 As-salamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. So InshaAllah we're going to go ahead and continue today so we'll do a light review of what we covered the last few weeks and then we'll go ahead and move on to the topic for today which is going to be focused on the the spirituality of making decisions and how we go about making decisions in our life and then we'll touch a little bit upon Hajj and Umrah and how that relates to kind of informing our world view as Muslims and then we're getting very very close to Ramadan so while this class will be focused on Ramadan InshaAllah the future classes next two or so will be focused on fasting and Ramadan prep. Great so we covered last time this is a quick review we were talking a lot about the importance of prioritizing our spirituality when it comes to working and as we go through the working life making sure that we are making decisions in accordance with an Islamic world view making sure that we are prioritizing our prayers making sure they're prioritizing our religion making sure that we're not you know that we are pursuing our goals but we're not getting so caught up in them that it's impacting our deen and then we talked about specific shortcuts that the Muslim can take or specific you could say acts of worship that we do or boosts that we get in through our religion that actually help us excel in other parts of our life right and so we ended off covering on a few of these namely that the one who takes advantage of fajr the one who takes advantage of praying and the one who takes advantage of praying in the early mornings doing vicar in the early mornings you'll see a lot more barakah throughout your day that was one of the key ways to unlock increased productivity increased success in our dunya increased success at work and increased success in other aspects of our life there were a number of other ones we mentioned in addition to doing doing more vicar while while at work and trying to prioritize the remembrance of Allah trying to prioritize actively thinking about Allah trying to prioritize learning and spending time in our work day work week whenever it is to do a little bit of learning and learn about say learn sacred knowledge learn about our religion to help us improve as human beings that's kind of what we had covered before i get into today's topic is anybody have any questions questions that might have come up in with regards to what we covered last time or just kind of any questions um you know in general before we before i move on questions questions nothing okay great we'll go ahead and move on just one second here sorry i'm just having a technical issue okay now it's working okay great so um let's go ahead and get into the topic for for today then so up to the point that most of us are in in life we have everybody has gone through a certain type of lifestyle right and everybody has gone through a certain certain decisions that we might make that have informed habits that we have that have informed the type of life that we end up living sometimes there's components of a religious aspect in that life sometimes not so much right we all know the kind of mistakes that we've made as you and i start to think about the next phase of our life or think about growing in our life think about growing spiritually it's really really important to remember that the way we make decisions helps us orient of our life right if you make decisions that are especially when you're in a crucial stage of your life like for example the decision on what to do right pretty important decision or someone could say hey i'm comfortable you know being a owning a liquor store and i just want to make that decision and i'm going to go ahead and earn all my income through something which is not permissible in our religion and which also causes societal problems right that's a decision point someone reaches that then informs the rest of their life because your as we talked about before your income is linked to or your your the barakah in your life is linked to your income right and the food that you eat is linked to your income and the clothes that you wear are linked to your income and the home that you live in is linked to your income everything is linked to your income your income is not permissible everything else becomes impermissible right but all of that was based on one decision that you made in life all of it was based on one decision right and it's the mindset you're in when you make a decision that is so important to help make the right decision right so let's say that somebody never really prioritized learning about the laws of the religion right they might go and make a decision unknowingly that it wasn't a the right decision but they might go ahead and make make that choice and then later in life you might say hold on a second probably shouldn't have done that this what i'm doing right now probably doesn't make much sense now we have to rectify it backtrack change that approach change the decision adjust course in our life and ideally you know ask Allah for forgiveness if we have done something wrong and so again it all goes back to the mindset that we have so that's where that's why decision making is so important and in our time today it's very difficult to make decisions according to an Islamic worldview right it's not an easy thing so the type of life that we want to live it's informed by where we grew up it's informed by what our education is and it's informed by the worldview that we have been taught or that we've naturally developed most of the times very very in the obviously we live in the west it's fairly western worldview influenced by western academics and western philosophers and and if it's not that worldview it maybe is a different type of worldview but the question we have to ask ourselves is am i doing things in accordance with an Islamic worldview right and then and then am i making those decisions appropriately and accordingly so now what who what do you guys think actually is the root of the your decision-making framework like what what part of you actually drives the type of decisions that you make there's a there's a part in you that is the most that that can help you make it in the in the right direction or the wrong direction morality okay so morality would be would be a one component of this yep where does morality live okay the nuffs give somewhat some your heart exactly right your heart your heart at the end of the day and your your heart and maybe someone said it over there apologies okay there we go mashaAllah someone said it over there so so the the heart is actually what guides your decisions this the the we're not talking here physically about the physical heart we're talking about the spiritual heart that's what guides the decision so Allah says in the Quran have you seen that their hearts have rushed on them and then he asks again in the Quran have you seen that their hearts are locked and then he says that have you seen the people who have sound hearts so there's all there's a constant mentioning of heart heart heart and it's like why does that matter so much right we can't even see it what's the big deal what's the what's what's the why do we have to why is there so much of an emphasis on this heart and it's because it literally is at the heart of the matter right no pun intended there somewhat intended actually so the the spiritual heart the way that it's influenced throughout your life will then influence you so if it's been impacted by good deeds and by purity and by good knowledge it will drive you to just to hopefully make decisions that have pure intentions that are rooted in pure intentions that end up being wise decisions if it's been rooted in sin and haram and things that are impermissible most of the time the heart will guide you in that direction right so the way you live your life the way we live our life literally impacts the way we will live the rest of our life what i mean by that is when you get to a point where you have to make like certain important decisions it's how you live your life will have an impact on those decisions and so it's very difficult to just like go completely do a 180 and flip but there are ways to do that 180 and flip and one of it's one of the secrets of our religion does anybody know what one of the fastest ways to change is repentance would be the first yes then this is a physical act it's a crucial act of our religion prayer somewhat somewhat thinking about something a little bit more you only do it only happens once a year the hodge the hodge right the hodge the hodge pilgrimage for the muslim it's one of the pillars of the religion right so we we have the pillar the shahada the salat the zakat fasting and the hodge and hodge is can be so transformative that it can completely flip somebody from having lived a life of doing wrong of sin of making a lot of mistakes and literally you emerge from hodge like a newborn baby completely clean and not only if you if your sins are clean also means your heart is clean and now you get to set right you you decide how you want to influence your heart from there right that's if it's an accepted hodge an accepted hodge will literally completely clean slate and you see the type of life that people live before hodge and after hodge one of the ways it comes in the narration that the way to inform or to to understand was your hodge accepted or not is does your life change significantly afterwards right does your life change because if you come back someone is you know caught up in certain things they go and hodge and they come back and they're doing the same things i mean they what did they do they spent some money they went to a place where they sweat a lot it was really hot and that's that's really all about all they got if nothing actually changed in life afterwards then you have to wonder what kind of hodge was it but a true hodge will completely transform somebody and it gets to a point where it's the first transformation that can happen is a quite major one and then now someone starts to have fairly you know minor trans they're they're still major but they're they're a little bit more inward transformations such that each subsequent hodge will raise someone in degrees and so they will now be transformed from let's say a life of sin to a life of good to now a life of good to a life of focused entirely on serving the religion and so on right like there's just deeper and deeper types of transformations that come with each type of hodge so now in this specific chapter that we're in in this book we were talking about he talks about the pilgrimage and why the pilgrimage is so important and our time making the pilgrimage especially while young is of utmost importance many times people think like it's something you do when you're in your 60s or your 70s oh just wait till later what's the point you know just do it later right you can mess up now i remember how it was in seventh grade there was this guy he was you know you like know especially if you you grew up in a place where there's not that many muslims like as soon as there's another muslim you uh you start to feel like okay there's some connection here right um and so he would just be like you know definitely just doing really really silly things and and uh and i was like hey man like what's going on like what are you up to he's like oh yeah like i'm just gonna make hodge later like it's all gonna be good i'm gonna make i mean obviously we were still again you're like seventh grade it wasn't it wasn't um that big of a deal but it was the age obviously you know where you are mature enough at that point where accountability has kicked in but i still remember that that that mindset and that framework and i was like yeah maybe should i just do that should i just take hodge later like this is kind of cool it's a good it's a good little shortcut right but that's not obviously that's not how it works right they while while you can just mess up and make hodge later yes that is a valid option but you don't know if you're going to be able to make hodge later right so that's it's not like oh live my whole life and then make all the mistakes i want and then go and make hodge there are many people who actually have that intention and then they get to a certain stage in life and they can't make hodge they get sick they don't have enough money um god forbid look at what happened with covid i mean i know a ton of people who are in or a few people who are intending on going to hodge in 2020 and that's it hodge closed completely nobody could go nobody outside could enter and then last year in 2021 very very limited amount of people were able to go to hajj and now inshallah this year we hope that you know it opens up but it's not like it was before where literally a million plus people could come from hajj and going from the us is easy as long as someone financially is able to go there's no visa restriction or anything else right unlike other countries where it's quite hard to go to hide from a muslim country you have to apply for um uh getting a long line there's a whole lottery system it's very difficult because so many people want to go uh for for hajj right and so that's that's the the the reason that we're mentioning hajj in relation to decision making is because it can literally change the course of how you and i go about making decisions because we might have made decisions with a lot of sin that's influenced our heart spiritually and now this cleans the slate and now we start to say oh hold on now i'm gonna really you will feel it afterwards like hold on i did this huge thing right and inshallah it was accepted and now i want to make sure the rest of my life is sound and i make decisions and i live my life in a way that that is um that is sound and so what he says here is that as soon as someone begins earning and has the ability to to try to prioritize making the hajj to try and prioritize making the hajj it's ideally not something you wait on until it's like yeah i did them you know did them all these vacation and did this vacation and i went here and then it's like yeah i spent spent whatever i need to spend in the long trips and now i'm going to prioritize hajj ideally it's like you still live your life right and do what you got to do take care of your other expenses but someone as soon as they start earning and it's and it's helpful this came after started to just the discussion on earning you save up money to try and go on hajj right because the obligation has kicked in the obligation has kicked in you have enough money you can be asked why did you not do it right someone has enough money in their savings account or enough disposable income to ask the question can come from god if god forbid that person passes away hold on a second you had money you went here you traveled here all of these other things happen in your life but what happened to the pilgrimage right what happened to visiting my house what happened to the obligation that i made um that what happened to this active worship that i made obligatory on you right so it is that mindset shift is really important to shift the mindset from it's not something we should delay that ideally as soon as possible i remember i was talking one to my um to my father-in-law about about hajj and i was like oh you know i was again thinking about it i was like you know i want to make a stihara on it we're going to talk about stihara shortly decision he was like i was like what what are you what are you making a stihara on it's a it's an obligatory act do you do you make a stihara on if you're going to pray you know namaz that day i was like no i don't they didn't make a stihara if you're fasting Ramadan i was like no he's like so why are you making a stihara and if you go to hajj and i was like yeah that's that that's a good point you know i see i feel you i hear you okay then thanks for the pressure um no but it was a really really good point right and it was helpful context actually um to say oh okay this is not really some something you shouldn't ask a lot for guidance on you know if it's a right time for you to do something especially financially if it's difficult but if there are no clear difficulties that are present Bismillah right and this is easier for men than it is for women women there is a you and you need a mahram right so i do if someone's married that becomes easier or uh with with their brother or a father or an uncle or someone who is a mahram right because the the Saudis require a mahram well for most in most circumstances not all circumstances i think some situation or if you go with the group or something like that that there are you know dispensations that are available but for for for men it's you know not not as much the case right so whether you're single or married it is um virtuous or to go and i actually have met quite a few people who like you know they get married and then as soon as they get married if they say hey you're saving up to go to hajj and i think it's a custom in malaysia or a few other muslim countries but that's like actually now become a thing amongst people who you know you're married getting married in your 20s and it's like oh rather than spend a ton on a honeymoon we might do some things you know on the smaller side and then we're going to go and hajj first it's going to be one of our first actions and i thought it was beautiful that it's like we're going to start our life out in this way that we're going to prioritize making this pilgrimage and then and you know rectify whatever wrongs have happened in our life and now start life life out in a in a direction where hopefully we can we can be salih and righteous people and make decisions accordingly so that's that's the first the first thing when it comes to when it comes to hajj the prophet sallallahu sallam he told us that the one who is not hindered by an obvious necessity some clear necessity you have to take care of your family take care of your parents whatever else it is a district right someone not go because they have an illness of some sort or a tyrannical ruler right and um hamdallah that you know as many problems as we have in our government we definitely don't have like tyrannical rulers that print us from like leaving the country and so on or that does exist actually today in some muslim countries and in not non-muslim countries as well and who dies without having performed the hajj without having performed the hajj let him or her die a jew if he chooses or a christian if he chooses right meaning like basically it's pretty harsh we're pretty pretty intense words here basically like are they really dying a muslim if they were able to do it and they didn't do it like what's the excuse right what's the difference then between the jews and the christians who also have many other acts of worship they don't perform the hajj they don't perform the program the jews do fast they have days where they fast they have their own form of prayer every religion has a form of charity right every religion has a form of believing in god right whether that's true tohi they're not um it's a different question but hajj is that's something that the muslims do right especially in in today's you know post the prophets so someone's coming yeah question good question question was is the mehram um uh ruling on hajj purely a government rule is something also required in deen so there are different requirements in the deen on traveling longer distances without a mehram and so that the requirement for traveling long distances exist within the religion uh the the requirement for going on hajj specifically i believe there are hadith where i say that ishara the allahu anha went on hajj after the prophecy some had passed away without um without a mehram present i believe so i'm not a hundred percent certain so i can get back to you on the on that specifically i know that the the the ruling from the government is is a very specific government ruling but i know that they also have some root in um in opinions in islam right so i believe the opinion that they're using there is just any type of long travel and given the kind of difficulty of hajj that unless somebody is at a certain age where it's unlikely they'll have a mehram i think like 50 or 60 um is an age that they they have a cutoff or if you're 50 or 60 you might not need a mehram uh they require it but they don't really give reasons for you know their rules um so let me look into into the specifics there for you inshallah yeah yeah question so as far as the safety right exactly right yep right right yeah no that makes sense there there are there are also specific exceptions that are granted for um people who have are either the only muslim in their family or have entered in who are converted into the religion right so there's like they have a they know that that's a whole thing so they have a different track there for hajj a group you have to go with the group there is no individual high trade unlike umrah someone can go anytime we'll talk about that shortly um you don't you can just book a ticket get the visa these days prove your vaccine status and whatnot and just go and book your own hotels and whatnot um and i know people go to omrah like every three months they're mashallah always going omrah right they're just they're very very they have their visa set and they're they they they um really like going but hajj you have to go with the specific group it's very very coordinated uh it's very um it's an intense journey there's a ton of people there every step of the way has a certain type of coordination required there's you know obviously there's hotels at certain points there's tents at certain points in minna and in mustalifah and in arifat the group arranges all of that there's different locations depending on where someone is coming from north american tents are in one place the tents for pakistanis and indians and whatnot not in one place like there's a whole country coordination as well going on so hajj the group requirement is there um but i will look into the into the um my room requirement as well inshallah so so so he says here right that you want to prioritize it basically as soon as possible it's not something you delay right and and it certainly should not be something that you and i delay for like a long period of time a few years excuses can exist right but like decades of time go by and the money was there and income was there that's going to be that's going to be difficult and it's not just purely from a an afterlife perspective well that's obviously important it literally will change the way someone lives their life right now right and that's that's probably sometimes been lost where most people look at hajj like oh yeah i'm going my my sins are clean and you know it's all good i get the reward inshallah the reward for an accepted hajj is jannah and so on and so that that's like the viewpoint right you go and you you earn a certain number of reward points and then you're done right that but that's not really the way to look at it the way to look at it is it will transform our life and hopefully from that point on everything would we do we will have more sincerity and a pure intention because there's there are in every religious act there are certain secrets there are certain secrets and certain spiritual benefits your heart needs every act that Allah has legislated it needs it it cannot function properly without it right so when you're feeling off and confused and uncertain and stressed and anxious and all these different emotions some of those emotions many times can come from the fact that the heart doesn't feel spiritually aligned there's something off and so one of the first questions we should ask ourselves when we're not feeling right and that's happening consistently is where are we at spiritually right and where are we out with our prayers where are we out with our charity where are we out with our relationship with our parents with our families taking care of the community taking care of people around us whatever religious obligations that we might have and everybody has the general ones and then everybody specifically has their own obligations based on the stage of life that they're in and so the heart needs certain things one of the things the heart needs Imam Ghazali he mentioned is the heart needs the knowledge of Allah it needs it it craves it and needs it and it needs to love God it's created to love God it's one of the and so one of the things that the Hajj now unlocks that you can that that is is very very specific to Hajj is there are secrets distributed on the plane of Arafat that are not distributed anywhere else right the plane of Arafat is the place where everybody stands the Prophet ﷺ he said that Hajj is Arafat right that the Arafat that's such an important part of Hajj it's its giant plane that everybody stands on and it is a day in which the whole you just imagine millions of people just asking Allah for forgiveness begging Allah to forgive them begging Allah begging him for mercy begging him for assistance and that is the proof that is like the the the most critical aspect of the Hajj right now if this is happening it is one of the most important gatherings that ever takes place in the whole universe it's one of them in the universe not just on the earth in the entire universe because of how spiritually significant it is so now imagine in the unseen what's going on when someone is present there right and the goal of when you go to these types of places it's not like it's very easy to just get caught up in the scene you see people you see you know people are you know there's trash in different places and there's outwardly there's nothing magnificent about it at all right but that's where how how ready somebody is inwardly they'll feel certain things and you might not even know the gifts you receive a gift you received at Hajj you might unlock 10 years later in your life or 15 years later in your life right i remember one of our teachers he they mentioned that there was a you could go into a certain gathering and there would be gifts distributed in that gathering of knowledge that you wouldn't know of but they might benefit you 15 years later and that was a gathering of knowledge which is an amazing thing right but it's not not the same as standing on the plane of Arafat and so you can kind of extrapolate that point out the more khair that someone goes and tries to gather the more good someone goes and tries to gather the more um spiritual energy they will have and the more their spiritual bank account will be filled up and then when you're you know times are tough you're drawing on that bank account right you're drawing on the main because nobody's always just going to be going like this they hope we can but most of the time life has ups and downs and spirituality has ups and downs religion is up and downs and we need to lean on something and so that's that's one of the main um kind of aspects of of Hajj and uh the when someone decides to go of course then you learn okay what are the requirements right so there are certain requirements there are sunnas of Hajj there are different du'as that you make during Hajj we're not this is we're not going to cover all the specific details um but the main thing is to make the intention that yallah if you if you have not gone if we have not had the blessing of going we make the intention yallah i want you to invite me that's the other big thing is these types of things they come only by invitation from god i'm sure we've all heard people say that but like it's it's literally true when god decides to invite somebody it doesn't matter what that that person will come right and when the invitation isn't there you can make the intention but the invitation might not have been answered yet so one of the things if the idea comes in your mind or you might have a dream about it or something like that there's usually something is happening where you're being pulled ideally your intention is there and you ask Allah yallah facilitate this for me and then Allah will hopefully facilitate right and the invitation will come and the invitation will will come um so it's one of again the most important pillars of our religion uh kind of summarizing here we don't want to wait until we're older we ideally want to prioritize as soon as possible of while we're uh as we're earning and we have savings to prioritize going on Hajj and we want to see it as this will change the course of my life and it doesn't matter how quote unquote good of a life someone thinks they're living like oh everything's fine you know i'm i'm able to pray and do this this and that there will be changes inshallah like there's a lot of subtleties that start to open up if somebody was already on a good path that happened when someone is able to do and fulfill one of the requirements and the pillars of the religion right remember that your deen will be completed when all the pillars are completed right otherwise there will be an incomplete component until you complete it right we you're there's still a pillar that we're not standing on and the more pillars you and i have to stand on they're better and we all know in our times with how crazy everything is we need as many pillars um as we can get so that's that's the obligatory act now we talked about how each obligatory act has a supragatory act with it and in hajj with with the case of the pilgrimage the optional act is right is omrah which is um called the minor pilgrimage and this is definitely a shorter journey and you know usually an easier physical journey but and something we should also try to do as often as possible right so if someone has um someone is financially able to right try to carve out you know a little bit of time every few years to try and go and visit the house of Allah because it is a place where dua is accepted of course it is a place where there's a lot of spiritual rejuvenation that is gained it is a place where sins are forgiven right it is a place where um then you can then you also go from there to visit madina visit the prophet alayhi salatu wassalam and that is also one of the most important parts of our religion to visit the message of Allah salallahu alayhi salam where he says that to visit him after he has passed is like visiting him when he was when he was there when he was alive that is that is the same you get the same virtue right you get the same virtue and um we know actually when our the belief is that the prophets are alive in their graves the prophets don't it's the Quran mentions that the martyrs are alive in in their graves and the prophets have uh as the Quran mentions the the prophets are the ranked the highest then the the pure saints and then the martyrs so the prophets are ranked at the highest level and so we uh our understanding is that they are alive in their graves so when you visit the prophet aslam and you say assalamu alaykum yad asul allah he responds to you right and you are now getting a again a direct glance from the prophet sallallahu alayhi salam and there's only Allah knows how many spiritual gifts are being distributed when the prophet aslam directly communicates to you so there are people who they have such a strong yearning and love for madina that that's just like all they want to do they just want to visit madina all the time they just go and they go and they go and they go and that becomes a really really um uh it's an attachment for them right to to visit madina and there's mashallah one of the the scholars here in the in the bay area and he's just you know every three i just saw him again last week and he was like i'm going to madina again and i was like you were just there like a month ago he's like i'm going again i miss you know i miss the prophet aslam he's just mashallah it's always getting invitation it's always getting and that also comes when the prophet aslam of course directly invites somebody and so what it does is it it builds a deep connection to something else if you and i just go throughout the day go throughout our life go throughout our years and we just interact with you know our colleagues and we interact with just generally you know generally in society we don't necessarily get a chance to interact with really spiritually connected people and we when we travel we don't go to spiritually connected places then the heart starts to there's something missing the heart's missing something when you go you could go on a spiritual journey and it might be so exhausting you might be tired you might feel again like really really exhausted because of just how much effort it takes but you come back feeling amazingly rejuvenated right and you might go on like a luxury vacation somewhere and it might be great and you might get to to chill and explore and travel and so on and you might you come back and you're like i need a vacation for my vacation because i'm just tired now right there's something about spiritually spiritual journeys that are rejuvenating in nature and so the main thing here is to try to prioritize visiting the prophet aslam at least once every few years right someone makes intention it's fairly affordable if somebody is earning it's it's very much doable right to get a flight there to get the visa and to book hotels and so on and so it should be you know making omara takes about a week right to do total we've had a few days in makkah a few days in medina the act of omara itself takes like three hours it's not a very long act versus hajj is a few days but it's something we should again try to prioritize and he says here that that if you were know that if you had come walking on your head from the farthest land of islam imagine walking on your head from california all the way to mecca or to medina rather to visit the prophet aslam you would not have even begun to render thanks for the guidance that god gave you through him through the prophet aslam like there is a there is a level of just feeling obliged to visit him to just say thank you thank you for everything that you have done and this we'll get into this in a future class but though the belief of the ahl sunnah is to you should have a a very direct relationship with the prophet aslam our belief is not that the prophet aslam came he delivered a message and he's gone no no no no that's not that allah says in the quran various eyes of the quran that the prophet aslam is deeply concerned about you right and the prophet aslam is um uh with his hadith which indicate that he's aware of what you and i are doing right and if it's possible for right now somebody can say something and it can be broadcast thousands of miles away and people from all over the world can see them and you can talk to people and communicate with people all over the world what can happen in the unseen world with the prophets but with who had the highest station right what kind of capabilities would they have to know what's going on in the life of their umma so that's that's really really important now what that will do if somebody prioritizes again making hajj verse and foremost way more of a priority than umrah of course and then trying to continually go often to visit the house of allah and visit the medina of the prophet aslam that now someone's heart begins to change in a direction where if you go and you visit the kaba your heart begins to be very much directed towards the kaba and that's the qiblah right that's the qiblah of the heart you want it to be directed towards allah and his messenger you want it to be directed towards islam right and so that physical visitation has a spiritual reality to it right and now then that comes to the specifics of decision making where now you as as as someone has done that right or even if someone hasn't had a chance to do it but someone makes an intention the orientation needs to be okay now how am i going to make my decisions according to an islamic framework there are two main tips that we have been given in the sunnah for making decisions according to the or three rather um does anybody know what they are what have we been taught yes very good yep you got it nailed it the there are istihara and istihara istihara is you are seeking advice from allah there's a specific prayer that you do it's from the sunnah of the prophet aslam and the second is istihara which means surah surah in the Quran right talks about mutual consultation that you seek consultation from people you trust ideally your elders your parents your whoever in your it is in your circle of or or in your your um at your circle that you want to get advice from right your friends you feel like would be helpful so if it's a specific situation you know someone's an expert in that field you get advice from them right someone's going to get to a new job you get advice from people who you trust that might give you solid advice there doesn't have to be the same people for every situation right um but istihara the first and the the first one i was going to say right before that is learning knowledge and the requirements of whatever decision you're making what that means is you you wouldn't you you want to make sure you know okay is what i'm doing like what does the religion have to say oh sorry what does religion have to say about what i'm doing right what does the religion have to say about the um the decision that i'm making so if it's like a clearly haram decision you don't make istihara right like no one's going to make istihara like oh should i date this person and you know and and that's not you don't do that i mean i know people who would consider doing that so that wouldn't be a valid istihara why would you make istihara because it's not permissible in the first place right you don't make istihara about something that's clearly haram but so first thing is to learn okay whatever decision i'm making what does islam have to say about it and then from there you go into uh making istihara and um istihara so istihara prayer the the istihara process is the following that first you um pray two raka two sunnah raka of istihara and at the end of those raka and you can recite whatever surahs you want it's preferred to recite koliya yuhal kafirun in the first and hola wallah in the second um but again any surah will suffice here and then afterwards you make the dua of istihara which very very popular dua you just find that like online um not uh not long takes like 30 seconds to read right and in that dua is a specific part where it says this decision so you're asking Allah oh Allah um you are the one who is the most knowledgeable uh you are the one who has all the knowledge you are the one who um can help me in this essential which ask him and then and then you and then he there's a part where you say this decision and then you present decision should i take this job should i get married to this person should i pursue this career should i move to this place should i you know go on this trip right so that's for major decisions you start with that it gets to a point where someone starts to see the benefit of istihara so much and then every decision they make they want to make istihara for because you won't ever be guided incorrectly if you make istihara it just it won't happen because the prophet sallallahu sallam he told us the one who does istihara never fails and the one who consults others never regrets it you will always be guided to the point where the people who are close to Allah they're just you know should i buy a couch they're making istihara about the couch they're gonna make istihara should i of course like from getting a car make istihara about that should i um you know get some buy this other significant thing right get make istihara just up to the point of of little decisions because they're like well i asked if i asked Allah then for sure i will have been guided to do what's correct and you will feel that okay i did it correctly and there was a there was a story that i was listening to a talk by sheikh hamza and he was mentioning one of his teachers sheikh abdallah bin bayya was one of the foremost scholars of usul al-fikh alive on the planet today and he was driving somewhere he there was a driver who was driving him and his son somewhere and next thing you know the driver falls asleep at the wheel a driver falls asleep at the wheel and they get into a massive car accident now mashallah this sheikh is like he's you know well into i believe probably into his 80s or so right if not slightly older and his son is also definitely not you know young by any means but they get into a massive accident and the the the sheikh is is is hurt right there's blood everywhere the his son is significantly hurt and his son now starts to somewhat express some panic right it's like you know he looks at his dad at the time and he sees blood and he sees all these things and he's like what's going on and he and then he's like we shouldn't have come on this trip but and then he just and he says the sheikh now he's a man of Allah he looks at his son and he completely and he just says relax calm down you know like Allah is with us i made istiqara before taking this trip and just was like there's no question whether we should take this trip or not i already asked Allah for permission and it was it was granted and facilitated so there's some wisdom to what's happening right if someone is it doesn't mean that you know someone is a person of Allah usually they're going to have more tests it doesn't mean someone is a person of Allah and a scholar and doing righteous things and their life suddenly gets easy no the Prophet's of life was the most difficult life ever lived with the Prophet's of life right he had immense difficulty immense tests immense tribulation and we always ask Allah for afya and for luthfu we don't want that at all but if it comes it doesn't mean you've done something wrong right that could just be a test and Allah wants to see how patient is someone going to be how is someone going to respond right that when so Allah says in the Quran that when the museeba comes they say inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajil that we come from Allah and to him we return now if somebody consults Allah though in a decision and god forbid something goes wrong you will you outwardly goes wrong you'll you won't feel bad about it you better go i made istiqara because part of the istiqara prayer is to ask Allah at the end if this is good for me right facilitate it and and and if it's bad for me ward it off for me and make me feel contented with whatever decision you that that you have for me make me feel good about it you won't be wavering at the end like should i've done it should i not you'll just pick up i'm content right and so so the format is someone prays makes this dua and ideally does for does so for a few days at least right some say seven um some say a few days you can make it multiple times a day doesn't have to only be you know at one time if someone can make it though you know with the ish post ishah prayer and um and pray make it you know post dohar and post maghrib whatever times you get often to do it it would be considered very very virtuous right yes uh good question so for the uh the the question was how do you know if your istiqara is accepted and accepted in this case is usually going to mean like how do you know if you're getting an answer right because um you're not necessarily like making a yeah so that that would be the form of acceptance in this case like how do you know what direction it's going to guide you in you know it'll it'll is that the question yeah yeah it was not good for you yeah so um it can happen in a few ways right first is if someone sincerely makes istiqara the the guidance is going to come right it's that's it's guaranteed that the guidance is going to come inshallah the way it will manifest though is for it will start that the things that are supposed to happen will become clear and will become facilitated that's the sign so and if it's not supposed to happen you're going to start seeing blocks come up in the way right and like sometimes minor blocks sometimes major blocks so if it's a fairly significant decision let's say someone is making istiqara should they um you know they're considering marrying somebody and should they marry somebody right and they make istiqara and they make istiqara and they're making istiqara and they are okay now the conversations progress the parents are talking both parents are feeling good right on on both sides of the family um or whoever else if someone's not someone's parents but someone's you know another part of their family is the one having a conversation they are feeling strong about it um things start to get facilitated towards the point where there's no flat red flags popping up anymore right your heart is feeling contented you're starting to get towards the point where you oh i want to start to plan the wedding and so on you will just start to it will start to become clear and the people around you will start to give that that advice most of the time they'll yeah let's proceed with this right that's like a very obvious one another situation could happen where you see a dream in the dream it becomes really clear right so like you might make istiqara for something and in the dream it the the answer might come in the dream right whether someone comes and tells you in the dream or you might see yourself doing that action the dream that could also be potentially a situation then it might happen where you make istiqara for something and like major blocks just start coming so you're speaking to say the same same thing you're speaking to someone on the with considering from for marriage and now like you make it as you're making istiqara red flags start popping up you find out something about them that you're like hold on i didn't know this before it's not not comfortable with this right your parents or their parents like hold on i don't really know if i feel right about this person right and that that starts to manifest you now hear something from somebody else in your in your network where you would ask them like hey you know do you what do you think this is a good decision or not and it starts to they're like no i don't really think so from what i know it's probably not the best person for you abc where you now start to see blocks come up right the person themselves might be like i don't know if i'm feeling the same way anymore right you might just the the situation might naturally dissolve or you'll just won't feel contented you'll feel highly confused and angst istiqara is supposed to calm all that down it's supposed to provide clarity there you're not supposed to be in a state of istiqara like utterly confused if that's happening that means more advice needs to be sought right because if you're like cannot make cannot make up your mind no matter how much is the car you make major advice needs to be sought or the decision itself needs to be visited like what's going on so those are usually the two or three scenarios that will that will happen um is that answer the question yeah yeah so what's the if you're doing it once oh yeah good question yeah the the preferred practice is to do it at least like five to seven times before before you because as your um as you think about it like if you make da'a for something you usually it's very unlikely for something you really want you only make da'a for it once right most of the time someone's going to repeatedly ask Allah and so you also want to do do that um in the same way because with the the part of the point of istiqara is you're showing your humility before Allah the Allah i don't know and now you're showing your humility before him you help me and you want to do that as often as possible to get as much facilitation as possible but you don't need to do it for like a whole year let's say or like seven months right usually a week or two of istiqara for most decisions and then really major ones someone might just be continually making istiqara in the back of their mind um for the or you know in uh throughout their day or throughout their week for it um is is fine but usually you want to do it for at least a week yeah that would be the recognition and then there's also what's this there's a specific istiqara prayer and then there's a general istiqara general istiqara there's it's among the recommendations in the sunnah every morning to pray to raka and to just make istiqara for that whole day that you be Allah anything that's good for me today let it manifest whatever's not good for me today prevent it from manifesting and and um assist me in in all of my affairs and help me make all the right decisions right so that usually you know for for people i know who've done it proves very fruitful in their career in their decisions in their purchases right you won't have buyers or remorse or regret or whatever you just you'll feel better and that's that's a virtue to try to get to it to try to try to do so often every day or at the beginning of every week or whatever it is yes yeah yeah good question good question um so the question was if you've made a decision and now you're regretting the decision should you make go go back and make istiqara so in general once you've resolved to something you stick with it i'd usually right there's it there's a verse in the Quran um that mentions this that once that you've you've made a decision now you stick with that result but it depends in this instance on how significant of a decision it is right so like let's say that you buy a car and you did make a istiqara and you're like hold on this car is just you know gas prices are through the roof right now i should have gone electric right like you know you're just you're not feeling it anymore and you're like oh it's a good market i could probably go and sell the car for the literally actually possible in this market you could really sell it for the same amount that you bought it for and you're not and you may now you go and you return it it's a small it's a big economic decision but it's not necessarily a life-altering decision right and um you make a istiqara and what should i get and you end up you know changing your mind and getting a different car that's one situation where that would be fine if you're really not feeling up to something you you change course but if it's something like significant like you know you married somebody and you did make istiqara and you're like hold on a second i didn't ask you know i didn't make a istiqara not feeling this anymore like let's just cut this off and go back and eat some that wouldn't be advised right not now you want to you know you're gonna you're gonna need to make it work yeah most of the time right and if not there's gonna need to be another significant reason why you would leave it other than just like i'm feeling a little unsure right because which you asking that and says yalla help you that i'm in this situation i was praying generally please help me feel contented in this situation and it's a good i was literally just talking to somebody about this about a decision that they made it was like a you know a few thousand dollar purchase but they regretted it three four months later and i asked him i was like did you make a istiqara on it like no i didn't and i really learned my lesson like i really should have made istiqara because this was just not a wise move for me to do at this time right so it's actually can be really useful for like investments and major purchases should somebody get operations um like usually if someone is like oh like a surgery that it's not life threatening or you have to get like should i get this or should i not it's pretty important to make sure you you consult you know god before you just do something that could maybe get you could you know further get hurt or whatever else it is yeah sorry what do you mean if there's good intention behind it like right i'm like maybe like i don't know how there's no reaction to that with you right even though i i did it as the intention uh it's like it was just to provide feedback i worried that that might have negative consequences oh i see i see yeah right i don't know like you know i saw it on the channel yeah hey i got you i got you okay yeah so in a situation where the intent istiqara applies whether the intentions are regardless of what your intentions are if you're unsure if you don't have intention yet if you have good intentions if you have you know some good intentions some not so good intentions right istiqara applies so you should make it like don't only look at it as major decisions i would look at it as like anything you have to do you should make istiqara before right so if you're like about to if you someone is in the field of a business or product or whatever it is and they're like oh i'm about to make a major a decision on that feature that i should build i would highly advise make istiqara before it right don't just don't just do it completely out of your own um mind right ask god for assistance because you'll see tofiq and facilitation in that in a way you won't see it and then you'll have a leg up over other people because you'll have divine assistance inshallah right so any decision that that there is um i would i would try to make make istiqara with it yeah but especially right usually it's hard for every decision especially major decisions try to make it a practice and if that if possible at the beginning of each week make a general istiqara at the beginning of each month yalla whatever i got going on in this month please guide me towards what's correct and use the specific god that office is on use which if anybody needs it um it's in that that link i gave out last time uh it's it's in one of those pds there inshallah that's istiqara and then and then we'll end with this then there's asking counsel seeking counsel and seeking counsel as you ask people around you right you get their opinion and their advice right um that's also really really important you want to have advisors in life right whether it's parents and elders it's a teacher of some sort it's a really really good friend who you know is going to give you sincere advice you don't want to ask you over advice who you know are like you know jealous of you and like not feeling if you still feel good vibes from them definitely don't ask for advice they won't give you good advice right but you want to ask people you trust right and they will hopefully help you like yeah actually i would consider it this way i would consider it this way and you might get conflicting advice and this hard inshallah will sort that out that actually does happen where you go to one person they say one thing is that doesn't do it at all you should totally do it now you'll have to take back square one you don't really know what to do um and istiqara inshallah will resolve but those two you won't regret asking Allah and then asking people around you inshallah for for advice and for counsel inshallah so yeah then inshallah we'll go ahead and wrap up there the really the main thing to remember is to make decisions number one based on knowledge they should be based on some spiritual calculus right especially if they're significant decisions that someone is going to take on in life um and number two the way to go and practically implement that is to make istiqara and to do it often the way we do that is to pray two rakahs sunnah istiqara and then to read the istiqara prayer afterwards and the way you do it right if you say islamikoram tula islamikoram tula you pull it up in a book or on your phone or wherever it is then you make the dua and then you know you proceed throughout your day and you try to do that often and um then number three is you sit down with people or you give people a call or whatever else it is who you trust who can advise you and you say what do you think about this right and give them the full circumstance usually don't just ask them about don't just ask someone advice without giving them context you want to make sure you frame the context right okay here's the situation i'm in in life is what i'm considering you know this is what i've evaluated as far what do you think i should do and then they'll give you um you know give you give you advice inshallah and then what ends up happening is the more someone applies spiritual islamic decision-making framework the more the decisions in their life start to become islamic and better and then the more light that enters your life the more newer that enters your life the more blessings that enter your life the more things that are facilitated and opened up for you in life that's ultimately inshallah the goal that we want to have is if Allah blesses us with long lives we want to live long lives in obedience and you can't live a life in obedience if you're not thinking in a a manner that leads the link to obedience right and if you're not making decisions that will eventually result in obedience inshallah so we'll go ahead and and there if there's any questions we'll go we'll go ahead yeah that's okay wait so in terms of has first um in terms of like the transformative factor of has are we are we saying that has has a higher transformative um factor and if so like what is what is the differentiated factor there isn't what exactly yeah a good question so the question was with regards to haji versus omara and the kind of how transformative can it be so um caveat there's there's no there's not necessarily a specifics event that will always transform everybody right so you could one person could literally be transformed by going to you know randomly walking on the street and interacting with somebody and then all of a sudden that's that's the moment at which an epiphany happens and they're completely transformed in their life for someone else that might be going to haji for someone else that could manifest at omara for someone else that could manifest in some other islamic or non-islamic related activity right so that's one thing to keep in mind Allah will choose if that's the moment at which someone is completely transformed however most of the time if someone is sincere in their haji haji is the time where people are completely cleaned and transformed because it is there's two reasons for that it's of course higher virtue than omara it's an obligation right so it's the difference between like is fudger going to help me more or is the two sunnah that i pray after the horror gonna help me more always fudger right always fudger is an obligation you will you will you will feel the blessing of that you won't regret anything if you miss your sunnah you're like okay i miss my sunnah you're not feeling great most if you're on the the the sunnah routine but you're definitely not in the same level regret but if you miss an obligation there's significant um there's a there's a reward that's missed out and a punishment that's given for missing the obligation right hajj is an obligation umrah is not an obligation at all right and while you're at hajj you actually make an umrah before you begin the full hajj anyways but umrah is not an obligation umrah is considered super arbitrary so hajj always takes precedent so someone is like has you know let's say a little bit of money saved up and they really want to go to umrah but they haven't gone to hajj the advice would be try to save up some money first to go to hajj or go to umrah and to get that experience but make sure to to also have enough then to pretty quickly go on hajj yeah in terms of the experience itself um umrah it does not have the same effect you can have a sincere toba and umrah and repentance where you ask Allah and that can happen anywhere it can happen to umrah it can happen at the masjid it can happen anywhere where you ask Allah and your sins can be cleaned but hajj literally has the reward of cleaning your entire slate of all major sins someone could have done the worst sins imaginable and you go to hajj and you sincerely repent to Allah and you stand on arafat and you will emerge from that day as clean as the day you were born inshallah you don't get that reward in other places in the in in the being so that's where hajj can become so significant yeah is that that's yeah yeah do you have a question no that's a good question question was for for asking advice does it have to be something with muslim or non-muslim um in general if it's like a just a general decision that you're trying to make there's no requirement that has to be a muslim um you could totally see counsel from people who are people you trust right the main thing is you trust them and that you so let's say it's like a something related to a specific career related decision or an economic decision you know people you who can advise you economic advice whatever else it is and they're not muslim that's not a that's not a firm requirement but if it's like a decision that is let's say pretty critical in life i would make sure you have people who are also muslim giving you that advice right and at the foremost of that the most important decisions parents should be involved right and not like they're making the decision for you but you should get their opinion and you don't have to take their opinion but get their opinion and get their duas if someone has people if someone's parents are muslim especially to make sure to go to them and say what do you think about this this is what i'm thinking and they'll give you opinion okay can you also just make dua for what's best because a parents um dua goes straight to Allah and a parent's dua has a very high chance of being accepted and the parent is the most sincere advisor you'll ever have your parent will never be jealous of you they'll never have like the same types of torpedoity and in their heart against you that other people in life might have right your parent is just sincerely looking out for you and so you always want to try to also ask them but if it's like something you're like oh they wouldn't really have any opinion just get their dua please you know i need your advice and your dua on this and then make sure to ask other people yes great question yeah the question was when making istaha is there a way to frame the decision can it be open-ended or do you have to say like this thing or that thing it can be completely open-ended yeah as open-ended so like that you can do it as open-ended as let's say someone is looking to move somewhere right they're like i don't know where to go but i don't want to be here anymore and i'm looking to move you make an open-ended yalla just let me know where i should go right these days in the pandemic a lot of people have been hopping around different places it's like where should i go next right you don't necessarily have to say should it be colorado or new york right it doesn't have to be the two um but if you have specifics you can say okay should i um move to this specific place or that specific place right but open-ended is also totally fine and when you're making a general istihara where you don't even have a decision but you're just like help me in all my decisions then you can keep it completely open-ended and that's why sometimes open-ended is praiseworthy there's a there's a type of choice someone makes where it's mentioned in the books where you actually ask a lot to kind of choose for you it's like a beautiful like just i just want you to make it for me but you can also do that where you can say yalla i don't really know what to do can you just completely make the decisions for me and make it clear for me um and that's part of part of one of these istihara prayers where you can kind of ask a lot to completely choose for you does that make sense any other questions yeah it's okay i know you said we don't have to necessarily accept the uh advice but like what the what degree so like what if there is none it is not to a degree that's necessarily um like let's say there are more obsessed with the through going here like for instance you know people you are saying oh i'm gonna buy my first home they're like oh you should don't worry about like sound financing they are scammers or what like hey just do like a normal mortgage right like to what degree if are you able to not consider their advice is it wrong and like is it so like beneficial to get their advice even when they may be more focused on the building out right right good question going on so the question was um especially for the people online that if they're if somebody is asking advice from it whether it's a parent or someone else right a bit of specifically with parents and you're not necessarily feeling like you're on the same page with them Islamically to what degree do you need to consider their advice so the the order always is Allah his messenger and then everybody else so if if you know you're going to go to somebody especially your parents and they're going to contradict Allah and his messenger you don't need to ask their advice there would be no wisdom in doing that right because Allah says right let's say in this case of a mortgage that interest is haram Allah says that right so it doesn't matter what and then there's scholars who have gone and already looked into the instruments specifically spent years and you know thinking through these complex problems century studying these complex problems and then coming up with a ruling on saying hey this is considered a permissible loan it happens all the time or someone's like no it's a scam whatever else it is and then you're like okay what credentials did you actually have like we need some facts or Allah says in the Quran provide proof for what you have to say if you are truthful right what's the proof and usually if someone does not approve you don't want to go to that you know person of decision so this can happen where if you feel like hey someone is not Islamically aligned right be it especially with parents but anybody else you I would not approach them then for advice on most things in relation to Islam because most of the time they'll kind of confuse you right um if does that make sense yeah any other questions online any questions okay we'll go ahead and and for your help and that you allow us to make the best of decisions yallah and that you make the best of decision decisions for us yallah and that you remove our difficulties and our adversities and our problems and that you cure any challenges that is that we are going through yahrab al-alamin yallah and that you remove our our anxieties and our stresses and our worries yahrab al-alamin yallah and that you assist yahrab al-alamin yallah all of those people in the world yallah yallah in Palestine and in Syria and in Afghanistan and in India and in Pakistan and in Myanmar and all throughout the Muslim world yahram rahimin yallah in Yemen and anywhere else yahrab al-alamin that people are suffering yallah that you assist them yallah we ask that you stop all of the wars in the world yallah all of the people that are that are causing aggression and that are that are aggressing and that are tyrants and that are creating problems of the world we ask that you hold them back by their necks yahrab al-alamin yallah prevent them from causing any more aggression yallah yallah any of the wars going on in the muslim lands or the war that is going on in Ukraine yahrab al-alamin any other wars that are going on we ask that you stop these wars and that you stop the bloodshed and that you stop all of the adversities that are being caused for all of the innocent people yah yahram rahimin yallah por yahrahma upon the people who are suffering yahrab al-alamin por yahrahma and your assistance and your mercy and your help upon those who are suffering yahrab al-alamin and allows to be grateful for the security that we have in our lands yahrab al-alamin and be grateful for the food that we have and be grateful for the company that we have and grateful for the ability that we have to learn our religion and to worship you and put in peace and in sakina yahrab al-alamin yallah we ask yallah whatever is left of this month of rajab that you put blessing and yallah mubarak la fi rajab wa sha'ban wa balighna ramadan put blessing and ramadan in sha'ban and allow us to reach the month of ramadan and make that an amazingly blessed month and a month by means of which we turn to you and that we remove our love of the dunya and that we that we reorient our life towards you yahrab al-alamin we ask you for everything good the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam asked for and we ask you for protection from everything evil that he asked protection from sallallahu alayhi sallam mubarak al-asiyidina muhammadin wa ali wa sahbih sallam alhamdulillah yahrab al-alamin subhanakAllah wa bi hamdika nasheed wa la ilah alhamdulillah wa bi hamdika nasheed wa la ilah