 So, here's what we're going to talk about today. You all know by now there are two kinds of fasting, right? There is the outer fast and the inner fast. And the outer fast, you know what that is. You don't have anything to drink or eat during the day, right? You all know this. You're watching your families, maybe some of you are fasting. But what we're going to talk about today is the inner fast and something I wanted to talk to you so badly because this is really, really, really important, right? And of course, we know that in fasting, you have to be really patient. You know, if you want to eat something, you have to wait and you have to learn patience. Can we get off? And it's even said that patience is half of fasting because you have to learn to be patient. Can you see patience or is it invisible, everybody? Invisible? Say yes or no. It's invisible, right? But do you like people who are not patient that are rushing and get anxious and are uptight or do you like people who are patient? That's the patient. You like patient. That's the patient. So what I'm going to talk to you about today is that the points of the outer fast are three. You have to see the moon to begin the month, right? And you know what you have to do every night? If you're going to fast the next day, you have to make a niyah and it has to be exact. I intend to fast tomorrow on Monday. You can't do it the next morning. You have to do it tonight. So if any of you all are fasting, you'll have to do it this evening. And then if by any chance you break your fast by accident, it's okay. You don't have to worry about that, all right? And there's some sunnas in the fasting. Did you know? Family break the fast with water and a date? Do any of you, yes? That's a sunna. The Prophet did it that way. And another thing, do any of you recite some Quran during Ramadan? Do you practice reciting Quran? You do, don't you, all right? And then also, did you know also that in Ramadan you're supposed to be especially generous? So next week, or is it two weeks now, we're going to talk about being generous and we're going to have some projects for charity. But today we're going to talk about the inner fast, because this is utterly fascinating, all right? So you can fast, the outer fast is you're not having food or water. Does everyone understand that? That's right, right? Okay, the inner fast is three levels to it. There is the, the lowest fast is from food and water, but the next fast is a special fast. And guess what? You all can do it, because you, it's for only, it's a very, very special fast. And the last fast is the one that the prophets and people like that do. And when the prophets do it, they fast from every thought. They don't even think about anything except the law. But the fast that you all can do has to do with the various parts of your body. Like you can have your, your hearing fast. If you were to have your hearing fast, what kinds of things would you not listen to? Maybe you wouldn't listen to a stupid story. Maybe you wouldn't like to listen to people talking badly and using bad words. So that's the way your ears fast. If someone is telling you something naughty and you listen to it, you're joining that. And another thing you can fast from is with your hands and feet. You know, your hands stand, you know, when you do, would do, and you're washing your hands and you say, Allah, help me not to do something that you shouldn't be doing. Right? And when you wash your feet and would do, you're saying, Allah, don't let my feet take me to the wrong places, right? We want our feet to take us to help mommy in the kitchen and to do good things. And the same thing with our hands. They represent what we do. So these are things that you can do. And also, besides the hearing and the, the hands and the feet, they're seeing, what are some things that you could fast from that you do with your eyes? What do you do too much? Too much TV maybe? You know, that maybe you're looking at your devices, maybe looking at waste of time things, just dumb things on your computer. So during Ramadan, you should try to do this less so that you can have, your eyes can also join in a special, special fast. But what we're going to talk about today, and this is really, really important. I want you all to pay complete attention. We're going to talk about fasting from the things we say. You know? So when we speak, you can do so much harm with what you say. Do you know you, all of you have language, don't you? And you can say beautiful things with language. Should you, speech and language is so special. Do you think dogs can talk? No. Do you think birds can talk? Well, they have a language. But can a bird recite the Quran? Can a bird say beautiful things? We human beings are given speech and it's very precious gift. And so if you do something horrible with it, if you're mean to someone or tease someone, you are not only hurting that other person, you are hurting your own, your beautiful golden heart. And as we all know, we're trying to protect our golden hearts. Well, you know, we're, this book you're studying about Ghazali is book six of the 40 books. But Ghazali in book 24 wrote a book called The Bane of the Tongue. A little tongue here, 20 things that we do with our tongue, which are really destroying our golden hearts and hurting other people. He said, the tongue is really little. Look how little it is, everybody, see? And very delicate. Your tongue can do more harm than your arm with a sledgehammer because it takes no effort to say something mean, does it? Sometimes you just slip and say a mean thing to somebody. You didn't mean to, you know, put someone down or have a bad tone. So the tongue, it's reaches vast. It can go to the end of the world. If any of you go on the, do any of you send emails? What if you sent an email and then people passed it on to everyone in the world and you said something bad about someone and you ruined their life with no effort, just the tongue? Imam al Ghazali said, the tongue is so dangerous. If you all would do a drawing of it, I want you all after we finished to draw a tongue and put a little lion out at the tip of your tongue because your tongue can eat you alive. It can harm you so badly by what you say. All right. And also, you know, we have a beautiful heart. You have your golden heart. You want to keep your tongue behind your heart. So if it's out in front, it might quickly say something. Your heart say, you're about to say something. The heart can consider, is this a beautiful thing to say? Or is this a horrible thing to say? So the tongue should be waiting behind the heart. The heart must consider, was this a good thing to say or not? So now what I want to tell you is some very important things we're going to talk about. And you're going to have homework. I want you all to just, we're going to work on the tongue this time. We're not going to work on hearing or all of those other ones. Tonight, I mean, we're just going to talk about the tongue. Now, have any of you children, sometimes you're with a friend, maybe your friend tells you a secret. Sometimes you're talking to somebody. Maybe they share something that's happened in their family or with a brother or sister. And you know what? If you tell other people what you heard when your friend is confiding in you and sharing, do you know what a terrible thing you've done? You have broken a trust with your friend. And I hate to tell you, but sometimes in my life, I've heard something from someone she was telling me and I shared it with other people. Okay. Is everyone promising? They're not going to share any secrets. All right? Promise. Number one. All right. Next is the tone. Let's say your mother calls you and she says, all right, come in the kitchen and come now and help me. Now you can say, yes, mother, or you can say, all right. So the tone, you've used your voice and your language in a bad way because you've used a mean tone. All right. Instead of, yes, mother, I'll come. So will you all be watching your tone when you answer? Promise me. Okay. I want you to make a list of these things. Next thing, maybe you're talking about somebody and you're joking about them and you make other people laugh because you tell a funny story about somebody. So you're getting everybody to laugh and you're entertaining them, but at the expense of your friend. And when we tell funny stories, this is what happened at school. And then he fell down and he lost all of his toys and you tell a story about someone. You are really, you are making fun and you're joking about someone. Do you think that's a nice thing to do? No. And would you like someone to joke about you when you're not there? Someone says, oh, did you see what she wore to school the other day? Did you see what a stupid looking shirt she was wearing? We can never talk badly about people, right? And also we don't want to mock people or mimic. Say there's a boy in your class, maybe he limps a little bit. Would you make fun of him and imitate him? Would you ever do something like that? Sometimes you don't do it at school, but sometimes you do it with your brothers and sisters. I've seen little girls making fun of their brothers and it really hurts them. And they think it's funny, but guess what? You are hurting them badly, but you're also really hurting your own golden heart. You really are. You know, and I got these lists of 20 things. Imam al-Ghazali tells us that we're doing all the time and we don't even realize we're doing it. So what we're going to do this week is I'm going to give you a list of seven or eight things. And I want you all, all this coming, but before we meet again, to actually take a note of when you nearly did it and you stopped yourself, right? Now, here's something I bet all of you do. Do you ever argue with your brother or sister? Do you argue with your mother if she wants you to do something? Let me just tell you what arguing is. Oh, listen to this. Okay, let's say I am going to argue with my brother Munir, all right? There he is in front of me. So I tell him, he said something and I said, no, you're wrong about that. I'm right, right? What am I doing? I'm telling him he's ignorant and he's wrong and I'm right. And what am I trying to do? I'm trying to overpower him and win over him. Do you think that's coming from your golden heart or from your lower nafs? What's it coming from? It's coming from the nafs. It feels bad when you do it. And do you notice people argue all the time? The father comes and says it's time to go to bed. We're not going to do it. It's not time. What you should say is, well, let me understand better why we have to do this. You shouldn't argue with people and put them down and pretend you're the only one who knows. You should say very kindly. Well, let me understand what you're saying here. You'd be surprised how much we argue with people, all right? Then there's another thing we do. We show off, OK? Maybe you're telling a story to a friend in your school and you said, well, my family, we went to Florida on our spring vacation and we got to go to Disneyland, right? Are you showing off? Yeah, you're bragging. Now, you know what you do to the people listening? You're making them envy. They're thinking, oh, oh, they feel bad. I wish we got to go to Disneyland. You're making them envy what you did. Is that a good thing to do? And we do it. You'd be surprised if you watch yourself talking, kids, you're going to notice how much you're bragging. And it's very subtle just by we got to do this, you know? And you're hurting other people, but you're hurting your golden heart, right? Now, another thing is bad words. Do you ever hear people using bad words now? You hear it all the time. I cannot believe the language, the bad words people use today. You see it on TV. You see it in the movies now. When I was a little girl, no one would dare to say a bad word. And now it's like normal. Grown-ups do it, and children are doing it, and it's on television. Children, you can't use wrong, low, a base words. Promise me. Now, watch out. I want you to keep a little diary until we meet again. And tell me how you notice when you about said a bad thing. Or you did it, and you said, let's talk for a while. I'm really sorry. But make lists of it. And I'm going to tell you something. Ever since I started working on this, it's given me a tool to watch myself all day long. I'm talking. We're all talking. And Imam al-Ghazali said, we ought to be silent more. People who are silent seem to be like wise people. They're not talking on and on and on. Sometimes we just never stop. And we exhaust people by going on and on. And do you know what Saydena Abu Bakr did, one of the prophet's companions, peace be upon him, he had a bunch of pebbles, and he kept them in his mouth, like this. And if he decided I want to say something, he had to take the pebbles out. And you know what, this gave him time to think, was this going to be something nice? I was going to say, was it going to be beautiful? Was it worth saying? So imagine, maybe you also get not pebbles, but get some little grains of corn or little things. And haven't been your mouth for all the afternoon, and then you have to take them out when you're going to talk and see, was that really worth saying? Was that, Ghazali says we should only say beautiful things. Now, isn't this an incredible thing to think about? Because it right away puts you children with yourself all day long, because we're talking all day long, and you start noticing, oh, am I expressing anger? Is it ugly what I'm doing? Am I arguing? All right, so then also lying. There's subtle ways we lie, right? And we don't even have to go into lying. You all know what lying is about. And that's something that you have to be really careful about. I don't know whether you saw any of these videos that children make, and they're on our website, and they're also on our, I'm sure Mr. Monier has for you, there's a documentary film on my emails, and there's a couple of girls, and they're in Chicago. Okay, and they are playing a game, doing cartwheels, and all of a sudden one of them kicks the mother's bays and it breaks. Oh no, it's mother's favorite break. And then mother comes in and she said, who broke my face? And the little girl pointed over to the couch. Her little brother was sitting on the couch, and she said, he did. And the little brother said, no. And then the mother left, and then the two girls talked, and they said, you know, we lied, and it's wrong. So they went into their mother with the broken bays and said, mommy, we lied. It wasn't our little brother, we broke it, we are really sorry, and I'm gonna get some gorilla glue and try to fix it. So if you do something wrong, just say it right away. I'm sorry I did the wrong thing, because we all slip. It's so easy. People are always not telling quite the truth, you know? So that's another thing you don't ever wanna be doing, but particularly in Ramadan. So then another thing is, and now we're gonna get into the really horrible stuff. Okay? In your book that you've read, of course, in this story about fasting, we all know we shouldn't backbite. Do you all know what backbiting is? Talking badly about someone behind their back. Now, if you know something about someone and they're concealing it and you tell it, let's just pretend all of you. There's something you all have in your life and you don't want people to know about it, something you do. How would you like someone to reveal that and show it to everybody? You wouldn't. So why would you do that to someone else? Conceal something, you know? And really even Imam al-Ghazali said, if someone praises you with their voice and says, oh, Muneer, you're such a wonderful person. Fantastic, you're just marvelous. Ghazali said, when people praise you, you should think to yourself, you know? Honestly, if I told them some of the bad things, I do things and I'm concealing them. What if I told them some of the things I do in secret? So none of us have clean slates, but by watching our speech, we're able to do something about it. So the worst thing is back-fighting, all right? And may I say you something, children? People do it all the time. I mean, all the time. You hear someone say, oh, she's going to hell. Her hijab isn't straight or that Imam is no good. He has horrible sermons and you hear Muslims, nice Muslims talking badly about other Muslims saying, he's no good, she's no good. Look at what they did. We should never say anything at all unless we have something good to say. If you're, my mother told me, if dear, if you don't have something beautiful and good to say about someone, don't say anything at all. And you know, there was a little girl called Lena and her mother called me one day and she said, Auntie Ayesha, I was having a tea party and we ladies were sitting around and we were drinking tea and eating cookies and little Lena came in and she whispered in my ear and she said, mommy, are you all back-fighting? I said, may I speak to Lena? Lena is eight. So Lena got on the phone and Lena said, Auntie Ayesha, until we talked about back-fighting in the book of knowledge, when my mother read me that story, I didn't even know about it. She didn't even know about it and it's one of the worst things we can do All right, here's a Hadith, a Sahih Hadith. And this is in your book of fasting. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, it was during Ramadan and two ladies sent a message and they said, we're old, we're frail, we would like permission to break our fast and have something to eat. And the Prophet sent back a bowl, an empty bowl. He said, with the message, you already broke your fast, already, into this bowl, I want you to throw up. And you know what happened? They threw up pieces of human flesh and blood and the people that were watching were horrified because it says in the Quran, if you back-bite someone, it's the same as eating their dead flesh. Now, that is pretty scary, isn't it? And for it to be that disgusting and you all are disgusted with it, horrible. It's one of the worst images. Do you think it would be in the Quran, it would be that horrible if a law didn't want to really make a point? Like he's really saying, this is how bad it is. And may I tell you a real story that happened in my own life? I'm gonna share this with you, okay? A few years ago, I was writing the part on back-biting and it really, I rewrote that chapter 22 times. It was really horrible because people do it all the time. When people get together, do you think they talk about ideas? They talk about each other, yeah, and things. But the worst thing is they talk about other people. And so anyway, I had just finished writing this chapter, children, and I was really scared. And I went out to dinner with a bunch of my girlfriends. We went to a restaurant. We were all sitting together, right? And they were all talking about somebody's father, one of our friend's father. And of course, this father is, I hate to tell you, a terrible person. And I knew a really funny, horrible story about him. And I told the story to all of them and they all laughed, right? And I suddenly didn't feel well. So I got in my car to drive home and I drove home and I started feeling, oh, I'm gonna throw up. I got home, I ran in the front door, I ran to the bathroom and I threw up. There was no blood or anything or pieces of flesh. But you know what had happened? I had finally understood how bad it was to backbite. And children, we are so jaded, we're so used to backbiting that we forget that we can't do it ever. So that is a particularly important hadith and it's Sahih and it's true. And so if you start to say something bad, just stop, okay? So what we're going to do is this week, does everybody have a pencil? I'm gonna give you a list of what you're, everybody write the list down. Get out a pencil and paper, all right? And our brother Menir will write it down too in case any of you didn't write it, okay? The first thing is telling people secrets, okay, right? Telling secrets that you heard, all right? Second is your tone of voice, tone of voice. Next is teasing somebody, teasing somebody, right? And then also mimicking somebody, making fun of them. Someone says, oh, I can't come. Oh, I can't come. Kids imitate and mimic each other. Don't do that, put that down in your list, okay? Next, making jokes at the expense of someone, telling a story about somebody, right? And making everybody laugh and that's a terrible thing. Next, ugly bad words, slang, low words, no more, okay? Next, arguing. Watch yourself, you're gonna see you arguing with your father and mother and your brother and sister, you know? It's, you know, you're doing that wrong. Just all you're doing, remember when you argue is you're puffing up your nuffs, wrecking your golden heart because remember the sunna, how the prophet peace and blessings be upon him. What he did was his sunna is put the other person first. Now, if you're arguing, you're putting yourself first, right? If you're telling a secret, you're putting yourself first. If your tone is bad, if you are backbiting, you're putting yourself first. If you're bragging, all of those things are the upset of the imitation of the prophet of the sunna. So all we're talking about, I'm gonna give you a few more things, is you're gonna practice till our next gathering. You're really gonna watch yourself with these things and make little notes and you're gonna tell me next. Next time we're gonna have the sound on and you're gonna tell me honestly, the things you noticed in yourself and how you could catch yourself. And I'm gonna tell you something, it's fun and it's real. And once you get going on this, you will notice you were about to say something bad about somebody. Okay, so also not a lot of stupid talk going on and on and on, a little more silence. And the next thing you're gonna do the experiment with the pebbles in your mouth, you could get something else, jelly beans, know that you would have to eat those, something that you wouldn't want, you don't wanna swallow it, but something little and not dangerous, okay? And then remember we did showing off and bragging, watch how often you're coming among your friends and you're showing off and creating envy. And I'm the cool one, right? And then the last one, I think we've just been talking about is the back fighting, right? And of course, and lying, I forgot, and lying, just watch how you lie, you know. Your father says, have you done your homework? Yeah, I've done it all, right? Did you, really? So anyway, and so we don't wanna gossip and there's something called scandal and you all aren't involved in scandals. It's when somebody knows something bad and they spread it and it goes everywhere. They start a rumor about somebody. This is apparently, according to Imam al-Ghazali, one of the most horrible things you can do, you know, because you're taking something that might be true, but you know, here's something that Ghazali says and this, we're gonna end here because I've got to go, but this is what has scared me most, okay? Everybody pay very close attention, all right? Sure, we don't wanna gossip and talk about somebody, you know, backbite, but guess what Ghazali says we're doing with our golden hearts? We're actually inside of our minds, we're backbiting. We have our real beautiful golden perfect self, the real one that knows what's right and says that's wrong, right? Then you have the lower nuffs and it's talking and it's thinking and it's thinking, oh gosh, what an ugly shirt that girl is wearing, right? Oh, isn't he horrible? Ghazali says, what you're doing is you're making assumptions about someone. You think a bad thought about someone, maybe they're having a bad time in their life. Maybe their father has died and you don't know it. Maybe the reason they're being difficult is you don't know and maybe they've done something wrong and they've already said to Allah, forgive me. So we're even going around in our minds backbiting because we're assuming bad things about people that we don't know 100% for true. Now, Siddiq Munir, isn't this unbelievable stuff? I'm gonna tell you, this will change your life. And it's the first time I've ever had a tool that's with me every single second because we're always talking. Some of the other things we're asked to do, you know, they're occasions for them, but this is non-stop. So children, this is a big assignment, but I'm gonna tell you, we are all together embarking on the special fast for the elect, for the special people, not the one for the prophets, but for the very high people. And what's a better time to start than when you're young, right? This is a good time to begin because you're gonna get in the habit. And once you start this habit of watching yourself, imagine all of you to get this habit going when you're young and not to try to, you know, when you're old and you've been doing it for years, try to change yourself. It's like, if you have a young tree and you can bend the branches, they bend like this, but an old tree is stiff and rigid. You try to bend it, it just breaks. So are you all gonna go and take work on your list and you're gonna report back? I'm so happy to be doing this with you. This is a really exciting and I'm working on the children's book for this right now. This is gonna be a wonderful children's book. Shall I tell you the beginning of the children's book story? Because I want you to help me write it. Okay, once upon a time, okay, everybody can listen. Once upon a time, there was this village of people and up they look out and there was a very tall mountain with a forest and then their town. And at the top of that mountain, there was a little crevice and day and night, golden light was coming out of the mountain. People, grandfathers, they knew about it and everyone, it was part of daily life seeing this golden light. But about 200 years before a man left and climbed up to the goal and you went into the crevice and he never came back. And when people went, they never came back. So finally one day, about 50 years ago, right? This daughter, she was about 17. She went up and didn't come back and her mother was so scared, she told the village people, look, I've gotta go find her, tie a rope on my ankle. So when I climb up and go into the crack after three days, I want you to gently start pulling to bring me back. So after three days, they brought the mother and she had her daughter and they were both smiling and they couldn't talk and they couldn't stop smiling. They were silent and smiling beautifully. That's all they would do, right? And they never spoke and they never saw what they saw, never told what they saw. So finally, I think the mother died and the girl is still smiling. And two teenagers, their name Mustafa and Hajar, they decide for the village, they're gonna go up and they're gonna each have a cord around their ankles, right? And then the villagers will pull them back and they are gonna find out what is going on inside of that magic place with the golden light. So after three days, everyone is out in the town and they're gently pulling, gently pulling and the boy and girl, they're about 16 and 17, they come down and they're smiling, right? And they're smiling and they don't wanna say what they saw but in the end, the Imam in the mosque finds among the papers a letter, a thousand year olds written from Imam Al Ghazali and in it, he starts reading in the mosque about the 20 things you can't do. And so finally, the boy and the girl, they're smiling and they said, all right, everyone, we're going to share what we saw. There were people from every country in the world and from 20 different countries, we heard a story and they told a story about someone who let's say lied or someone who shared a secret and what happened to them. And so what I'm gonna do, children, is we're gonna do this book together, all right? And we'll maybe have a little boy from China tell what happened when he teased someone, someone he made fun of him and these stories have to show what terrible results happened. And so the reason everyone was smiling is they finally realized in silence and in beauty, you know, a presence to be beautiful, shining, simple presences, they had achieved their golden hearts. So won't this be a wonderful book to do? This is gonna be fun, you know? We don't have a Hajj Abdullah anymore. So this is another kind of a book but I think it may be the most important book of the series because we are all hurting our hearts, harming ourselves while hurting other people. Have someone ever said something to you and it really hurt your feelings? Yeah, yeah. And you know, when someone says something mean to you, you never forget it. And you know what you never forget? And I'm crying now. You say something really mean to someone, you never forget you said it. You think about it at night, some of them, how could I've said it, that person and hurt them? It never goes away. So what we're trying now while you all are young and your golden hearts are totally shining, we're trying to prevent some of the worst dust that can come onto your hearts, all right? So I love you very much. And now my husband and I are gonna go see some friends. I had promised, I didn't realize, I thought this was three hours ago was, three hours ago was poised here and I got it wrong. So I'm sending you all my love and I think we have a wonderful project together and maybe a CD Monir, you can share the video of this with the children who couldn't be here because we want everybody in the community to take part. As salamu alaykum everyone, salamu alaykum.