 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen, wa salallahu wa salam wa barak ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam Allahumma fathallina fathu al-arifin wa fiqna tafeeqas al-salihin ya ar-Rahman ar-Rahimin wa salallahu wa salam wa barak ala Sayyidina Muhammadin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu, alhamdulillahi I hope you all are doing well So we are insha'Allah resuming this series We're not this series, actually we're starting a new series We're resuming our fall programming, insha'Allah So for this class, insha'Allah, we're going to be talking about the traits of the righteous And you know, we're living in a time right now where There's a lot of difficulty out there There are a lot of really mean people There are a lot of really rude people We see a lot of arrogance in society We see a lot of lying in society We see corruption at the highest political levels We see problems in society We see problems in families We just see 2020 as we all know has been a difficult year When you meet people or when you read the news On top of the difficulties that are already happening You also just see negative personalities A negative approach to life People who are too judgmental People who are racist People who don't understand the difficulties that other human beings go through We have political leaders who just openly lie As though it's no big deal And there's so much of that that goes on in the time that we live in And what is the answer to those difficulties when it comes to our religion? How does our religion approach these difficulties? That's kind of what we want to talk about today We want to talk about in this series over the course of the next couple of months We're just going to pick one trait A trait that the righteous have A trait that the people of this deen have A trait that the virtue that the people who are close to Allah A virtue that they might have And we're going to talk about what that virtue is How does one go about acquiring it And some stories and examples of people today And in the past who have exemplified this virtue So that's the goal inshallah for this series Let's start with just kind of setting the framework And why it's so important in our time to talk about virtues Everybody has a different compass for success A different compass for progress A different compass for how we go about focusing our life For the Muslims, our compass is very straightforward Our compass is to get closer to Allah and his messenger And our compass is to increase in love for Allah and his messenger And eventually inshallah to attain the pleasure of our Lord That is our compass, that's our destination That is our north star, that's where we are headed Now how do we go about measuring our progress there For us progress is about spiritual progress That's really what we're after We're trying to get closer and closer to living a life That we'll be pleasing to Allah And we all struggle, especially in this time that we're living in Trying to practice our religion in the west is hard It's hard enough already And then the extra difficulties that one deals with Especially in the particular time that we're living in With all the challenges that are going on It makes it harder, it does make it harder sometimes to be patient It does make it harder sometimes to keep our cool It does make it harder sometimes to just be grateful and to be accepting But those virtues, those are just some But those virtues, those are signs that we are progressing in life But again, everybody has a different compass for progress For some people that compass is how much money is in my bank account So their sign of progress is that I go from having $5,000 today To $50,000 in a year to $100,000 the next year To a million dollars before I pass away That's their sign of progress And there's nothing inherently wrong with that As long as we're earning that money through halal means But that's not progress for us Because guess what? That money, unless one is donating it Or spending it on their family Or spending it to help the community Or using it for virtuous reasons That money's not going to help you and me in the grave When we go and when we pass And we're seeing a lot of people passing away these days And Allah lifts these difficulties from humanity But when we pass, your bank account's not going with you Our wallets are not going with us Our credit cards, none of that stuff is going to go with us But there's going to be something that's left And those are our deeds And our deeds are one sign The more virtuous deeds one has InshaAllah, as long as they're accepted by Allah That is a sign that we are making progress It is a sign that we are progressing towards Allah If we increase the amount of good that it is that we have But for some people, it's money Other people, it's followers How many followers do I have on Instagram today Or Facebook, or how many likes do I get? How many people are following me on Twitter? 100,000 followers? Do I have a million followers? How many people are sharing my posts? That's the sign of the progress And one of the ways in which we can tell That that's not really a good sign of progress Is because a lot of people who are constantly worried about that They're also a lot of anxiety There's a lot of trepidation in the heart There's a lot of this worry about Who's going to see this post? Who's going to share this? Who's going to watch my TikTok video? And that occupies your mind We're regularly going and checking our devices Is somebody like that? Does somebody post that? Does somebody share that? Did somebody... Did they give a reaction to it? Is it positive? Is it negative? How can I do better next time? How can I increase next time? And we get caught up in that And so that's another... In the modern day world that we live in That's another kind of compass that people have Is how many followers do they have And for other people, it could be how much power do I have So I get this position And then I want the next position And then I want to be the CEO The run for office And then I want to be the president And then, you know, it keeps going And now you have a president who He can't stop even if he has two terms He's going out and saying, oh, I want more terms I want to be a dictator He honors dictators He glorifies dictators Because that is in all outward forms It indicates that for him The progress is about power How much more power can I get? And these are all things that our Spiritual psychologists The masters of our religion They've already diagnosed That these are going to be things The human being is going to go after And Allah already mentioned in the Qur'an That the human being will chase after money He'll chase after fame He'll chase after followers He'll chase after this He'll chase after that But the only thing that really Will fill the human being Is it's mentioned that the dirt That enters the mouth of the human being When they enter the grave Because otherwise there's all these empty pursuits That we are chasing after So for us, it's about first and foremost What are we trying to progress towards And that should be inshallah Some level of righteousness Now, righteousness being righteous Being close to God Being, you know, virtuous These are like big words They're big concepts, big ideas They sound really difficult to attain But alhamdulillah One of the blessings of the time that we live in That it's actually quite easy to attain good And it's quite easy to attain virtue And good character Like being a good person Takes one really, really, really, really far It's a spiritual shortcut To get closer and closer to God And so that's something that we Should keep in mind, right? That in the time, especially in the time That we live in And their hadith that indicate that Towards the end of time As one gets closer and closer to the latter days That actions that somebody does They weigh more heavily on the scales Because it's so hard to do good A thousand years ago there were Let's say somebody wanted to Pray all their prayers In the masjid Or they wanted to spend their life learning And learning this deen and what not So some of the traits somebody wanted to have There would be a support system A very significant support system In fact a societal support system That would assist them in doing that Or assist them in being generous Or assist them in being good These days, and by assist I mean like people encouraging them These days you rarely get encouragement For trying to do virtuous things You actually get discouragement And people generally in the Social media stratosphere And in the online world Most people are We're getting caught up in arguing We're getting fights over small things Those are the types of inclinations That we're having and what we're being encouraged to do So doing a little bit of good Is actually easier in one way Because while you It might be hard to do initially A small amount goes a long way It weighs a lot more And so that's just one thing That we should keep in mind Now, as we were mentioning There are a lot of reasons Why trying to attain traits Is really really important And inshallah over the course Of the next couple of months Every week we're just going to take One or two traits And just talk about a trait That the people close to Allah Have exhibited, have exemplified And then talk about how we can go About implementing those traits In our life And so we're going to try to keep it Really really practical If you know you miss a class Or whatever it doesn't really matter Because you can just come to the next week And it'll be like a very different topic So today we're just going to go about Setting the framework And talk about a few of the high level traits That are really really important And then we'll dive in inshallah Into a specific trait In the following and subsequent classes So these traits, what do they do? The more traits one has The more one's character becomes perfected And the more one's character Becomes perfected The more they get closer to attaining Some portion of the Blessed good character of the prophet And Allah praises the prophet In the Quran and says that he is on A vast character That he is on a khuluq al-adim Allah mentions in the Quran That the prophet is on a vast character And that Allah himself And Shaitan Jibrail Taught the prophet, right? The best of character That he was gifted the best of character And all of the greats Who have come after the prophet And also saw them That they have taken portions of his character Nobody can attain everything he had But portions of what he had And they've exemplified it And so we're just going to talk about How do we take portions of that And bring it into our life Now, why is good character important? One of the things a lot of us don't know Is that good character Is like a big big big shortcut In our religion So the prophet saw him He said, for example in a hadith That the most beloved of me The most beloved of you to me On the Day of Judgement And the ones who will sit closest to me On the Day of Judgement If there's any place you want to be On the Day of Judgement Is with the prophet's son That's like, that should be one of our main goals A dua we should make regularly Allah allow me to be with My messenger, salallahu alayhi salam On the Day of Judgement Because Allah says Nobody's about to care about us On the Day of Judgement Mom's not going to care Dad's not going to care Brothers not going to care Sisters aren't going to care Friends aren't going to care Our cousins aren't going to care Ours aren't going to care Uncle, nobody's about to care about Everybody's going to be Myself, myself, nafsi, nafsi Except one person He's going to care about you And all of humanity And especially his ummah And that is Sayyidina Rasulullah Salallahu alayhi wassalam And so it should be a desire For us to be close to him In this life And on the Day of Judgement So he said The one who'll be closest to me On the Day of Judgement Will be the best of you in character Not necessarily the one Who prayed the most Or the one who fasted The most extra Not the basics But the most extra The one who is going to be The best in character And the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wassalam said That Sayyidina Anas One of the Sahabah Or the Allahu An reports That the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wassalam mentioned That good character melts away sin Just as the sun melts away ice That good character Literally removes your sins Right, so when you're being good To other human beings When you're being nice When you're being generous When you're being kind When you're being thoughtful When you're being You know, you're restraining your tongue You're controlling your anger These just different types of good character That it literally melts away Our sins And the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi also mentions That one of the wadiest Deeds on the Day of Judgment The wadiest deeds on the Day of Judgment Is going to be attaining A state of good character And he says in another narration That he was sent One of his main missions was to He was sent to perfect Noble character And to perfect A complete character Of attaining a lot of good Deeds and a lot of good virtues rather And from good virtues Good deeds spring forth And finally, one of the things I mentioned He said, among the greatest deeds Is for us to have good character And it allows you to attain Ranks in the next life And this is mentioned That worship cannot even attain Right, so one can be Extremely careful about How they interact with people And very gentle And very kind And very generous And all these other traits And it can allow them to attain Amazing ranks in the next life So why is this important? Because look, in the time We're living in Short cuts We've got to find the ways To take short cuts It's difficult It's difficult for us to Pray significantly extra We struggle with just Praying the basics It's difficult for us to Fast extra We struggle with just Fasting the basics It's difficult to give extra A lot of money We struggle sometimes Just giving the basics But that's okay Let's set a goal To do the basics Inshallah, aspire One of the virtuous traits Of the righteous Is that they Prioritize, of course Their obligatory actions And then on top of that To attain more and more virtues So that we can truly Complete our character And perfect Or, you know We can never become perfect But we start to attain a state Of nearness to the The level of character That the Prophet sallallahu alayhi Salam had And Allah, he mentioned in the Quran In Surah al-Mu'minun That Audhu Billah al-Masjid al-Arjim Qad aflah al-Mu'minun That successful are the believers He describes what success means And so this is that compass We were talking about And then he goes on to list A bunch of traits in the verses after that That the mu'minun That the believers have So for us as believers It's about attaining good It's about becoming people of goodness It's about becoming people of righteousness It's about becoming people of virtue And that is something that Islam Can offer in this time That can help so many people So many people are just looking For someone to smile at them Or for someone to be nice to them Or for someone to ask how they're doing Or for someone to assist To helping hand Or for someone to cover their grocery bill When they're at the counter So many people are just looking For a little bit of goodness In a time filled with corruption And if you and I can be those people Who have some goodness And inshaAllah we all have something good to offer That's going to allow us to attain Many many many good deeds And good degrees in this life That we might not be able to attain Through other things And maybe we can be a means Of guiding somebody to Allah And guiding someone to Allah's deen So one kind of story That I wanted to mention is Sometimes again we think of this As some lofty thing You have to attain all these virtues at once But once you start to focus On becoming a person of goodness The deeds that come forth from you People sense a purity in them And deeds automatically spring forth from you That are good If the foundation is good If the foundation is full of virtue What's going to come after that Is going to be full of virtue And more people will be inclined To become closer to you More people will be inclined to Want to benefit from you And all these types of things Just one small example And again it's not like We have to do these huge things I remember one time I was sitting at a It was like a function Or like a wedding event or something We were at like a restaurant At a wedding hall And I was admiring You know I was talking to this one brother And I had just met him I had just met him We were just sitting down After maybe I'd seen him around before But nothing too significant And I was getting to know him Introducing myself He was introducing himself And I mentioned somewhere In the middle of the conversation He had these really cool cuff links Like these beautiful cuff links That had That were in the shape Of the sandal Of the prophecy solemn And I was like I'd never seen that before And I was like If you're wearing a suit And everything You want to have cool cuff links I Had never seen something like that before And so I just In the middle of the conversation I just kind of complimented him On the cuff links I was like those are nice cuffs Mashallah Those are awesome And then we kept talking And we kept going And the dinner was served Etc And then the night As the night ended And as he left He just like Had taken off the cuff links And he just Gave them To me And then he just left Like he didn't even And I tried to give it back to him And he just smiled And just gave them to me And I was just like Subhanallah Like of all the great conversation And everything that we had I don't remember what we spoke about I'm sure it was fine stuff But I remember that And I still remember him And now when I wear those cuff links I think about him And from time to time I make dua for him And now I wear those cuff links a lot And it was such a small deed But it was so nice And I remember one time I was at another like Some event in Canada And I was hanging out With some Muslims And I just Was talking to somebody And I was like Hey man, nice watch Your watch is so nice And the guy literally Starts taking off his watch And he was completely serious And he tried to do it A couple of times And just give me his watch And I was like No, no, no, man I wasn't trying to get your watch I was just trying to Tell you Mashallah It's a nice watch Even these people Mashallah People in the virtue You got to be careful If you compliment them Because like next thing You know they take off Something else Hey it's yours And I'm not trying to You know the thing that you have Mashallah Like just says Sometimes this is a way to You know Admire something Somebody's has Or for whatever reason One likes something And they'll praise them for it So I just remember those things And like That's small stuff But inshallah That springs from a heart Like a heart that's stingy A heart that is Only concerned about itself A heart that thinks about Oh I'm going to go through this effort I went through so much To get this and that Won't do that A heart that's generous A heart that cares About other people A heart that prefers Somebody else to yourself That's a heart that That good deed Is going to spring from And of course There's no like You know Obligation on us To like give away Our nice things to other people The nice things one has They're from Allah That Allah has given us Inshallah And we can you know Totally keep them But there are Virtuous traits In the Quran That Allah says Those who prefer others To over themselves There's verses That mention Allah That there are people Who prefer others to themselves Such that they want Other people to be happy Even if that means They have to give away things And they know That if they gave it away In this life It's going to come back to them In multiple fold In the next life And so like They have such an amazing framework And so they're just Extremely generous They'll just give Give away their things Sometimes right So that's just an example And the reason I wanted to mention That is You know that was like In our time It wasn't some like Super major Story of somebody You know praying One thousand rakat At the night You know Doing ten khatams in the day And like those are amazing Virtuous Amazing traits That people have But like That this person He was like a normal person And I believe he was He's a doctor Mashallah Here in the bay area And he just Had this really good trait About him And I know him To be a very generous man Mashallah I know him to like Give really really Significant amounts At fundraisers Observe him And increase him But that's just one example Right That left an impression on me And I hope to be generous Like that I hope to kind of Prefer others to myself To myself And I know that's not Something that's easy But I hope you know One day that That's a trait That we can aspire to get So back to The frameworks So there are a couple Of frameworks for us to Understand When it comes To attaining This state of goodness When it comes to Attaining a state of You know Focusing on Getting virtue The first is We have to learn Knowledge is the first step Right So like the fact that We're discussing this Alhamdulillah Hopefully it's a good thing May Allah put khayr in it And prevent any Evil or any bad intentions From it And then it's about Implementation It's very simple You learn it You implement it You see how it goes And you go back And you try again And you see Okay, maybe I didn't Get it right this time Maybe I'll try the next Time Looking for something I mean I don't know About you all But I'm looking for Something to do these days There's just a lot of time If you Especially if the air quality Is not good You can't go outside There's not much you can Necessarily do It's quarantine Etc. Pandemic So You know There's only so much Somebody's going to read Only show Somebody can watch At some point You're like You want to think about Ways to improve And better yourself Right And One of the ways The hope is InshaAllah That a couple of traits That we can take away From this series And we can just Try to implement them And then we can Go back And improve And say Okay, maybe we messed up This time Maybe we'll Get it right The next time And slowly If we make an intention Right That many doors Of goodness open That Imam al-Junaid One of the great imams Of this religion May Allah Increase his station He said that With one intention If you have a sincere intention Seventy doors of goodness Open for you If you have a sincere intention So let's all Make a sincere intention Right now That we'll take a few of these traits And we'll try to implement them And we'll try to bring them To reality And practice them In our life And it doesn't matter Really whether we're in college Whether we're in high school Whether we're working Whether we're Not working Doesn't matter What we're doing Whatever stage we're life for This is like These are normal traits And for us Kind of just Everyday normal people For us to bring into Our life These should not be Some really really intense Difficult thing to attain InshaAllah So it's about knowledge And implementation Knowledge is really really important And we'll talk a little bit more About that next time But learning is important And then what is a trait A trait is like A distinguishing quality And it starts to become Over time Somewhat permanent in you So if you do something Just once You're not necessarily Considered generous person You could have had An act of generosity But if like most of the time You know Maybe generosity Is not your main Trait But you're Maybe a little bit more You know You hold back A little bit more In terms of spending on others You wouldn't necessarily Not be called generous person A generous person Is somebody who regularly That has become Like the first thing They think about Is how do I spend on others How do I help others With my time Or with my money Or whatever it is So the traits As they become More embedded in us Once we learn The second step is Implementing And it's to implement them And to become More and more solidified Deep down inside So Knowledge is going to be The first ingredient And if we don't know What good looks like We can't act on it And this is why Studying the book of Allah And studying the sunnah Of the Prophet ﷺ Becomes so important Because in Those are our two examples The book and the sunnah And in those examples In of course The Messenger of Allah Allah ﷺ That he is the living He is the walking Quran As is mentioned in the hadith And of course He exemplifies All goodness And all righteousness That's when we start to learn Oh okay that's how you do it That's how you're nice to somebody That's how you like Always smile Even though there's a lot of Difficulties going on And so that's What when we learn Then we see how it was Put into practice And then we try to Put into practice In a similar way As the Prophet ﷺ did Or You know As one of the righteous Did And inshallah We'll be following the example Of the Prophet ﷺ And then we have to know How to go about Implementing it Into our life Now what does that mean though Just like Beneficial knowledge can help us The wrong type of knowledge Can hurt us That's something to remember If you don't have The right type of knowledge You think something is good Which is not actually good It's going to mess up Your understanding Right so if somebody Thinks that like Oh you know It's okay to It's okay for me to Be really really rude to somebody As long as I'm going to get what I want From them Because the goal is For me to get what I want Like that would be A strange understanding With somebody to have But maybe that person Will start to exhibit Rude behavior Because it helps them With their end outcome Or there are a number Of other things That somebody might have The wrong knowledge And they might say Oh it's okay for me To skip prayer Because I'm at a wedding Or something like that Like oh it's a time For fun And so maybe I shouldn't pray Like that would be The wrong type of knowledge And you're actually Getting convinced Like you know If one thinks Something that's wrong Is okay That becomes really problematic It's another thing though To be like oh I'm doing something wrong I'll ask forgiveness I'll fix it later Inshallah Allah gives me life That's different But the wrong knowledge Is actually super dangerous And we are living in a time That Muslim community We're filled with The wrong understandings The wrong type of knowledge People think like Being harsh and rude to others Is the right way to force The right way to To bring people into the Dean And you know There's a lot of rudeness And harshness And anger that comes with Religiosity And as a result You have lots and lots of people Especially young people Leaving this religion Or not wanting much to do With the version of religion That they saw practice Well one of the things That Hamdullah is the case And I've always seen this Is that the people Who are trying to implement This religion correctly They are soft They are gentle They are easy going And they want to have As much goodness for everybody They want as many people To enter jannah as possible To enter paradise as possible They don't want to limit The view of this religion To a small amount of people Who have to follow their Specific view And their specific point of view And they're going to be The only people who attain A state of goodness And so there are people Like that And inshallah we'll spend time Learning about that And so knowledge becomes Very very important And the prioritization then Also becomes important So once we start to learn About more and more good traits A couple of things to keep in mind First is we're all in different Stages of our life And different stages Of trying to enter In the spiritual journey What one starts off with In the beginning Is not the same type of stuff Or the same type of knowledge Or the same type of information One is going to benefit from Necessarily as you continue To advance Just like what you learn In first grade Should not be the same stuff You're learning in college And if you go on to get a PhD Should not be the same stuff You're learning then But the building blocks Were important Similarly As we continue to progress In the state of this In our spiritual states And in this journey of religion We should keep in mind That we want to have a perspective That is very open At the beginning Right Because if we are Let's say engaged In significant amounts Of things we shouldn't be doing Maybe somebody smoking a lot Or drinking a lot Or partying a lot Or whatever types of thing We're doing We want to keep things The door very open For that person who's doing it If you're talking to that person Or if you and I Are that person When you keep the door very open But as one leaves those things You want to start to Make sure the focus becomes You start to get a bit more What's the right word A bit more strict with yourself Like maybe that stuff I was doing two years ago I'm not doing that anymore So the type of things I need to focus on Implementing are different Maybe I was praying Three times a day Now it's been a couple years I'm praying three times a day I shouldn't just be like Okay, three times a day is good I'll pray fudger late every day And I'll make up the rest of my prayers When I'm 80 The goal should be How do I make progress And become somebody Who prays five times a day And then become somebody Who is generous with people If I used to be super stingy One of the things We want to stay away from Is like, oh At the beginning of my journey I used to not pray at all I used to not be very much concerned About doing things appropriately And doing things correctly And ten years I've only progressed a little bit And I still think The same stuff I was doing back then Is the stuff I should be doing now Hopefully that makes sense Like maybe you'll meet somebody in your life Who is like who you and I were back then And you're going to need to have A much more expansive approach with them Because the approach of Trying to be a bit more firm With yourself and a bit more strict And trying to get Implement more and more things And learn more and implement more That's not going to work for them It won't work for somebody Who's at the complete beginning Just like you try to teach a first grader What you learn in college or at PhD It won't work most of the time, right? So similarly that's just something For us to keep in mind And that goes to one of the virtues Of the righteous That one of the virtues of the righteous Is that they're very, very Tolerant people A sign that we're doing something Wrong in our religion So it becomes super intolerant Of other people And we see somebody doing something wrong And we just become Super internally judgmental And super arrogant And we start talking bad about them Behind their backs And we like leave the gathering And after, you know, we leave the Let's say we're at a dinner party Or something after we leave that We're just talking bad about that person And their family Or something like that That's a sign of We've got the religion all wrong, right? Our focus should be okay If they're doing something wrong I should figure out how do I First pray for them sincerely And then very gently Without speaking to anybody else About the subject Approach them And be like, hey, is everything okay? I noticed, you know You were doing this or doing that And I just wanted to talk to you Like anything I can do to help And then, of course, mention to them About something that That could be improved upon, right? So that would be just an example But the people of righteousness They're very, very tolerant And so one of the stories That's mentioned about one of the righteous Of the last 20 or 30 years He mentions that somebody's writing about him And he mentions that This person, he gave everybody a way in In his mind he tried to understand the Quran And hope that everybody had a way in To paradise And he said, we once sent him to America On a speaking tour And he was very successful After one of his young talks A young American woman came up to him And said, I really love what you said And I think I should become a Muslim But you see I'm a stripper, right? You didn't see that one coming And she says, you see, I'm a stripper And without missing a beat He just gently smiled And he said, don't let that stop you, right? Don't let that be the reason that you stop And she said, okay, yeah, you know what? And I'm sure they had more of a conversation But she said, you know, if I become a Muslim I think that I'm going to give it up I think I know if I become a Muslim I'll eventually give that up And he didn't tell her like Oh my God, you this, you that You know, give her slurs And talk to her in a misogynistic way And be like, how could you, don't you know? She was in a state of disbelief She was considering entering a state of belief Which is the most important thing you can do All the other sins pale in comparison To the sin of not believing And what happened? He encouraged her to accept Islam And she accepted Islam And he eventually went on And she eventually, inshallah, went on to To give that up According to the way that this is mentioned That's just one trait, right? Being open, being tolerant with people Now, that doesn't mean on the same end That like, oh, let's just go out and like Engage in all the types of wrong That we could do here That we're living in the West It's very easy to engage in major types of Sin, that's not what it means But it shows that like, if that's where we're at It's okay, there's room for us And if that's where somebody else is at It's okay, there's room for them The focus though is If you want to attain a state of righteousness If we want to attain a state of righteousness We need to become people of expansiveness That one who becomes closer and closer Their tolerance, their acceptance If they become more expansive But for themselves They become more and more strict On what's okay and what's not okay Right, so for themselves Like for example, it's mentioned in the books That the people of Takwa The first level of staying away From what's called being scrupulous Being careful is to stay away from the Haram And so these people They won't even get close to the Haram Haram food, food that wasn't slaughtered properly Alcohol, weed, this and that They won't themselves get close to it But if they see somebody else doing it They're going to give them room They're going to give them Okay, let's take some time And make the offer them And slowly and slowly work on it For themselves, they will even stay away So there's levels You stay away from the Haram Then you stay away from anything That's disliked by God So for example, in some opinions Smoking cigarettes is Haram In other opinions, it's extreme Makuru, Tahrima, extremely disliked So they'll stay away from things That are disliked Praying at times that are disliked Doing things at times that are disliked Then they'll even stay away from things That are permissible But that they want to not do too much of So they won't waste time Let's say on watching shows And this and that And they'll just kind of be focused On spreading good in their life But on the other side When they see other people Very expensive, very much focused On trying to be Like if you ever have somebody Who gave you a big hug And your hands are wide open And there's a lot of room for you and me And that's what humanity right now Everybody just needs like a big warm embrace And that warm embrace Is going to come from being people Of expansiveness It's not going to come from being people Who are really limiting Closing the door for anybody So the door inshallah is open No matter where we're at As we progress inshallah For us, we should get more and more Okay, I'm going to learn this I'm going to get a little bit Stricter on myself And try not to do this Be more patient here And try to fast more here And try even though the fast is an extra fast Right, or the prayer is a naffil prayer Super-argetory prayer We're going to try to do more of that Even if it's not obligatory But for other people I'm surely not going to sit back And be like, oh, look at all the stuff I do And then look at these people Look at that they're just completely caught up And all the wrong That's certainly not what the people Of righteousness do The people of traits They are people of expansiveness And they are people of being open And being very tolerant But hoping and praying deep down inside Always For everybody to attain all stations of goodness And all stations of nearness They don't just want heaven Or nearness to God for themselves And you see this exemplified most In the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam That he, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam InshaAllah will end with this That one time the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam He was Say in the Aisha reports that he Say the Aisha reports that he Made a fresh light wudu And he stood up to pray And she saw that And this was the night prayer That the Hajj prayer And that he was praying and praying And she saw a lot of tears coming down From his eyes That he was weeping and weeping And weeping and weeping And she asked him And I'm paraphrasing the story here But she said, Allah is already forgiven All of your sins, right? Allah has guaranteed you entry into paradise You are the best of Allah's creation And why are you crying so much? And it is mentioned that he said You know, should I not be a grateful servant? Should I not be an abdun shakura? A grateful servant? Somebody who's always grateful to Allah And other narrations that is mentioned That when he was praying at night What he was mainly praying for was you And me That's who he was praying for He was praying for his ummah He was praying for the ummah That would come in the latter days The people who would struggle a lot The people like us who were just struggling Out here these days That's who he was praying for Look at his expansiveness He could have just like Not spent his energy doing that And spent his time sleeping But no He cared about us He cared about humanity He cared about spreading good He cared about opening the doors of good And he cared about spreading good And opening the doors of good And opening the doors of nearness For you and me And his da'az That he made to Allah Every single night for his ummah Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Those could very well be the reason That we have entered into this religion That we are muslim today That we are practicing today And so As we go about this We should remember the master of all traits The master of all righteousness Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam And try to get closer and closer to him And to know That the more good you acquire The more good traits that you and I acquire The more nearness we can attain To the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam And the more we can become closer To what he was like And that should be Hopefully enough of a reason For us to realize That this should be our compass This should be the goal Spiritual progress should be the goal And ultimately nearness to Allah And Allah's good pleasure should be The goal And there's a lot of room For that in the time that we're living in And so inshallah If anybody has any questions Please post them If you're on YouTube Just post them in the YouTube comment section Or on Facebook Just post them in the comment section I'm just gonna check To see if anybody has any questions Otherwise inshallah We will end inshallah So just give it a minute To see if anybody Is gonna post anything inshallah Alhamdulillah inshallah As mentioned We're gonna continue this So every week we will be doing this Around 8 o'clock pacific time And we're just gonna try to keep it We'll try to keep it to like 30, 40 minutes for the actual class It's, you know, it's virtual I hope one day We can all be in person inshallah again And then, you know, a little bit of time For some Q&A If people have any questions and answers Inshallah So just seeing if anybody Has posted anything Nope, I don't believe so Inshallah, okay So we will go ahead and close out With a dua Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim Alhamdulillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim We ask that you make this Easy for us We ask that you allow us To implement good character in our lives We ask that you allow us To implement the traits of righteousness And the traits of nearness to you In our life Ya Rabbul Alamin And we ask that you give us The best of intentions The best of goodness For trying to set out on a path Of attaining good And we ask that you lift All of the tribulations That are upon humanity Ya Rabbul Alamin Especially the tribulation Of these fires And all these difficulties With climate change And we ask that you pardon Our sins And forgive our sins Ya Rabbul Alamin And let the rains of mercy Come and pour down upon these lands Especially upon the west coast Put out these fires in California And in Oregon And all the other places That they are in Ya Rabbul Alamin And put out the fire of sin In our hearts And allow the rain of mercy To pour down upon in our hearts And allow the rain Of nearness to you To pour down upon our hearts So that we get closer And closer to you with every step Wassalamu ala wa salam Wabarak ala Sayyidina Muhammadin Wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salim Wa alhamdulillahi Rabbul Alamin Thank you all so much Assalamu alaikum Insha'Allah we'll see you next week Jazakum ala khay