 الحمد لله ، سوف ننتهي في هذه المتحدة ، لذلك last week we were covering one of the primary enemies of the human being being a very obvious enemy which the enemy of shaitan the devil and we're going to finish that off ان شاء الله and then try and get into the next big enemy of the human being which is the nafs the ego the lower self and really if Allah gives someone to seek to master their nafs and find ways to defeat shaitan then inshaAllah that will be a means of immense good for them and to achieve goodness in the spiritual path and just to recap today we've covered a few of the big hurdles the human being is going to face in the class we've been doing now for a few months is the big hurdles the seven hurdles on the path to Allah and the first hurdle is the hurdle of knowledge that someone has to make sure that they actually learn their deal properly and then learn how to implement their deal from there is the hurdle of repentance that someone actually repents and asks Allah for forgiveness for all the wrong it is that they have done that we have done and then we get into these these next kind of hurdles which is basically the big enemies of the human being has which are we covered the dunya we covered bad company like the bad influences and now it's shaitan and then the nafs so this is an interesting section that he's going to get into these are basically the seven tricks that shaitan uses to try and mess with us the seven big tricks that he's going to try to use this is specifically the tricks he's going to use to mess with the person who is trying to traverse the spiritual path who's trying to get close to Allah he has a different tricks he plays on different people and as we covered last time shaitan is very seasoned he knows what he's doing he's been around for a long period of time and he especially knows how to mess with the person who's religious because shaitan himself worshiped in some narrations for over 80,000 years and that he had practiced worship before he was called up to heaven to be in the divine and angelic assembly so he is a very very intelligent to say in cunning probably cunning is the better word when it comes to tricking the people on the path of spirituality on the path of trying to draw near to God so the first trick that he's going to use this is again he's like not going to try to get the Muslim or the person traveling the path to disbelief in God he knows that that's very very very unlikely he's going to try to get them to reduce the amount of good that they do until they leave that good or until the intentions of that good are messed up or they spoil the good that they do or some other means the first thing he does is he forbids people to practice worship he finds creative ways to get people to stop doing ibadah now obviously this starts at the most essential level of our core ibadah so if he can find a way to get someone to say well you believe in God don't pray what's the need or there's no need to pray extra really what's the need or there's no need to do extra dhikr or there's no need to recite extra quran or there's no need to fast extra really like everybody else is doing just fine why are you going to be the one who puts yourself through difficulty to try and do this so this is going to be the first trick to forbid people from practicing worship and this could be core worship which again usually he won't succeed at getting someone who's serious about their dean to just stop practicing the pillars of the religion namely the prayer and fast and so on but he may succeed at getting them to to stop doing extra so okay it's the lower time comes in and we are like well we could pray sunnah we could not pray sunnah we could just pray our farth and as soon as the thought to pray the sunnah comes in he'll say no don't you have this other thing to do don't you have work don't you have this and then you just quickly pray the farth and stop which is still you get the credit for the dean but it's not as good as doing more ultimately the path of spirituality for the one who seriously once drawn near to Allah it's a path of doing the obligatory and then doing extra that is the path it's very simple in one way where it comes in you could see that I that Allah essentially wants us to do the obligations first he says that I do not draw near to my servant except through the obligations that they do and then they continue to do supragratory deeds until I love them and this is the path of attaining the deep love and experiential relationship with their Lord beyond just having this kind of transactional outward relationship where we just go through the motions this gets a lot deeper now for the person who is serious and this should ultimately be our attention and we should ask Allah to give us this this love and to be amongst these people so the path again starts with obligations goes to the extra this is why knowledge was so important we covered knowledge first because if you're if our obligations we're not doing them correctly all of the extra we do and it's a very real fact that sometimes is difficult to accept but if we don't do our obligations correctly we really mess up our chance at any of the extra credit actually having an impact on us and that's why one of the best things that the person who wants to start to take there being seriously can do is revisit properly how to do the obligations many of us we think we're doing it right because we've been doing it our whole life but there's some things we could be doing wrong and it's not a something we need to feel like shameful about it's just something we just revisit we study a text a basic text a thick make sure that we're praying correctly make sure that we are I think sometimes people our would do is incorrect make sure that we're fasting because there's a lot of little mistakes that we make because the advice we might have gotten growing up or even the advice we get now we might get from a person who looks like they know their but they haven't either and the two are very different that we should not take knowledge from people who do a lot of worship only that's not a means of taking knowledge knowledge must be taken and taken from people who have knowledge and who have gotten knowledge from people who've taken who've taken who've taken from the great inheritors of this religion back to the Prophet so anyways that's like a just a side note but that's why the core worship is so important knowing make sure that we're doing it correctly and that we are investing in the in the proper acts are is going forward so I forbid people to stop from practicing extra worship or from stopping worship this may come from Sunnah Deeds this may come from Nawafil Deeds one of the ways he's played a huge trick on Muslim Omar recently is that he has gotten them to starting Deeds and people think that it's a religious activity to stop doing I'll give you an example someone may be having a blessed gathering a religious gathering and there's a group some of them who wrongly will do in car on that gathering they'll wrongly tell people that this is not a good gathering to have you shouldn't sit and recite Qur'an together or to make Qur'an together and these types of silly things that have no basis in the religion these are completely thoughts from Shaitan that have influenced their understanding of the religion and hopefully we don't come across these types of people and now it ends up happening so who don't know any better they may listen to that group the human being has a desire to congregate with other people that's a part of the human nature we are we desire to be with other people and we desire to have some activity that we do that connects us but if we don't make that activity religious or spiritual what are we going to end up making either we're going to make it a car on activity or we're just going to make it something basic something Simla I used to gather together together to do worship who asked to gather together together to to nashi then Inshad then theqasāt and praise of Allah His messenger They used to do all these things but then Shaitan Using certain human-dans to inflict crux with this wrong understanding and now those Same Muslims What did they gather to Gay New To watch a bunch of people you know in shorts لم نكن إنتهي بشكل كبيراً لأحد who is traveling the spiritual path. يستطيع فعل هذا. الأخيين يعتقدون أنهم يفعلون شيء كبيراً بإحوالي أن يركضوا المحرك. ويفعلون شيء كبيراً بإحوالي أن يقوموا بإحوالي أن يقوموا بعملهم. مالذي يحدث كل وقته this will happen again we will have in about what's the date now we have maybe a month or left before that miss the شعبان because one of the blessed days of our religion but there's a difference of opinion but there's there's of the valid opinion this strongly accepted opinion is that it's a good day to do worship and extra Ibadah there will be people who will tell others don't do extra Ibadah literally doing the act that she found us for شعبان does forbidding people from practicing worship and how what people think they're going to watch Netflix they're going to watch a TV show they're going to watch just brand there's going to really most of the time we're consuming media and we think that somehow that's better than sitting there gathering with the Muslims doing they're making the offer fellow and so on this is the first شعبان does is he tries to forbid people from doing extra worship from doing extra worship the second thing then that he will do is that he will he knows that someone is going to do Ibadah he will come at them and try to get them to get them to procrastinate the worship so what what form does this usually take well the first is the prayer شعبان is a master of techniques and he's very good at getting someone to miss out on the good so if you imagine that there's this much good that someone could capture from an active or let's use this as an example this much good that someone could capture from an active worship obviously the good someone to get is unlimited based on the good Allah wants to give them based on their presence and their presence in that worship and they're correct the person who does it swiftly immediately with a state of desire to get close to Allah they will have the highest chance of capturing the full good worship the more and more good you and I collect the more and more newer that we collect the more and more light that we collect the more and more illuminated that human being becomes and the more illuminated that human being becomes the more and more they become بيكنز of goodness and light for the wider society or the umma now شيطان obviously doesn't want that and he doesn't want people to become people of goodness and he doesn't want them to become people of light he doesn't want them to become people of more so what does he do he says okay don't do good I'm going to try to get you to reduce the good as much as possible I don't want you to get the full amount so I'm going to try to get you to get half or less or less until you barely have any good luck how does that happen well the first one is with the Salat parade the prayer parade at the beginning of the time is very different than the prayer parade at the end of the time and of course it's very different than the prayer that's missed so let's say this usually happens with often with like lower and lesser and whatnot right so lower time comes in 1230 or so we're like oh we have plenty of time شيطان will come into you you have a desire to go pray شيطان so you have plenty of time you have until like 330 to pray it why are you rushing what's the rush you can do this then do this then eat lunch you know do this some more than you can pray and you'll just then you're like okay okay fine I'll do I'll delay it and then you'll get to delay it more and the next thing you know it's like 20 minutes before I serve you still haven't prayed gohar and then we're just going to rush to finish the gohar and that's not the same as the gohar prayed at the beginning of the time it's not the same in terms of reward as come their narration from the prophet to the last one that the best deed is prayer on time the best deed is prayer on time if you go through our day it's one of the best things that you and I do is prayer on time at the beginning of time but it's delayed and we delay it and we delay it and now for the person who procrastinates often you'll get them to just miss the time entirely and so we might have done it we might have prayed we might have done it on time we might have done it even at the beginning or even at the end of the time but now we just miss it entirely because something came up and next thing you know we have a have a have a have a prayer now the minute the prayer means means delayed it becomes a makeup prayer for the people who are serious about their being that's a big sin for them it's a big deal it's not a small sin it's like a very weighs very heavily that how can I miss prayer and again this is we are all at different stages in the journey and so we just have to we take we mentioned this at the early when we started the class we we apply this based on where we're at right so for the the person like the Imam of Azali who's writing the text and who is teaching us this obviously it was a very serious thing for any of them to miss prayer it that just like never happened they're probably 40-50 years they just never miss the prayer on time it just wasn't a thing right for them but for maybe us maybe we do regularly do it and we just have to work to get better but the point is is Shaytan doesn't like for us to improve a sign of progress spiritually for you and I is year over year we measure how much more how much are we praying on time how much are we praying with more presence and how much more often are we praying meaning extra if all of those are trending in the right direction we're in a good spot in the business world they use year over year growth as a metric for how successful a business is and this economy stock market has been tumbling because very few companies are experiencing enough year over year revenue growth or profitability growth etc as a result they're laying off a bunch of employees unfortunately and for spirit there's also a way to measure year over year growth the best time to do Ramadan from Ramadan to Ramadan how much better have we got and if we're still praying door every day 20-30 minutes before us and we've been doing that for like 2-3 years that means we have work to do we can't be it's fine every now and then but not daily the daily we have to get to the point where we get closer to the earlier time and again these are the basic these are the little things they don't take much they're not difficult but they take a little bit of extra effort to do and once someone masters them this is how spirituality is mastered that a lot of people we think especially in modern times these days there's all these new ideas about manifestation and law of attraction and all sorts of spiritual quote unquote pseudo spiritual concepts and everybody wants to be spiritual and really experience mindfulness and the universe and all these types of ideas and our religion spirituality is very straightforward it's not difficult it's the basics in day in day out day in day out done with more presence with more focus and with more quality and that person will attain amazing spiritual state this is guaranteed Allah says this this is going to happen that's what spirituality day in day out so the prayer again is going to be the most the most important and if we do miss a prayer it will always count if we pray it out but when you pray it out it's a delay it's like we're making it up we're not getting the reward for doing it on time so the way we would make it up is that we outlaw our forgiveness for missing it because there is a sin that's given for missing it and there's all of an excuse to miss a prayer work being busy these types of things it's very rarely like if someone is in an emergency situation you know someone is got forbid like family member is going through some crazy health crisis and they have to rush to the hospital but these are the very few excuses that we have otherwise being at our jobs would not be an excuse to pray we're required to pray on time and we find ways to do it but if we do miss it we're not there yet where we can pray at work we make it up and at least we won't have the long debt that we build up of making up prayers to do so that's at a minimum with regards to making up prayers we make it up after work or later at night but shaitan will get us to procrastinate it and the problem is is once someone procrastinates one prayer it's very easy to procrastinate the rest of the prayer so we pray lower late I'll get to it in the next thing you know it's 20 minutes before sunset again it still counts but it's not the same we don't even feel the same you don't feel the same sense of presence now you're doing it to get it done versus before we were doing it because we wanted to do it and there's a big difference there we do not want to go our whole life because it's a way of traversing the spiritual path just to get it over with our religion is not checkboxes just that we check off I did this I did this I did this now I'm a good Muslim that is a very superficial level of our religion our religion has immense depth and immense depth to try and get a closer relationship with Allah and this is done through establishing the prayer at the beginning of the time so this is why it's so important to defeat this procrastination to pray in congregation at a place like a Masjid or a Mosalla where the prayer is taking place for men especially for women it's not the burden is not the same there but for men and women to set alarms or to have it on our calendar close to the time coming in and we don't move it it's just what we do again rarely we have stuff that comes up we adjust it has given us a window especially for there's a little longer windows but it's pretty short pretty soon we don't just delay for really any reason but we master it by getting in the time regularly this is why ideally now we have about 45 or so days before the month of Ramadan and we should make it a routine to try and get all of our prayers for the next month and a half in in the earlier part of the time if we can do that before Ramadan comes in it will be completely transformed it will be a very different Ramadan and we'll be trying to get the basics these are important but these are the basics this is not some advanced concept this is the basic stuff then we'll be able to actually have time we'll be like oh we have time because the secret of praying at the beginning at the time is the rest of the time is filled with special blessings because someone prayed at the beginning that's one of the secrets of praying at the beginning so if someone prays at 12 30 if someone prays between 12 30 and 1 the rest of those 2 or 3 hours between then and usur are filled with extra blessings the one who misses the prayer at the beginning of the time that time does not have barakah in it it does not have barakah this is why the same thing with the secret of praying is that someone has more barakah in their day the secret of praying the Hajj and Fajr with regularity they have more barakah special assistance the whole day so if someone misses Fajr for sure the barakah for that day is gone it's just completely gone that day is the rest of the spiritual blessing because the core obligation in the morning was missed and only because it's relevant we usually will do questions at the end but someone said that if your employer does not accommodate him for prayers it depends on the country that you're in if you are in the US or most western countries by law for employers to accommodate religious activities including prayer times and that's now up to us if we get the courage to actually tell them and ask them but people do this all the time for all sorts of things and employers will accommodate so we have to be comfortable doing that if someone tries to do so then we should pray we should have a conversation we should have a conversation and there's also wisdom in getting to the prayer before the time becomes disliked because if someone is praying Fajr as the sun is starting to rise they basically miss Fajr but they still technically within the time that's not a good thing but it's fine it will still count as long as the sun rises it's not actually happening but it's similar to praying Maghrib that time is Maghrib because the people who used to worship the sun would pray at that time and so the Muslims were not supposed to technically do it but if we haven't made the prayer yet then yeah and it's 5 minutes on Maghrib and we haven't prayed it but it's not going to have the same effect so anyhow that's the second thing this is usually the one we get stuck on a lot he's like I'm just keeping them there he'll keep some of us here for 5 years others us here for 10 years others of us here for 20-30-40 years and I'm not joking it's like decades because he'll make us think it's all done you got it all in it's all good few times you missed it other times it's a little late so then the person can never get to the next level it's like in a video game when you defeat one level you can't get to them you're just stuck on one level forever I remember when we were kids I don't advise using time as adults to play video games but when we were kids that we would play certain games and you'd just be stuck and there would be like one cousin or family member who knew how to beat that level and they'd have to come and help you otherwise you'd just be stuck at that level for whatever however long weeks, months, whatever it is don't go past this he doesn't want us to taste the deeper relationship with our Lord so the next thing then he says alright he can't get you to he can't get you to stop doing extra worship he can't get you to procrastinate worship what does he do? he tells he gets you to rush it so one is delay now is to rush just rush to get it done with make haste and so this will be like we're in the prayer zoom in fast every now and then especially if someone is praying behind us and if we pray fast they'll tell us I didn't even do the Fatiha you were like in Ruku and you're like they're just going fast and they'll have to tell us and then we sometimes oh I didn't realize I go so fast why do we go fast because we're not present we're not present so when we go quickly we also lose a portion again because this is the maximum amount of good deeds we can get we're just missing out on more and more the less presence we have so if we're just you'll have to think about something else let's say we enter into the prayer or any this applies to all worship by the way not just this prayer but we're just using the prayer since it's the most kind of easy and relatable example he'll say oh you're about to be present some thought will come in some waswasa from shaitan and some about work or family or lunch or something like that next thing you know we're rushing through it and we're just quickly super fast we don't even know what we said we have no idea no clue we went through it we'll forget the number of rakat that we're in we'll just start to forget things we don't remember going second rakat I do third I sit down you know would just be because we'll kind of be completely in haste so that's what he'll do try to make us rush to finish it rush to finish it prayer is a time of meditation it's a time of slowing down it's one of the few times in life in this busy world we live in where we can actually slow down we cannot let him rush to make us finish these things and we cannot fall into that haste this society most human beings are in a state of rush and haste all the time we struggle with the patience and Allah knows this which is why he says that it's going to be very difficult for people to be patient except the people of khashia the people of a reverential awe Allah mentions this in the Quran so what Imam al-Hazali mentions is the response to this is that we say doing a little bit with completion is better than doing a lot with imperfection and with rush it really does matter more than quantity another proof this is Allah says in the Quran that we created life and death in order to test which one of you will be which one of you will be best indeed he didn't say which one of you will be the most teams which one of you will be best indeed it's very important to establish presence sometimes you need a lot of quantity if you are someone you just keep praying and you keep praying and you keep praying hopefully we're present in all of them sometimes we're not but you push through and there are days like that but usually for the extra worship we do presence is more important than quantity it's better to pray 2 rakat with a lot of presence than 10 rakat where we're not present all extra not the far the extra and so the key here is to inform how we do things because we know it's from Sheytan so now know that haste in almost everything is from Sheytan except for haste he mentions a few categories here and so in terms of getting to the prayer quickly would be one haste in getting married is eligible to get married that haste is from Sheytan except in 5 instances this is one of them because the reason is protecting your chastity is very important especially in a society we don't want to delay delay marriage if we can help it the second is haste in settling the debt as soon as the debt is due if we owe someone money at a time as come for us to pay money we do it otherwise we're wronging them and so that's not haste from Sheytan and Hamdallah the Muslims are preparing the body for burial as soon as the person has passed away and this is Hamdallah one thing that for the Oma we are very blessed to be able to do this regularly versus other communities if someone passes away a week, two, three weeks in the morgue in the freezer and the body is not in a good state then they put makeup on the body it seems like it's fine that's not natural our religion is to bury the body soon within a day, two days sometimes a little bit more regulations and permits another one is haste in entertaining the guest as soon as he or she has arrived so if a guest comes to our house we attend to them that's a good thing that's a virtuous haste and he said haste in repenting from the sin as soon as it's committed there's nothing from the devil about repenting from a sin as soon as it's committed that's from virtue as soon as we commit a sin we rush to the repentance rush, rush, rush to but other than that in most things even in worship trying to rush through things is from Shaytan if we have a dicker that we do let's say a portion of Quran that we recite daily we got to stop rushing we have to be present it's better to be present yes, question and let's say race to good deeds race to good deeds yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Savannah racing to good deeds is a good it's like we run towards doing good if someone sees an opportunity to do good they run towards it haste is like this kind of anxious haste we're just like rushing through it without any real purpose but if we see an opportunity to do good we definitely engage in the good as soon as as soon as we are able to okay, so that's the that's the third one is that he's going to make us be hastful the fourth is so now let's say someone is not missing the worship they're not procrastinating and they're not rushing through it so now he says all right fine but do it so other people admire how worshipful you are this is now where it starts to get more subtle and we're learning the science of Tuskeeds enough and the science of the soul has become very important until someone learns what goes on in their inner realm and what goes on in their heart people could be doing worship insincerely for a long portion of their life we could be in that state and he's going to get into a whole section about how to cover this so we're not going to get into all the detail today but the big thing he says to the shaitan we'll try to tell you fine, do the worship so you want other people to notice you and this happens more in Muslim countries probably than in our place where we don't really care if we don't want anyone to look at us if we're praying around non-Muslims I hope no one's watching me you don't really want people to be looking but in Muslim gatherings and environments the trade can develop called Riyadh which is spiritual showing off spiritual ostentation that is to do something so other people can say oh look at you you're so worshipful you're so religious you do so many good things and they admire you and the praise comes in and that praise where does it go it all goes to the ego I know I'm just in so great enough loves it it loves it and it soaks it all and now that person's reward is diminished because they're not doing it sincerely for Allah Allah says I'm watching you the whole time why do you need that person's praise why do you need that person looking at you and admiring you this does not take the reward away we still do the ibadah the key is to move through these things we will face them we struggle, we fight sometimes we'll lose sometimes until Allah gives us victory but shaitan these are his tricks he knows the tricks he knows the tricks that exist so to get people's attention to get them to notice you is another big one and really they're admiration and the key here is to ignore that I already know God is watching me and I'm going to try to be sincere with Allah I don't care who else is watching and who isn't watching it's not about a human being and eventually if someone struggles with their own enough the thought of other people won't really get to them it's not a big deal you're just going to move on from it but earlier on it comes now it's like someone is not that current about even other people's admiration the fifth trick that he uses is he gets you and I to then be impressed with our own self this is now he's like alright well I couldn't get you to care about other people so now I just want you to look in the mirror and be impressed with your own self yes question sorry I cannot hear you at all yeah yeah yeah yeah I know what you mean so the question is how do you describe if you're doing like an act you buy that and you're more because people are watching and you're more self-aware now of what's kind of going on and people will struggle with and you'll see that often for example if someone will memorize the whole Quran and they'll be at like their Quran Khatam celebration and then they'll be like reciting the Fatah and they'll like mess up in the Fatah because they're just so nervous that everyone's watching but usually it's like of course they know it or something else will be a bit more conscious that happens and ultimately what that is it's something that we have to traverse through it's not wrong because it's part of human nature but we have yet to reach the elevated state where we are in a state of divine witnessing knowing that Allah is the only one that matters that He's watching so that will eventually inshallah happen the more and more someone strives and focuses and tries they stop seeing or thinking even about the fact that other people are present and other people are watching them and they're so absorbed in the fact that Allah is watching them that they're very self-conscious in front of Allah and that's at the inward level I hope Allah does not that see me doing this incorrectly I hope that I'm not being insincere in front of Him or I hope that I'm not lacking presence in front of Him but someone will eventually either fluctuate between those states where they'll strive and then they'll stop paying attention to the people start being more focused on what Allah is that Allah is watching and that's what's called a it's part of the spiritual path where you're essentially just trying and striving and you're winsome you lose some until someone is established in what's called a maqam a maqam is a station where now they are only focused on the fact that Allah is watching them while they are aware of the fact that people are present but the attention and the eyes of the people are not a concern in their mind at all and this would happen to some of the Sahaba that they were so present in worship that when they would enter I think we gave this example last time one of them they needed their leg amputated and they said there was no anesthetic at the time or like somebody you could take to numb you he said when I enter the prayer then you should operate because I'll be completely I'll be so absorbed then you operate I won't feel it they didn't even feel it and there was one of the story of one of the righteous they were praying and the whole mess should behind them collapsed and then they finished the prayer and everybody ran out and they looked behind and they were completely what just happened I had no idea what was going on they were just not even their level of khushu was so absorbed that it was as though they were not even present physically in terms of what was going on so anyways these are lofty examples but the goal for us is to get to a state where we are in shahada shahada at one level is when we enter into Islam but shahada means witnessing when we say I bear witness that there is no God now for the one who truly bears witness they are witnessing the reality that nothing matters except Allah no one is present except Allah and that everything is happening only through Allah and so they really experienced that state of witnessing and so that's why we should one of the dohaas we should make regularly is that Allah allows us to reach this state where we taste this sweetness of toheed but toheed is much deeper than the belief of oneness it's to experience oneness in everything it is that we do does that make sense yeah okay so that is so the fourth one so the fifth one yeah he gets when the person is impressed with themselves so it's like okay look in the mirror oh yeah I did all this worship and just very very excited about their own they kind of constantly patent themselves on the back and very much that this gets very subtle that they think highly of themselves now someone does something with bad manners with them and let's say with regards to religion like let's say they expect oh I do all this worship so everyone should give me salam first if there are people that this happens it can happen and they think that because I do this and this and this I am better than other people and they think highly of themselves and now they expect people to treat them differently and if they're treated just like a normal person they won't like it what do you mean I'm a normal don't you know that I do I do the Quran every week and that I do I gave this much in charity and at the fundraiser they're the one and don't you know I just dropped $10,000 on the fund how come you're not congratulating me they're very impressed with themselves that worship didn't really benefit them it benefited them very superficial level it didn't penetrate because the one who does things for the sake of Allah they don't care at all that's where they say as the one hand does not know what the other hand is doing obviously you know what each hand is doing but the other hand if it's done it's an idea of giving charity in secret you don't really want people to notice so this person is impressed with their own self and this is known as the bad trait of self admiration or in our religion which will be a section on covering but he just says this is one of the tricks of the devil the biggest thing here is for someone to just give the credit to Allah to really do this Allah enabled me to do it had he not enabled me had he not given me health and eyesight and the ability to breathe and the ability to walk and for my nerves to work and my liver and my kidney and my heart and all of the many organs and billions of cells to work in my body all of these things I couldn't have done anything anyway so really this is from Allah and then you say where shaitan's tricks get more and more subtle for the one who's trying hard so now he says okay you've done this you've traversed this he says fine go ahead work hard do all these things but I want you to do it so that you can show other people to take your religion seriously that's why you're doing it not for the sake of Allah but just so everyone can see that oh look at this person they have this schedule and they're always doing everything they're always doing this and they maybe now the person and this might happen someone might see a little bit of that for someone who does a lot of thicker and when you're kind of like your face might change a little bit someone might start to see a newer on their face you see someone for example who'll come back from the the holy cities and they may have newer on their face light on their face and you might actually see a little bit of the newer right now shaitan says and then he gets very subtle here but he says don't you want to show off all the advancements that you've made don't you want to show off how pure you are now right and he just he wants people to notice more and more about noticing just he says fine do the hard work go purify yourself get rid of these diseases but so that you can tell other people to look at me I get rid of these diseases so it gets very very subtle and this one as well and then finally he says he tries to come to the human being he's like this person is really hard to defeat he says to them why are you doing all this in the first place isn't it already decided if you're going to live a good life in the next life or not a good life so what is the point of all this right you'll try to come at them from very obscure intellectual concepts and things we shouldn't even really spend much time thinking about he'll try to make that person think about these types of things that the way to protect ourselves from this is very straight forward which is that I do I'm a servant to Allah I do what Allah commanded me to do ultimately I pray and I hope that Allah will accept what I've done and Allah promises that if I do certain things I'm going to see good so I'm going to trust the promise of Allah not the deceit of shaitan right because shaitan doesn't make promises or he kind of makes promises he breaks promises Allah will never break a promise so these are the seven steps that Imam Ghazali mentioned is the tricks of shaitan first is forbidding the practice of worship be careful about anybody who forbids you from practicing worship because they are one of the devices of shaitan and this is all over the muslim moment right now unless the worship is like literally they're trying to tell you make مغرب instead of free raka do four raka or or they're just literally changing the religion itself but I cannot stress this enough who discourages us from doing and then makes us do mundane things it's a big problem even this whole concept that people have changed the established practice of tarawih from 20 raka which was it was used to be 20 and the maaliki used to pray 36 raka in madina that it was always a lot of raka and now they say no no no don't do 8 I'm talking about not someone who leaves after 8 like they're literally not even some messages will not even pray 20 raka and they'll just say tarawih is not 20 it's only 8 it's not even really tarawih they'll come up with all sorts of false arguments what are they doing ultimately they're reducing the amount of worship someone does they're saying 20 raka now someone comes with a salty argument saying pray 8 raka instead of 20 and you'll miss out on those 12 and what do people do instead of those 12 they sit there they talk about sports, politics things going on back home and a bunch of other things it's they're not doing biker they're not reciting Quran and it's the month of Ramadan meanwhile there's other people who said that the way she thought has gotten into the Oman these days and this is why these groups who promote this theology the Prophet ﷺ he said at the end of time the people of Sunnah will be called the people of innovation will call themselves the people of Sunnah the people of innovation will be the ones who propagate the Sunnah that's exactly what's happened now is that good things that we are supposed to be doing but we've been told not to do and instead that we just waste our time doing silly things and we've kind of confused ourselves so the first is for people practicing worship the second is procrastination as we mentioned usually this is where we get stuck a lot the third is rush, haste and finishing things and deliberation is part of our theme being deliberate methodical, strategic, taxful we plan things out as believers we don't just rush to things I'm just going to do all of it I'm going to be thorough I'm going to plan it out how much can I manage what makes sense for me to do as it mentioned that one of the people who want to take on fasting it's good to do extra fasts 3 extra a month the two fast Monday and Thursday a bit more than that but then some people wanted to do more and more and they finally said I'm going to do every other day that's the maximum fast you cannot fast every day will really collapse somebody the majority of people can't handle that and so this man he eventually said that I wish I hadn't taken that much because it was got very difficult at the end of his life to sustain that once they took some deed on they were very consistent in it so we're deliberate and careful about how much it is that we take on once we've established something we take on more and we get through with presence we take on more so then he says okay you're not rushing through things then he says you might do them to gain people's attention and then he someone might do things to become impressed with their own self or they're unable to guard being impressed with themselves and then someone will do to work on that other people can see them working hard and then finally he'll try to get someone to just give up entirely because what's the point it's already a decree weird stratagems he'll come up with again we ignore these by remembering he says in the Quran that praise be due to Allah who has fulfilled his promise Allah will fulfill his promise we trust in Allah and we trust in the mercy of Allah not in our own abilities so if we can master those things when it comes to our worship we'll be able to get through a lot of the tests a lot of the tricks the key here is not intellectually knowing these things but how do we apply them because intellectually they're fairly straightforward how do we apply them when the test actually comes when he comes at us and tries to get us to delay the thing is to cut it off right at the start when Shaytan comes at us with the trick we cut it off and the person of what's called which is spiritual uprightness they cut these the Christians off they don't make time and that's why structure in our Deen is so important and it's why we the people who have structure and those who are blessed to follow structure let's say if someone is praying especially in the Muslim world many people they pray 5 times a day in the Masjid now that seems like a tall task for us but their days are structured they're full of full of light and they have this this method that they're following that is a divine method it's been laid down and they'll never miss a prayer at the beginning of the time because the Masjid always prays earlier they don't delay 2 hours at a Masjid they'll pray at the earlier part of the time and so these are exactly types of things to do we have to cut it when Shaytan comes and when the first thought comes except to see that you and I are praying and to not help us he knows we're weak he's not going to just leave us to ward off Shaytan but he expects us to put an effort so before we move on now to the next section we'll cover part of this one we just want to see if there's any questions yes good question and the question was what if a local Masjid or ultimately it's a it's a Sunnah and the established Sunnah is 20 and so it's best to stick with the established Sunnah but if someone is doing the 8 and that's the option that they have to be able to pray in congregation then you pray the 8 but it would be best if you found a Masjid that consistently prayed the 20 and that was a even if it was slightly farther away but it was possible to go or I mean you could always leave and then finish but if it's like they're taking the same amount of time then it's obviously going to be more difficult the key is that you're still spending that much time in prayer which is very good it's when the time is significantly reduced and that time is now going to wasting time in Ramadan the minutes are very precious each minute is worth years and years of good deeds potentially depending on the day of Ramadan and the night of Ramadan so you don't want to waste time and just not doing any worship but as long as you're engaged in worship that's a good thing but the best thing is to try and establish the 20 if possible yes so when it comes to calculating miss prayers there's a couple of aspects first is it's usually going to be an estimation but a slightly overestimation with your best guess so the way you start is you start at the age you believe that anyone believes that they hit puberty so that there are certain signs of puberty in the man for women it's when the first cycle happens and so you say okay from that time until this age I don't think I pray regularly usually we'll remember the age where we started praying regularly like maybe you know someone hits puberty at 15 and they're like at 20 I pray regularly like I started praying 5 prayers a day or maybe I missed 1 or 2 but I would make them unconscious about my prayer now they'll say okay so that means from 15 to 20 I was either missing all of them or missing some of them or I don't remember what I was doing if someone remembers now on one hand they could say look I'm going to make up all 5 years of those prayers and they would calculate that they would put it in the sheet and they would start to track those 5 years if they're like well I know I always prayed Isha and like Margaret because I was at home with my parents and like everybody did it together but I was pretty lazy on the rest and so I'm going to assume that for those 5 years I prayed Shai and Margaret every day but I know I missed Lohar, Usher and Fudger even if some days I prayed Lohar and Usher and Fudger I have no idea what those days were and it was very few in between it wasn't enough to make it significant then that person would calculate for those 5 years just the Fudgers, Lohar and Usher that they have to make up and start to work on making those up then there's like another scenario where someone I think I prayed like 20% of the year most of my prayers then they would just make up 80% of those so you would just do a quick formula and just do 80% of that so it ends up being an estimation and you slightly overestimate because you don't want to be wrong here and insha'Allah anything extra we do hopefully Allah will count it as enough and then we began the process of actually making it up and that can be done over a period of many years it does not have to be done immediately gradually, slowly but with consistency so ideally an extra set of prayers every day which we should strive to do or get all of the Fudgers out of the way first because those are a little bit easier they're shorter and there's a tracker that someone if anyone needs it they can find it on tinyurl.com and it basically will help us calculate all the make up track those make up is that yes sorry I can't hear you great question can we delay still within the time the prayer to get the reward let's say we have to get the reward of the congregation as we know praying in congregation is 27x 27 times the reward based on an aeration and so can we delay it to get the reward there if sibling or someone so in general yes but it depends on how much delay so basically you don't wait until you're getting into the last like 10 20 even 20 to 30 minutes of the prayer time but if you still have like let's say you could pray us at 3.30 and muggers coming in like 5.40 and that sibling comes home at like 4.30 and you can get it in at like 4.20 and 4.30 okay you get the reward of the congregation you're still well within the time but if you're starting to cut it like well past 5 o'clock you're getting close to sunset you pray and let them pray the other aspect to this would be if you are the means of getting other people to pray so this might happen you might be like at a family gathering maybe everyone's a little bit lazy about the prayer maybe you're like trying to get everyone to pray but you don't want to be doing it right at the beginning because everyone is like still eating lunch and then you know then they need to drink their tea and you're like okay time time it's ticking it's ticking now you have to decide establishing the prayer has immense reward you might think that if I don't establish the prayer no one is going to pray because you can't like individually go and check on everybody are you praying but if you establish the prayer and wait slightly you might be able to encourage everybody to now get the reward of the prayer that would be another instance where it would from wisdom would be that you why don't we pray lower now why don't we pray us or now and everyone will do so and you might still have to wait because now it's like the whole family everybody needs to make wudu and you're feeling like the clock is ticking but still you're patient and you wait in order to help make sure everybody prays this is especially important for setting the example for younger generation children, younger cousins, younger siblings even though they're at the age where they should be caring about prayer they might not care but if they see their older sibling or cousin or someone establishing it even if they are doing it slightly later than the virtuous time that's fine but not to the point where we're getting to the end then someone should just really pray on their own and hopefully everybody else prays ultimately you and I are not accountable for the prayer so these are the types of situations in which you kind of apply the best judgment and this would happen every day it happens once every 2-3 months I'd like a family gathering I'm sorry I still couldn't hear you so you have more someone has more presence in one location than another but yeah good question so the question is about presence and prayer and if someone has a lot of presence in one place let's say we might have maybe more presence at the masjid but less presence at home someone might be a bit distracted at the masjid but maybe more presence when they're alone so how do we kind of decide balance that so the way it generally works is the jama prayer the congregational prayer takes precedence for men at least above any other category in the prayer so even above focus like someone might think oh if I'm alone in my room and I turn off all the lights that's better for me to do if I'm doing it by myself than to pray in the masjid when maybe it's a little bit more you know right before jama everyone is like talking and then right after everyone starts talking but in that situation this is for sure for the case for men for women it would be up to you and I'll kind of expand on it in a second it's still always more virtuous to pray in the masjid always for for the prayers now the prophet SAW what does that mean don't make your homes empty of prayer so if he would pray all the sunnah prayer at home then they can come to the masjid someone would do at home and it doesn't mean we don't do our sunnah if we also do sunnah and noafil prayers at home the hadjud usually pray at home for the most part now the key here is that someone struggles with themselves until they have presence in both places but you don't want the place to influence the presence eventually because there are people who can be present anywhere they pray and then sometimes we need very specific so what you do is you train yourself your nafs to be present in specific environments and it's all about discipline more presence until eventually the nafs is present in most circumstances where it's praying if you're praying on a plane it might be difficult to have the same presence as if you're praying in a focused area where it's quiet but otherwise the presence comes wherever it is you are because the prayer and reality is a matter of the heart and the heart can be present anywhere it doesn't require a physical location which is why there are people who will say they will visually see the Ka'bah in front of them before they start to pray they're that present as though they're in Mecca and then there are people in Mecca and they're praying and they're thinking about when are they going to have the Halal Burger King in the mall they're just waiting for the prayer to be done and so you could have in this state of the presence this is where spiritual struggle is required and the whole section on the nafs will then talk about what are the core components of that spiritual struggle okay there's a lot of questions here for Convert okay how am I going to convert how would that work okay so Converts do not make up prayers so this is very very important to remember the prayer accountability only comes in when someone is a Muslim already and they've hit puberty so if somebody doesn't convert to Islam until they're like 40 anything they did until 40 everything is forgiven and they're not accountable for any of those obligations not fasting, not praying not zakat, not Hajj but now once you've entered once someone has entered into the religion maybe for the first year they're still a little bit rough on their prayers so they keep track of that until they're learned and then they eventually make those up because the accountability starts from the time you have entered into the fold of the religion this is for fasting for zakat as well and then for Hajj as well how many minutes can we pray before another prayer starts as long as you're finished you should aim to finish your prayer at most like a minute before the next prayer starts that's like if you really want to cut it super super close so like you finish Fajr a minute before sunrise you would or like 30 seconds before sunrise you would finish right before us your time comes in you finish right before our time comes in مغرب there is a difference of opinion that you really should not be delaying it until مغرب you have the time until you can see the first stars when you come out that's one of the opinions and so you're not delaying it well well into isha or at the time of isha but this is like this would go against everything of course we've been talking about it this is like in very very limited circumstances where you just the times are a little bit confined or you're in a crazy scenario most of the time you should not be praying at the cusp of the next time it should be well before حمد الله get it done like that praying is the most important thing as long as we're getting it done then we should we should do so yes yeah good question so the question is what's the wisdom behind the times themselves why can't I pray all of them at night more like at night so there's infinite wisdom in the times first is الله has sworn by many of those times and he's made those times at those time sacred so specifically we have mentioning actually really of all the times in the Quran we have fajr which is الله swears by fajr by dawn and dawn is a very very sacred a very sacred time الله says in the Quran glory be due to the one and he describes a of glory and then he describes the time of and the time of both in that verse and talking about the importance of glorifying him in the afternoon and in the time of the night then الله says to specifically he commands these are commands these aren't like little these are commands that glorify your lord before sunrise and before before sunrise and at the time of sunset glorify your lord so the prophets and the religions of the past our understanding of them and Allah knows best is they didn't pray the five prayers the way we prayed but they all had not all of them but they all had times at these sacred times that they would glorify their lord and so whatever revelation they were given in the method of the pair that they were given these times were made sacred similarly أسر الله says that is by time or by the afternoon الله says that guard your prayer وصلات الوصة specifically the middle prayer some said that was أسر the middle prayer comes in the middle of the other one some said it was which was you know consider the middle prayer if you start your prayer at the first prayer of the night and so the times are very sacred in our religion الله says in the Quran we have made times sacred we have made months sacred and we have made places sacred so what are the sacred months we're in one of the sacred months right now رجب is a sacred it's a very sacred month it's an important month that we know the the the specialness of the month of Ramadan it's a month of the Quran was revealed the month of the Al-Hijjah and these are sacred months the month of ربي الأول where the prophet was born is a special month in our religion it's not the same as another month مكة and مدينة and Jerusalem right the three holy cities in our religion they're not the same as Oakland right or as you know Berkeley or a San Jose or some other place it's not the same there's places that are sacred so these are times that are sacred now what's happening that's outwardly inwardly when someone aligns themselves with the sacred times they will align spiritually their spiritual world with the sacred benefits that are coming at that time so when there's a sacred time there's special gifts that are being distributed spiritually and those special gifts are like a immense feeling of nearness to Allah an immense opening that someone may have a desire to desire to get to get closer to their Lord in all sorts of other gifts Allah knows best what gifts He gives the people who He gives gifts to and so there's gifts we know that are distributed and the first night in Ramadan there's certain gifts that are distributed to the one who's in presence the minute Ramadan enters it's mentioned one حديث it's a sacred time right it's not the same as a gift distributed in the first night of like there's we don't have any narration that would say that right so times are sacred if someone aligns themselves with the sacred clock they will receive special benefits and that's why it's not about getting them done we get them done because we owe the debt so if we miss the prayer for that day we owe the debt to Allah we have to get it done if we miss the prayer for 10 years we owe the debt to Allah but if we can pray in the time that came in and we do so with presence we will now get the absolute best thing that the human being could be doing in that period of time is fulfilling the obligation of that time the absolute best thing for your soul, for your spirit is to fulfill the religious obligation that is coming at that time there's nothing better than that obligation and that's what the wisdom is yeah right right I see what you're saying yeah yeah it's a good it's a good question so the question is so the prayer if let's say that we are just trying to get it in we're finding times in the day to get it in and maybe we pray in our car or we pray in a place that we're in and we're not able to fully fulfill all the rights of the prayer so that's a good question the key here is there are different categories of requirements in the prayer so the first category of requirements are known as the these are known as pillars without this outwardly the prayer is not valid outwardly meaning that we would owe that we make it up at some point with the proper requirements fulfilled the next level which is called wajibat which are things that we need to do in the prayer if we forget to do them the valid and we owe this this act called forgetfulness every now and then maybe we might have seen any mom do this or something that they'll make a mistake and then at the end they'll do like two extra and then there's things in the prayer meaning they're still very good to do but if someone misses them there's no nothing due it's just a the reward is slightly less so now we have to learn basically which one of these things applies and then how would it reply to playing in the car so one of the rukhan of the prayer is to pray standing up and another one is to be able to fulfill the movements unless someone is injured or is of old age which is essentially would be injured or something in that instance in some of the schools the kibla the exact direction of the kibla is also important because you have a little bit of room in terms of the direction of the kibla but you still have to face the kibla so this is where praying in the car is okay for sunnah prayers any extra sunnah or nafil extra prayer but for the farth prayers the requirement would be that someone pray standing up and if someone is unable to there are instances in which we may be completely unable to so we may be on a plane and there's literally no room we're just not able to we may be traveling somewhere and it's just like there's no place to stop and it's pouring rain outside it just sees up circumstances could happen and if someone takes a they pray sitting down in the car and then they make up the prayer later standing up but insha'Allah we hope that Allah will give us the reward of doing it on time and we're just getting the reward of fulfilling the artikan because it's not like we forgot Allah at that time the key is to not forget Allah we remembered Allah at that time we did the dikkr but we didn't do it in the way we were technically supposed to so now we go and fulfill the technical obligation now in our instance in this case the best thing to do would be but it doesn't have to be even a rug it could be like a jacket a sheet something we generally know okay we have this the Kibla app on our phone put the direction of the kibla out stop somewhere parking lot or somewhere else these days especially if you live in the bay area people do all sorts of things outside like meditation and yoga they're doing so many things outside that it's very rare and we fulfill the standing prayer then we can do the let's say we want to pray the sunnah afterwards the two rakah sunnah for the horror or something like that we can sit in our car and we don't even have to face the kibla we can be doing it and just driving or a passenger seat or whatever and fulfill the sunnah but there are narrations of the Prophet ﷺ he would be on his camel traveling and he would be praying but for the farth praying he would be praying the sunnah they would always stop and they would direction and then they would gather up and then they would pray standing up and so that's where one of the wisdoms behind that does that make sense yeah but again we all we try to do what we can based on where we're at based on what's realistic and then we aspire we know what the goal is we aspire to get to that goal and we know okay this is the standard we need to get to and once we're kind of able to get there we do some inshallah but we strive yes sorry so a little bit louder so this is Peter yeah great question so this question is today we did a prayer and we didn't have presents so do we have a prayer up but we did everything outwardly okay so Alhamdulillah we don't have to make it up because otherwise we'd all owe I mean maybe you guys wouldn't I know I would owe a lot of prayers it's hard to have presents in all of your prayers so the key here is the scholars that what's required legally legally meaning by fifth standards is a moment of presence we all like one moment of presence in the prayer and that would be required and I think everybody at some point in the prayer like at such that or something where we know we're praying where we know we're standing before Allah like we have that presence at least a little bit of it the virtuous thing to do is not necessarily to make up those prayers but now we start doing more about that like maybe we do extra worship because we feel like I did pray for many years and I didn't really do it with much presence so I'm going to try to focus on doing more now with quality or we use that as a motivation to help us get much deeper in terms of our quality with the rest of our prayers but Alhamdulillah not as long as the outward legal requirements of Voodoo and of the prayer that we just mentioned some of them there's a few others that you know are covered the prayer does not ever have to be made up Alhamdulillah it's done and we pray that it's accepted by Allah that's our goal is ya Allah please accept it even though it was weak the best thing also to do would be to regularly make dua to Allah ya Allah there's a lot of things I've done that weren't always the best and the most sincere and maybe the most present please accept them like you know I make mistakes you know I'm weak please accept my so you know you know ya yeah yeah so the question is that if you're in a four and you don't remember if you were in your Fourth so now what do you do so in our religion always at least within the مجدداً لتصميم التصميم مع مجدداً مما أنك متأكد منه هو ما تعتقد أنك متأكد أن تفعل 2 و that you're at least in 3 now that you're at the point where you don't know is it 4 or is it 3 so what would the certainty be then 3 so you go with the certainty but you do, you go with the certainty you do the next one now you may end up doing 5 but you weren't keeping count so what you do because you had that doubt now you do the the forgetfulness now you don't have to stop the prayer entirely like you don't have to stop the prayer I don't remember what I was in and now you go back into it no you do the at the end and that will wave the kind of mistake of forgetting if that makes sense always the same thing actually happens when you're at the point where you're at the point where anything actually happens when it comes to so let's say you know you made wudu at like you remember at 12 o'clock I made wudu I knew it I made wudu now it's like 3 o'clock and you're like do I still have my wudu I don't remember if I had my wudu you have no recollection of having lost your wudu you do remember that you made your wudu at some point at 12 o'clock you remember that it's been 2 or 3 hours you have no recollection of having lost wudu no recollection of having to use the restroom or anything like that even if you had lost your wudu but you did no clue you do not remember at all the fukaha they say that you're insha'Allah you will get the reward as though you had wudu because you were operating with what you thought was certainty but if you have an inkling of doubt being like no I'm pretty sure I lost it you go with that it has to be like 51% or more so always in these instances you go with what's certainty and shaitan he tries to come to the believer in any situation whether it's with wudu or with prayer he tries to make us doubt and just like create all sorts of doubt like oh you missed a spot in wudu for sure you missed a spot or for sure you did this you did that and you just doubt doubt doubt these are west west side that he gives and we always stick with with certainty yeah yeah if the imam does a mistake do you have to do the sajdah or just the imam so the imam will do the sajdah and as long as the imam he does the sajdah you follow him to sajdah yeah so if the imam does the sajdah he will follow the imam and the sajdah if you remember making a mistake and he doesn't do the sajdah then I don't know the answer to that I don't have to look into that but if he as long as he does the sajdah everybody you follow whatever the imam is doing basically yeah okay let's see there's a few questions online so oh okay so whenever I feel my imam I get excited and I want to tell someone my parents is it best to keep quiet that's a very good sincere question so in that instance like sharing with your close loved ones about your religious progress parents your spouse maybe your siblings your children like a close brother a brother or sister on the path of Islam that's that's totally fine and if anything it's going to be good as a means of encouragement what you avoid is like showing off if you feel like you have to start bragging and flexing spiritually and like I did this that's where you avoid and that it's unlikely you do that with your own parents but sometimes someone might but in the front of the sincere from a sincere perspective like really you want to discuss it and like you know that would make your parents very happy because they're the ones who have been the means for most of us of encouraging us maybe to pray and to to worship and to do to do good deeds so it would make them happy to see you growing in your in your Iman yeah so that would be you know totally fine okay so someone says I read that when Allah punishes you he takes prayer out of your life but what if you genuinely struggle yeah so genuine struggle on the spiritual path you should never look at it as a that this is some somehow my punishment coming from Allah you always look at it as a weakness on your own side so the way we always our spiritual view that good and here and openings in our life our blessings from our Lord things that we struggle with our own weaknesses that we're struggling with and that we're aspiring to get better where the you start to say maybe I am being punished is if we've been doing certain sins that we know we've been doing and we just won't give them up and then the lesson comes to teach us that you don't give up the sin and now certain good will stop will stop happening in life and that this when we pray Allah does not test us like this but that would be kind of something that would be like a wake up call like okay someone's not giving up a certain sin Allah is like okay I'm taking this away it might be some good deed that they were doing and now they're like why don't I do this good deed anymore how come I can't do it now we examine when we are doing something wrong right one of the reasons why someone might really struggle to pray all five prayers is because that might not be struggling to stop the back fighting we might keep talking bad about certain people we think bad about them and we speak about them and we use their names and we mention bad qualities and so on that would be now a wake up call that okay when someone misses worship or like what am I doing wrong and then they might be reflecting and now someone might tell them well you know you really do talk you do gossip a lot and then before they didn't want to hear it now they're like okay fine I probably cannot do this so that would be like an example of that under that okay so we for this time we're not going to do this section on the NUS today because it's already been an hour and 20 minutes or so so if there's any other questions on this topic before we finish of this would be anything with regard to the tricks of Shaitan that we covered today or what we covered last time or kind of anything in general in شاء الله next week yes yeah good question and it's look any question you ask totally totally valid to have these questions it's better to ask them than to think them and not get them covered so first so the question was for those online okay so we might you know miss out on prayer we might not feel too great about it and then the question pops up well you know does God in prayers هل يجب أن نحتاج فعله؟ إذا حالك جميل فقط، فهي يجب أن يحتاج بكسر أو شيء فيه إذا يجب أن نحتاج فعله. إذن الله يقول في القرآن that Allah, that O Human being. إذا كنت أنت فقرا، you are completely impoverished. and Allah is Al-Ghani and free of need. He is the rich and free of all need. لذا الله لا يحتاج أيها ما الذي يحتاج. He doesn't need anything from anyone. He operates independently completely. Creation can never benefit the creator. It's impossible for the creation to benefit the creator because the creation needs the creator to subsist. To even exist, the creation needs the creator. So Allah is completely independent of all need. He doesn't need Ibadah. He doesn't need worship at all. That's the first thing. The second then is does it benefit him or not? It does not benefit him. إذا كانت all of you were to do the best deeds of the best one amongst you and every person in humanity imagine how many billion people are on earth like 7 billion or so many all the billions of people on earth were doing all the good deeds of the best most righteous person on earth it would not increase Allah's kingdom and what Allah has in one iota one bit it would have made no impact and if every human being were doing all of the sins of the worst sinner on the planet just everybody was doing all the sins it would not diminish Allah's kingdom one iota nothing Allah does not benefit from this now it comes to so why do we do it this is for your benefit completely for your benefit everything you do in this path of Islam is for your benefit and it's a grace from Allah spiritual grace that Allah has given us the ability and taught us what benefits because Allah created the human being in a certain state knowing the nutrients that human being needs if you drink water right you have a nutrient that you are fulfilling you have a certain biological need that you are fulfilling if you and I eat food we have certain nutrients we're getting that sustains the body every human being that also needs things to sustain the spirit Allah created the spirit and he has spiritual nutrients which are necessary to sustain your spirit without those spiritual nutrients the spirit dies mass depression anxiety worry stress and suicide began dominating the society look at the society we live in unfortunately mass prozac being prescribed mass depression everywhere no one has any aim in life anymore no one has any clue why we're here what we're doing if purposeless aimless situation because we've forgotten the purpose of our creation and the nutrients are gone when the spirit doesn't have nutrients the spirit dies and or the heart essentially it dies when the heart dies the it's unable to you're unable to function and think properly just like if the body doesn't get a nutrients it will eventually completely lose lose its ability to think so the prayer and all of the deeds you do and that I do are only for your benefit they will not benefit anybody else they definitely won't benefit Allah ever Allah does not need them if you don't do them it makes no difference to him it only will help you right because billions and billions of people praying Allah is the king of the heavens in the universe and the earth I don't know if anyone has seen this the images being produced by this James Webb telescope recently but if you just look at those images and the billions and billions of stars that are out there the stars that are infinitely greater than the sun the sun that is infinitely the earth and you and I are just little puny dots on the earth and you think about this is just a small small small percentage not even 1% of the kingdom of God he does not need anything he owns all of this he doesn't benefit from it it's for our benefit and so our orientation now has to think that it's not a debt we owe to God because he needs something he it's our life belongs to him as well إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِيُونَ we say are we belong to Allah and to him we will return it's say Allah says look I'm giving you life and I'm testing you I'm going to see if you pass the test and the best way to pass the test is to fulfill the things that I asked you to fulfill to benefit your own self because if you benefit yourself spiritually in this life you will ultimately attain a state of nearness to Allah and then you'll feel at peace you'll finally feel at peace it's like when the baby is crying and crying and crying and finally the mom the dad as well but especially the mom picks up the baby and holds the baby close the baby just stops crying the baby had a need it had a need for attachment and for for that to be close and now the baby stops crying and it feels comfortable at ease maybe it falls back to sleep the human being is in this dunya crying until we return back to Allah we're not at peace the only way to attain a state of peace is to do the things that give us peace which is Islam is peace and the one who submits to Allah the Muslim will attain the سلام and the Islam and they'll attain the state of peace and now this person will be in a state of complete tranquility and it will only have benefited them not have benefited Allah and Allah and Allah knows best is that does that help yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes 100% 100%都是 متوفرات المضافة لإنسان إداء إذا كنت تحاول أن تحبب المدفع out of everything نعم نعم نعم 100% لا أعرف ساء الله لا أعرف ساء الله لا أعرف ساء الله ساء الله لا أعرف ساء الله when I meant there it's not other human beings that our acts don't benefit Allah if human beings are praised the more society around them benefits then that's a very very the more righteous a community is the more benefit the society will have the more light that will exist the more spiritual goodness that will exist إذا فى فاهم الشيطان يقال في دبي إذا فى فاهم الشيطان يعمل على المساعدة إذا فى فى فى فى ف abajo في المساعدة سنحظر جيدا سنمس وضع جيدا و أما تساعد أن تزال الثلاثة فلن يستطيع التطور على الأمر. و هذا موضوع مختلف و قد يكون هناك نقل أسلحة بجانب. ولكن الشرطة الإسلامية حفظها على الأمر الأسلحة، أن نحتى أن نعرف ما نفضلنا معاً. و بل أن أقل هذه المساعدة الموجودة, أماماً أن أحد يتساعد، و أماماً أن السلتة الموجودة يتساعد من بالبتداء. و أماماً أنها مفتوعة للمسلم ليس ليس لهم و ليس لهم وعليك يشكر بفائرهم ومساعدهم وكما أنها حولهم. فالتصالح يبدو أن يكون مردوحة بسرعة المسلمين. وذلك فهذا هو why the Sahaba were few لكن كل الناس يعملون بسببهم. ولماذا نحن كثيراً بلنين وحده وشعوين ونحن نحن مضعون كذلك لأننا لن نفتح هذه الأسئلة أخرى. هل لديك... نعم، انتظار! نعم، نعم، نعم، نعم. نعم. نعم، نعم، نعم. إنه جميل. شكراً لك for those online that the brother was just mentioning that the prayer gives you a chance, number one, to have structure like a degree simpline that just doesn't exist in other, sometimes in other traditions and also that kind of a connection that you just can, you get to be with Allah and it's meditative and then afterwards you get a chance to express your needs to Allah and to talk to Allah and it's just a really, really beautiful thing. انت انت بتبع Mmm ... to Islam right. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. انه كبير! لقد كتبت مهمة حول المسلمة كمجموعة بحجم الخطوط في البحاجة حتى كمجموعة أصدقان الأخي لقد أضع الشمس وبعضنا في أكثر كذلك هل تجربون هذا؟ إنه رجل أحياء و're just completely we've forgotten and that's a very very important point The thank you for sharing that that relationship someone builds with Allah ابقائه sees then it is nothing better than it is nothing better in life nothing no amount of money no amount of prestige no position in power nothing better than having a great relationship with God because you find you feel at home you feel like where you belong which is to know a lot okay so there's another anybody have any questions yes sorry I a little louder here yeah فالسؤال هو أنه إذا كنا نقوم بسيطة في مجموعة سن that may be the cause of us missing our prayers ما would we do to remedy that so there's two aspects to it first is to sincerely repent to Allah and very much single out that sin that we've done or the sins we've done and say Allah like I do not want to do this anymore I'm sorry that I didn't please forgive me because the sin is a shackle and it blocks somebody that will come onto the path so we ask that Allah forgives that and he basically then in each other will remove that thing that's straining us the second then is to sincerely aspire to leave that sin where we may fall back into it at some point but we make the intention and we really try and we think through in life how can we leave it how can we stop doing it we come up with whatever tactics we have to to stop to leave this sin if someone fulfills those two and they feel bad about it that is what would call Toba true repentance and it would be spelled in English T-A-W-B-A Toba and so Allah says in the Quran Allah loves the people who are turning to Him regularly in repentance so at one level it's turning to Him in repentance from the big sins we've done and the more and more that we try to get closer the more we repent for mistakes smaller sins and then you know times where we slip up and so on yeah okay I think there's just two or three questions online and then we'll go ahead and okay so what do you what do you do when you always get bad thoughts that you're prayer-advised and going to be accepted good question so you reject those thoughts first and foremost because that's assuming bad of Allah Allah is generous Allah is the Ar-Rahman of Rahim he's the most merciful the most compassionate he is a Lord who has been very good to us always and so we always assume a good opinion of Allah Allah says in the Quran that I am in the opinion of my servant I am as he or she thinks me to be so we have to assume the good opinion of our Lord that's the first thing and you have to sit with that and tell yourself that and struggle with that and you know constantly constantly tell yourself that you are assuming good of Allah until it becomes firm the second is it's okay to waiver between wondering was I sincere enough that it's going to get accepted or was I like completely heedless that it's not going to get accepted that's fine that's oscillating between fear and hope but it shouldn't be a type of worry that stresses us out and makes us think nothing is going to get accepted and the third is to believe the promise of Allah of Allah of how many promises that he's given us and that if we strive and we try and we do good we hope that his promise will apply to us and we kind of leave it we really leave it there and we place it in his hand we don't do your deeds and keep them with you do your deeds and turn them to Allah say Allah that was the best I could do please just take it and accept it right don't think that it's that you're going to eventually ever perfect it no it's you do your best and then you turn it over to Allah okay so what is the number one thing someone should focus on in the month of Rajab the number one thing so we're in the month of Rajab right now we're about the next month is شعبان and then it's Ramadan the number one thing that the scholars recommend focusing on in Rajab is doing a lot is too far a lot of repentance and Allah for forgiveness رجب is the month that someone cleans the heart شعبان is the month where they plant the spiritual seeds in the heart and Ramadan is the month where they benefit from the fruits that on those trees and so on we don't want to start cleaning the heart in Ramadan because we'll never get to plant anything or grow it right it'll just eventually we'll we want to start cleaning right now and then we begin preparing and then in شعبان we do the planting which we start to increase in our good deeds and then Ramadan we get the benefits Insha'Allah is it better to pray Isha at the beginning of the time or wait until you sleep wait until before you sleep if you can pray in congregation if you're a man and you can pray in congregation at the masjid that's the best thing to do if you can pray in congregation at home with your family some point in the time that's also a very good thing to do if the schedule works out such that you are sleeping at like a reasonable time and you you wait until you go to sleep that's also fine but if you're constantly sleeping at like 2 am and Isha came in at like 7 you really shouldn't delay until 2 every day right maybe one day or something like that you might have to do that otherwise you try to pray a little bit it doesn't have to Isha is one it does not have to be prayed right away you can pray at 9 o'clock 10 o'clock 11 but do not delay it well past okay and someone says it's good to see you we went to college together Alhamdulillah it's good to see you too thank you okay are there any other questions one day yeah so the classes are Wednesday 7 15 p.m actually no starting next week the class will start 7 30 p.m Pacific time Wednesday Isha prayer will be at the masjid at 7 15 p.m so we should come to separate Isha prayer and then we'll start the class Insha'Allah at 7 sharp and we'll try to end right around now and the lesson on the nuffs someone asked for the timing for that so that's going to be next week Insha'Allah 7 30 p.m Pacific time on Wednesday Wednesday evening Insha'Allah so for next time we'll cover the nuffs and this is like if we can learn this like most of our life will start to make sense because the nuffs is just always trying to mess with us Shaytan his tricks are strong but if they're fleeting but we talked about the nuffs it's with us it's always with us it is part of us it's and so it's it's very important to learn the tricks that the nuffs plays and so yeah we'll Insha'Allah cover that next week just Wednesday Wednesday's any other questions just the last thing and we'll make a du'a together but just really encourage everybody please keep our brothers and sisters in Turkey and Syria in your prayers as everybody knows there's been a very very very massive two massive earthquakes that happened there and many Muslims are suffering immensely and they're continuing to find more and more that have passed away there's millions that have been suffered because of the situation and so we should make it whatever we can do we should do right maybe we can't just all show up there necessarily and help out but when the umma is hurting we should feel some portion of that it doesn't mean that we take on all the pain but we feel a portion of it because these are our brothers and sisters and so at minimum that at least once a day if not five times a day with our prayers we should make making du'a that oh Allah please have mercy on them please make things easy please give them supper please give them that sakina and tranquility please just facilitate goodness and for the for the aid to reach those who are alive and for those who have passed that for them to attain the state of of martyrdom and then if we can financially give also to some organization that's doing eight efforts we should also do that as well but we you know if we read these stories on the news we should not just scroll past it as though it's a news story this is afflicting the umma and it's serious and we should feel in some way or shape or form like solidarity spiritual solidarity with our umma so inshallah we'll go ahead and make a du'a now بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العلمين الله مسألي وسلم و بارك على سيدنا محمد النوري و من ذلك الجاري which means بكل أبواري ولا أالي و صاحبي بيسلم يا نور يا الله يا رحمن يا رحيم يا رطيف يا شافي يا أرحم الرحمين يا رحم المساكين يا الله يا الله we ask you يا رب العلمين يا الله that you pardon us that you forgive us and we ask Allah that you send your special mercy and your special gentleness and your kindness and your looks and your ease upon our brothers and sisters in Syria and in Turkey and especially upon all the children and all the elderly and all of those who are suffering يا رحم الرحمن يا الله for those who have passed away we ask that you accept them into your mercy يا رب العلمين we ask that you give them the مقامة الشحادة يا رب العلمين we ask that you give them the مقامة الشحادة we ask that you reward them infinitely immeasurably يا رب العلمين for the difficult death and that you give them immense nearness to you and that you give them immense nearness to your beloved صلى الله عليه وسلم and that you give them the highest of stations in جنة يا الله we ask that you give the families of those who have lost people who have passed away or people who are still lost and they are unsure and they cannot be found that you give them immense supper يا رب العلمين we cannot even imagine the tragedy the pain and the suffering and the worry يا رب العلمين يا الله we ask that you give them to slim and acceptance of this difficulty and this test that they are facing and that you allow them to turn to you يا رب العلمين we ask that you pour سكينة upon their heart we ask that you there is some wisdom behind everything that you do and while outwardly it is difficult for us to see what you have prepared for these people for their test in the next life يا رب العلمين only you know يا رب العلمين يا الله and your messenger we would wish that we could go back and go through immense difficulty and we ask you for all of us and for all يا رب العلمين but we ask that you give ثبات and strengthen the hearts of those who have lost family members and strengthen the hearts of those who are struggling and whose family members have yet to be found يا رب العلمين and we ask that you put توفيق and facilitation and the aid efforts and the relief efforts and all of the efforts of all the people who are يا رب العلمين يا الله please help them find people please يا رب العلمين especially help the children يا رب العلمين the young children يا الله the young children who may have lost their parents or who may have no one يا رب العلمين they do have you يا الله please help them and take them into your mercy يا رب العلمين يا الله please يا الله give them give them cures for many diseases or problems يا الله the area has been hit by immense immense difficult relief efforts and facilitate whatever is going on there يا رب العلمين يا الله this is not difficult we ask يا الله those who are in immense difficulty and immense pain we ask يا الله that these brothers and sisters who are in immense pain who are confused and who are unsure what to do next يا رب العلمين that you help them and that those who still alive that you give them himma and that you give them توفيق and give them ability to trust in you and make this a means of nearness to and pour your mercy and your wealth upon them يا رب العلمين we ask يا الله that you help our brothers and sisters in our umma everywhere that they are struggling يا رب العلمين the people of Sham in Syria have been struggling now for a long time يا الله please give them relief الله هم a فرج umma تسيدنا محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم give فرج and relief to the umma of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم يا رب العلمين this is an umma that he loves يا رب العلمين and that he prayed for every night and that he asked for relief and for help and have mercy and mercy on this umma and have mercy on the people of Turkey and the people of Syria and the people of Palestine and the people of Kashmir and the people of Afghanistan and the people of Myanmar and the people of Libya and the people of Iraq and the people in all the Muslim countries يا رب العلمين that are struggling يا الله يا الله there are so many people who are suffering in some way, shape or form we ask that you pour your mercy upon them and that you unite us as an umma and that you allow us to focus on helping each other as much as possible يا رب العلمين except whatever good it is that we are trying to do يا رب العلمين that you make whatever good it is that we are trying to do a means of good for this entire umma يا رب العلمين we ask that you allow us يا الله to all be in your mercy يا الله to be all be under the shade of your throne and the day of judgment يا رب العلمين that we are all close to you and to your messengers صلى الله عليه وسلم and give us firmness to implement the teachings that we have learned يا رب العلمين and pardon us for any mistakes that we have made and that give us assistance to word of the shaitan يا الله يا الله from us يا الله we ask that you for everything good the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم and we ask you for protection for everything evil that you ask protection from us صلى الله عليه وسلم بارك على سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبي صلم والحمد لله يا رب العلمين السلام عليكم ورحمة الله