 Peace be upon you, and peace be upon you, and peace be upon you, and peace be upon you. Thank you, sisters, for being here and those who are watching online. If you may recall last month, we actually started our reading of this book, Purification of the Heart. So that is what we will be doing, inshallah, with this session or these sessions that we have. Typically, we meet the last Thursday of every month, but because of the holiday next week, we decided to do an earlier session, which is why we're here today. So inshallah, but after this hopefully we'll just stick to that schedule on the last Thursday of every month. You're welcome to come in person, as some of the sisters have done here or watch online. But we're going to go ahead and continue from where we left off. So we actually only last month read from the introduction from the translator. So Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, who is the one who translated this text, we read from his commentary, and we stopped at that point because it was a few pages long. So we're going to pick up on the introduction to purification, which is actually the very beginning of the poem. This is of course a classical poem that Imam Al-Molud wrote called Matarat al-Khulub. And so we're going to read the translation of the first verses of this poem and then the commentary that is also included here. So bismillah, on page one at the bottom. So let's first read the poem verses. So these verses are one to eight and these are actually the translated words of Imam Al-Molud. So he says, I begin by starting with the heart of beginnings, for it is the highest and noblest of beginnings. Have courtesy with God, the high and the majestic, by practicing modesty and humility. Granted out of shame and humility, humbled in awe, imploring him. By giving up your designs for his emptied of covetousness for what his servants have. By hastening to fulfill his commands and by being wary of the subtle encroachment of bad manners. If you, the spiritual aspirant or aspirant, realize your attributes of servitude, you will then be assisted with something of the attributes of the eternally we sought. Realize your abject character and impoverishment, and you will gain dignity and wealth from the all-powerful. There is no salvation like the hard salvation, given that all the limbs and organs respond to its desires. So those were verses one through eight of Imam al-Molud's words in English. And now let's look at the commentary. What was he saying? What did he say here? So Imam al-Molud begins his Arabic didactic poem with a play on words that is lost in translation. Beginning in Arabic is ba'udu. And the word for heart, halb also means to reverse something. Reversing the letters in the word ba'du, results in the words adab, which is the term for courtesy. And that is where this treatise begins. Since courtesy is the portal to the purification of the heart, adab in Arabic holds several meanings. So now we're going to define this word. We hear adab all the time, right? So in addition to courtesy, we're going to look at what other meanings it has. Adab, a derivative of adab, or adib, excuse me, a derivative of adab, for example, has come to mean an erudite person, someone who has learned it, as high manners and courtesy are associated with learning and erudition. However, the idea of courtesy is firmly established at the root of the word adab. Imam al-Molud starts his treatise with courtesy, since excellent behavior and comportment are the doorkeepers to the science of spiritual purification. One must have courtesy with regard to God, behave properly with respect to his presence if he or she wishes to purify the heart. But how does one achieve this courtesy? Imam al-Molud mentions two requisite qualities associated with courtesy, modesty, khaya, and humility, bun. So again, in order for us to be sincere in our desire to want to purify our hearts from spiritual diseases, a prerequisite is that we have adab with Allah, right? And now we need to learn, well, how do we do that? So he's mentioning these two qualities. You have to have modesty and humility, right? So khaya in Arabic conveys the meaning of shame, though the root word of khaya is closely associated with life and living. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam stated, every religion has a quality that is characteristic of that religion. And the characteristic of my religion is khaya, an internal sense of shame that includes bashfulness and modesty. As children, many of us had someone say to us at times, shame on you. Unfortunately, shame has now come to be viewed as a negative word, as if it were a pejorative. Parents are now often advised to never cause a child to feel shame. The current wisdom largely suggests that adults should always make the child feel good, regardless of his or her behavior. However, doing so eventually disables naturally occurring deterrence to misbehavior. So let's unpack that for a moment, because here, what are we talking about, right? We're talking about helping a child inculcate within themselves this ability to regulate their behavior by learning how to accept certain negative feelings, not as a means of bringing them down or making them feel bad in terms of their value, but rather to look at their behavior when they act out, right? When they do something wrong, we should, all of us, adults and children, have the ability to see our own bad actions and wrong actions, feel remorse, and wish to redress them, wish to fix them, wish to somehow correct our behavior. But unfortunately, because again, as Shechemza mentions here, this culture has taken this word shame and made it so negative that even when a child or someone is doing something wrong, it's seen as a bad thing to correct them, right? And we've seen this, right? I'm sure we've all seen examples of this where there's just an over-emphasis on trying to cuddle young children even when they are clearly wrong, right? So it's because of this fear, like, oh my God, they're so fragile. We're going to break them. We're going to harm them. But oftentimes, what does that lead to, right? How many examples have we seen where, because children weren't taught to really correct themselves and feel remorse and feel bad for their actions, that they actually become very, you know, entitled, right? Very just brazen with their behavior. They tend to think that they should just kind of, you know, get away with anything because where's the, you know, where's the process either within them or even in their home environments or where they're being corrected? If it's not there, they're not going to learn this, right? So that can really spiral and turn into something where you have sociopathic tendencies, you know? You're like, whoa, whoa. And this is what we're seeing in a lot, you know, in different areas of society where people who just were never taught to correct their behavior and discipline when necessary, they started to act out in much worse ways as they grew older. So this is a very important part of our creation that we have to inculcate in a healthy way. And that's where in our tradition, there's, you know, this healthy degree of shame that we can, you know, we can teach children to have that does not, it's not about people. It's about Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, right? And when you step out of the bounds, you should hold yourself accountable. So teaching them to do that in a healthy way. So now he goes on to say that some anthropologists divide cultures into shame cultures and guilt cultures. So think about your own background. Think about your family dynamics, you know, where you, how you were raised, right? According to this perspective, shame is an outward mechanism and guilt is an inward one, which alludes to a human mechanism that produces strong feelings of remorse when someone has done something wrong to the point that he or she needs to rectify the matter. Most primitive cultures are not guilt based, but are shame based, which is rooted in it in the fear of bringing shame upon oneself and the larger family. Islam honors the concept of shame and takes it to another level altogether to a rank in which one feels a sense of shame before God. When a person acknowledges and realizes that God is fully aware of all that one does, says and thinks, shame is elevated to a higher plane to the unseen world from which there is no cover. At this level, one feels a sense of shame even before the angels. So while Muslims comprise a shame based culture, this notion transcends feeling shame before one's family, whether one's elders or parents, and admits a mechanism that is not subject to the changing norms of human cultures. It is associated with the knowledge and active awareness that God is all seeing of what one does, a reality that is permanent. The nurturing of this realization in a person deters one from engaging in acts that are displeasing and vulgar. This is the nobility of prophetic teachings. So again, if we look at a lot of our cultures, how many of us and especially those as women may have been corrected a lot, but the emphasis was on, you know, what will people say, right? What will the people say? What will your cousins or aunts, your uncles, you know, what will people say or the community? And so it can certainly deter, right? People, especially young children, when they're as they're growing up, because you don't want to bring shame to your family and you don't want to, you know, have that on you. But what happens to that person if they're not taught to also factor in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right? Right? A lot of people will then do what they may, you know, show up and act the part and do a fallen line and do everything correct because other people are watching them. But behind closed doors, there's a different reality, right? And this is the danger of not putting the focus on Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right? If we're always talking about society and cultures and community and family, but we forget to mention that Allah is with you always. He knows always what you're doing and you can't hide from him. And if you should feel shame in front of anyone, it's Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. That part of the conversation is omitted. Then what you do is you may create, again, a situation where people are, you know, very socially, they act the part and they do everything correctly. But when they're by themselves or when nobody's watching, that's when they forget to regulate themselves, right? Because, you know, as we've mentioned before, the nafs, which is that part of us, you know, we're triune, right? But we have this nafs that is not our, it's not an ally. It's within us, right? It fills our mind with a lot of thoughts and ideas, but it actually works against us because the nafs is always pulling us away from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, right? It's always pulling us into our desires, our whims. And so that's why we're taught that there's four great enemies of the human being, right? Does anybody know what they are? Other than the nafs, what is another great enemy? Good, shaitan, right? We know of shaitan, right? What else? They can be, you know, there are times where other people, right? Even the closest people can bring you down. So, yes. So ego and nafs would be the same, right? Ego is the English equivalent of nafs. So we have the nafs and we have shaitan. And then the other two are, yeah, so whims and desires, right? Hawa, good. So hawa, which are, they fluctuate. You know, your desires and whims are not really always consistent. They come and go. So that's one. And then the last one is dinya, right? Which is a very general term that can be applied to a lot of different things, right? Dinya is the part of this world that is, it calls us to things that we like, power, wealth, material wealth, right? All of those base desires that a human being is tempted by, it falls into that. So these four dangers or evils are everywhere, right? But the one that is the most harmful to the human being is which one? The nafs, right? Shaitan is an external enemy, right? I mean, shaitan, dinya, they're outside of us, right? Hawa is what we inclined to in terms of our desires. But nafs is the inner voice, right? So that inner voice that tells you to, you know, whatever, for example, you see someone you haven't seen in a long time and you look at them and then you pass a judgment, right? You just assume. There's some thought that's very negative, right? It's in your voice, right? And it's maybe because that person, maybe you have some resentment towards that person. If you know them. I don't know. Maybe they didn't invite you to something and you, you're holding on to that. Goal. That's it. You know, I remember she didn't invite me to this or he didn't, you know, whatever. So you immediately remember this negative thing, right? You haven't seen this person in the longest time, but that's the only thing you can think of them, right? Because the nafs is so self-centered. So even when you see someone who you barely know, it automatically brings you back to some negative thought that relates to you, right? Or just in general, anytime you want to do something good, let's say you wake up and you think, oh, today I'm going to be productive and I'm going to read this amount of Quran and I'm going to, you know, you have all these very noble intentions, inshallah. But then when the time comes, right, you're like, oh, I'm so tired. You know, I'm just, I didn't have coffee today. And so you start making all these excuses, right? I didn't sleep enough last night. I cramped my feet hurt, my back hurts, you know, inshallah. Okay, I'll do it next. I'll do it tomorrow. So that thought that justifies you not doing it and then procrastinates it, right? And then immediately afterwards, what happens? Then the, you know, you look at your phone. Or if you're sitting on the couch and the remote's near your hand suddenly, you know, and you start, what, turning it on. And now you have all the time in the world to binge watch your favorite show or film or movie, right? So it just made all these excuses for why you can't do something that would be good for your heart, your soul, right? That would draw you close to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. But within seconds, you have a whole new plan for the night. I'm gonna put some microwaves and popcorn, get my favorite snacks, get my, you know, favorite like blankets on the couch. And now you're binge watching and you don't go to sleep until like one in the morning because you couldn't help yourself. You know, this favorite show of yours you haven't watched in a while. You wanted to catch up. And then what happens? You wake up after the fudger alarm, right? It's bright outside and you're like, oh man, feeling horrible. Who did all that? Who plotted against you from the moment you had the good intention to do something and then gave you a full, you know, a list of excuses of why not to do it. And then had an alternate plan right there, plan B, right? That's Neps. So Neps is never working for you. It's always working against you. And that's why it's so important, again, that we learn to see ourselves in this way so that when we look at this internal mechanism that's so necessary, right? To guilt ourselves, right? That we understand it's because it's not about value. We're not placing a value, right? On, and there's actually a Hadith. I don't have it memorized exactly, but it's something to the extent that you don't say like your Neps is defiled. Like we don't make these broad statements, right, about the Neps. But rather you say like the Neps acted out, right? So you can assign blame to it, but you're not condemning it or acting like it's just, it's all, you know, it's tainted, it's stained forever. That's not our way, right? Mashal, you had a question? Yes, what, how do we differentiate the list of the Chiton versus the list of the Neps? That's a very good question, Mashal. So the question is, how can you tell the difference between a Weswessa from Iblis or Shaitan, a whispering of the heart and something that is from your own Neps? So it's an excellent question because we should know how to differentiate. So our teachers taught us that the bottom line is, is Shaitan is very nuanced, right? Shaitan's whisperings are always to get you to the next degree of sin. So when you start, you know, going from, you know, one bad action to the next. And then it's like new stuff starts being introduced. Those are all Weswessa, right? Because he's, he doesn't, he doesn't care once you've already started doing something, right? If you're missing Fajr, he's not going to keep telling you miss Fajr, right? He's moving on to Dhuhr and Asr and Maghrib until you're not praying at all. So he's always going to go to the next level, whereas your Neps habituates you to the same behavior. So anytime you're doing the same sin that you've been doing for months and years, you can't blame Shaitan. You can't say, oh, Shaitan made me do it. No, that's a cop out. Your Neps is habituated to the sin. So you have to hold yourself responsible, right? So if you've been missing Fajr for weeks, that's on you. Okay? It's not, you can't say it was anybody else's fault, but it's an excellent question. So yeah, always pay attention, you know, to like, you know, if a person, like I said, it could be something that they stopped doing like prayer or even doing like if you are, you know, some people think, I mean, there's differences of opinion about these things, but like smoking cigarettes or Shisha, you know, we know what these are, right? Someone starts off doing something like that and they think, oh, it's so big deal. It's like a vice. I'm just blowing off some steam, literally, right? I'm just, I need it to relax, right? Well, Shaitan might find, okay, I'm going to keep at this person until smoking cigarettes and Shisha doesn't become enough anymore, right? Because they lose their potency after a while. Now it's like, you know what? What's the harm? Why don't you just smoke some weed, you know? It's okay. Medical marijuana, you know, you have this problem, that problem, and so it's, he's going to sit there and get you to do something like to the next degree, right? And then after smoking weed for a while, then it's like, you know what? Life is too hard and you need to escape, you know, you need to get away from it all. So then it's alcohol. You see? So that's how he works. It's just one degree worse and worse each time, okay? So that's how you differentiate, it's not bad for Shisha already, you know how much I want. Okay, come to that. So back to this, you know, concept of, you know, our cultures. We need to really remind ourselves, especially those of us who are parents, right? If you have children, you want to always make sure that when you're teaching them, and I kind of, I've written about this before, but there's two ways of removing ourselves from the equation when we're instructing our children and trying to teach them to be mindful of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, and also praise, right? When they are being thankful and in a state of gratitude. And what I mean by that is in both situations, it's very normal for the parent to kind of put themselves, you know, in the, like, center themselves, right? So like if I'm upset with my child for doing something wrong, the focus is, I can't believe you did that, right? I'm so disappointed in you. How could you do this? You know, and it's very much like, I, I, I, right? As they get older, we need to remove ourselves from that and talk more about Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, you know, how do you think Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala feels? Or how would he, you know, respond? How would this, you know, how would this action be deemed by Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala, right? Getting the child to start thinking in that frame. Because at the end of the day, we just don't know how long we're going to be around, right? For our children. But if we help them to connect their actions to Allah, right? More so than necessarily looking to us, right? Then it'll help them so that even when we're not there, right? When they are in their teenage years, college years, we're not going to be with them every moment of the day. You know, when they're younger, yeah, sure, we, we may have more control. But as they get older, and they're not with us all the time, we need to teach them to be thinking on a different level. And this is what Islam teaches, right? This is what this is about, and even with praise. So if you, you know, are buying your children a gift or you did something nice for that child, right? It's very, it feels good. You know, everybody loves to be acknowledged, especially if that's your love language, you know, you like words of affirmation, you like praise, you like compliments, you like the love and the hugs and the kisses. That's wonderful. Alhamdulillah. But as we are receiving that love and attention from our children, we should immediately remind them to say Alhamdulillah, you know, Allah is so generous. He's the one who gave you this gift. You know, I'm just, I'm just bringing it to you. I'm delivering it to you. I'm like the Amazon, you know, truck deliverer, I just brought it to you. But the source of, you know, is Allah, so you have to say Alhamdulillah to Allah, right? Be grateful to Allah, Subhanallah. And so what that does is it builds a really strong connection to Allah. And even like I said, when we're not there, because at some point Allah knows, we may not be there. The child has a very strong connection to Allah. And all of this is in the same vein, you know, it's about not putting focus on the wrong thing. So shame, guilt, it's not just about me and your father and our family and extended family and the community. It's about more importantly, your creator, the one who made you, right? He made you and he has high expectations of you. So if you've done something wrong, if you should feel bad towards anyone, it's Allah. That's where this mechanism is based. It's on Allah, right? Imam Alud also mentions that one should have fun, which literally means being lowly, abject or humbled. The Quran mentions that people who incur the anger of God have this state of humiliation thrust upon them. This humility or humbleness assumed before God is required for courtesy. So, you know, there's there's two sides to this. There's proactively like, you know, being already in a state of humility before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, which is obviously the right course, right? All of us should feel, you know, we're impoverished. We're very low in front of God because we recognize our sinfulness. We're forgetful. We're just deficient in so many ways and we're so in need of him. So that puts you in a very subdued, humble state. That's a good thing. But the other side of it is when we are arrogant and we're acting, you know, we're doing things that we shouldn't be doing. We risk Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, literally humiliating us, which we should never want, right? Being exposed, being humiliated before people or just and there are people who've suffered, who've suffered very, you know, serious consequences of, you know, incurring the wrath of Allah, where he will teach them this lesson on humility in a very harsh way, right? Like learning that lesson the hardest way possible. So we want to always have, be proactive with this humility. Like come, come to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in this state already. Interestingly, the word munqasiran is translated as dejected, though it literally means broken. It conveys a sense of being humbled in the majestic presence of God. It refers to the awesome realization that each of us at every moment lives and acts before the August presence of the Creator of the heavens and the earth, the one God besides whom there is no power or might in all of the universe. And that's, you know, again, one of the things about young children that I think is really extraordinary and we should be grateful to be around young children because they remind us of this, is that they are naturally in awe of everything, right? Like you could give a child, I mean, any new experience, especially the smaller they are, everything is like, wow, wow, exciting, you know, and it's really amazing to be in that presence because by the time we're adults, we sometimes we lose that, right? We don't have, because everything's normal or we've, you know, seen it all or had a lot of experiences and so that newness of it has kind of dimmed. But the sad thing about that is, you know, we can also lose sight of things that like just, I mean, if you really think about, I mean, I mentioned this earlier in the class I did on Clubhouse about just the fact that existence itself is quite extraordinary. Like every moment of our existence is extraordinary. It is worth the Subhanallah, right? The sense of like, how am I doing this? Like how am I, you know, I watched this Ted talk yesterday, part of it, where this woman was talking about language and how she's like, you know, I'm just making these utterances with my mouth and they're sending vibrations, you know, out and there's just these noises. But those come into your ear and then your brain makes sense, right? That's what language is. What else is language other than people just using their faculty of speech, right? To make certain sound combinations, right? Breathing a certain way, bouncing certain, you know, sounds off of our tongue. And those vibrations are then computed by this brain of ours into meaning. So that when she had, I think she had a cool little exercise, but she said, I can make you think of something so strange that, you know, she said something like, you know, imagine a jellyfish walking into a library, you know, and I don't know, eating a doughnut, you know, it's such a bizarre concept that there's that's not anything real. And I don't think anybody's ever seen that before, right? But just by way of language that Allah Subhanallah has given us, this ability to speak, we can all use our imagination and actually hold the same thought, even if it looks a little different, right? But it's, how fascinating is that? So if you really think about existence and think about, you know, every moment of your day and you're aware and present of Allah Subhanallah, it should put you in the state of Subhanallah. Like every day is really a gift. Every single day I wake up, right? Every single day that we wake up, and especially when you know, for example, sleep, sleep is what? It's the little brother of death. So why? Because our soul departs every night when we sleep. So when you think of sleep as like every night our soul, you know, is separated from our body and then Allah puts it back in, then when you wake up in the morning, you should be in a state of Subhanallah, right? Like, wow, thank you. Like I, you know, I have existence, right? Again. And so, but every moment you can find that level of like awe. If you, if you pause and think. So when we see, and then he goes on to say, when we seriously reflect on God's perfect watch over His creation and the countless blessings He sends down, and then consider the kind of deeds we bring before Him, what can we possibly feel except humility and shame, right? And that's, you know, again, another point of reflection. Like, how many of you have seen that video where it was all over, you know, the internet for a while, but it's of this woman who is like, I think it's her eye. It's a zooming in and zooming out kind of a video where she's looking out. She's laying on some grass and she's looking and they go into her eye and kind of go like basically this microscopic lens right into the human being. And then they zoom right back out into the universe, right? It's a powerful video really, I mean, in terms of like the message, right? Like we are a universe within a universe. You go into our cellular, you know, states and just look at the way Allah's created us and all of the different systems we have, right? Or just think of our systems, our digestive system, our, all of our different systems, right? Our respiratory system, circulatory system, look at all of it and look at how they, it's all working in this incredible design way, right? And then you go back out and you zoom out and you look at the universe and the cosmos and the fact that we are moving. And that's always a thought that just really grips me when I think of this universe that we know, you know, we're orbiting the sun and we understand that. But then to know that it's all in motion at the same time, right? So it's one thing that it's orbiting, but we're also moving. And then we're expanding. And it's like, what does that even mean, right? But all of that is supposed to bring us again into this awareness of how small we are in this vast creation of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, you know, of this universe or the many universes that they're out there. And that awareness should bring us into this state of absolutely like so humble to be alive and to be in existence that Allah chose for us to be a human and not like anything else, right? Subhanallah. So with that said, we'll take a little bit of a break for Asha. I'll try to know some of you want to pray and then we'll say that shame, right? And then when it comes to guilt culture, I feel like that's like another level of shame. But it's like guilty towards some of the two disabilities, right? So ultimately, when we get older, we're like, okay, I just feel bad because of my mom's side. Right. So but later on when we get more of them, we don't even care about that because we can be ourselves. Exactly. So then it comes to our nuts. He was saying that. Right. Exactly. You know, it's on point. And that's exactly what is a sin. As you said, it's having full awareness, right? That Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala was watching at all times. And so you're removing the human factor, right? Those we're not putting focus on anyone else, whether it's family, whether it's you know, society, culture. Because as you said, you know, we'll just it'll it's like a moving goal post. We'll keep changing. Like now it's your parents, then it's going to be your spouse. That's going to be your in-laws. Like at what point, right? And what about when those people aren't there? But if you are always focusing on Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, right, which is bringing him into your awareness, being very clear that even when I'm alone, right, by myself, nobody's around. But he's watching. He's with me, right? He's closer to me, my jugular vein that I need to check myself and I need to not allow, right, for my nefs to get a hold of me. But bringing him into your awareness is an exercise. It's like something we have to practice doing. We have to constantly remember him. But how do you do that, right? If you're too distracted by everything else and you're not taught how to do that. So that's where Esan is, you know, something that we need to cultivate and work towards, but especially with young children because you can't. You know, you can teach them to always remember Allah, you know, through not just, you know, ritual acts, but just to look out in the room or like when I'm with my kids and we're driving, you know, I know it's normal for a lot of people and, you know, they're on a long drive, for example, to just listen to music or chit chat about whatever, right? But there has to be a period too where you say, look outside. Look at this extraordinary world. We're just we're in a car, you know, and we're moving. But then like, look at these trees. Look at this. Look at how Allah has given, you know, the human intellect, the ability to create these buildings and these structures, you know, point them to see Allah in everything because if we can do that, then Esan becomes a reactive automatic process, right? But we have to do it too. And the problem is when you have devices and you have, you know, too many commitments and you're juggling, we're not even doing it. Adults, we're not bringing Allah to our awareness enough, right? Because the nefs is always distracting us to what? To things that are going to take us away from the remembrance of Allah. They're not, it's not telling us to remember Allah. It's telling us to listen to music, go on social media, go on TikTok, go on Instagram, go on Netflix, you know, go talk to songs or go shopping, go eat, right? It's telling us to do all those things because that's what's going to take us away from the remembrance of Allah. So we have to, and that's why, you know, again, when you start adapting or adopting the process of example, you'll see that he was always in the remembrance of Allah at every point of his day, at every moment, right? That's why we have dua for everything. You know, you wake up and there's a dua, right? And then you go to the bathroom and there's a dua. You come out of the bathroom, there's a dua. You go to eat, you have to say a dua, right? And then after you're done. So like, what point of your day are you not doing the remembrance of Allah? There's always remembrance of Allah. And then in between, you know, he tells us to istaghfir, you know, remember death. Like, it's really to fill our mind with remembrance of him so that we're not left to our own devices because when we're not doing remembrance of Allah, we will likely fall. We will likely fall short. We will likely fall into sin, right? So it's so important. But like you said, it comes down to ihsan and how do you cultivate ihsan? Adem? Sure. So, you know, adem, as we know, is... Sorry, it's... No, because I just realized, I think we're recording still. So this is gonna be an interesting part of the recording. I don't know if that's coming through. That's the thing. So let's wait a moment, inshallah, until he's done and then I'll come back. O, al-dah, o, wa, o, wa, o, wa, o, wa, o, wa, as-al-dah, as-al-dah, wa, o, wa, o, wa. Inshallah, I think a few of the sisters will return. But just to answer your question, so adem is, you know, defined technically as etiquette, right? It's just having etiquette, comportment, good manners. In this context, we're talking about having adem with Allah. Like, in order for a person to really want to purify themselves, they have to understand their relationship with their Creator, right? And so that requires, you know, a sense of courtesy before God. So that's what he's describing, is that in order to really cleanse your heart and have success cleansing it, prerequisite is that you understand your, you know, that there's a degree of etiquette or courtesy that you have to have before Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, just by virtue of Him creating you, right? And that you enter this whole process of tasbihah with that awareness that before God, you should hold yourself to a certain, you know, standard out of courtesy to Him for creating you, for giving you existence, right? And so what is that? It's, again, purifying this heart because that's, you know, the purpose of why we're here. He created us to worship Him. And so what is the most important thing that a human being on the Day of Judgment presents him with? It's what we call the qalbun salim, right? That purified sound heart. And so if you understand that that is the ultimate purpose of your creation, then you enter this process of tasbihah with this in mind that I have to be, I have to have that sense of shame before God, like truly, because we can, you know, around human beings, what's interesting about people is, it's very hard for us to, you know, admit faults, right? To show when we're wrong in front of people. It's hard for a lot of people to do that. And that's ego. That's nefs. The nefs doesn't want to ever really admit it's wrong, right? And you'll see this in families. You'll see this in politics. But how many situations have we seen where it's like, come on, you're so obviously wrong, right? But people have a very hard time admitting those mistakes in front of others. And so with human beings, we tend to have these walls up and it's all ego and have you. But, you know, for a person who anyway wants to actually, you know, rid themselves of spiritual diseases, they can't fake it. You can't fake this. You can't come right to a process of tasbihah not willing, not fully, you know, transp, or fully aware of yourself, you know? You can't, you can't put on a fake, you know, display. You have to have full transparency before God. So that's where that internal shame, you know, that awareness and the thought that the humility, like I am weak, I am flawed, I am this. And so these prerequisites are what are defined as having adab with God, that you are willing to show this reality of yourself, humility before God. You don't have to do it with other people. Like we don't have to assume beings go and admit our sinfulness to people, right? Because it's hard to do that. You know, we don't have that concept, right? In other traditions, they have this concept, right? You have to go to, you know, it's like an intermediary, confess your sins, right? And feel that, I mean, whatever that process is, well, we don't have that. Like we don't have to tell anybody anything, but you can't, you should, and you should have no hesitation. Whatsoever to fully expose yourself before God. And to say, I am a sinner, you know, I'm fully bereft, I have nothing, you know, you should do that. And what's stopping you from doing that, right? What is there? There's a lack of understanding of your relationship with your creator. So, you know, the book, I mean, in the introduction here, they start off just, and he starts off mentioning that in order to do this process of taskiah, of really purifying the heart, we have to, you know, come into the process ready to show this adab to God, to show this courtesy before God. So, is that clear? Yeah, alhamdulillah. All right, so alhamdulillah, we had a little break for Isha and then some just impromptu Q&A for those who are watching on live stream, but in shalom we can pick up back where we left off. So, we mentioned here again that when we seriously reflect on God's perfect watch over his creation and the countless blessings he sends down and then consider the kind of deeds we bring before him, what can we possibly feel except humility and shame? So this is where all of us need to think inwardly again within ourselves. Think about every breath you take. Who's facilitating that for you? Think about every meal you've ever eaten. Have we ever really gone hungry? I mean, if we are really honest with ourselves, have we ever starved? And no, Ramadan fasting does not count or fasting in general, right? That's not starvation. Starvation is, you know, like you have not eaten and it can drive a person that. Actually, Subhanallah saw this video the other day of this woman who, you know, people are just so cruel nowadays because we have these phones, you can whip them out and just start taping someone without their knowledge. Allahu alaim, she may have had major mental health problems, I don't know, but she was in a supermarket and she was screaming and shouting and someone just took out their phone and they were taking a video of her just to kind of, you know, make a case out of her, whatever. But what she was saying, as soon as I, it was audible what she was saying, I was like, oh, alaubillah. She said something regarding hunger. She was like, you know, so like, I can't remember her words, but it was basically, she was telling people, she's starving, like she is starving. And that's why she was having a meltdown. So real starvation leads people to do some horrendous things. I mean, I've watched documentaries. They're these shows on Prime, Amazon Prime that I think are good to watch, you know, they display people kind of in these extreme situations, you know, where they're either, you know, vacationing or taking a hike or somewhere in nature and then they end up being stranded and what things that they, you know, end up doing. So they're re-enactments. The series that I'm thinking of is called Alive, or I shouldn't be alive. And I think, I mean, I think it will really increase your aim and to watch those shows because you see people in the most desperate situations possible and then Allah's Pantharah bringing the, you know, he saves them and it's just amazing some of the stories. And these are true stories. They're just re-enactments. But one story, it was, I think two friends, they were young teenagers who just decided to go boating and their boat got caught up in a tidal wave or something and it pushed them all the way out really far and they had no water, no food, nothing. They got to such a point. And I remember like, I watched this going subhanAllah. Can we understand what that would feel like? But one of the boys was so hungry that he actually had a knife and he was ready to chop off his finger. And he told his friend that he just needed to eat something. He was willing to mutilate his finger just so he could, you know, feel the sensation of chewing on something. I mean, I don't think all the Bala Mela protect all of us from ever knowing what that feels like, but you will see many, many examples of people in those desperate types of situations where they lose their, you know, I mean, it's not, that's not a, you know, I mean, it's a reaction that in that state, you can understand. But how many of us think about the fact that we've never experienced that before, right? We've never been in a situation. I mean, I, you know, think about my own, you know, life and what Allah SWT has spared me from experiencing because my family and I were able to escape, you know, Afghanistan at the brink of a war with a very harrowing story where we almost died several times and then he brought me over here. So you have to think about these things for your own life. Like think about all the things that haven't happened to you that Allah has protected you from, right? And the fact that he's sustaining you and that he's given you a family and a house and a home and all of us who came here, right? How did we get here? We have a vehicle. There are people who've never seen a car before, you know? There are people who have to walk miles every day just for clean drinking water, you know? These women, I've seen, again, documentaries where these women will wake up, wake super early. They put those huge, you know, things on their head, their faces or whatever on their head and they have to walk two miles, three miles just for clean drinking water. They come back. Who does that every day? We don't do that every day. So this is where, you know, you suddenly start to realize subhanAllah and here I am sinning, right? Allah's giving me so much and I talk back to, you know, so-and-so. I make riba. I don't do my prayers on time. And then it makes you feel this tiny, which is exactly what it's supposed to do. That's the internal shame we're looking for. That's what we should be looking for, right? That feeling of just, I'm embarrassed by myself, that I could be so ungrateful to God that I would allow myself to do these things, right? These strong feelings should lead us to implore God to change our state, make our desires consonant with His pleasure, giving up our designs for God's designs. This is pure courtesy with respect to God, a requisite for spiritual purification. So completely being aware of one's shortcomings and how much we need Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala and being in this state of just smallness, you know, just diminishing ourselves before Allah is what is meant by having adab with Allah, okay? So that courtesy that we want. The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, none of you fully believes until his desires are in accordance with what I have brought. That is a very powerful statement, you know? Like if we all, inshallah, we all are Muslim, right? And it's Muslim, you know, Alhamdulillah, we accept Islam. We've submitted, we've declared our shahada. But he's telling us here full belief, perfect belief, right? Doesn't happen until you, what you want is in line, aligns with what I want or what I've taught, right? My teachings. So wherever there's something missing, we have to go back, first of all, learn, right? We have to know about the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam's teachings. We can't just be walking around like many people do where they're just ignorant. And they say, right? I mean, this is a culture we have a saying, ignorance is bliss. There are people who want to remain ignorant because they would rather not know. And I'm sure you've heard people go, no, no, no, don't tell me. I don't wanna know, don't tell me. Because as soon as they know, they know that they're gonna feel maybe some guilt. That's not good enough. And especially in this day and age where we have information at our fingertips, and we have access to knowledge, to seek knowledge is incumbent upon us, but even more so when it's brought to you. We don't even have to leave our homes to get knowledge. There was a time where you wanted to learn your Dean. You had to go out. You had to go to the masjid or maybe walk miles or go on your camel or horse or whatever to get to a person of knowledge so that you could learn because there was no other way. Some people were illiterate. They didn't know how to read yet. Or they just didn't have paper, like papers. What a blessing that we can actually write and print these things and learn and read. But nowadays, there's nothing that we can't learn from home pretty much. We have every type of class and offering and teachers. You wanna learn the book of Allah. You can get a teacher right now all the way across the world anytime frame you pick. You wanna pick five o'clock in the morning, you'll find someone. You wanna pick nine o'clock at night, you'll find someone. There's no excuse, right? And it's so affordable. So it's on us to not be ignorant, but we have to align our desires with his. Being aligned and at peace with the teachings of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, which embody the legacy of the prophetic teachings of Nuh, Prophet Nuh, Ibrahim, Musa A.S. entails striving to free oneself of greed and refusing the ethic of doing something for an ulterior motive that is essentially selfish and dissonant with the teachings of God's prophets. Alaihi Wasallam. A person should not seek anything from God's servants. If one wants anything, one should seek it from God. So first we wanna align what we want with what the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam taught with his teachings. Next, we also want to make sure that we don't have expectations from people. Lower the expectations from people. A big part of why so many people suffer is because we have far too many expectations from people and not enough of our Lord, right? We ask a lot of our families, of our spouses, of our children, of our neighbors, of our community members, but we don't even make da'a to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala enough. So that's the number, it's a big problem and a big reason why so many people all are walking around really disappointed in life because human beings are, we're deficient, we're faulted, we're flawed, we're not gonna always be there. We're gonna disappoint you. That's why we're taught repeatedly that this dunya and people are designed to disappoint you. Like the whole of it is designed for that. Whereas Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala never disappoints. So this is the next phase of it. Like once you start to, so kind of like follow the conversation, right? You wanna purify your heart first and foremost, put yourself in that abject state. Be humble before God, right? Show your humility, have some shame for everything you haven't done and that you should have done, right? Be in that state. Now think about proactively what you need to change in order to align yourself with His most beloved, right? Where are the, what is it about the provost license teachings that you either don't know, that you should know, that you're not implementing, that you should be implementing. If He taught you to do it, why aren't you doing it? Why is your standard better than His, right? So the most simple thing, right? We're taught that the provost license, always, and this was according to Saini Ali, he says that he was always of cheery disposition, right? He was always smiling. Does that mean the provost license didn't suffer? No. Of course he suffered. Look at his life. Read his Sira, he had so much suffering. But why did, why was it his son to smile, right? We know that smiling is a Sadaqah. Why was he always cheerful around people? Did he bring his misery to people? No. Because that was his magnanimity, his generosity of self. He had pain. He never knew his father. He lost his mother when he was six years old. He had to bury five of his six children. He lost so many of his beloved family members and he was persecuted and he went through pain. But when he met with people, he was always of cheery disposition. That is his sunnah. So now let's think of us. Do I meet people with a cheery disposition or am I this stone faced? Can never smile, right? I'm always venting, complaining about something or another. And we all have to examine ourselves. Like if you go outside and you're, you know, very selective with who you show your friendliness to, that's not from his sunnah. If you're like, oh, just my friends. I'm gonna show my smiley face to you. But people I don't know. I don't even say salams to them. That's not from the sunnah. The sunnah is to say salam, right? Afshasalam alaykum, right? We say salam to everybody. Those we know and those we don't know. It's not only your friends and only your clique, but how many of us have been in gatherings where we've walked in and we haven't felt warm welcome, right? Maybe we didn't feel it from the hosts or we didn't feel it from certain people or maybe we didn't do it. Maybe we didn't come in saying salam alaykum everyone, salam alaykum. We didn't do that. We just went zoom right to our group, right? How many of us do that? We're uncomfortable, you know, showing the prophetic beauty of just openness. Just openness. It's okay. You know, it doesn't mean, you know, come and take from me. It just means I'm willing to, again, spread goodwill because everybody's got problems. But you know what? You know it feels really good to meet someone and they're smiling. How great does it feel? You see someone across the masjid. You know, they're waving. You know it feels good. Doesn't it feel good? It's like you can have so many problems, but just seeing a person so happy to see you feels really good. But our community, we don't do that to people anymore. You have people coming into the masjid and everybody's scowling and nobody even, like, I mean, it happens. There's people, this is their experience. They don't even want to come. I've been to gatherings where, you know, I remember I went to this one gathering and it was like a baby shower. And you know, the hostess asked me to give like a dose just because she wanted the baraka. And Hunt and I had some sisters coming up afterwards and they just told me that, you know, we haven't gone to the masjid for years because we didn't feel welcome there. We didn't feel like comfortable there. But this was a really good, you know, experience. So thank you so much. And I was just really saddened. Like subhanallah, maybe because of one or two incidences, you know, they didn't feel welcome and call us, they stopped going to the masjid. I mean, this is, you know, another conversation, but we turn people away all the time because we're not doing the sunnah. But whereas, if we just said, you know what? That's it. From now on, I want to be more like the problems I said. I'm just going to smile as much as I can. Fake it even if you have to. It's okay because you're doing it for the sake of a luthers reward in it. So even if you're internally upset, you know, it's okay. And I'll tell you, I mentioned this earlier too in my other class, but I was so upset by this video because it just was like, just left a really bad taste in my mouth. But this was also a video that I saw, you know, people share things with me all the time. So that's why I'm watching. But this video was interesting because it was this woman who was, she came up with this phrase called nice mean. Or is it mean nice? Nice mean, I think. And she made this whole parody of what it means and what it is is she's like, you know, out of doctor's office and someone came and sat next to her and made small talk. So she's showing the two sides of herself. The internal dialogue, which is like, oh God, don't sit next to me. There's a huge, you know, and then the fakeness of, you know, speaking to this woman and answering her questions and I'm like, oh, you know, so she's showing her fakeness to her and then her internal state. And it was so, it was just a, it's disturbing because you realize that a lot of people do that nowadays, right? Duplicitousness is like almost expected, you know, to just show two faces. So you smile at someone, but then internally you're judging them, right? Internally you're annoyed that they're even making a conversation, you know, making a conversation with you. You get into the elevator with someone and someone asks you how your day is, how many of us are like, oh God, bring me along. You know, I don't wanna talk to you right now, right? I don't wanna talk to you right now. Whereas you go back and you say, you know, Subhanallah, Allah said this person in my path. I don't know who they are, you know, what they, why they're in my path, but Allah sent them. Therefore there must be meaning that we both, I mean, think of the odds, eight billion people on the planet, you and that person just happen to enter, you know, the elevator at the exact same moment. You don't know what their day's been like, they don't know what your day's been like, but can't you make a moment of just a nice exchange, you call us to leave it at that and go your ways? Why we have to allow our enough to take over, right? Because this is again, the human condition. We don't pay attention to our thoughts and we don't see that those toxic tendencies will just permeate, will just start to keep growing and growing and we become more and more entitled and more and more rude and less patient with people. And then we complain because it's a vicious cycle, right? We have all these bad qualities, life isn't going well for us and we start complaining and then thinking, Allah doesn't even answer my door. This is like the conclusion, that's what the nefs and shaitan do, right? It's to completely dilute us from our own reality whereas a believer will sit there, always point the finger back at themself. Like wait a second, things aren't going well for me in my relationship or my risk, maybe I'm not happy in my job or whatever. Ya Allah, okay, this is an indication something's wrong with me, you see? I need to go back to the drawing board of me, what am I doing, am I not doing my prayers on time? Oh, I better check my prayers, am I not doing this? Did I abandon this sunnah? Do I need to do this more? Like this is how we problem solve when we see problems, a believer, right? Is you automatically come back to yourself but when you're diluted by your nefs, you're pointing fingers at everyone else and that's the danger of not, again, being aware of yourself, right? And so, back to this point here, lowering the expectations of people will save you a lot of problems in life. Just don't expect from people and never do anything with ulterior motives other than just for the sake of Allah. So someone asks you for a favor, don't do it with like, okay, I'll get you back on this one, you know? I'm gonna come and collect my payment from you when it's time, don't do that. And I just say, for the sake of Allah, I'll help you. Don't even for a moment calculate what you can get out of that person. That's not right, right? We should do things because we are looking at it from the lens of what would Allah want me to do in this situation, right? I want his ridah. I don't want some worldly benefit from this person. I don't want them, you know, I don't want to have to come back and collect my favor or even think on that petty level. I don't want to be that person that does that. I just want to say, okay, inshallah, if I can help you and remove your burdens, just like the process of taught us to do, right? But this is, you know, he said in one hadith, he said that it's more, sorry, I'm trying to phrase it correctly, but he would love more to walk with a brother or someone in need and help them remove their need than to sit for an entire month in Medina just doing his worship. This is a hadith of the Prophet, peace be upon him. That's beautiful. To remove the burden of another person, the Prophet would love that more than to just worship Allah for a month in his own masjid. So then think about us, how many of us run from helping people because we think it's like a pointless, but we don't know the weight of these things. To remove the burden of a brother or sister, Allah is telling us if the one who does that, he will remove your burdens on the day of judgment. Who doesn't want their burdens to be removed, right? So when we meet with people and they have a need from us or whatever, hamda lillah, but we don't have expectations from them, right? Insha'Allah, you wanna do good for me, alhamdulillah. You don't, alhamdulillah. I don't look to you because you're just a means, whereas the source is where I look to. If Allah wants me to receive a benefit, a blessing, it's gonna come no matter what. And I'm not gonna get hung up on someone, oh, they didn't do this for me and I spent so much time helping them with this and then they forgot all about me. I mean, I'm telling you what I've heard over the years. These are the complaints a lot of people have about being disappointed. My sister-in-law did this, my brother did this, my husband did this, and it's always like, disappointed that they didn't come through when I thought they should, right? So my response is, we should lower the expectations because if you have no expectations of anybody, guess what? You're gonna walk around not being disappointed easily. You won't be triggered. You won't be bothered. You're just like, human beings, we're all forgetful is what we do, right? Nafsih, nafsih, everybody's in their own nafsih echo chamber doing whatever serves them. Why am I expecting them to suddenly think of me, right? We're all the same. And then you say, khalas, if Allah, Allah's the distributor of al-khir. So inshallah, I look to Allah. And if I have a need that needs to be fulfilled, I ask Allah to fulfill it for me. I don't look to anybody else. It'll really save a lot of our heartache if we do that. The basic rule is to ask God and then work. That is one should utilize the means, asbab that one must use in order to achieve something in this world. So now it comes to fulfilling your needs, right? We always ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for whatever it is that we want from this life. But we also have to take our steps forward to get those things. We can't just expect it to come into our lap. We can't say, inshallah, the food will just appear for dinner. I mean, maybe the door-dash and these conveniences, but we have to take the action, right? Forward, so. But we always start with asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Imam Alud then says that one should hasten, or hasten, to fulfill God's command and be wary of the subtle encroachment of bad manners, namely faults that one is unaware of. Ahadith states, one of you will say a word and give it no consideration, though it will drag the person who uttered it through hellfire for 70 years. People often become so disconnected from prophetic teachings that they unwittingly inflict great harm upon themselves. It is comparable to a heedless person who finds himself in diplomatic circles laden with protocol. Yet he makes horrendous breaches of protocol without realizing it. With regard to God, the matter is obviously much more serious as one's soul may be harmed by one's own breaches. In this case, the protocol involves knowledge of God and what he has enjoyed and proscribed. So this example, right? And that, you know, there's a person who is basically in a really high level meeting, let's say, right? Diplomatic circles, let's imagine that. Like you're with politicians and with people who are very high-brow as they say, right? If you've ever been in those environments and even watched movies where they show these aristocrats and people of high level, you know that there's protocol. Like when you sit to eat, right? They have etiquettes and they'll even teach like you have to do this a certain way, do that a certain way, you go see the queen, right? In England, there's protocol, right? You have to bow a certain way, curtsy a certain way, the way you dress. There's a lot of steps you have to take. Now, if someone is thrown into an environment like that where they have no clue that there's protocols, that there's actions that they're being evaluated and judged upon, right? Then they're gonna end up making a lot of mistakes. And so that's how when we don't understand, right? The adab, the courtesies that are required between us and God, we're just gonna be careless. We say things, we do things, right? Without thinking. This is why it's so important to have this knowledge of what is expected of me and to of course be so grateful that we have the example of the prophesies of them because we don't have to do this work of figuring it out, right? It's his life, is it? It's the perfect example for us. All we have to do is copy, a cut-paste copy, right? So we just look to his example, follow it, and then we don't have to do the thinking like, is this bad adab with God? Is this, I mean, imagine if we had to do that for ourselves, so it would be very nerve-wracking, wouldn't it? How do we know? But Allah made it so easy. Just follow the prophesies in his example and if you do that, you will have courtesy with God and you will prevent yourself from like this hadith states, right? That you may say something so inappropriate that it could be the reason why we go to hell. And this is also the hadith that complements this one is that there will be a person who is one hand span, right? Close to jannah, but then one action they did takes them to hellfire. And then the opposite, that there's a person who will be one hand span close to jannah. A hand span is very short distance, almost with, you know, I mean, close to hellfire, excuse me. But then one action they did, Allah forgives them and grants them jannah. So this is to humble us that we don't know, right? And we should never get ahead of ourselves to think that we are, we've kind of got it made, you know, just because we've been wearing hijab since however long we've made this many omras and hajj. We pray, none of us know. And the more humble we are, and we realize that we have to always be watchful over ourselves, the much more likely we will be in this subdued, like this, you know, humbled state. But as soon as we start thinking of ourselves, you know, as anything or become forgetful and careless, that's when we're in very dangerous waters. So, alhamdulillah, let me just check the time here. So do we have any questions before we move on? I may read just a little bit more. And yes? I don't know. So the idea about not having expectations and not some heartbreak, I understand that, but when you're trying to, you do have, it's kind of like, if you're family, there are expectations of, I'm going to have support in this way, and then we're trying to, you know, you're going to do the same for me. And even when you're community building, you have to give an officer a good of yourself, and there's trust that that is informed and built. So I don't know if the balance of trying to establish those connections and be a little bit vulnerable, and then if you get crushed, I don't know how to not get your heart entangled into those, by not turning off this thing of no expectations, but in reality, there are ways of behaving and built out of it a whole new expectation, so it's confusing for me. Sure, no, it's a wonderful question, Jezekiel Acheran. So yes, striking the balance of basically understanding that yes, we are social creatures, we have institutions and families, and outside of that, communities, and all of these things that require agreements, right, in order for us to live peacefully amongst each other, we have to respect those agreements, which are where we again have to explore the rights and responsibilities that we all have towards one another, and we do have rights as brothers and sisters and sisters. But what this is about, and we should certainly know those rights and we should certainly expect that those rights are respected and that they're honored, but when you do suffer a disappointment, right, someone doesn't fulfill their end of the bargain, instead of again falling apart or just getting so focused on that individual where you end up, it starts to affect your faith. This is where I think this advice becomes sound, right, because if you start to, and I've seen people unfortunately do this, where they just want to change this individual so much, they want to force that change, they want them to capitulate and give and give, and if they don't do it, it starts to affect their faith, right, they get so caught up in that, that they end up turning away from God. That's where the problem is, right, but if you can realize that that person is wrong and that we have sharia, we have laws, we have rules, we have ways of getting rights, but you don't let them trigger you to the point where you turn from God because you're just so obsessed with this lack of reciprocating your rights, just see them as, you know what, they're flawed, they have a problem, may Allah guide them and correct them, but I'm not gonna get hung up on that. What I was describing is where people just can't let go, right? It's like this person has changed for whatever reason or they're just not giving me my due and so now I am angry, I'm resentful, it's affecting me, the toxicities, I've let it into my heart and I bitter with the world. That is where it's very dangerous. So is that clear? Yeah. But yeah, I mean, we should absolutely know our rights and make sure that when we are in relationships with people and we do give from ourselves that we're very selective. I think there's also something to be said about being selective of who you let into your heart and who you have those expectations of in the beginning because this is a time where a lot of people are very trusting and while it's good to have good opinions of people, we should also be a little bit on guard and not just take people for face value because there's a lot of people who have ulterior motives, they don't have good character, they know how to ingratiate themselves to people just because they want something out of them. So I think having a system or a process by vetting people from a safe distance, kind of testing people, making sure that they have good character and just looking for people who are people of taqwa because if that's your criteria, I'm going to get close to people that are God-fearing people and shala you'll be protected from a lot of this stuff. It's kind of just like being too open and that's where I think a lot of people get hurt. So inshallah, yes. So we talked about parenting and parenting to youth these days. Yes. And this is really tricky because I thought it was interesting to discuss them about sharing. I don't know how you instruct a child that is becoming more responsible and mature about not letting people down and making sure they understand what their responsibilities are without expressing that you're disappointed and letting them experience the consequences of things they do against us parents or against other people. And it's confusing in today's world because we're so isolated. Right. Like just a little too little to your family to get and that's probably the only adult you're safe or who you're going to ask with. Right. Yeah, no, I'm glad you asked that question because it allows me to clarify. So what I meant earlier in terms of expressing disappointment to children, we can and we should, but it's more about centering the disappointment not in just us, but also extending it to a more important focal point which is a lesson, right? Because if it's just about us, right? And as our children grow, right? Research shows and it's pretty consistent that the influence of parents over children starts to wane, right? Around adolescents, the peer group has a larger impact. So even if we keep telling them we're disappointed with you, it almost starts to not matter because as long as they're in the in-crowd with their peer group and they have validation from that group and they feel like they're getting somewhere with that group, you see, then they seem to be okay, you know, because that becomes more of a priority. Like I need approval from them. I don't need as much approval from you anymore, right? So this is a danger of making the parent too much of a focal point. Whereas when you are always reminding them, right, that Allah's with you. And Allah's the one who gave you those friends and Allah's the one who gave you this constantly reminding them that he can take away anything at any point and that that's one of the surefire ways to lose blessings is to disappoint him, right? Because that's what he's given you your eyesight. He's given you your faculties. He's given you your friends. He's given you all of the luxuries in life. I didn't give them to you. I'm just a means by which you have them. But Allah can actually take them away, right? And you don't wanna disappoint him. So just removing that, you see that it takes the conversation to another level so that when they're thinking about their actions and the consequences of their actions, it's a much heavier situation now because it's not just, oh, my parents aren't happy with me. It's like, whoa, there could be massive consequences that are beyond my understanding, right? Because it's not just, you know what I mean, from an emotional perspective between me and my parent. There could be other consequences. My entire life trajectory could be changed. That's the awareness that we all need to have that when we disappoint Allah and we incur His wrath, we're risking blessings being removed from us, things being taken from us and punishment in this world and the next life, trials and tests. Why would we want that? So our children need to understand that too. It's not just an emotional thing, you know? It's much, the consequences are much more graveer. So that's where, again, show your disappointment because they should see and feel the impact of hurting their parents, but also remind them that their creator is watching and that how, just think about what a statement of ingratitude it is, right? To do something that would upset your creator when he's given you all these blessings and all he asks in return are very, you know, respectively, I mean, if you compare what Allah SWT asks of us and how much He allows for us to do is very little. You know, if you calculate the time of our prayers, for example, and the, just the basic, and all of it is for our benefit anyway. It's not even like, you know, subhanAllah, none of it is for Him. He doesn't need it, it's for us. So he asks things of us for our own benefit, but in terms of time, in terms of all of that, compared to all the other things that we're allowed to do, like if you look at the haram versus the permissible, very few things that are haram, many, many things that are permissible. So that's out of Allah's generosity. So this is a way of just helping our children come back into a state of, I need to always be grateful and I need to be, check myself so that I don't, as they say, wreck myself. That's a lyric from a very old rap song, but how did it, how did it, any other questions? I think inshallah, because of the time, we'll stop here and we, it's a new section too, so it's fine. Any other questions? We'll do that. All right, she's talking about her ladies, inshallah. We will continue. You can always read ahead for future sessions and we'll pick up from where we left off, but inshallah. What is the name of the book? Sure, the name of the book is Purification of the Heart, Signs, Symptoms, and Cures of the Spiritual Diseases of the Heart. And this book, last time I checked on Amazon, there's different sellers and they know that it's a desirable book, so you're gonna get a lot of prices, but from what I checked, sandala.org, which is just the word sandal with an A, at the end of it, that's the publication company. They have a better deal. You have to pay the shipment, but it's actually a much better deal. I already found them. It only took like a week and a half. Oh, nice. So, I'm in America. Nice. Also, someone have that time and others in the room. Oh, good to know. And I think here, Rumi Bookstore, which is the bookstore in Fremont, it's an Islamic bookstore. They have, they should have copies too, but just call them, because this book, masha'a Allah, it gets printed a lot. Oh, okay. Yeah, languages all over the world, so, alhamdulillah. But Jazakumullah. Insha'Allah, we'll go ahead and end in Dua'at. In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. Wa al-A'asir, Inna l-insanala fi khusr illa alladina aamanim wa amin as-sualihaati wa tawasubil haqi wa tawasubil sabr Subhanaka wa hamdina shalwa allaha illa ila antana astaghfiraka wa ratsubu ilayk Allahumma salli wa sallam wa bariq ala Sayyidina wa maulana wa hadibina Muhammad Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam wa alaihi wa sahbina wa sallam fasima katira Subhana rabbika rabbil azzati amma yusifun wa sallamun a'alim wa sallim Wa alhamdu lillahi rabbil a'alim I'm just a little hidden. Thank you so much, ladies and shalwa ala. Protect all of you. I hope you have a wonderful holiday break next week from work and shalwa. It just spent some time with your families.