 So we're going to continue on in our discussion that we were having around spirituality and wealth. And we were talking about what exactly are the requirements when somebody is earning. We talked about Zaka, we talked about Sadhika, we talked about the importance of charity, we talked about the importance of taking care of other people and not only being concerned about ourselves. And so just a quick recap and summary, really the idea is that as you and I start to earn money as we continue to earn money that inshallah we always have a mindset of generosity and a mindset of giving that we should, there's no problem with earning, there's no problem with earning a lot. But as long as we balance that with generosity and we balance that with giving, we balance that with taking care of other people for we're not, we're not only sent here to just live for ourselves and our own families, well that's important. We also have to make sure we live for other people. We donate, we feed people, we take care of those who are less fortunate. We don't look down on people who are less fortunate. We don't look down on people who have less than us, rather we pray for them and we feel bad that, Alhamdulillah, I've been blessed with so much, someone else has not been blessed with as much help, what can I do to support them and help them? So that was really the crux of what we had discussed and in our religion you have obligatory charity, Zakat, and you have, sorry, you have obligatory charity which is Zakat and you have optional charity which is Zakat and we want to be doing both, right? We want to make sure, of course the obligation has to happen where we're paying 2.5% of our standing wealth in Zakat and then we also want to make sure that we're portioning money every day ideally but if that's difficult for us every week and at minimum every month that we are giving money to those in need and that we are giving money to people in the community, we are donating online and so on and so forth so that Sadaqah charity becomes a core part of our life. So that was what we had focused on. We'll go ahead and get into the topic for today where we're going to talk a little bit more about how do we balance our Dean and spirituality in this kind of conversation on practical spirituality with working, right? So many of us, many of us might be in school, many of us might actually be working, we might be working full-time, we might be working part-time or we might just have the most important work to do which is the work of taking care of our family, raising our children, so on. All of this is work, right? So how do we balance being occupied with also making sure that we make progress in our Dean especially in the context of this Western capitalist society which makes everything about economic output and very little about spiritual output and so we want to, that's what we're going to focus on today. So we're going through a section now that one of the greatest scholars of this religion, Hujud-e-Islami Omar-Ghazali, he writes about this in the Ahia-al-Luma Deen in his famous book, The Revival of the Religious Sciences, on the section on earning. He actually talks about, he has a whole section here on earning and how do you balance again your Dean and your Dunya. So here's a few things that we should do, you know, kind of every day and we're going to talk about this in terms of what we should be doing when we go to work, what kind of intentions we should be having, how do we balance then the pressures of our jobs, the pressures of the workplace with our spiritual and our religion. So among the first things is to have a sound intention. So does anybody know what intention we should have when you are working, like the intention to just go and earn money to have a job to earn income? What would be considered a righteous intention for that? Yeah. To be of help? Okay, to be of help, very good. What else? Any thoughts? So among the intentions that we should have is that we are literally going to earn so that we do not have to ask others, right, because if somebody's not earning, they're going to be dependent most of the time, right? And so to be literally independent and we're always reliant independent on Allah but from other people, that would be one. To earn and provide for your family, to take care of your family, this is an obligation for men, obligation for men. You get to a certain point, somebody is married and has a family, is an obligatory for men to take care of their family and for women it's all sadhqa as we discussed last time, it's optional, it's optional charity, they get the reward of optional charity for contributions that they're making. That's a strong intention. If somebody makes that intention, the entire time you are at work, the entire time you are earning, the entire time you are navigating the difficulties of work and the stress of it, if it's physical labor, the physical impact it has, if it's more just knowledge work, the emotional, mental, intellectual impact that it has, there's reward going because the intention was there. It's very different to have that intention than, oh, I'm just going so I can put it, you know, tell everybody that the great company that I work at, that would not be considered a righteous intention, that would just be considered a dunya intention, right? So that would be another one. And then you can then you can also make the intention to use that the income that you earn to free up your time so that you can worship Allah. What I mean by that is, at some point, right, somebody may say, hey, I'm the law, I have, you know, certain amount of money coming in, I can get a little help on A, B and C things that I'm preoccupied with, right, rather than having to do everything myself and I can use that time to worship Allah. And then there's also the intention somebody can make with working where you intend to represent, do your best to represent perfect character in the workplace. What I mean by that is, in today's workplace, in today's environment, most people are acting in very, very immoral ways, right? It's usually like if somebody gets upset, there's a lot of anger that's being shown. It's not very prophetic. If somebody is coming up against a deadline, there's sometimes curse words that are being thrown out of whatever difficult environment somebody might work in, right? Maybe somebody doesn't have this, Alhamdulillah. But one of the intentions somebody can have that's a Muslim is to actually exemplify prophetic character. So someone's put in a position of leadership to exemplify prophetic leadership to someone is put in a position where they have to have a lot of conversations with people to make sure that people that they're doing so in the way that they would, that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would have done so, right? Without making people feel hurt while trying to make sure that you're addressing the problem in a straightforward manner at the same time, balancing the feelings of that person, these types of tactics, right? The very, very tactful diplomacy, you could say that in terms of the way we have conversations. So that was another intention somebody can make. If somebody is, you know someone struggling to offer them help say, hey, yeah, that might cut into my time, but can I, you know, anything I can do to help, anything I can do to assist, right? These are all good intentions and you now are doing things beyond just for your own self and now also for other people. That's just literally a small amount of intentions. There's many, many, many intentions. But the most important is we intend to we intend to Okay, this is working. Sorry about that. Okay, the audio should be better. Now we intend to do things for the sake of supporting our family. That's a really, really, really critical intention that we should be making. Okay, that should be better. Okay, so the second, the second thing to do the second major concept to keep in mind is the UNI intend to work and we hope to work so that we can also literally benefit society. And what's meant here is if everybody were to just leave their jobs, and just everybody just starts worshiping, let's say all the time I spend the whole day in the must share that whatever it is, how is society going to function? Who is going to produce food? Who is going to make transportation? Who is going to create the various technological advances that help human beings on a day to day? Right? Who is going to make the homes that someone is living in and so on, right? It's not society is work is an integral part of society and having a healthy economy is an integral part of having a healthy society. Now, the what the Muslim does here is they they say, Oh, you know what, I'm contributing in some positive way, hopefully to business to a society with the job that I have, right, or to some segment and the more righteous and scrupulous intention here would be is the work that I'm doing harming other people is the company that I'm working for ultimately harming other people. And if so, that would be there's like a very clear okay, it's Haram like weapons and weapons trade, alcohol companies, pork companies and so on that would obviously be considered Haram to work for those type of companies. Then there's ones where it's like, okay, what's the social value of the company someone's working at? What is the social detriment of the company someone's working at? What is the detriment on time that someone is spending their time on and how is it impacting the time that other people have? And so on what I mean by that is there's many companies out there that the majority of the products that they produce are just time wasters, they just take take people's time, right? So that would be a you revisit a little bit. Okay, do I really want to be spending 40, 50, 60, 70 hours a week, however somebody works, however much someone works at this type of company would be a question to ask themselves. But to make the intention when we are working to be doing so for a to provide benefit to society is also very, very healthy and very, very important. So then the third thing to keep in mind when we're at work is to not allow the work of this life to prevent us from the work of the next life. The Muslim is balanced, we are in a middle path, right? So what that means is, we go to work, we do what we have to do, but there's certain things you just draw the line on that it's like, look, I have to do this, right? So if prayer time comes, so we'll get into specific examples, for example, number one, the focus for the job, if the intention is to please Allah the intention to provide for a family is, if Allah has a requirement that comes, that takes precedence over the requirement that let's say an employer puts on somebody, right? So prayer time comes in someone's in the middle of work. It's, it's, it's critical. It's essential as someone says, yeah, I got to take five, 10 minutes to go pray, right? And you have to, we have to carve that out. That would be now if somebody starts to prioritize this, the work of this life over the work of the next life, that becomes really difficult. Allah asks in the Quran, do you see the people who trade the next world for this world? Because there are people who will trade the next world for this world. There's a man who came to the Prophet Aleyhi Salatu As-Salaam and he asked him, he said, Ya Rasulullah, make dua that I get wealth, right? I'm paraphrasing the story in the Hadith here. He said, make dua that I get wealth. And he, you know, said, he asked multiple, he said, make dua that I get wealth, right? Make dua for me, that I'm blessed with wealth. And he said, no. And then he is there. Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah, great, great. Thanks for the addition. So he said, make dua that I get wealth. I want to use it vis-à-vis the Prophet Aleyhi Salatu As-Salaam. He said, he said, you know, it didn't indicate that he would do it, right? And the man consistently asked. Now, if you're asking the Prophet Aleyhi Salatu As-Salaam, who was the most generous person to ever walk the face of the earth, at some point he's going to say yes. So he says yes. Okay, so he makes this dua. And this man now is blessed with a lot of, a lot of wealth. At that time, that would have been a lot of livestock, a lot of success in trade, right? He has now multiple, multiple animals that are worth, you could say, the equivalent of many, many, many cars and many investments in our time, right? All these investment costs. But he says, oh, he used to live really close to the masjid. And he used to come for all the prayers in Masjid the Nabooi, or many of the prayers in Masjid the Nabooi. And then he said, well, I need more land. So he has to move far away from the masjid. I can get more land, right? Because I need to have all my animals in the land. So he moves farther away from the masjid. And slowly, slowly, slowly, he stops showing up at the masjid. Now, stops showing up at the masjid of the Prophet Aleyhi Salatu As-Salaam. Now, imagine you have the honor of praying behind the last messenger and the greatest messenger of Allah, Sallallahu Alayhi Salam. And you don't, you don't do so because you have to take care of your goats, right? I mean, it's a very, if you really think about it, what is the trade off there, right? But he wanted wealth, he got the wealth. So he moves, he moves far away. And then at some point, the zakat collectors come to him. And they collect his zakat, right? At the time, obviously in the Muslim state, there's formerly people who were saying, pay the zakat. And he denies them. He doesn't, he doesn't get the zakat, right? And so now what has happened is he literally, the wealth of this life consumed him so much that he had asked the Prophet of Allah, Sallallahu Alayhi Salam, to make him, to make dua. He had made a commitment that I will use this fi sabilillah. And he went back and he had lived a pious lifestyle beforehand. But the Prophet Sallallahu Alayhi Salam knew the wealth wasn't good for him. He didn't make the dua because the Prophet Sallallahu Alayhi Salam knows he has what's called firasah, inner sight and perception. And you could come to him and he immediately knows what you're thinking, right? He understands, right? That he understands what's going on with, with that person and he will cater his advice then towards that person. And the Prophet of Allah had this at a special level. There's the saints of our time, where there are many, that they can also do this. They can come, you, someone can come to them. And if Allah blesses them, what's called, what's called a kashfin unveiling, at that time they'll be able to tell this what this person is thinking, this advice, this person needs to hear, this advice this person needs to hear and so on, right? And so the Messenger, Sallallahu Alayhi Salam, obviously this is at the highest level of perception that he has. And so he knew it wasn't good, but this man is insistent, insistent, insistent, so he did it. But look, the wealth ruined him, the wealth ruined him, right? What is that trade that we make? So the question we always ask is, is this worth it? Like, if you are in a job, if you are in a career where your Deen or our Deen is being compromised, we're missing prayers, the pressures are so intense that we're losing our cool, we're losing our character, we zoom out and we say, is this worth it? Like, is this really worth it for all the, what I'm going to get? But now, now somebody might be in a position where they're like, no, I am it. You're able to balance everything. You're praying, we're praying on time. Ideally, we're praying as we talked about, you know, six, seven sessions ago at the beginning of the time. And that means someone is balancing the work of this life with the work of the next life, right? And the next step then to get to from there is that somebody tries to add more virtuous deeds throughout the day while they're still working. What that means is, OK, you have a little bit of a break. Someone ideally, if you live close to the Masjid, you say, I'm going to go and try to get a prayer in at the Masjid, especially for men, right? For women, there's no, there's no extra emphasis on praying at the Masjid. It's preferred to pray in the home. But for men, OK, and try to go and knock out the whore at the Masjid, right? I'm going to try to knock out us, our Maghribs in. It's right after finished my workday, I'm going to try to knock out Maghrib at the Masjid. Try to go do a little bit extra because most of the time, if you are, if your boss had told you, hey, you do a little extra, you'll get a promotion, you'll get a bonus. Most of us would be, yeah, I got it. I'll take up more. I want to, right now, Allah is saying, do a little extra, right? Now I'm going to give you more. We take, we take that up, right? And we make sure we apply the same standards of, of, at minimum, the same standards of growth that we would apply in our, in our dunya to our deen at minimum. The virtuous thing is to apply way higher standards to ourselves in our deen and say, I want to always go above and beyond in my deen. And I work out, you know, I want to do a great job, but like, I don't have to always just be going, you know, way overboard or doing way, way more than I'm asked to do. But in our deen, ideally, that's the level we get to. The problem comes if someone is, and this is the trade-off, someone says, you know, I'm going to go way above and beyond at work. Yeah, but I have to miss the horror. I have to miss Jomai. I have to miss this. I've missed it. That becomes a huge problem, right? And someone is just completely or works so late that now Fajr just becomes a problem, right? That means something's off, usually not with the job, with our, our balance. Usually something needs to be calibrated. And so we want to spend time calibrating that. There's three things. Just quickly say these three things and we'll get to it. Three things I would do. First is the beginning of, of the time a job starts, right? Someone just really makes it clear to themselves what are their priorities? Right? Okay. My priority is to make sure that I do this job well. I do it with ihsan and itkan and perfection and my best of my ability. And at the same time, I do it while balancing the obligations of my deen. The second step is practically you lay out your calendar for the week and someone says I'm going to make sure my prayer times are blocked off. And for sure, I'm going to make sure my Jomai time is blocked off. The third is somebody has a conversation, you ideally have a conversation with your manager. These days it's pretty easy remote. It's not hard to just like make sure you get trying to pray and over you. But you let them know like I got certain things to do, right? Among this, I got to take an hour on Friday. Got to make sure I go to prayer. I got to take out a little bit of time, you know, in the middle of the day at noon or one or whatever it is to pray. If someone has to have that conversation, the more, the more early someone is in their career, the more junior somebody is, the more these conversations become important. If someone becomes more senior at work, very few, there's very little oversight over what they're doing. They kind of manage their own time, right? But when you're early on, everybody is checking, right? I remember my early on in my career, my manager asked me like, like, what are you going to do as you like grow for this like Friday prayer thing that you have to go to? Like, how are you going to manage it? Like, it's, you know, it's like a whole hour or whatever. I was just like, you're tripping. Like, I'm going to figure it out. Like the rest of the world figures that when you have a doctor's appointment, you go, I didn't say this. I was just like nodding, but I think in my head, like, it'll be fine. I'll do what everybody else does and take an hour on a Friday to go do something, right? But for her, it was very confusing. Why would somebody take out time in the middle of the day for something religious, right? Like that didn't make sense. And usually you'll notice it doesn't make sense for to most, to many people living in, in, you know, very, very capitalist focuses. But some people will get it. And the main thing that I just had to explain was, well, everybody takes time to do different things. This is important to me. If I got to come in earlier, I'll come in earlier. If I got to stay later, I'll stay later. If I got to not have a lunch, this will be my lunch, but like I'll find a way to make it work, right? And in most places, if they're following equal employment law, they're not allowed to say you can't do it because it's a religious requirement for somebody. So they can't discriminate based on that, right? But if it's impacting your work severely, they can say, hey, look, I noticed that your prayers are impacting your work. So what's going on? That's highly unlikely if someone is, you know, doing things properly. So that's the second main thing is that somebody lays this out and comes up with their own practical schedule and approach. And then someone lays it out with their, with their manager and so on. Okay, so we'll go to the next one. Yes. So I was just going to say that you know, this whole dean is teaching us like a way of thinking and a way of living. So even when we're in our work, like part of the challenge is to apply those teachings and that liberty, that spirituality. When we're in our work and not just like capitulate to the like egotistical, really like hardcore, money money, and selfless selfish, we take that spirituality into the workplace as well throughout our day. So that's how, you know, we don't want to compromise that similarly to the other things. Right. That's a very good point. And what it's really, really important. Somebody gave me this advice once through this. I said, when you go to work, see all of the difficulties that happen to you as Tarbia. Tarbia means like spiritual rearing, that when somebody is, nuffs is being challenged and just struggling, your ego is being, you're, you're struggling and you have to resist against the basic human temptations to just lash out at people and to just lose your cool and to just be arrogant and so on. The basic human tendencies that everybody has and our requirement in our dean is to work on them is to purify ourselves and to become better people. And so when I started looking at it like that, at least for the, for the, for the time that that advice like really hit me, it was helpful because I was like, oh, well, when I deal with this difficult person, I can just make the intention them, inshallah, if I do it correctly, my character will improve. Because one of the ways Allah tests you, he says that we will test you. We have made some of you a test for others. Will you not be patient? And that could be literally, your boss could be a test for you. Your coworker could be a test for you. And many times there are many. And we ask that Allah prevent us from being tests for other people. We have to always ask ourselves introspectively, hold on, am I the person who is making life difficult for somebody? And like just really being like, having the wrong type of approach with them and am I being a test for them? So that would be something we, that we try to ask ourselves and that we keep in mind. And yes, someone asked, can we think of it as tarbiyah if we face difficulties in university? Most certainly, yes. And this is any time in life, if you face a difficulty, whether it's with, it could be your friends, it could be your family, it's all tarbiyah if the intention is to improve yourself based on that, right? So remember, that you can't get better until you are put to the test. That's usually from how it works for most people. Really difficult to just improve, right? You can't, if you're just like theoretically living and you're like, well, I read about the fact that if I, you know, if somebody pushes my buttons, I'm not supposed to get angry. So I've conquered anger, all right? And now next thing you know, you leave the box you're living in and someone gets mad at you and you just lose your cool and flip out on them and then you talk smack about them afterwards. It means that the concept of anger may have been instilled intellectually, but it's not instilled spiritually. You have to actually apply it. So Allah says in the Qur'an that we, He says, do you think that you could just say you will believe and then you will not be put to the test? He says, how could you say that? He says, you will be put to the test like those who came before you will be put, were put to the test so we can see which one of you is true, right? So like you and I can think, yeah, I figured it out. It's all good. And then Allah is like, yeah, let's see. And we ask Allah that Allah doesn't test us. We don't want that. But there will be little moments in life and big moments. We're just like, man, a character being squeezed right now and it could come up in the most random place. It could come up in university. It could come up at the workplace. It could come up in the masjid. It could come up in the community. Many times it happens in a community where there's just a couple of people they're difficult to deal with and you just have to be like, how am I going to be patient with them? Right? And to not let one time I was on a plane and there were just like some guys extremely difficult and he was like reading really he was actually reciting Qur'an but like super loudly on the plane when everybody's asleep. And I was just turned around and I was like, excuse me, can you keep it down? Like everybody's sleeping on it. This is not the right adab. We don't want to portray the Qur'an as something that is going to you know wake people up like when you're but you want to be woken up spiritually because you don't want to be on plane. You don't want to be woken up. This is not the people here aren't even Muslim. Right? So like you have to present it and he got it I think on the love but like I guess nobody had explained that fact to him. Right? And we have to do so in a patient way. My nuffs wanted to turn around and turn around and say shut up man but obviously you can't do that. So you have to be okay. How do I approach it nicely? How do I come up with a tactful way to say it? Right? And I do but that is somebody might be put to it in some type of test. Someone might push your button. Someone might say something wrong. So yes it can happen in university. It can happen in family. It can happen in community. It can happen at work. And all of these are meant to be ways of tarbiyah of spiritual elevation. Right? And you will see what the prophets Allah is alem if you read his Seerah and his biography it happened all the time. The people with the absolute worst character ever would come to him and just do the craziest things. The craziest things. And in most most literally the Sahaba would be like they would take out their swords and be like we'll take care of this person. And he'd be like no no no. Because he had such expansive character. Right? Somebody came to him once and they literally pulled his collar and he had a he had a rough collar such that it left a huge mark on his neck. They pulled it from behind him. And they command it. They lived and they spoke to him in the rudest of ways. Right? And they asked him about you know some money that they wanted. And the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said no Omar now immediately is like let me take care of this guy. The prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was like oh the Allah and he's like no no no no. He deals with it very gently. He calms the man down. Right? Even though he was hurt and you can't you shouldn't do that to any human being let alone to the messenger of Allah. Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Right? That person was immensely in the wrong. But the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam everything is a teaching moment. And so when somebody becomes of expansive spiritual nature they'll still see everything as a teaching moment. With their children. With their family. With their community. And certainly with people who they're around often let's say co-workers. Right? So they're like okay let me try to give you a better example because maybe you've never seen a better example. Right? Maybe someone is like you maybe you've never seen how things are done in a beautiful way. Well the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam taught us how to do everything in a beautiful way. Maybe we can exemplify that. And that will be a means of somebody's guidance or at least considering that that they will that there's a different way to do things. The next concept is to not neglect the thicker of Allah at work. What does that mean? That you can reach a state where you are present here with whatever you need to be doing but your heart is with Allah. What that means is you remind yourself at the beginning of the day at minimum. Right? So practically speaking at the beginning of the day start your day with the dua that Ya Allah make this easy for me. Ya Allah I ask that you facilitate work for me. There's all these dua's the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us to do for when things are difficult. Allahumma la sahla ilama jaal du sahla that dua for when things are difficult. There's a dua for entrance we did at the beginning of the class. It's a dua from the Qur'an. Rabid khidni mudkhala siddh wa khirijin mukhraja siddh wa jaal ni'min lukas khopana nasirah that it's a dua that Allah allow me to have a truthful is like the most pious truthfulness possible entrance and allow me to have a truthful exit and give me a special divine assistance from your presence you could say. Right? You can make that dua. I remember that my wife's grandmother actually told me make this dua every day when you start your day at work and I tried now at least most of the days when I remember okay I gotta make this dua because and when you enter into any place right there's other dua someone can make the call upon Allah by the name Ya Fattah O opener Ya Razak O the one who provides right there's a there's start the day with the Fatiha and minimum start the day with the bismillah minor heem but don't just like log in and start doing stuff without remembering Allah first right that would be the the main thing and then at the end of the day somebody should also remember Allah and the dua to do there is that to ask Allah just 30 seconds Ya Allah make it easy for me help me with whatever challenges I'm going through accept the work that I'm doing and to make the dua when somebody is sitting down you make a dua for when you get up and all your sins are wiped away subhanakallahom wabih hamdekunashadu allay lehaina staghdurqa na tubuilay that would be that's a good dua to do you get up from your seat in any anything we might have said or something we love looked at or something we listen to we're distracted by or somebody we might have talked bad about inshallah all those sins are wiped away while at work that's that minimum what we try to aspire to then is how throughout the day we get little pockets of time and we feel a little bit of that time with vicar so we're working and remembering Allah otherwise what happens is the whole week becomes about dunya and dunya and it's very difficult to detach and then and then on the weekend we usually want to relax and and relaxing in this case you know socialize and so on and then it's very difficult to actually get time to worship worship comes when it's gone consistently and regularly and it has to become an integral part of our day like that by by day i mean weekday as well right it has to be part of it has to become a habit so somebody ideally says okay i'm gonna try and after lower at 2 p.m i'm gonna just do ten salawat and they were make a recommendation they make a note for themselves okay i'm gonna do ten salawat alham salat alham salat alham salat alham salat and you work your way up to as such that that when Ramadan comes and we're about you know what is it 14 15th of Rajab we're a month and a half in Ramadan somebody already is in his own where even during work there's a little bit of thicker that's going on someone sitting in a meeting and just listening and and then you're just a little bit of saqrullah in your head and a little bit of praising Allah and salawat right there there's a lot that we could do but the main thing is that we do something extra right that we do something extra and that that reward the reward for that is immense because you're in a place where the majority of people are heedless are not remembering Allah so when there's one person remembering Allah and very few other people are remembering Allah there's a lot of spiritual attention that that person is attracting from the angels because nobody else is remembering Allah in that place right and so that's that's something that we should keep in mind inshallah the the next principle here is to not just be like so chasing just so covetous of money that that's what it becomes that's what everything becomes about right because wealth creates can create a sick can create a disease in the heart right the love of wealth with a no balance of generosity and these other traits can create a disease in the heart right and so you want we want to make sure that it's not like oh my god I just gotta earn this much money money money money money money and it's just all about in the conversations that we have about money everything's about money and in very little time then do we devote to any other conversation and one of the ways to gauge where we're at is what are the types of things we talk about do we spend time talking about just family and how someone's doing in a community and then if we have if we can spend some time talking about the stories of the prophets the Prophet's Islam's life throw an example of the Prophet's Islam in our conversations I'm talking about just in general not necessarily at work but like afterwards when we're socializing and so on but if every conversation that we have is just about money and investments and how to make more money and capital increasing strategies and so on there's a that's that would be a problem that would be a problem especially and that shouldn't be done we talked about this in etiquette in the Masjid that shouldn't be done in the Masjid the Masjid is a place for worship of Allah not a place for you know business discussions that usually can happen you know outside the next the sixth principle here is to avoid anything that's doubtful at at work and to avoid using the money for anything that's doubtful so what does that mean that means is ask one or two layers deep and these are not requirements these are these are virtues one or two layers deeper past the question of okay is what I'm doing like could it be messing someone's life up could it be hurting somebody could this and this and this be happening right so like today I was just randomly saw this this this fairly famous technology company on the internet and I was like oh what products do they have and they have like this whole product that is about helping military defense optimize their military strategies and I was like oh man that's the best so basically they're they're helping you kill more people right like that's that's a fancy way of saying that that would be a big problem if someone was the one selling that software that's like a very obvious haram right if someone but if someone is like hold on is what I'm doing could it be potentially supporting something bad is it for a bad cause right that would be a question to ask ourselves and we talked about this a little bit earlier and then the the other main one seven principle here is to be very scrupulous and careful about what we say with and be very careful with our speech at work right so what does that mean that if somebody is selling let's say someone's a businessman or a business woman they're they're they're they're in sales you want to be careful to not lie and exaggerate be like yeah my product does all this stuff and your product does nothing does like 10% of it that actually happens a lot of exaggeration sometimes in certain you know that would be considered a lie right a lot doesn't differentiate be like no no you were just doing it so you could make your quota or you can make your money and hunt it out that would be considered like somebody made something up and lied right if your boss asks you did you do something and you're like but you didn't do it you can't say yes I did it right that would also be considered a lie so we have to be careful to make sure that we're not doing actual just normal Haram actions while at work so lying would be considered one another big one is back fighting this happens a lot right where we're bothered with somebody at work we might be bothered with our manager we might be bothered with the co-worker we might be bothered with some random team or someone's bar with a customer and first we just like talk smack right and we're just like yeah can't believe they did that what an idiot they don't know anything and we just like we do with our co-workers and we're getting the the sin for back fighting they're getting the sin for listening back and then we come home and we do with our families right then we might even like on the weekend tell some random friend about him be like yeah Joe today and like once you you take the name you take the person that's it it's back fighting right it's back fighting back fighting is considered saying anything about somebody that if they were to hear it they wouldn't like it anything so just to say that they're just so rude or they don't know anything or they're just so dumb or whatever it is all of that would 99% of the chance fall fall in in the the realm of back fighting and the qualification is not contrary to popular belief that oh I'll also say to their face that's not that that would be you'd get the sin for insulting somebody and being rude and get this in for back fighting it wouldn't doesn't negate yes if somebody is venting and they're getting into the realm of clear sin like it's back fighting then it's beyond the state of of acceptable venting right so acceptable venting that they're man and say was just so tough like that's really struggling like you know I had a tough conversation and so on and okay listen listen you you you you listen and if they want advice to give advice but if somebody is like giving name they're giving character traits they're talking bad they're including random things about that person that are completely irrelevant to like the business advice that they need right so there's one thing of someone is like you know I'm really struggling with my manager and they just don't really seem to have any structure to the way they approach things and I don't know what to do could you give me some advice that's one thing there's a whole another thing that the manager hasn't doesn't have a clue what they're doing complete bimbo right just then just and and they're also you know insert random character trait here right and they're also just a bad person and then you know they're not in whatever else somebody else might want to say that would be considered clear how to clear backfiting and in that case it's the best thing to do is to just say hey you know what like I could tell you're you're you're struggling a little bit right if this is a Muslim person that they're talking to think we're getting now beyond the realm of just the advice you might need we were getting into the but we're getting into backfiting just let's pause there a little bit maybe we can revisit when when you're feeling a bit better right and um and if they completely don't accept that advice like why you never listen to me and da da da da then you might you are still required to to leave the conversation you know I let's talk a little bit later right when things are better if some if you're in a group setting and someone is just talking badly and let's say it's in a meeting or whatever just try to avoid saying anything as much possible and then try to change the topic God you see the you know the Super Bowl this weekend like just try to change just find something to insert the change how about that coin based ad like you just come up with something and you don't you don't but you don't engage in it for sure and the best thing is to the that among the traits of this umma that's mentioned in the Quran is that you were the best people sent kuntum kheidat umma ten uh umma ten uh ukhrijat linnase you were the best people ever sent forth to humanity and that you command good and enjoying good and forbid evil and what that means in our practical setting is that as soon as someone starts getting into you know it's coming gently divert the conversation that it's completely shifted to something else right and you know that you you're just in a difficult conversation a difficult meeting with somebody who like everybody thinks is a jerk guess what even if that person is a jerk you can't say it that's backbiting it doesn't really matter how strong their reputation is of for being that so you get into a conversation everybody's just talking smack you want to try to shift the comment like hey you know what I actually have you know we actually got to get some deliverable done like let's talk about you know and then we can finish this up later yes and they start you to name what are you acceptable for you to tell them that hey like you can invent to me about this as long as you don't like specifically call out people or things they did just why you were frustrated by it or how you were frustrated by it and like what you need to move on from it or be like a better person from it would that be like you know right that's a really good question so the question the question was it if somebody is just kind of venting right and they're they get into the realm of using names then get into the realm of openly discussing someone's like negative character traits is it okay if someone if you just say hey look I know you have a difficult situation on hand like happy to give advice let's just keep it at a general level right and you you you ask them that yeah that would be advisable for sure because giving advice is totally it's a good thing in our religion Adina Naseehad Adina is good since your advice since your counsel and so you can ask somebody hey give me the critical the critical the critical information from the situation right and don't give me names don't give me unnecessary information and don't give me anything that would be like negative but just try to give me a general summary of some of those things now that's a very logical way to look at it but human beings don't work in that way human beings need need to have the whole thing right they want to have oh no but I got to meant you got to know this person and I got it also I got to tell you that they happen to be this you know they were white also and there's like a little random information that's not really relevant but it adds color to this or lack of color to the story right so so so you might cross that situation and now you have to be like okay it's one thing if in the moment you say you know what if you're close enough with them you would want to say hey let's just backtrack a little bit like it's probably not that real information we're getting in our own backbiting and let's just talk about if you're not close to them and it's going to get really difficult what you what I would advise is and you feel like they're not going to accept it is you listen to whatever part you you you can listen to you try to change the topic of the conversation when it comes to negative things that you know what we're not going to have that much time can you just tell me the basics like I'll try to give as much as advice as possible here and then you feel you say stop for a lot in your heart for the things that were mentioned that were negative because it's not always going to be a perfect you know it's it usually will never be a perfect situation where someone is venting and you'd be like oh stop right there you're backbiting and they're like oh stop for a lie shouldn't have done that and then they'll just go into usually they won't usually you try to do that and they'll go of course it's the religious person trying to tell me I can't like that usually that's what's going to happen and then they'll be a bothered and then their relationship with you will be messed up and so there's a lot of stuff to juggle here and one of the principles by which we do enjoy good and forbidden evil in our religion is has to be done tactfully and has to be done with wisdom it cannot just be like abrupt you know lack of of tactfulness if that makes sense but it is a very serious haram very serious to talk about somebody when they're not present because you're you're damaging their honor it's very serious and it's like the amount of heat that I mentioned and the type of punishment that's meant to for backbiting it's worse literally there's there's hadith where it indicates that backbiting is worse than adultery like it's really bad right so you don't you just saw somebody like about to commit adultery you would stop them especially if they were for sure if they were close to you right the same way this type of sin you'd want to stop and so the principle when it comes to work is to try to avoid it and to make sure that we are scrupulous in our speech and for sure for sure at minimum we shouldn't be the person who ever initiates it at work we should never be those people who like initiate oh I'm sorry I didn't even look in this direction initiate the the talking smack about people yes question that's a really good question the question was if I went in here if you're a therapist I mean it's literally your job to listen to people's problems and then to give them advice I need to check on that I don't know the answer to that I need to check on and what the the right course would be I don't believe that you would just not listen that's for sure because it's literally part of your job yeah so I'll make a note to check on that inshallah just write it down same question okay yeah okay cool so okay so this kind of final principle here right to just be scrupulous in in our speech so then the next thing that I just want to get into and we'll try to finish off with this is as long as we try to create an environment in our workplace where spirituality can be at least balanced if not prioritized will be in a good spot inshallah that's really the main the main takeaway and so there's two or three practical scenarios in which this comes up the first is with Juma I already mentioned it right Juma happens sometimes people aren't able to get away from that's for sure just draw the line right for for men especially because Juma aspires to draw the line and say I have to go I need this time that would be the first the second is with this prayer times and taking breaks and so on for that again most people these days remote it's remote work it's not an issue but again just make sure we're mindful of that and we we put time on our calendar and we carve out time to be able to pray never never ever miss a prayer because of work there's very few situations in which that would be permitted someone's a surgeon doing a life saving surgery in an operating room and they're missing prayers because of that you would consider you know there's exceptions there right because they're literally saving someone's life that takes a priority over over over but other than that it's like gotta attend a meeting talk about you know a strategy a product strategy or something it's like that wouldn't count for it so in that situation it gets a little bit nuanced how does somebody I remember sometimes I would in winter time I might be in an hour and a half meeting and Doher and us are coming in so quickly it's like what do you do if it's a two hour meeting and you just have to like yeah I gotta go excuse myself I gotta go handle something you have to find a time to carve it and this would be especially when or carve a time to handle it right so that would be with with with prayer and then the third one as we already mentioned is being very scrupulous about our speech like being very scrupulous about our speech and scrupulous about what we listen to and the way we approach the way we approach it and the love and I think for today inshallah that's enough we'll get we'll get into the the rest of it next time and then we'll move on to the next into the next section so we have a little bit more left here we'll talk a little bit about stress and how to manage like stress and anxiety when it comes to work because it can get very very overwhelming and what are some spiritual tips that we have to do that and then finish off with very practical things that we can be doing throughout our day to make sure that we are we are taking advantage of spiritual shortcuts what I mean here is in life you and I have things you and I could do that take a while and then there's shortcuts that like you could do a little bit and you get a lot of reward right and when you're just you have a ton to do it's really busy life is busy you we got to make sure we take advantage of the shortcuts right among those shortcuts for example praying fajr in jamaa and being awake and until sunrise and praying salat al doha huge shortcut does anybody know the reward for that we talked about it like a while ago if someone prays fajr in jamaa it does thicker until sunrise and prays salat al doha anytime afterwards yeah yeah exactly you do get the reward for doing hajj and omra complete and the Prophet mentioned complete multiple times when he said that for literally you pray fajr say you will pray at 6.15 these days at this much should pray fajr at 6.15 someone is most of the time many people are just staying awake after fajr anyways because work starts stay up to like seven o'clock sunrise at 7.30 you pray two raka'a and as long as in that portion someone was doing some biker and was you know was was doing the biker of Allah get the reward for hajj and omra now might be hard to do that every day but we can definitely carve out time like on one day of the week right prioritize a Friday or prioritize a Saturday or Sunday or something to do that but that's well now in the busy life that everybody that everybody lives to be able to make the rent and to be able to make the house payment and the car and all the things everybody has to do right that reward goes a long way if someone shows up on the day of judgment and 52 weeks out of the year at least once they did that and they did it for 20 years right 50 hajj and omras every year right times 20 thousand hajj and omras they have a reward for and they did all of it while still juggling work and juggling life and so on right so that's an example of a spiritual shortcut that somebody could take another example of it would be that somebody makes sure that they are doing the one extra sunnah dua or sunnah surah that probably someone would recommend reciting every day they mentioned three in about many classes ago that it's encouraged to recite surah yasin every day surah wakya every day surah mulk every day those are the three surah yasin usually around fudger time wakya any time after us or in maghrib and surah mulk after ishah these each take anywhere from two minutes to like six minutes to recite quick not difficult or someone listens to them and follows along until they get them in but that would be another example of okay the short someone gets to that established every day and now they're getting the reward for do recitation of Quran and recitation for surah yes yeah definitely so the three surahs that we should try to recite every day per various hadith from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam surah yasin the 36th chapter of the Quran surah wakya the event wakya w a q i a h the 56th chapter of the Quran and surah mulk the dominion which is the first chapter in the 29th choice I don't know the number of surah you know the number of surah mulk but it is the first surah of the 29th choice of the Quran yeah so those three right and someone you really someone gets into habit of it you'll see immense facilitation throughout your throughout the week throughout the day right and then another one on Friday the sunnah surah to recite right surah kath someone says okay I had a really busy week but I for sure I'm going to take out 25 minutes or 20 minutes and probably can recite it in like this is like 11 pages probably in like 20 to 30 minutes someone can get it in you two minute two 15 minute increments throughout the day 15 minutes after fajr 15 minutes after jamma and someone can get it in surah kath has immense benefits among them you'll have a light with you throughout the whole week throughout the whole week for reciting surah kath right there's a special light that someone gets there's immense protection for the end of times protection against the the jal and a lot of other rewards right and so that would be another okay someone says oh you know again things have been busy but I'm gonna try to do a little bit extra and just get in the rhythm of doing this every Friday and then once you do it for a couple weeks you won't want to leave it because you'll have tasted the sweetness the most important thing with extra worship that someone does or even the basic worship is you do it for enough period of time and you'll taste how impactful it is in your life and you won't want to leave it because you just be like oh this is so helpful to me there's so many benefits and that's just the benefits in this life let alone all the things that are waiting for us in the next life inshallah so we'll cover a little bit more of these next time but for the sake of time we'll go ahead and end if there is are there any other questions that someone has questions questions questions with regards to this topic questions with regards to any of the other topics we've been covering okay questions yes oh yeah so the dua is subhanakallahomma yeah subhanak the name of the dua is the dua to recite after after after a gathering or after a sitting down and I mentioned that because there's a specific hadith where the provisome tells us to recite this dua after you have been sitting right and whatever was done in that gathering you will get all of it will basically be cleared anything bad that was done so I don't know if there's does anybody know if there's like a formal name to that dua I don't know if there's a formal name to it yeah yeah yeah yeah I'll I'll try to find yeah there is a there is a link that we had given maybe a while ago in the classes that there's a lot of these duas I'm talking about are all in that link so the link is tinyurl.com tinyurl.com slash orad a w r a a d slash orad and all of these the last tinyurl.com slash orad all of the duas there's there's about five or six different pdfs in that link it's just like a google drive folder and the do as that you're supposed to do every day to do us for various occasions are all in there super super super handy duas and they're there in Arabic in English and the transliteration in case someone is not doesn't know how to read Arabic yeah yeah no problem yeah I don't know the translation off the top of my head yeah that you're essentially praising Allah you're glorifying Allah in Arabic and and and glorifying him and praising him and then you were testifying to Allah's oneness and saying I testify that there's no God except Allah and then you were asking for his forgiveness when I saw for the when I saw for the film and the two really and that we ask for your forgiveness and we turn to you that roughly is what you're asking for that's like pretty comprehensive glorify Allah testified that fact that only worshiping Allah and then you ask Allah for forgiveness and then because of that everything in shall is wiped that's a big secret highly highly recommend just get in the rhythm of doing that after every meeting after every work day and then even the backbiting that did go on inshallah will be forgiven for it especially what we heard right especially what we heard and then we can make toba for what we might have actually said as well yeah what is yes I don't know the name of the that's what yeah exactly I don't know I don't even know if yeah there's a yeah no I don't know the name for that the one I'm sorry okay question online what is the best way to control the nuffs that's a good question super comprehensive question yeah that's so but the roughly two things that you do to control the nuffs the two main desires of the nuffs are what are called the two appetites for the nuffs are linked to food number one and then sexual appetite number two right and actually there's the third one is linked to anger and so the first way to control the nuffs is to control your food intake which is why fasting is a huge part of our religion it's a whole pillar of the religion the pillar of fasting is not literally only meant to be just one month out of the year that you fast from from right before fudger up until sunset and then just eat a bunch of you know eat 10 times the amount of food we would have eaten in a normal day and stuff ourselves that's not this that's not for fasting it's fasting is meant to control the nuffs and tame the nuffs because when you limit the food intake for the nuffs you discipline it and the nuffs is like an animal the scholars mentioned that it's like a riding we don't really ride animals these days so it's probably not the best analogy but it's like the idea that if you animals if you limit their food intake you can get them to be disciplined right it's one way to get them to be disciplined so in this case right or you kind of control the intake so food intake is is the first one and that would the recommendation there would be to not eat your fill to not to never overeat which is this to not eat your fill and never overeat and to if the nuffs misbehaves meaning if you did something wrong to not reward it with something extra so to actually say you know what I did something wrong today there's no way I'm getting dessert there's no and there's that's actually a there's a whole spiritual science behind rewarding and not rewarding based on how someone's behavior was right you treat it like in like a child inside of you and you say hold on a second you did this this and this today there's no way you're getting you know meat for dinner you're just having veggies tonight and if someone's used to eating meat and they tell their nuffs you're just having veggies the nuffs won't do that bad thing again right because it just the craves the food and this actually works so that would be the first one the second is sexual appetite and that's linked to the appetite for food but it's to make sure that somebody tries their best to control their sexual appetite right so that lowering your gaze would be at the foremost of that that someone is is lowering their gaze and then that somebody is preventing the thoughts the haram thoughts from coming and if they do come haram thoughts that they that they say talk for a line that they move them and the third mega appetite is anger and if you can control your anger the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam he said the strong one is not the one who defeats the other person in wrestling right like in this case you see a lot of people wrestling and boxing and the world weight champion and so on that's not the the strong person the strong person is the one who when they get angry they control their anger so the nus is also driven anger is a driving force of the nus so when somebody gets angry they control their nus and they say no no no no you're not going to control with me right now right and you you do thicker you say i would have been a shatana regime you do some thicker to comment down and then you also if you're if you are standing up sit down if you're sitting down you try to kind of lie down and then you go and make wudu with cold water and that will calm it down those are like practical ways for to control it so hopefully that helps so I think we're at time yeah question oh yeah is the link is tinyurl.com slash odad aw r aad awr aadd d is in dog tiny url yeah it's like a short link tinyurl.com slash odad odad is the plural of weird a weird is like a daily recitation of some type of vicar that somebody does every day so odad is the plural of that you're still orad against it the oh yeah awr aad d yeah yeah questions you have questions online okay inshaAllah we'll go ahead and end and that you assist us in all of our situations Ya Allah, Ya Allah, we ask that you help us Ya Allah, that you remove the anxieties and the problems and the stresses of any issues that anybody has going on Ya Allah in our life and in our family Ya Allah. Ya Allah, we ask that you assist Lighthouse Mushroom, that you assist this community with any difficulties that they are going through Ya Allah, Ya Allah, we ask that you grant us immense openings Ya Allah, Ya Allah, Ya Allah, we ask you Ya Rabbil Alamin, Ya Allah, Ya Allah, and we turn to you Ya Allah, and we ask you for everything that is good for us Ya Allah, to manifest in our life Ya Allah, we ask you for blessings in this month. Allahumma barakana fi rajab wa sha'ban wa balliqna Ramadan Ya Rabbil Alamin, allow us to reach Ramadan Ya Allah, allow us to implement the knowledge that we have learned Ya Rabbil Alamin, Ya Allah, pardon us for any mistakes that we may have said Ya Rabbil Alamin, allow us to prioritize your you and the hereafter over this life Ya Allah, remove the love of money, remove the love of status, remove the love of fame from our hearts and allow us to love you and to be attached to you and to only focus on you Ya Rabbil Alamin and to follow the Sunnah of your Messenger Sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sahbih Ya Salam Ya Rabbil Alamin, Ya Allah, pour your love and the love of your Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sahbih into our hearts Ya Alhamdulillahi, for anybody in our family, any of our family members who are sick, who may be struggling with any disease Ya Allah, there are people in our family Ya Allah, who may be struggling with cancer, who may be struggling with COVID, who may be struggling with other type of difficult disease, we ask that you cure it for them and we ask that you grant them Shifa and we ask that you make it easy for them and for their families and grant us all Subran Jamil with any difficulties that we are going through Ya Alhamdulillahi, Ya Allah, we ask you for everything good that the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sahbih asked for and we ask you for protection remember the evil that he asked for protection from Sallallahu alayhi wa sahbih Ya Salam, Mubarakatuhu alayhi wa sahbih, Ya Salam, Muhammedin wa alayhi wa sahbih Wa Salam, Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alamin