 Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, رب العالمين والسلام على سيد المرسلين سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه وسلم الجمعين اللهم سلي وسلم وبرك على سيدنا محمد نورك الساري ومن دادك الجاري وجمعين بيث كل أطواري وعلى آله وصحبه وسلم يا نور يا أيها الذين عامنا واتقوا الله حقد تقاته ولا تموتنا إلا وعنت مسلمون We start by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala the one who created us and created the heavens and the earth and the one who continues to sustain us and we send blessings and salutations upon his chosen Prophet and our beloved Sayyiduna Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam who gave us this beautiful message of Islam this message that is meant to inspire us this message that is meant to calm our lives down this message that is meant to purify our hearts this message that is meant to give us an internal happiness that is going to sustain us inshallah in this life and in the next and yet even though he gave us the most perfect of messages many of us have altered our view and our understanding of this religion many of us miss the mark and many of us see people who are practicing this religion or who may be implementing this religion in a way that it should not be implemented and we get turned away we say we're not we're not about that we're not trying to be like that those people aren't fresh that's not the way i want to do things and in that we miss what the focus of this religion is if we are not finding that our lives are more stress-free more calm that we have more mercy in our hearts that we're more tranquil people that we are kinder people that we are better people overall as we practice this religion and something's going on either we're not understanding it correctly the people that we're learning from we may be mis implementing what they're teaching us or we're not implementing something correctly and what are some of these major abstractions that we've seen of this religion you have some people who the entire focus they've made it seem is about the outward and hey if you have it beard up to a certain length if you wear your pants in a certain way you got it down and that's it your religious person nothing else matters and yes those are important there's not a single sunnah that's not important those are important pieces but that's not the whole story there are other people who have made it seem that the whole focus of this religion is hey i got to wear a thulb i got to wear salar kameez i got to wear a certain type of outfit that's culture religion does not have a clothing except for modest clothing that is the type of clothing in the traditions of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam we see him wearing wearing various types of dress but people see that and they get turned away and they say look like i got to wear i'm not trying to wear that all the time so i can't be religious we see these outward dimensions and we see the way that people may turn us away from the outward dimensions and so we miss the entire beauty of everything lying in between because of the way that maybe people are practicing this or some people the whole focus every single thing is limited to their confined world view this is bidah that's bidah you can't do this this is innovation this is haram that's haram everything is haram whereas in reality in our religion the basis of the sharia is that things are permissible unless the scholars have deduced from their knowledge and from what the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam said that things are haram and so they'll just stay they make it seem like you can't have any fun you can't celebrate birthdays you can't have a birthday cake you can't do this you can't do that because everything is innovation if you studied and looked into the religion a little just a little bit deeper you'd see people like imama haddad one of the greatest scholars of the history of islam who identify that there are various categories of innovation there are things such as good innovations there are things such as the introduction of the tarawee prayer in in jama such as the multiple adans in juma that weren't there at the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam but they were implemented later as what are called bidah hasana but again people will stop and they'll just see something bad and they'll just immediately or see something that is not completely in line with their world view and they'll run away from it and in that we miss so much or we have people who again religion is at the forefront and i see this you see this a lot in the muslim world you have people who look very religious they act the part they play the part they really try to fit the part but then you know they're they're they're rude to their wives their mean to other people they're corrupt they're cheating in the government all of these types of things and if you go back home to our countries you see this type of behavior all the time which has en masse turned people away from the religion and so then amidst all of these different types of categories it's pretty tough to be here and be like yeah i want to be religious when you see so many people that are really missing the mark but what is then the core focus of our religion we see it as two main focuses that the scholars have identified as the focus of this religion the first is to purify yourself to attain a complete state of inner submission and peace in the quran allah says successful is the one who purifies themselves or himself and destroyed is the one who does not so that's the first piece is to really focus on this inner purity and we'll talk about that in a bit and to attain this inner state of tranquility and submission and the second main focus is to use your life to serve creation and to eventually know allah and we did not create mankind and jinn except to worship me and ibn abbas the chief commentator in the quran says that means except to know me and knowing allah is not just to read a book about who god is that's not how you know allah knowing allah is an experiential reality which comes with implementing the beautiful traits of this religion and finally the deepest part is that the heart yearns to love its creator it wants its creator and it's missing its creator and we cover the heart with so much stuff so much stuff that it's like the windshield in the morning when you wake up and it's super super cold and everything is foggy and you can't drive you got to clear it up you got to let the fog unsettle and the same way the heart needs to be unclouded and so if we believe that those these are the major focus of the religion and we put aside all of these abstractions that not the religion itself but human beings have made it seem like that's the religion then we can start on this path towards inner peace and look there's not a single person in this room whether you're a kid or whether you're an adult that you don't want to be stress-free every single human being wants to live a life without anxiety every single human being wants to live a life in a state of serenity in a state of tranquility and sometimes we think that the whole focus of this religion is only about the next world yes to a degree it is but we are told to pray for good and we are told to pray for good in this life and the next life and what is the good in this life the commentators they say it means living a life in a state of happiness and tranquility living a life in a state of obedience of God that gives you this inner peace and so then if we accept that hey this is the goal then let's think a little bit about how exactly do we do it the more and more that we cover this heart the more and more that we sin the darker and darker the heart gets in the hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam narrated in sunan atir midi the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam says verily when the servant commits a sin a black spot appears on the heart and if they abandon the sin they seek forgiveness then the black spot goes away but if they continue to sin the black spot continues to grow and the darkness continues to grow and when you do something good a light appears in the heart think about the heart is kind of like a bank account and a deposit of light is entered into the heart and in those moments when you're really really stressed or really worried that light shines forth and it keeps you in a completely calm completely tranquil state because you are trying to achieve this inner state of submission and peace to Allah but that takes work and so what is the work that it takes it takes making sure that we are controlling our limbs our limbs are the are the quickest door to the heart each limb our eyes our ears our hands our feet all our private parts they all have a door into the heart and so we're just going to talk briefly about a few of the limbs and just some of the things that that i know i struggle with and i'm sure a lot of other folks definitely struggle with when it comes in relation to some of these limbs let's start with the eyes the eyes the scholars say are the fastest door to the heart looking at something you should not be looking at immediately has an impact on the heart and so what's very very common in our society especially amongst men today you're walking you're in college you're you're walking in the mall you're at work whatever it is and you see a girl wearing some some revealing clothing immediately you start checking her out you start looking boom black spot enters and you look for a little longer black spot enters or you're there facebook instagram and you're just scrolling and scrolling and you got some friends who are posting some you know pretty revealing photos black spot black spot black spot continues to tend to or you might even be to the extent that hey you know you have an issue and you are constantly with technology alone in your room and bad thoughts enter your heart and pornography is a very real problem we should not be shy to talk about this problem in our community and so then you do something that you shouldn't be doing boom black spot black spot and immediately the heart can get ruined especially from these types of nude evil images that enter but we're human beings and we're going to slip up what do you do then you're supposed to try and repent and we'll talk about this but what happens is the stress and the anxiety continues to accumulate and accumulate and you wonder why am i so stressed out about some test why am i so stressed out about like my my meeting tomorrow with my boss said what's up with me why am i always stressed what well think about it it might not be that specific situation that's stressing you out it's because the heart is not illumined the heart is in a state of darkness and the sins are continuing to accumulate there and the the sins of the eye can go on and on the scholars define it they say that looking at the faults of a muslim is one of the the things you should not be doing looking even more about the haj the sheikh of sheikh Hamza you said that looking at something haram looking at something that is haram to do is haram to look at so even looking at intense killing and all of these things it's ruining the heart slowly and slowly slowly but if we just focus on a major problem which is let's say looking at the opposite gender with lust fastest way to ruin the the heart so we move on then to the next limb let's talk about the ears all right very very common the ears are also a very quick door if you notice when you listen to something if you listen like i could still repeat the whole spongebob squarepants theme song to you right now because i watch that show all the time as a kid it like doesn't go away had i spent my time doing something better maybe that would have stuck in my memory but it but it didn't and so whatever you listen to it has an impact on you and so now most of us were there in our car we're bumping some music we're listening to jay-z little wane we're listening to you know Beyonce or whoever it is that we're that we're listening to and what happens what are they saying dropping the f bomb here saying do this to this girl do this to that girl and we might not even really even be paying how much attention but every single time something negative is uttered boom an impact happens in the heart black spot accumulates black spot accumulates and your heart starts to transform to take the shape of the actions that they're talking about without us having any idea and you don't need to go farther than the rap industry or then hollywood to see the types effects this has on people when their whole life becomes about it okay and let's say that maybe maybe that's not necessarily something you're you're you're focused on just even sitting there you're sitting with some friends and what are they they start talking man do you see that that guy he didn't get into any college yet he was so stupid he wasn't supposed to get in any way you see that auntie you know but they split up yeah of course they split up she didn't deserve that backbiting backbiting backbiting the ear just listening to backbiting is extremely detrimental to the heart and so now it happens black spot black spot black spot and the accumulation gets worse and worse and worse and we have physical health which we try our best to take care of we have our mental health we try our best to take care of and then we are some of us do at least right and there are there are resources available now in our communities to help those of us who are struggling there and then we have our spiritual health which most of us neglect we don't realize that if we are not spiritually healthy things are going to go bad and so again the heart accumulates all of these difficulties so you move on then okay from the ears and let's talk about the tongue one of the chief components or one of the chief limbs that creates a lot of problems the what imama ghazali says in his ahia lumideen in the book on trying to purify the tongue he says whatever you speak then directly goes and has an impact on the heart it literally takes a shape and the heart transforms to fit according to that shape i'll give you an example let's say that you have an angry outburst at your child or an angry outburst at your wife or an angry outburst at at the guy who is late giving you your french fries angry outburst of somebody that trait of anger now starts to manifest in the heart because it was set on the tongue it's a very metaphysical reality every time you say the f word you are manifesting something on your heart that you don't realize realize every time you lie to somebody you lie to your boss you like about being sick when you're not actually sick you lie on your taxes you lie to your friends you lie to your parents you lie to your colleagues whoever it is that you lie to darkness accumulates darkness accumulates and again if our whole goal here what do we talk about was to get to the state of inner peace inner submission inner tranquility then these sins of the tongue continue to create a state where we're not going to be able to do that because the heart gets darker and darker and darker or we might be in the state where we're not listening to the gossip or back fighting we're the ones doing it and this doesn't even happen happen to the tongue anymore most of the time it happens with our hands on facebook right where we just love talking smack about other people but let's say that you just want to talk smack about somebody it could be your friend it could be a sports team it could be anybody and you just love railing on it boom more and more darkness more and more darkness to the point where we have to really understand the prophet sallallahu wasallam said that backbiting is worse than adultery and it's a it's a literal hadith it's not some metaphorical thing so if any of your children were to go and sleep with somebody before they got married you'd be pretty pissed and if you were to do that yourself you'd feel really regretful but we talk smack about people all the time and we don't even care because we don't have the framework correct right and the scholars identify you can repent from that sin of adultery but you wrong someone's honor and you can't repent from that properly until they've also forgiven you you should repent but that person has to all uh you you've you've wronged their honor in that moment so the prophet sallallahu wasallam said for the one who protects what is in between their in their mouth and what is in between their two legs meaning their private parts in their tongue i can guarantee for them jannah because those are the two easiest things to lose control of especially in this society and so then you move on and there are other sins of every single limb the hand has sins the hand likes to pick up a joint or a blunt to smoke it likes to drink it likes to do all these things it likes to touch people and wrong hand can have many sins the feet will walk to places that are haram to go to these are all normal problems that are being struggled with in our society today and we have to recognize them and we have to realize that in the long term 20 30 40 50 years out they're going to ruin us spiritually and they're going to get us to the point where we're just in a completely stressed out state and finally the heart itself has diseases once you move on from the diseases and the sins of the limb the heart has many it has envy jealousy love of this world hatred love of praise love of leadership all of these things are diseases of the heart and i would recommend reading she comes to use this book purification of the heart which lists like 30 something diseases and how do you actually work on them to get that interstate or purity but now imagine and again we're not going to cover every single limb imagine you have a child and that child needs milk it needs nourishment and instead of giving the child milk you go and you give it urine every day to drink and and you just go and you use the rest room and then you say drink this first of all the child pretty quickly is about to get sick and if it doesn't get sick right away its kidneys are going to be damaged and eventually that child is about to die why because the child was not created for and is not supposed to be drinking urine for nourishment it's supposed to be drinking milk in the same way you can take anything that you're not supposed to be doing and if you do it long enough that gets sick your eyes our ears our mouth our heart they were not created for the things that we're spending our time doing and your Lord our Lord is calling us back and saying look come back to me i'm spending all my time thinking about you i am sustaining you at 98.7 degrees for the majority of your life i am keeping your eyes moisturized enough for you to be able to function and you're checking out a girl with those eyes i'm making sure your tongue is able to work and you're spending time cussing with that tongue or going off on people and angry fits of rage or yelling at people or lying that's what you're doing he's saying okay i'm gonna forgive you i'm gonna forgive you just come back to me because i know that deep down inside you're just troubled and you're missing me your prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam our prophet sallallahu wasallam is saying i would weep for you every single night he would say umati umati weeping weeping weeping and which tier of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam his blessed tears his blessed face which tier is the reason that we are muslim today and then we're gonna go to him and saying i spent my life doing things that i shouldn't be doing our eyes were created for the reason of looking at the prophets allah wasallam that is the reason why they were created and eventually in the next life to look at the divine countenance of allah they were not created to look at the things we're looking at our new speeds and in society that's not the point of our eyes our ears were created to hear the words of allah to hear the divine address they were not created to hear little wane all the time that's not the reason why our ears were created and it is ruining us when we spend our life doing that our tongue was created for a very real purpose it was created to do thicker of allah to say nice things to human beings to be kind to people it was not created to cuss all the time to go off on people to be angry to be rude to be a total jerk that's not the reason why our tongue was created and our heart was created to love allah to to have knowledge of allah to contemplate allah not to just fill our heart with all of these other things and so we really have to try and inshallah get back to the reason why we are created as kulu qawli hada was taqfirullah li walakum wa jimein muslimin wa taqfiruhu innahu hu l-gaburah So how do we fix these we'll just briefly cover how do we fix some of these things I'm just going to note down three or four things that the scholars suggest in their books imama ghazali in his book the beginning of guidance suggests how exactly do you go about fixing these so for the eyes five brief things that we can do the first is just start by being aware of the major wrongs that we're doing every single one of us knows what's difficult for us we all know what it is and especially the men in this room you know what you struggle with in this society and we have to just admit it and we have to tackle it head on second identify what is it that you're actually going to do if it's a certain certain girl that it is or a certain place you go to or a certain time of day if you're on your campus or whatever it is just try to avoid that right you have to know and identify practically what you can do thirdly for the eye just force yourself many time and time again to lower your gaze it's not easy the first time it's not easy the hundred thousand time it's hard but it gets easier and easier because the darkness is replaced with light the fourth is don't be alone with your phone or computer if you struggle with looking at things that you should not be looking at because we know the amount of effect that that has and the fifth is increase your thicker and your prayers if you're not doing any start with one just do something and you'll see the effect and beg Allah for help beg Allah for help and the inner peace will come as you're begging just think do i want to ruin my life and have so much anxiety and stress and hypertension because i just couldn't control my gaze no guess what the two are very much linked and even if this many folks in this society don't link the two we know in our spiritual tradition that they're linked the ears five things that we can do first just slowly cut off some of those really vulgar songs that we're always listening to i remember when i was trying to stop listening to all the hip-hop and rap that i would listen to i had to do it in phases i would you can't just cut cold turkey i'm a ramadan was coming up i listen to less bad music than less bad music eventually i was like oh let me check out this classical music just listen to classic music on my drives and i was like oh this is kind of nice like i feel a bit more calm and more collected just do whatever it is ramadan is here in five weeks inshallah we can start the process now and finish it inshallah in that month third find other things to listen to find a podcast a good talk an audio book whatever it is call your friend on the phone if you're not going to back bite do something right to to keep your ears in a good state have a fourth thing is have a few minutes a day of silent time just a few minutes where things are silent and enjoy the peace and know that we yearn for that inner peace and we yearn for that inner silence the tongue just a few brief things first is find the people who you might talk smack with and distance yourself from them right if that means distancing themselves on facebook or whatsapp or whatever it is or in person don't hang out with them as much just limit how much time we spend with them secondly find the places we back bite on and limit ourselves from those places right because we know there are certain platforms that make it easier for us and third just imagine the sin of you committing adultery of you or your child or someone in your family having an affair hooking up with someone that they shouldn't be doing and now think that you're having that sin every time you back bite and just really deeply contemplate it and sit with it for a moment and realize the importance of contraining it and finally the comprehensive treatment would highly recommend reading Imam Zaid Shaker and Tukhamza Yusuf they wrote a book called Agenda to Change Your Condition where they literally talk to each of these things in detail so we should learn we should get knowledge the second thing we do just hang out with good people people who will help your heart get light instead of help it get dark and keep the larger goal in mind we're only here for a big period of time you don't want to die while looking on instagram at some girl you don't want to die while listening to m&m in your car that is not the state you want to die but the state that we live in is the state we die in and there's not going to be some we hope there is but most of the time there's not some magical change in things all of a sudden when we die a lot of people die at young ages so just keep that in mind increase you are thicker that's the fourth thing that we can do and finally we can just continually ask Allah for help and try to learn the components of this religion that can that can assist us in this affair we ask Allah to assist us immensely in this in the love of my life through you selling on the beat yeah you had enough I'm gonna sell it who's all the money to see my allah must say that I say that Muhammad lala Ali say that Muhammad come on say that I say that Rahim Allah say that Rahim and I come in the jeep Allah Muhammad fill me in a movie not yet Allah we ask you y'all let's forgive all of us to assist us in trying to purify our hearts y'allah that you purify all of our limbs all of our hearts all of our thoughts all of our states all of our steps every single thing that we go against you y'allah that you purify and you make it for you and that you help each of us in this room y'allah you know what we're struggling with and we sincerely turn to you y'allah that you assist us and that you help us stop struggling with that and help us stop the sin that we're doing was Allah was salamu ala sayyidina Muhammad wa ala ali wa sallam alhamdulillah rabil alameen aqeem as-salatu