward you that is awkward to pray I know sometimes in Muslim gatherings where Muslims will be like it's mugger of time I mean like for lower us or you could kind of assume people are going to pray maybe it's like mugger of time you got a little bit of time to pray mugger 20 30ish minutes right that that you usually are not supposed to push it out all the way until it's shot and no one is praying no one is getting up so like everyone's at a dinner and they're just like everyone's eating dinner they're like all right so maybe they're taking the whole like eat the food while it's warm and don't pray thing but then it gets later and later and you're like all right so they're done eating no one's praying and now you feel awkward because you're the only you're like but we're all Muslim right sometimes easier than non-muslim you're like I gotta go pray real quick with the Muslims you're like guys what's everybody doing like it's it's and so you you it's very important because someone their confidence may not be at the point where they're comfortable enough getting up just being like I gotta go do this they might not be there yet so hanging out with people who will have that impact will will will negatively impact someone's spiritual state and you never want to answer to a law that why did I miss my prayers because everybody else is doing it I think that's like a very that's not a good answer it's a very it's like why did I jump off cliff everyone else is doing it's not a good answer right we want to that be careful here um and the third is that someone who is going to actually help us know our weak points and our blind spots and help us become better people these are the best people to be with and sincere friends actually care about us such to the point where they're actually they're going to tell us like hey you're doing this thing it's probably not the best thing for you to be doing and I would recommend you try this this and they're going to try to sincerely guide us that being a sincere advice as it comes in we're happy so we should try then to be with people who are um not fault finding that's not a good trade but they help us bring out the best in ourselves and the parts in us that aren't so good to help us work on those parts and um usually there's nothing better than this than people who are like the uh like elder elder brothers or sisters in the spiritual path like people who have maybe been doing this for 10 20 more years or maybe a person who's in a position of of it was older and a position of knowledge that they'll very very gently just point you to do something like for example if someone is dressed and probably not the most modest way man or woman rather than like just call it out they'll just say something just doesn't really look that comfortable and just very gently just like why not the most comfortable thing have you tried this instead and it'll all be about the comfort rather than making someone feel bad about the way that they're dressing because the clothes that they're wearing are too tight right and they'll just very subtly do it and then you'll be like yeah actually way more comfortable to be in this why am I wearing this all the time and then someone will change and all um uh that all of their their efforts um will be very very gentle in terms of the way that they approach usually and sometimes they have to have conversation so um that is the traits to look for in in terms of people and then um really lastly that spending time in gatherings of goodness there are gatherings of of haram there's neutral gatherings and then there's gatherings of goodness the on the scholars advise that if we're trying to travel the path every week or every two weeks um but ideally every week we have one of these gatherings now like one is a gathering of knowledge um so so so some type of gathering of knowledge for week um and this could be uh virtual or in person but in person is always better the second is a gathering of thicker thicker and knowledge are different knowledge is a form of thicker and it precedes thicker in a lot of ways but a gathering of thicker is one in which people are skating together reciting Quran doing some form of salawat on the Prophet ﷺ saying la ilaha illallah be this out loud or suddenly they're doing a dua and then you know they're eating and they're hanging out afterwards but there's some thicker because that will impact the heart in a very very positive spiritual way and we should become people who are forever in a gathering we sprinkle it with thicker or a dua and this is something that may Allah bless um him i've seen my father in law mashaAllah always do this and it's um that it'll be like a family gathering just like a lunch a family lunch or something like that everyone will have lunch it'll be great and then at the end just for two three minutes he gathers everybody together and just like we're gonna do a family dua and um based on a narration that if someone does not remember Allah in a gathering um and they are like uh believe it's like some type of animal was mentioned it's just like a bunch of animals gathering together because the remembrance of Allah is what differentiates the human being in this case the conscious remembrance of Allah and so that he'll just make a and it will leave everybody but everyone will kind of leave on a good note and you know subhanAllah there's a lot of people who they're looking for some type of spiritual connection but they might not even really know how to make the dua or they might not know the types of duas to make and so they actually really benefit from that so if we could be that person where everyone is hanging out or like a dinner or something like that or having coffee and then you're like hey before we leave like i just want to share something beneficial you mentioned some something you learned some some spiritual of spiritual benefit or you collectively make dua or you have a group of friends you you change okay this person's gonna make dua this week next person's gonna make dua the next week and it kind of gets people to learn how to make dua and and make dua ideally you know publicly with with the few people and so that will have immense benefit something small will have will do you someone will be doing da'wah and it will be a means of um that removing any haram that what that might have come through the gathering so ultimately here it's about balance and we just need to be balanced in terms of the ways in which we engage with other people in which the ways we engage with friends the types of friends that we make the type of company that we keep and always keep in mind that there are people who are going to be means of bringing other people into town that's a reality and sometimes it's hard to accept that but Allah makes it super clear in the Quran there's like a few different surahs where he mentions people talking to each other in either heaven and between heaven and hell in hell together or in heaven together and you have people that are talking in hell together blaming the you brought me here you did the friends there they used to be literally like the word that's used like best friends like homies in the last life and then they'll be saying you did this and you brought me here and now i'm i've ruined everything because of you then there'll be a person between heaven and hell who the person in heaven will say to the person in hell that you almost did that but Alhamdulillah Allah guided me and i didn't let your your call to do something haram bring me into that and i and i and i was saved and i was saved and um uh and there's people heaven we're talking to each other just Alhamdulillah that we Allah gave us a blessing to spend a good life in that life and we spend a good life in this life in the dunya hasanatom that Allah gave us goodness in the dunya and in the akhirah give us goodness and protect us from the fire there are people who actualize that and they are the happiest people that in this life they enjoy goodness to each other and to their families in their communities and in the next life together as great friends and people who really love each other for the sake of Allah that's loving each other for the sake of Allah means that they enjoy the blessings of paradise and of nearness to Allah together so we ask that Allah make us people who guide others to good and make us people who that have a good develop an understanding of what to look for in companionship and what to look for in friendship and then Allah bring good people into our lives into our lives and allow us to also be means of good for them inshallah and that if we are in situations where we're hanging out with people who are maybe not the best influences that Allah find give us gentle ways to remove ourselves from those situations wassallallahu wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa sallam alhamdulillahi wabarakatuhu any questions either in person yes yeah one of the good questions the question is if with regards to the categories of people to avoid especially if they're a good friend is withdrawing always the best answer and the answer is no withdrawing is not the best answer and so you have to be wise about knowing what will be right to do so in our religion we are taught to apply knowledge with with wisdom with with with with with wisdom be the right word here and so you have to know you never just leave someone called turkey especially a muslim you never just leave them hanging that's not that's not the way but let's say that someone is really bringing you down like just all sorts of things that they're doing are impermissible and they're bringing you down you limit the times when they're bringing you down those interactions and you find permissible times to hang out with them so like instead of let's say some two people used to always hang out and before someone started taking the religion seriously they used to drink together or used to smoke together and now one person has started to practice the religion and to stop drinking and stop smoking and the other person is still doing it when they're smoking and drinking is not a good time to hang out with them but if you could like go for get some coffee and go for a walk and just catch up on life and be a means of bringing good into that other person's life that's very very good so it's really just you have to you and I have to know how to apply this such that there will be more benefit done to someone else than harm done to us and we have to be ready for the harm that's done to us and be able to do the work before and after to kind of heal that that harm. Does that make sense? Yeah. Other questions? Yes? Yeah that's a really good question. The question was about approval of other people and seeking it and is it not a good thing if someone like says good job or encourage words of encouragement and you feel positive so it's usually not at that level where the human being needs encouragement so you need people who you look up to or you have good relationships with to encourage you right so like at the basic level every human being has a need for their parents to tell for their parents to tell them that they're proud of them or that like good job right and if they didn't get that enough they they long for that they want that right then you'll have other people in your family in your close circles and then at work you need that encouragement because you don't know if you're doing a good job that's not what we're talking about here we're talking about years you're like seeking you're putting on a whole conversation and you're posturing to get the approval of other people it's really like um um it could be on social media where someone is like just showing off just so everyone could just praise them I mean that's that's not advisable right same thing if in person right someone is like um showing like brings their very very specific outfit and the very specific car just hoping that everyone is just going to praise them and compliment them and give them nuzard along the way unfortunately but um they're just hoping for that that's not advisable but good general human encouragement that's totally fine there's a very high level that mama does get into where you just see all praise is coming from Allah if someone praises you you're like this is really just Allah enabling them to praise me Allah but you see it's coming and you're like Allah gave me this quality it's not really anything I did any praise because Allah gave me this ability to do good work so that's why the believer when we get praise we say all praise belongs to Allah because it does the long time because he gave us the ability to do the good thing that got the praise and he gave the person the ability to praise us so it actually belongs to him at the end um so you can do that but it's kind of like the forceful um ego desiring it if that does that make sense um online someone says how do I tell my friend to pray I am not sure how to do that yeah so um the first thing is if someone is struggling to tell like their friends to pray is you model the prayer for them right so you you pray in front of them when the prayer time comes you're like yeah I gotta go pray even if they're not doing it that's the first the second is that if we want to tell others to pray we talk about the benefits of prayer and the benefit it's having in our life in front of them so if someone starts praying and now your life starts to change and you start to feel better and you start to feel that things are improving and you start to feel a deeper relationship with Allah you you tell them about that right and you encourage them through gentle stories that you know I was really struggling with this one thing and then I prayed and that day I prayed Fajr Alhamdulillah I felt so much better and you you tell them about the effects and then third is if in every now and then you can sprinkle in little pieces of of the okay like I've noticed you haven't you know you haven't really been praying I just want to see like everything okay um I know you used to do this or uh that maybe you've been struggling with that I just thought to check in it shouldn't be done from a place of like don't you know it's Allah it's Haram not to pray like people know that it should be from a place of hey I'm concerned about you and I want to make sure that you're okay um and that those would be a couple of ideas okay there's any other questions online just post them anything else is your side any questions yeah okay good question the question is if we mentioned last time that um with regards to the topic and then beyond that for a man it's far to work and what about if someone like retires it has no need to it's required to provide is what I should have meant yeah it was what I meant to say so the you have to provide for your family if someone like has a very nice you know they're at an IPO or a tech company and there's a nice IPO and other just set you don't have to work if you just chill if you want go worship go to umrah go do this go do some go do good in the community as long as you're providing the man cannot give up the obligation of providing and just be like you're almost going to sit and watch Netflix and expect you know all the that you know their their wife to just like make all the money that that that would be considered not from that would be haram and that would not be the right thing to do um but the the providing is what's important so someone is set and retirement you're usually like um at that point in someone's life if they're blessed with children let's say they don't have 401k one their children begin to take care of them and that like their their responsibility stops at that point and now it's the son's responsibility to take care of both of his parents or the sons to split that up um financially that is their responsibility in our in our in our nation yes is a religious requirement the question is a religious responsibility um yeah it is a religious requirement for us to take care of our parents um if they cannot take care of themselves and this would be at the level of like if it's composing undue hardship on someone meaning like they just have no ability to take care of anybody like themselves their family and their parents okay that circumstance changes and now everyone is in a state of poverty together right and there's that happen sometimes everyone is just struggling but never means someone has and they're able to make their ends meet their parents have no means now this is this is incumbent on this on the man for sure um and and and if there's if for a daughter as well honestly if she's able to and she doesn't that's that's that would be very very problematic in the sight of god right but if she's unable to like us so she has no money of her own um most of the time many women just working but if she has no money of her own and whatnot then her husband would not be required to support her parents but for your direct parents yes it is required and we don't believe in nursing homes we don't believe in sending parents off to just go live somewhere and just like send it's like find a way to take care of them to the level that's that's possible for us if that makes sense sir um there's a question here is it okay to have non muslim friends so that so as they so long as they do not encourage non-islamic behavior as they don't encourage non-islamic behavior so when it comes this again depends on your level of practice you might be totally fine hanging out with non-muslims and if they're not openly imposing worldviews on you that are problematic or questioning your values then you would be fine right and if you are at a point where you don't want to be very very careful with who you are with and that situation what you should avoid is being best friends with the non-muslim that is advised against i believe specifically in the quran that to become really like like just close like you're just like this they know your secrets they know depths of your soul and there's you you're like you're not doing dawah there's no chance that they're converting right it's just they got their thing you know and you got your religion that's not advised to become really close friends but to have acquaintances and friends yeah that's going to happen it's totally you know wouldn't be wouldn't be wouldn't be that necessarily but if someone is more diligent about the spiritual path and really when they're hanging out with people they're usually talking about Allah because at some point if you're thinking a lot about Allah you'll just talk a lot about Allah it's just going to happen because you're just thinking about a god all the time so at some point just going to that's like whatever's in here is what's going to come out and now you're trying to talk about God and they don't even believe in God that's going to be just going to get a little bit tricky right and they'll just they'll be fine but at some point they'll be like why are you a missionary like why are you you know what are you trying to what are you trying to do right and they won't understand you know so it just really depends on your okay good job being influence culture influence your culture yeah i don't really have any thoughts and that's not my yeah if someone is doing good in the world and if they're not doing good then you should report it um and are there exceptions for certain shift-based workers like healthcare workers okay i think i missed that question when it came in it must have been pertaining to a topic so if you're still here if you could clarify what that question means um i don't know the context of my question anything else yes uh so this is obvious that when we spend time at people get affected sometimes at food they might be lost in context uh sometimes you can get carried away and you can get stuck in that environment how do you make sure that you own my food don't become part of that system and the other thing is that when someone is trying to become a better Muslim they're doing more right is that uh more the thing how do you make sure that you know more people are Muslim great question okay so the first one was that we might be at work um there is a lot of gossiping that's going on how do we avoid getting getting caught we might get caught up into it so how do we avoid it and so the first thing when it comes to backriding and gossiping knowing the seriousness of the sentence so if someone were to like offer you pork just like hey come eat some bacon we wouldn't probably wouldn't do it like most of us hopefully none of us would eat the bacon Muslims are super serious about their pork they're like i'll do all the other sins but i'll never eat pork um so so if someone were to just offer you that we wouldn't do it so the seriousness of the sentence first you start reflecting on that and you think about the fact that like i'm going to eat the dead flesh of the person who i'm talking about and i don't even like them like they're my manager i don't want to eat my manager's like it just grows you just like i don't you don't like the person in the first place and then the punishment is severe and then you don't like them also and you're going to give them your good deeds and take their bad deeds that's the other punishment for for for backbiting is you give someone this includes non-muslims we're going to give them our good deeds and if we run out we have to take their bad deeds and it's not even like we're doing that someone we like you know and so this is reflecting on the on the seriousness and you have we have to spend time ideally if we know we're going to enter into a workplace or we have friends or co-workers at work who do this before we even go there it's good to have a little spiritual read and re-boost about these topics so there might be certain things that we are struggling with every day but we read a hadith or reverse about that every day because we know we're going to struggle with that that day so we like we remind ourselves this we might make it the it's called the wallpaper on our phone so you see every morning you're like on the way to work and you see this wallpaper and you're like i should probably be careful and it would be a good reminder you remind yourself i should probably shouldn't do this because otherwise with the human being we forget so the first thing is the knowledge the second thing is that um we have to avoid the topics when they come up and as soon as they come up we find reasons to exit like i got to go get this deliverable bag or i have to go you might even i gotta go to the restroom i gotta go get some food i you just you find a way to leave the room or leave the virtual room right it's usually at like the beginning of meetings or at the end of meetings usually like the substantive part of the meeting no one is going to talk about other people it's usually like kind of when there's chit chat time and you just find a you you find a way to avoid that right um and if you can't do it if you and i cannot avoid it we at least have to hate it in our heart but we can't contribute to it so we just stay quiet that might be a great time to be the person who's just on their phone it's really you know you're in the room everyone's talking about someone else you're waiting for the meeting to start and you're just like you know whatever uh reading the news or checking your your email or something like that or on slack like you're doing something else right but you're not engaging in the the topic if someone starts engaging in the topic then you have to make sure afterwards you do is the far music Allah's assistance and forgiveness for engaging in that because it is it is it is serious and we will get caught up in it but the more you and i remind ourselves and the more fervently someone repents eventually Allah opens the door for them to not do that scene again which is how it works so you seriously repent you're like i feel so bad please give me the strength to avoid this sin we'll stop at some point um i think that was it for the first question um oh yeah no lastly for the first one until the muslims begin to model the character who's going to model it at the end of the day for everybody else right promise some was sent he says i was only sent to perfect noble character that's one of his main missions is to perfect noble character the vast majority of people in the world like if you ever use the word backbiting they don't even know what that is it's not even a they know what gossip is but they don't even know what that is what do you mean backbiting does that mean i'll just talk bad about someone else they're like oh there's a term for that i didn't even know that because no one guided them it's not even their fault there's been no moral guidance they don't teach it in schools there's no courses on ethics like very few people have ethics or frameworks to to to live their life by we are blessed muslims we have we have those frameworks even christians or jews or people of other faiths they might not practice enough to know what their texts say right um so sometimes someone has to model that so if you actually someone starts talking negatively about someone and you and i are like hey we it's probably better if we don't say that about them it's funny that's not really the nicest thing and you actually stand up for them you'll get respect in that person's eyes why because they know when the other person starts talking bad about them you're going to stand up for them too is you're a person of values and that's the place to own money that we need to get to as a community is we need to start being comfortable with our values this is our values they don't hide any of their values they they're saying change your pronoun to six different pronouns now there's all their values that have been corrupted are out there everybody has to comply with them we're hiding behind something for our values you know so we just have to kind of be be mindful of that the second question was about riah and what was the question it was about if we start to experience riah yeah and yeah okay the question is about riah it's about ostentation and it's about whether when you and i are engaged in worship and then we begin we do something we're engaged in worship and then we start to feel better than other people and start to feel that we yeah so riah is um you do something so that someone can know a religious act of worship so someone can notice that you did it and that they praise you for it so this is usually done with like extra acts of worship so if you are i mentioned earlier like if you're fasting like it's like a sunday day to fast and you're just like oh it's Thursday there's Wednesday tomorrow it's Thursday like Thursday fasting and you want someone to know that you're fasting what that does is it corrupts the deed because you're doing it for the sake of Allah you're not doing until you when you tell someone about it like oh yeah like i did a sunday fast today like you someone usually won't do it like that but they'll find ways to subtly mention it what they do is they negate the reward of that because they didn't do it for the sake of Allah they did it for the sake of praise of someone else that's where yeah ostentation religious showing off is basically what it is so the question was like when you start if you're doing about that everybody will go through this spiritually at some point when someone starts to take the path more seriously this is why he's going to cover it as a whole section on it and she told that that we will encounter first is riya ostentation the second is ujjab there's actually three there's kibber which is arrogance there's riya which is showing off and there's ujjab which doesn't require anybody you're just being impressed with yourself you're looking in the mirror like yeah like you're just really impressed with yourself that's that spiritually i mean um those are the subtle ones so riya the way the cure for this is sincerity and you and i have to turn back to Allah every time we feel riya so we say ya Allah i'm sorry i know you're watching me i don't know why i'm concerned about other people think i can't help it it's something in me that's weak i'm i'm i asked your you you turned to Allah for forgiveness and you asked him to correct your intention oh the main thing we need to do for riya the quick answer and we'll get into the detailed answer later but the quick answer is you and i correct the intention the more sincerity that someone has the less riya that they'll have until they get to a point where they're fully aware of the fact that Allah is watching them and Allah is the one who you do everything for and so people will become less and less of a reason why they do things until at some point they're just like it doesn't concern them but everyone is at risk for it but Prophet sallallahu sallam he said that riya is more subtle than a black ant crawling on a black rock in the depths of the night that's how subtle it is it's super super subtle so it's okay that you would i feel that like it's subtle it's going to happen i mean it's if you ever if you ever had ants and you have like i have like a black desk at home and so the ants if there's ever ants in the black desk i can't even notice them until they start crawling on me and then i'm like ah there's ants now i have to handle it so now imagine he said ants crawling on a black rock in the darkness of the night who's going to be able to see that right the people of spiritual light will be able to see it so the more you strengthen your noor the more you ask Allah for noor and sincerity the easier it will become eventually tackle it but there is like a whole section on it and if it still doesn't cover it Imam al-Ghazali has a whole book i know yeah a whole book like 200 pages just on real and how to cure it because it's a big disease that happens yeah does that make sense i don't know if you see this online if there's anyone um can witter be one rakat uh if you are so the hanafi's will pray three rakat if you're shafi or i think the maliki is you'll pray two and then one so do two rakat and then the shafa and witter and they'll do one so yeah it could be but you always have the two before the one they'll separate it though and how can we ask Allah for forgiveness for gossiping so the way to ask forgiveness for back fighting is similar to asking for forgiveness for any other sin um we're first and foremost you and i feel remorse for doing it number two we actively engage in the process of asking Allah to forgive us and to pardon us for uh the engaging in the back fighting and number three we make the intention to never do that thing again the fourth part that is included in back fighting is ideally if we can repair the damage we did to someone else we do so but in our time is not a time where you go and tell someone like hey i was talking to mack about you i'm sorry like that won't go over so you have to repay that by you have to make go off for them to the extent that we backfited them now we have to make go off for them and if it got really serious we're sweet the scholars advise we donate some charity in their name and we we try to do some good deed in their names you go and you make a you feed some someone who's less privileged or you donate charity like on Islamic Relief or something and you do it in the name of that person who you who we spent a lot of time back fighting and talking about about and gossiping okay that's yeah uh yes is what uh uh is adjur the same thing as Hassanat or Ujjub so adjur adjur is like a reward for a deed yeah and then Hassanat is also another kind of word for reward or goodness that you get for a deed but but that's adjur not Ujjub Ujjub is a spiritual deed Ujjub is um in in um English this would be like UJUB Ujjub is uh translated as uh concede concede concededness basically there's a better translation but that i'm not remembering it right now but concede yeah is complaining about someone the same thing as back fighting um 90 percent of the time it might be there's a few times where it's not so if you have to validly complain let's say you go to a person of authority who can um like example of someone is like at school or at work and someone has done something like wrong like a they sense something inappropriate there's been some type of harassment racist comments inappropriate jokes whatever it is at that point you're you should go to a person of authority and tell them like hey this is what they were doing and it's not right right and you you're not really complaining about them but you're you are in one sense right that's one thing if you if there is a way to talk about someone where you can get something resolved that would be fine even if it's mentioning negative traits about someone the complaining that's about back fighting is like um you just like hate your co-worker and you just come home every day and you just like oh my god and today she did this and he did this and he's just like so annoying and just like it's credit for my work and like and or like a friend at work or not even a friend a person that's cool and you're complaining about them by people we call it venting these days that's not really something that exists in our spiritual tradition unless there's no point for there's no constructive solving of problems there or again a therapist or you really need sincere advice so you go to a friend you need to get something off your chest but you're hoping to get advice that's fine but if there's no advice and you're just like going on and on and on that now you're mentioning negative traits about them and you are complaining um and so it's kind of like you're doing both yeah yeah yes question yeah so the question is um just repeated that if you have a friend they're about to hang out with someone or get to know someone or bring someone into their life who is very much going to be a negative influence can you warn them right yeah you not only can you you are required to in that instance so you you must um it's an obligation if you know something bad that someone is about to get into it doesn't qualify as backbiting so there are circumstances in which backbiting doesn't apply that would be once you just mentioned another circumstance would be marriage if you know someone is considering a proposal or a potential person to get married to and there's known problems about that person like whatever the problems are as long as they're not like something that is insignificant or like cosmetic or something superficial it's like real serious but you have to you must tell the person that you now find out that they are about to potentially consider them you got to go and find a way to tell them nicely and don't mention anything extra so in this instance you would warn them you'd be like hey person not really the best influence they i know that they do x y z and i think you should avoid it if you can get through to them without mentioning the sin it's even better if you beg look it's not a good person i've been around them i would avoid it and they're like they won't listen like no it's not a big deal and then you have to say it you say it but you stop it there you don't be you don't include like you know some extra trait about them that you don't like does that make sense so there are circumstances in a religion where it's not black and white backbiting is permitted in certain circumstances also lying is permitted in certain circumstances that people think lying lying for 99.9% of circumstances is never allowed there are circumstances in which lying like for example if if the police are unjustly trying to get somebody who didn't even do anything wrong and they come to your house and they're like hiding in a closet and the police knock on your house and like yo is someone so here and you'd be like yeah he's in the closet not a good idea you know because because you the police are the unjust ones in the in this circumstance of the example that makes sense uh yes that seems in contrast to uh like example like talking about your problems how do you do that without uh getting close to backbiting on one hand i feel like you know you could be that you can keep your limit you can be the person you've ever talked about in your home ever which i guess is probably the thing but maybe i don't know there's some sense of like emotionally involving yourself up or on the other extreme you talk about everything and that often results in backbiting yeah that's a good question so the question is for those online that um how do we manage the balance between not bottling everything up inside um and at the same time we don't want to get into backbiting and so we still want to be able to have like discussions or like let out some of the you could say the steam that we have and and still not get into into doing something that's impermissible and what's the balance there um so talk about this at a few difference at the higher stages the adab is that you first go to Allah with everything that's the adab with Allah for the spiritual traveler the adab is that Allah is your source and you go to him and until you've talked to Allah and you've cried to Allah and you've made dua to Allah it would be reaching that adab if you now start to talk to human beings about that with Allah there is no backbiting and there's no complaining it doesn't like it's you complain to Allah openly right not in like oh Allah you did this to me you did this but Allah this person is really like I'm really struggling with this person and then this is happening to me and like please help me like I really need your help like please and you use that as a means of getting from the depths of your heart to beg for Allah's assistance usually most of the tests in our life are coming to bring us to that state and most of the the difficulties we go through that come through people are help us get to a state where we sincerely in a complete state of devotion and turning to Allah and Allah's oneness we ask him for help and so that's what the first thing that ideally is supposed to be done and then there's kind of a spectrum here where someone might do a portion of that and then might need to get constructive advice there's nothing wrong with constructive advice if you have to mention something that's like negative but not with the and not with the additional facts that are going to get into backbiting so example would be again I'll use example of work you are struggling with a toxic boss it's toxic culture constantly saying problematic things they are um overworking you they are um that creating problems in your life and so on and so forth and you now need to find a way you might discuss that with your you know your parents or your spouse or like your good friend how do I get out of this but if you now start to mention things about that person that just annoy you and have nothing to do with the topic that you're looking to solve you're just like yeah he's just like you know you I don't know what an example would be but you find something to mention she's just like this he's just like this and now you've gotten into backbiting and now that's that's that's impermissible right but the constructive aspect is totally fine um complaining here with your question about complaining this is where ultimately there's a level of tawheed called experiential tawheed so we have tawheed which is la ilaha illallah at the level of the leaf and then you have so there's no god worthy of worship except Allah there is no god except Allah and then there's tawheed that there's nothing actually happening except it's by Allah's permission that's another level of la ilaha illallah and then there's a level of la ilaha illallah that it's all coming everything is from Allah so as someone tries to get to that level of experiential tawheed meaning they're witnessing so you say when you say ashadu la ilaha illallah you were saying I witness that there's no god except Allah at a higher level it's like saying I witness that nothing is happening to me in my life except that it's through Allah and it's by Allah and it's through Allah's permission and it's it's coming as a test and the people are just means I think one of the imams here said he's like see everybody is like a puppet and Allah is controlling so you'll ultimately see that everything is coming to us from Allah and now how do I respond in a way that would have other with Allah so over complaining about that is complaining about something that Allah has permitted to happen but constructives problem solving would be fine we don't it's not like bottling it up because the person who really deeply discusses things with their Lord never has bottled up they're like the most happy people because they're just turning Allah solves the problems he's the only one who can actually solve it right like our friend can't solve the problem our spouse can't solve the problem right they're just they're here listen give us some advice Allah can solve every problem whoever places their whoever has talked about Allah Allah will give them an exit strategy out of every single problem everything and we'll provide for them from where they never expected and whoever places their trust in Allah Allah is sufficient for them he says this um in sort of Talaq so this is the mindset Allah wants us to get to this mindset that we turn to him and we have taqwa of him in every moment such that he gives us a way to probably might not be there and when we're not there right we're just trying to get there as we're trying to get there we find people who will help us along the path and give us constructive advice but who don't engage the lower tendencies of the human being to fall into negative talk backbiting and complaining um and it's just kind of like a balance if someone might be might be the point where they they complain a lot and they just need to reduce the complaining they don't need to worry about all these other things but if someone has mastered that and has not stopped complaining they shouldn't even see it as they're bottling anything up inside because i know people i've never heard them ever complain ever and i don't think that they don't come across at all that they're bottling inside they're they're just so in a happy state and they're in an expansive state and they're in such a good state that it's like there's not even negativity that can enter here it like tries to come in and the light is awful it leaves that's the state we ultimately want to get to we just have to figure out on the path where we are and who we kind of talk to and work with to help us get there does that make sense okay you know it's getting quite late so we're just going to i'm going and if anyone has any questions feel free to come up afterwards and uh okay there's a question online yeah this is not relevant to the topic um why do people say secret managers are hello like from behind the back yeah very few people say that um it's it's if someone is saying that you should really be careful about them it's it's going to great fit for them okay cool so we'll we'll um end with this topic and tell us so next next week we'll be covering so there's a question here about the tricks of sheathon i'm not going to cover that right now because next week the entire section is about the tricks of sheathon so i highly advise coming to the next week session for the one who's asking this question online and then we're going to talk about sheathon and then we're going to get into the following week the nuffs and then we will have covered the main um enemies is the right word but the the main kind of obstructions that come on the spiritual path for someone is in terms of creation in terms of things that are created you give us light in our hearts and that you guide us towards people of goodness and away from anyone who's going to affect us yalla we are weak before you and we need you and we need to have adab before you we ask that you teach us adab like you taught the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam adab yalla we ask that you give us immense new awareness to you yalla we ask that you direct our trainer and outer being entirely towards you and that you remove the obstacles in this path and that you allow us to traverse this path with complete ease and that you bring us near near and near to you in every moment in every breath and every step that we take yalla and we ask you for all hate and for all look for and for all ease and we ask that you remove our doubts and our uncertainties and our anxieties and our worries and our stress and our problems and our sicknesses and our illness and our depression and every other issue that it is that we our beloved community or anyone from our family or our friends or anyone is going to yalla and we ask that you pour your rahmah down upon us and upon our community and upon the Muslims yalla and we ask you for everything good the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam adab we ask that you protect us from everything evil that he has from us allah wa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam Muhammadin wa la ilayhi wa sallam alhamdulillahi wa sallam