 SAW Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, assalamu alaikom everybody. Hope you are doing well. On this very rainy day, alhamdulillah for the rain, we definitely need it. And, Alhamdulillah, ma'sha'Allah to everybody for taking the time to come out in the rain. And for those of course who couldn't make it, we are just starting insha'Allah. So we'll be, everything insha'Allah will be working with the rest of the live stream. So we'll be, we'll be streaming on the internet as well. Alhamdulillah, cool. So soon going to do a quick recap. And we're still on this chapter, chapter 14 of the book, which is on following the sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And there's a lot of things that could be said. And Imam Ahadad definitely condensed a lot, a lot, a lot in this chapter, such that we've been going over now for a couple of weeks. So we'll be aiming to wrap it up today insha'Allah. So a couple of things for us to just remember with regards to the importance of following the sunnah. Where we left off, we were talking about the sunnah of food and the sunnah of eating. And there's basically this idea in our tradition of you are what you eat, right? Like that's very, very prevalent in our tradition. You'll see it throughout the sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, throughout the way the sahaba conducted themselves, and throughout the way that the early generation is known as the sallah, that they would conduct themselves. And there was a high emphasis on being very, very careful about the food that somebody consumed. Because at the end of the day, if someone's eating food that is, and the animal has gone through suffering, the animal has gone through difficulty, the animal has gone through major, major problems, been fed all these types of hormones, and then the animal is not sacrificed in the name of God. And when that food enters someone's body, of course, it's not pure. It's impure for a variety of reasons. It's not only impure, it's impure and it would be considered just problematic from the way that the animal was treated. And then all of the different feelings that we're going on and the different negative aspects, spiritually we believe in our religion that they will enter into our body, and they will inform the way that someone behaves. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam indicated many times that somebody who eats permissible and eats halal is going to do halal actions. And somebody who eats haram will do haram actions. And it's kind of like a table stakes understanding that the sahaba and the salaf had, that we've actually forgotten in our times. We sometimes think that it's possible to live very, very practical lives of righteousness and very, very focused lives of righteousness without focusing on our food. That's just not the case. As many of the scholars say, the spiritual path is linked at the beginning to two things, the source of someone's food and the source of someone's income. And if both of those are not in the correct place, there is no starting on the spiritual path. Someone of course is still a Muslim and they're still believing in Allah and so on and so forth, but to get to the higher degrees of spirituality where somebody actually is trying to get into closer levels of nearness, the food intake becomes very, very important and very, very critical. And so we mentioned a couple of different things last time. Just, you know, the main the main topic here, the main takeaway is that somebody should try to really, really focus on eating halal and faiyeb food, that food slaughtered in the name of God and the name of Allah and food that is also pure. And then the importance of halal income, we talked a little bit about that, right? But as we go through our lives, we're going to have various opportunities that are presented to us with regards to the type of job that we can do. And a Muslim should be very, very careful and scrupulous to make sure that, hey, the income someone is earning is not from an impermissible source or from a haram source. What ends up happening when the food and the income, the foundations of someone's kind of worldly life are not from the right sources without even, okay. So we'll move on then to the next, to the next section. So next, what he gets into, again, Imam Ahadad is going to cover everything. So he's about to cover like the sunnah of when you are going to use the restroom, the sunnah after you're done using the restroom, the sunnah of cleaning, at the sunnah of sneezing, the sunnah of intimacy as well, right? So he's going to cover all these different types of sunnahs just so that the believer knows that, hey, the prophet says one of the most amazing parts of our deen is that nothing is left out. Literally, nothing was out. You will find everything in this deen. The deen is perfect. It has been perfected. It might not mean it's like someone can't just like open a verse of Quran and that's so there'll be a verse about, you know, Bitcoin or something. But there will be the foundational principles in the Quran and then the sunnah of prophecy will be there to help the people of knowledge and insight do the analysis that they need to to make a ruling on something, right? But in the practical everyday life, yes, alhamdulillah, everything is there. So one of the core aspects of that is the relationship that a believer has, right? That the relationships you have with your community, the relationships you have with your family and Allah, one sec. Sorry, this keeps this connecting. So the relationship that somebody has with their community versus someone has with their family and so on and so forth. And so at the at the root at the start of this is the relationship that someone has with their family. And so what they say usually is you first work on yourself and you work on your family. Then if you're good, your family, inshallah, you'll be able to influence them to be good. If your family is good, now you start to think, okay, how can I help small pockets of my community? Once your community starts to thrive, now how can you collectively go and impact society? A society in general starts to thrive. Now how can you go and impact the world? You don't start with the world when yourself you haven't even focused on yourself yet, right? That the the and the family is like completely like they say in, there's like a proper way to say it in Urdu, but like the the the barber who everybody else's hair is cut so nicely and he never had, you know, his hair is like a complete mess. Never has time to cut his own hair. And you do also want to make sure to take care of yourself. Allah says in the Quran, save yourselves and your families from the fire. He says, start with yourself. And he says in the Quran, Allah does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. You have to start with yourself, right? And so he's going to get into the importance here now of family. And so he so we'll start with the sunnah of marriage in that the sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ is to get married, right? Like the believer is somebody who once they reach the right age and that's going to be different depending on someone's abilities, depending on someone's financial abilities and so on and so forth. At minimum when someone is physically able to when someone has hit has reached the age of maturity, post puberty and reach the age of maturity, right? And someone is capable and and then someone is, you know, let's say for a man, generally financially able to support and so on and so forth. And someone is, you know, emotionally ready, marriage becomes important. But it is very, very important in our tradition to get married. Prophet ﷺ highly emphasized it. It's not far, but it can become far. It can become or it's not it's not obligatory. Sorry, but it can become obligatory. How does it become obligatory? If somebody's desires are so out of control, they're not able to control them and they're getting caught up in haram all the time, constantly flirting with people, constantly, you know, doing other things with people using, you know, Tinder and so on and so forth, right? Now it starts to become a problem and someone's like, no, no, no, you better get married. It's no longer optional for that person because that person needs it in order to constrain control themselves. Right? And of course, there's many, many, many other benefits to it, but at minimum from that perspective, right? And so in our tradition, we do not have the idea of delaying marriage. We do not have that idea. That we should not wait until we're like, way, way, way, like, oh, I got it accomplished. Anytime people will say, oh, I have to do ABC. I have to go to grad school. I have to find a cure to cancer. I have to do this, this, this, then I'll get married. Right? I have a list of things before getting married. In the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, it would be, no, you get married as you are able to, right? And you live a life until you are able to live the type of life that you want to live because the risk, the provision is ultimately from Allah. It's not going to be from the employer or from, you know, so on and so forth, from someone else, right? But somebody does take the means. So that's something to remember with regards to marriage. The other thing to remember with regards to marriage is the Prophet ﷺ told us how to do everything, like in marriage, right? He told, he taught men, this is how you treat your wife. These are the rights that your wife has. He taught women, these are the rights that your husband has. This is how you treat your husband. He taught both parents is how to treat your children and how to raise children. He taught every, the whole family, this is how to function as a family, right? Every, nothing was left out and it's amazing because you, there's not a single person in history who you have enough or this much of a transparent view into like the Prophet ﷺ. You can't find anybody like this. That you can literally every part of their life is, you can, you can figure out what's going on to the point where we know what the Prophet ﷺ told us to do in the bedroom with regards to intimacy. And that's the dua that Imam al-Hadad is about to share is with regards to the sunnahs of intimacy, right? But the Prophet ﷺ said, no, I want my community at every moment to know this is how, this is the way. I don't want to leave anything out for them, right? The covered cleanliness, he's covering using the restroom and so on and so forth. So the marriage, again, the first point here is that marriage is absolutely essential in our tradition. It's not, it's not farred, but it can become obligatory on somebody if someone is not able to manage things. And then it is a very important sunnah though to follow, right? To follow for someone to do so. And when someone is ready, then it becomes, as Imam al-Hadad mentioned in the early sections on requiring knowledge, when someone is ready, now becomes obligatory on you to go and learn the requirements of marriage. That means you would learn the, what is my responsibility as a man? What is my responsibility as a woman? What are the rights and responsibilities? What am I supposed to be doing? And then somebody would also learn the, the, the fiqh of marriage and then the fiqh of divorce. Both you have to learn once you enter the stage where you are getting married. Before, when you're not married, even if you're marriageable, you don't have to learn it, right? But you get to the point where like, okay, now I'm actually entering into this, we got to learn it because otherwise the ends of happening is people without even realizing it are like majorly transgressing bounds, right? Either with the spouse or with Allah because the, the, what are called the ahgam, the rules of marriage are not being followed. And then same thing, people all the time can easily slip into divorce. Not very difficult, right? If someone doesn't learn the rules because like there's rules in fiqh about if you say something, even if you don't actually use the specific words, but you have any level of intention there and it's set in an angry way, it could count as, as, as, as divorce. So someone has to learn these types of things. So that would be where this isn't, you know, a thick discussion, but that would be important for us to do and for us to learn. Then the Prophet's system also taught, hey, this is what you look for in a spouse, right? He said you could look for, you could look at looks, right? You could look at wealth. You could look at the family that they come from and you could look at the deen and their religiosity. And he emphasized, but look at their religiosity first as that's critical. He didn't say you don't have, you're totally, it's totally okay to make sure you're physically compatible and attracted to somebody and that you feel like, hey, they come from a good family. But that should not be like, oh, I really want to just make sure that, you know, they, they look great on Instagram, but like I could care less about their religious morality and so on and so forth. What ends up happening if it's too superficial is that people will not be able to go beyond that superficial level, right? Religiosity is absolutely essential for the husband and for the wife to look for, right? And you examine, okay, it doesn't mean, and nobody's perfect, but like, is someone trying to get better? That's probably one of the most critical traits is, hey, are you on a path where you're trying to get better versus like, hey, I'm good. I don't want to ever, you know, I'm already, you know, at the place I'm going to be and there's no work that I need to do, right? And that would be kind of categories that somebody would consider. And then of course, in addition to that, is somebody praying, is someone actively praying and so on and so forth, right? Dude, we don't want to expect that good, wholesome families will be raised while somebody does not have, good wholesome families will be raised if the parents are of course not exemplifying and are functioning as exemplars of religiosity and morality. So then he gets into now, into the specific duas that somebody would recite. So there are other duas that like, you know, that someone might do on the first night of marriage and so on and so forth, but this is the du'a that when someone approaches their spouse, right, from intimacy, there's a du'a that the Prophet ﷺ taught us to say, which is Bismillah, Allahumma, Jannabina shaitanah wa jannabda shaitanah maruzaqtana, that O Allah, in the name of Allah, O Allah, keep shaitan away from us and from that offspring that you give us. Now what is the Prophet ﷺ teaching us here in this du'a and what does Allah want us to say? Allah wants us to in the moment when someone is engaging with their spouse, Allah actually wants you to remember him first and then to seek protection, seek protection from the devil and seek refuge in Allah because the shaitan, they're trying to get involved and trying to mess up that relationship. It's one of the main things the shaitan want to do. As it's mentioned in the traditions that the different shaitan, the different shaitan, they come back to the chief devil at least and they report to him. They're like, what did you do today? He's like, oh, I got someone to... And I'm not quoting directly from the examples because I forgot the exact examples, but I got someone to steal today. Okay, decent job. Oh, I got somebody to cheat today. Okay, not bad. I got somebody to tell a major lie today and break their oath. Okay, pretty good. And then someone else comes, oh, I caused dissension between the husband and wife such that they divorced. He says, you come close to me. You've done the real deed. You've done the big deed. They compete in the bad deeds that they do and they go to their boss and he gives them rewards and promotions and so on and so forth based on the bad deeds that they get people to do. And so he said, or that they actually inspire. And these are the insinuations of the shaitan. So he said that this was such a big deed that he was happy with it. It doesn't mean that divorce is a satanic thing. That's not what we're saying here, but that when shaitan, he's trying to get in between a husband and a spouse. He's trying to get in between a husband and spouse and he's trying to get in between them at all times in normal life and as we learn in this dua in intimacy and in the offspring that somebody is blessed with such that we are taught that, oh, Allah, we ask that you keep satan away from us in this situation and in the offspring that you might that, inshallah, you bless us with. And so that is the dua that somebody would do when in intimacy. Yes, Siddhi Tantan. So lines up with the idea of intention. Yes. You put an intention into the act of loving with the spouse or instead of, you know, if you have an intention in you think that. Excellent, yeah, exactly. It's the point was made around intention and why intention is so important. And so again, the dua is what they're helping us do is they're bringing mindfulness and intention into everything that we do. Right. And so somebody when they're generally about to engage in an act that is primarily related to physical desires. No, no, no, stop and remember Allah first and seek refuge in Allah and from any negativity that could be formed. Again, this idea of presence being so, so, so important. Now, the other thing the Prophet ﷺ taught us is that when someone is with their spouse, it's they're literally getting good deeds, right, in that action because they could be doing the same thing with in a non permissible way and they would be getting sins, right? It would be committing zina. And so the Prophet ﷺ told the Sahaba, they asked him, do we really get good deeds for being with our spouse? Like they didn't expect good deeds when you're praying and fasting and somebody says, wouldn't you get a sin? If you were doing it in the Haram situation, they said, yes. He says, so you get a good deed when you are doing it in the permissible situation. Right. And so again, this is where we don't have an ascetic tradition. It's not like the Christian tradition, which not the entire Christian tradition, but parts of the Christian tradition, which promote the idea of monasticism, right? And like just completely ignore all the desires and never get married and so on and so forth. That's not our tradition. Our tradition is that somebody actually know Allah gave the human being desires for a reason, but he gave them halal permissible channels for that desire. Now it's up to that person whether they're not gonna, they're gonna exercise those permissible channels and go after them or whether they're just gonna get caught up in Haram, right? And so especially in a society where there's so much promiscuity, so much, so many sexual references and innuendos and from a young age that people from young ages know about this stuff. From young ages, now the average age that according to statistics that teenagers are having intercourse is like 12 or 13 now that many of them began at a younger age. It's crazy. Absolutely insane. And so as Muslims, we can't live with the idea that like, oh, I have to wait until I'm way old to get married and just make all the mistakes in between. That's not the way of the Muslim. Muslims are like, no, when I'm ready and I know that this is something I need to do, they go and they do it, right? And they go and they talk to their parents and they have a discussion with them. And if you can't convince your parents, you can't convince other people, you bring to them the evidences from the sunna gently, not in like, oh, look at what this is and throw the book at them. No, no, no, nicely. You know, you could raise me and I love you. And you know, I think I'm ready there. You're not even close to ready. You don't even fold your laundry yet. And they're like, no, no, no, it's different. I'm ready. And they, you slowly have that conversation with them, right? But it is, it is very, very important to not wait. To not wait till someone is again, there's not like a specific age cut off here, but everybody knows at which point, right? So the next, just want to finish point, but is it a question? Okay, yeah, so we'll just, just want to finish my shout out. So that is the, with regards to, you know, someone's literally getting good deeds. And then he gives, you know, general indications of like, how somebody would approach that, right? But that he mentions regarding whether it is better to marry. He said that it is to do what is better and safer from a religious standpoint. So it is extremely reprehensible for those who are not married to think about the opposite gender in a way that increases their desire for them. Extremely reprehensible, right? For a man to think about a woman who's not, you're not married and think about a woman in that, in that way. And for a woman to do the same with a man. He's, he's saying that's, that's, that's not what you want to do. Anyone thus afflicted in such a different time that they're living in, because these days it's like, it's all over the place. Someone's on social media, someone's on the internet. It's just like completely common place for there to be all of these constant pushes and constant pushes, such that the thoughts of somebody from young ages, again, high school and earlier, get clouded with these types of things. Generally speaking, that you did, that did not used to be the case, right? Which is why we know we are living in the, in the end of times. And probably some prophesies, many, many, many things of them, being that morality will slowly, slowly decline. There'll be general moral degradation and sexuality will become more and more open and rampant, right? And people will begin to do things literally publicly that they would never think to do, right? Never, never, never think to do. And so he says, anyone thus afflicted and unable to control it with acts of worship, the thought can come, you're not held accountable for the thought. You're held accountable for acting on the thought, right? That's one point that's important to remember. So someone could have a bad thought and then they say, astaghfirullah, audabillam shaitan, or even they're not held accountable for the thought. But the minute they go and they act on the thought, that the text message starts, the flirting starts, the whatever starts in an impermissible way, the cheating starts and the affair starts, whatever it is, whatever stage that somebody is in, now the accountability begins, right? And it's very, very dangerous to fight. So he says, whoever can't control it acts of worship, right? Must get married. If they are literally unable to, like nothing that they can do, there's nobody who they could potentially have that relationship with. They can't approach the topic of marriage financially, whatever it is. And he says, you fast a lot. Fasting is one of the cures for sexual desires, right? The cures for impermissible sexual desires. Somebody fasts and fasts and fasts and it will tame things. There's a direct link between food as the first appetite that the human being has and then this second appetite, these are the two chief appetites, Mama Ghazali mentions in the Yahya-l-Umidina. These are the two chief appetites of the human being, food and sexual desire, right? And so somebody who's able to control both, you've got a major control, a major part of your nafs under control. Someone who's not able to control either is like essentially very similar to the animals who don't have any control over this, right? Literally animals, all they want to do, if you have a pet, they just want to eat a lot. Like they constantly want to eat and if you have, if someone has seen animals in general, like how often animals will procreate, there is no idea of controlling. That's not really, they don't have that level of, they're not required to either. But the human being were not like the animal. There is a stage where the human being is like the animal, called the nafs al-amara misu. The first level of the ego of the soul which is the evil commanding soul and it's essentially the animal soul where the animal instincts inside of the human being is in control. And so there's a lot of people in society where they never graduated to the next level and they're like in very powerful position of society and then they end up having affairs and having all these different things happen because they're still following their animal soul. No matter how high in a position somebody gets, if they have not conquered the animal soul, they've never really progressed. It doesn't matter if someone's 20 and has conquered it or if someone is 70 and has not conquered it. The person who's 20 and has conquered it is more, has progressed more than the person who's 70 and has not conquered it, right? And so if someone gets to the age of some of the political folks that we've seen in our time and they still can't control this, it's a big, big, big problem, right? But the believer we're taught from early ages and stages that no, this is something you control in one of the ways to help with that is marriage, right? And so that's why marriage becomes so important. Now, if someone is looking for a spouse and they're unable to find somebody, there is a dua that is recommended that somebody would do, that the dua is the dua of Sayyidina Musa and you can do this for a lot of different situations but this would be one where someone would say out of the Billah of the Shaitan Regime, Rabbi, in me lima anzalta ilayah min khairin faqir, that my Lord indeed I am in need for whatever good you would send down to me. I'm in need for whatever good you may send me. And someone in there, when you're in states of dire need, this is an amazing dua to do. This is the dua that Sayyidina Musa, the prophet Moses, he's to be upon him. He did as he fleed from the people who were chasing him after he left the town of Pharaoh, not when he fleed from Pharaoh during the time with his entire, with all of Bani Israel, but when he was younger. And he got to a place known as Median. And there he stopped at a place and he made this dua. Said, Rabbi, in me lima anzalta ilayah min khairin faqir, Ya Allah, and he was thirsty and hungry and he was in a difficult state. Ya Allah, I am in need for whatever good you may send down to me. Whatever good you may send down to me. And then what happens after that, not too long after that, he gets to this kind of watering hole where they would water their animals. And he sees two women struggling with watering their animals. All the men are watering their animals first and like they're not giving him, giving him turns. So he's like, do you guys need help? He approaches them and they accept the help that he's offering. And then they bring him to their father. Father is also a prophet known as Prophet Shoaib A.S. according to the dominant opinion. And their father, he then hears the whole story of the difficulty and the oppression that Sayyidina Musa A.S. has been through and then he offers an employment and then also along with that, he, after he evaluated Musa A.S. and of course this is a prophet of Allah and there's another prophet of Allah and so there's a very special connection that they will have, then he actually says, after this period of time that you spend with me and that you will work with me, that I would want you to get married to my daughter. And so then after that period of time, eight to 10 years, then they get married and then Musa A.S. leaves and as after he leaves that then the conversation with Allah directly began. That he is the burning bush and so on and so forth. But the point is this is a dua that somebody would do when they're in extreme need and it is also a dua someone would do if they are struggling to, or they're not even struggling, they're just at the point where hey now I want to get married and they would do this dua. Alhamdulillah. So that's on the topic of marriage and intimacy. Alhamdulillah. Does anybody have any questions before I move on to the next topic? The mic has a question. Yes. Yeah, good question. So the question was the animal soul, what time does it start? So it's essentially the stage that the human being is in until they get out of that stage. So it's basically like that you have levels of the soul. The first level is this animal soul. The next level is known as what's called nafsalawama, the self-blaming soul. And this is the soul that starts to actually call itself out. Like no, no, no, no. It messes up. It's like you shouldn't have done that. Right. It's like the first one barely feels guilty. Doesn't really feel guilty. As soon as guilt and feeling bad and repentance and so on start to enter, one is kind of starting to kind of graduate between or to the next level. Right. But that's the level that somebody is at. So you might never leave it. Right. Someone could literally be 80 years old and still be in that or someone very early. Right. As kind of once they're they've hit the age of puberty and they're held accountable and they start to work on themselves very quickly goes to the higher levels. After that one. So there's two ways. There's like a couple of different ways that they mentioned it. The most basic way is the first level is the animal soul. The second level is kind of this self-blaming soul. And the third level is what's called the nafsalawama, the peaceful and serene soul. This is the soul that it is in a complete state of peace. And as Allah says in the Qur'an Ya Ayatuhil nafsal matma'inna Irji ila rabbika radiyatil mardiyah that fadkhu li fi i'ibadi wadkhu li jannati that oh tranquil soul. Ya Ayatuhil nafsal matma'inna Irji ila rabbika ridh come to your Lord in a state of that you are pleased and Allah is pleased. And enter my jannah. Enter my jannah. Enter my slave. Enter my jannah. Like Allah is so pleased with the soul and your this soul is in a complete state of serenity with him. It's a regular dua that we should all make that Ya Allah let me attain the state of having enough salamutma'inna a serene soul. A soul that's not it's a it can that the the the terpidities of life come but that soul is calm through them. This is how you know when we talked about this I think maybe many weeks ago about anxiety how somebody knows hey they're progressing as anxiety comes but someone's able to conquer it and calm down very easily. The more someone is in a constant state of being frazzled all the time and just not calm and just like you can tell some things off that means a lot of work has to be done it's normal we all have that but it but you'll see around around like for example the prophet of some he's of course at the highest soul like he was what's called insan al kamil the perfected human that at that level at the levels of the righteous that they are very very calm through difficulty it's a way to tell how advanced someone is in their spirituality is when difficulty comes where are they at? And so the serene soul it's serene it's tranquil right and the animal soul it loses it just like an animal loses it completely right just can't handle can't handle it right that that would be and then of course the the self-blaming soul is the one that is oscillating between the two and is struggling sometimes and not but like it's the stage where of course we're in for a long period of time does that make sense? Yeah, did you have a question? Yeah, yeah so basically in general so the question was that we mentioned around marriage and the status of marriage is it you know sunnah is it obligatory and so on and so forth that it is a sunnah of the prophet sallam it's so it's it's very important that someone try to follow the sunnah however it's not required right but if somebody cannot control themselves right then they have to get married like it becomes wajib on that person it's no longer optional does that make sense because now they have a halal means and they're still not pursuing the halal means this is where it becomes important to kind of way it's not only about finances and jobs and so on and so forth there's other spiritual things that play here yeah oh we were just reviewing around food and just like the importance of halal food what we covered last time yeah nothing on this topic though sorry yeah food and source of income yes question the question was that can a muslim reach the level of immense nearness to Allah without getting married that's a really good question Allah o alam I don't know that like who Allah brings near and not is in is in Allah's hands in general that the sunnah of the prophet sallam is the main way right so for example imam Ahmed ibn hambal the famous imam Ahmed ibn hambal who and may Allah reward him in abundance for the sacrifices he gave for this deen he is one of the founders of the four madhabs and he is the the one who held on to the aqeeda of atha sunnah and jamaa when there was a lot of persecution and innovations coming into the region so he literally was so adamant about following the sunnah of the prophet sallam that very soon after his blessed wife Allah bless her and forgive her and increase her and encompass her in her mercy in his mercy very soon after she passed away because he didn't want to stray from the sunnah and he was like in an older stage at this point but he like got married right so it was it was very very important to to many of these people to be in that stage however there are people that have attained very very high stations that have not been married before and so it is not a requirement that if somebody is doing the far the actions and someone is doing what they are able to of the extra actions and alhamdulillah there's definitely possibility there there's definitely like Allah's decision there right and and there are there's definitely examples of saints that is meant that are mentioned in the books that were not married and that kind of attained very high levels of matrifa and noses the the ones though that follow the sunnah in every minute aspect from my understanding again Allah knows best will attain higher if that makes sense but again it's not a kind of requirement a lot of things it depends on individual circumstances we're talking right now is like general circumstances and then individual circumstances come up right where somebody might just like I believe imam noe actually I believe imam noe do you know sidi if this imam noe I believe he wasn't married that's what I heard from right yeah so so so yeah the general the general inclination is based imam haddad is saying that the best choice is that which is safer from the religious point of view right and so you kind of aside decide what is safer from the religious point of view but there have been scholars and others from the tradition and saints women and men who have not been you know who have not been married and then there are of course the example that that that the prophecy some said where he said the marriage is is is you know from my sunnah is obviously important to follow so it's kind of like a decision I would make when when if someone is deciding like that big of a decision is the khara becomes really important and so someone asks Allah like should I get married should I not right and assuming that somebody is fine with their desires and able to control themselves it's very important to consult Allah in that and to ask him and to ask him to guide you and to do the istiqarah prayer this that's the prayer of where we seek guidance from Allah and you pray two units of prayer and then you do the dua of istiqarah and ask Allah for guidance for at least a week or two weeks and to get that guidance does that answer the question yes sorry I can't hear you because yeah yeah I know it to me yeah yep really good question so the question was around the idea that marriage is in part to protect somebody and you know protect their chastity and protect their desires and it's also been mentioned that desires at the first level of the soul like are you know a bad thing right and so how do we reconcile the two really good question so the way that we look at desires is that in and of themselves it is not bad to have that desire Allah Allah created the desire in the human being right now he created the desire for a reason so it's not that Allah created the desire and it's now blame worthy end of itself to have that desire so give it example if you did not have a desire for food or drink which I have a desire to drink this now because I'm thirsty one second but if someone didn't have that desire and like somebody like me who just talks talks talks talks talks probably till I know everybody right if I never drank any water I would die of thirst because I just wouldn't have the desire in me to drink if I never had the desire in me to eat food I would never eat food right because it's not a desire Allah created and so he created the desire to eat food for a reason he commanded you then in the Quran to eat food right and to eat and and and to be grateful to Allah where that desire gets blame worthy is when someone goes to excess in a haram way where they're so into the food that they're like forget halal forget this forget that I'm just going to eat whatever I want the same thing with sexual desire if you did not have the desire for the sexual desire how would the human race exist it wouldn't exist how would the the umma of the Prophet ﷺ grow it couldn't grow it wouldn't it's not it's not it's not going to grow so that desire is there for a reason but what Allah wants you to do in the test for the human being is to control the desire from an impermissible outlet and this is true for all the desires that the human being has to control them from impermissible outlets so the impermissible outlet here would be somebody is getting caught up in adultery fornication hooking up with people and so on and so forth now when somebody enters into marriage that gives somebody the halal way right to okay now this is a normal desire Allah created and now he created this permissible means for someone to have that desire it's not that they were supposed to eliminate the desire and then enter a marriage because it wouldn't work and it's impossible to eliminate that desire you cannot actually in reality like truly eliminate something that Allah has created you can reduce it to the point where it maybe doesn't come up in someone's life but you will not completely eliminate it right even the people who barely eat anything they fast fast fast they still they have to eat something right it has to be there for for subsistence and existence purpose so for generally speaking for the majority of human beings that's not going to be of course just like completely eliminated and that's where the prophecy is showing us that hey this is not only is this a permissible avenue to express that desire but you'll get good deeds for it so like don't think that worship there was actually one of the the the one of the Sahaba one of the Sahabiat that she came to the Prophet ﷺ and she meant she complained about her husband because she said that you know he just prays all night he fasts all day he exerts himself to the point where he's literally like super super thin and I've stopped dressing up for him and looking nice for him and so on and so forth right and the Prophet ﷺ he he said that I sleep and I I pray and I also sleep I fast and I also eat and I break my fast and I also right engage in relations right like he that was a very very and we know all the details of Russell and so on and so forth because the Prophet ﷺ told us this is how somebody goes to him. So that's the first part to the answer is that it is not an haram desire in and of itself if the desire is channeled towards haram it becomes haram if the desire is channeled towards permissible it becomes a good thing then when it comes to working on someone's on oneself there will be varying degrees of this if someone doesn't have like literally the basics of their life down right like they can't even that they can't even function they don't know how to have conversations they don't know how to like you know have work or do anything right literally they just let's just say they're very very very young or just highly highly immature yeah it's probably not the best decision like hey for some you know gets someone gets married but there's also the other end of the spectrum where someone does not have to be fit fully refined and perfect it's like someone has the basics down someone is working on themselves and and somebody knows that hey now I'm going to enter into this relationship with somebody who's also going to work on themselves and now in this partnership where Allah says that He created you from the same soul li taskunu ilayha in order that you may have sakina that He will give you a state of tranquility in the marriage because you are with you're truly your soulmate which you could not have otherwise right and so that's a very very important aspect of of marriage to to keep in mind that it's not someone enters into the into a into a stage where they have to be you know fully perfect beforehand the majority of our life is to work to work on ourselves and the majority of people will marry and have the majority of their life in front of them right not behind them especially in terms of like the age of actual post puberty and maturity and being able to think the majority of life will be in front of them and so as a result you just have to have the kind of basics down and and then you will know by by doing two things by doing istikhara asking Allah and istishara istishara is asking your elders people you trust teachers so on and so doing consultation that is is it is it the right time right and you just want to avoid doing consultation with people who their framework is not in line with the Islamic framework if their framework is no no no wait till your you know abc age and you've done xyz in life and it has nothing to do with the tradition and the religion and nothing to do with practical life things but it's just a western framework I would I wouldn't consult those people generally I would generally consult people who are going to look at things from the Islamic framework does that answer the question yeah they'll use the which what is an excuse to force someone else or for themselves to get married oh yeah yeah yeah yeah I see exactly okay so the question was for those who are online that some people would literally push others to get married like parents might push someone to get married even though they're not ready simply for the reason that hey this will help you control your your desire there's a couple of things to keep in mind here right when it comes to something like this there is not compulsion la ikrah fideen there is no compulsion in religion you cannot compel someone force someone to do something right parent doesn't cannot force their child to get married that's you are that is beyond the they can request they can insist they can persuade they can beg Allah they can beg their child but they cannot force them right you have to have permission and it has to come from your own volition right generally speaking that would be the situation so in that instance the the that that will that when someone will be doing something wrong and that justification people use religion to justify things all the time that are wrong and that's also very why knowledge is so important because the vast majority of Muslims in our time right now as the Prophet said on prophesied in the hadith that ignorance will prevail and people of knowledge will be very few people who actually learn the Dean will be very very few and so the vast majority of us in our time right now there's a huge knowledge gap of how to do things on one hand the vastness of our tradition right and the importance of like respecting people of different different opinions and so on and so forth and then on the other hand of the importance of like actually following rules in our tradition the importance of like not getting caught up in in new ideologies that come about Western ideologies and so on and so forth right so there's so many gaps in knowledge because if you haven't grounded yourself in the religion first and someone goes and engages with the rest of the world and then they knit they pick and choose oh i want to apply this one today but never nothing else matters the parents might not even pray and so on and so forth and they're like oh no no but you have to get married because of this and they might only be doing it for cultural reason or might force someone in so that's a very important kind of distinction to keep in mind you have to know and the person has to know enough to say hold on this doesn't sound like the religion right and usually things divorced of mercy are generally not from the religion generally speaking or not right of either mercy in this life or mercy in the next life are there any other questions yes he started going up and he started he pointed to his wife and passed his son but told him he had these two sisters he could marry and one was good attractive and the other one was religious he said give me the religious one right you know and i want to just mention that you know it's so important to have a lot of discretion you know you think carefully before you get into marriage because if it's just further because just because this person like they're interested like physically or something like that then you know you really have to live with the spiritual the religious spiritual side day in and day out so you want to have love for that yeah for their unseen their inner realms right exactly it's very very important exactly no thank you for that for that point that the inner dimension and the religious aspect right well attraction is totally fine to consider that that cannot be the only thing someone should not be the only thing someone considers when considering a spouse and the day in and day out is going to be based on someone's character right so like you could have somebody who's not attractive and really good character and takes really really good care of you and so on and so forth or you could have it could be the inverse as well right somebody who's very very someone's very attracted to them but they really struggle to live with them don't take care of each other and so on and so forth and then of course someone could have both right and it's just it just depends on it's a very very important to be thoughtful and mindful about that decision yeah okay so we'll go ahead and just finish up this chapter and then we'll end and you see some questions okay cool so just to end off so he now is just going to do a quick quick overview of other daily ibadat or sorry daily regular actions that someone will do so he's going to cover the sunna and the etiquette of using the restroom and then we'll go ahead and end here and again important here someone might say this is such a basic mundane act but somebody will do this action often in their life right throughout the day and so if someone can bring an element of spirituality and intentionality to it it's going to give them reward and so the sunna of entering the restroom is that somebody first ideally put something over their head that they put their left foot forward as they enter when you're entering places of purity and goodness you enter with your right foot such as when you're entering the message when you're entering places of that are not pure and dirty you enter with your left foot right and so you enter with your left foot and you exit with your right foot and you say Bismillah Allahumma inni aoudubika min al-khaba'i wal-khaba'ith that in the name of Allah O Allah I seek your protection from the demons from the male and female demons right and then when someone comes out someone says O Allah I seek your forgiveness and that Alhamdulillah praise be due to Allah who removed harm from me what was harmful inside of me and made me healthy and so it's amazing because literally the Prophet ﷺ is teaching us here that when you enter into this place you're mindful of Allah when you exit from the place Allah has helped somebody literally cleanse their body of toxins that if someone is not able to use the restroom literally toxins will build up inside of them so you have to praise Allah for that and if anybody has ever struggled with any type of stomach situation or other problems or travel issue they know how difficult they can be right and so you praise Allah and you say Alhamdulillah right and so you end and you leave the restroom with the right foot and you end with the dua'ah someone should be very careful to not say the name of Allah in the restroom right that's not something you do to not be on bringing things in with that have the name of Allah on them and so on and so forth right and someone should try their best to protect their clothing this is especially in the time when when you know they didn't necessarily have oh man I'm struggling they did not necessarily have private restrooms and so there would be more of a chance of their clothing getting soiled but someone should of course try their best to protect their clothing from being soiled as well and making sure that doesn't get that yes it's just speaking it you can think it the more you think it the better it will be yeah so the question was that is it just about saying it or about thinking it and when when you're in the restroom it's just saying it and not like that's not the place someone has the Quran out or someone is you know looking through like some something related that actually has a name of Allah on their phone as well right so if if someone has to be on their phone or something like that and to make sure that there's nothing at all with religious with Allah's names on it yeah yes it's not considered good so he mentions that so the question was speaking in general he mentions that if you must speak right only do it when necessary and and it's not it's not again not like a you know virtuous thing to be doing yeah it's not like haram either though and then ideally somebody also tries to not face the kibla when using the restroom that's important again that's going to be difficult if like that's just how the the restroom is built right but that's that's if someone like gets to build their own restroom they should make sure that they that that the direction neither their front with where they're actually using the restroom is facing the kibla nor their back but especially their front right and so it will be difficult if possible the other thing is to not stand or to make sure that that the clothes are not at all soiled with anything from the restroom especially with urine it's very very very important for he says that a large part of the grave's torment that the the punishment someone faces in the grave according to hadith is because their clothing was they were they were basically careless when it came to clean their clothing with regards to urine so now that gets to the topic of like and again you know pardon me for going this in detail but it's just important because you know he's covering it here but generally speaking men should not be urinating in urinals that's not that's not from our tradition it's just so nice to sit down and to use the restroom and if somebody absolutely has to because of a so difficult situation stand up but definitely someone has to be very careful about anything getting on their clothing be by any means at all right you do not want to have things coming on on your clothes and so Western society is not clean when it comes to these practices generally speaking I they just discovered bidets and these types of things like the Muslims they've had this for many many many millennia and centuries in terms of cleaning themselves and so you want to make sure all the clothes are clean and then somebody should also try to make sure they clean themselves with water and with something dry so both is better if they don't have an option and they only have one that water would be preferred and essentially that and another thing is someone should use their left hand when it comes to cleaning themselves the right hand is for is for things like eating reciting the Quran and so on and so forth right the left hand should be used for cleaning yourself when it comes to the restroom and and in these types of things they're picking up something dirty and so on that that's that's that's important again it just shows mindfulness someone's like okay trying to be mindful of using the what Allah would want me or what the Prophet of Islam taught me to use and what Allah would want me to use so without getting into too much detail here that that should you know generally cover what someone it needs to be doing with regards to the sunnah of using the restroom so it's entering with your left foot exiting with your right foot saying the dua before entering which is in the book Bismillah Allahumma ni'a A'ud bi kamil khabaati wa l-khaba'it and then saying the dua when someone leaves the restroom you leave with your right foot you say ghafranaka ghafranaka ghafranaka alhamdulillah alhamdulillah alhamdulillah aladhaban or if someone doesn't know the dua just say yalla thank you for removing what was harmful inside of me and then please forgive me for anything and my mistakes and then to be clean to focus on making sure the clothing is clean and to making sure the body is clean very very important parts of the sunnah and again the believer is a clean person the believer is generally clean as we talked about earlier the believer smells nice the believer has good sense coming from them the believer is it doesn't have excessive dirt and so on and so forth on them exception is like someone lives in the desert or something they have different rules for that for people who are not in those situations and then just lastly he mentions the sunnah of other small actions that someone will do so if someone sneezes someone should say alhamdulillah el rabbal alameen you say alhamdulillah someone else should say yorhamakallah if you hear someone sneeze I do say someone else says yorhamakallah may the mercy of Allah be upon you and and then you know a few other a few other sunnahs and so the main thing is just to be mindful in all the actions right don't do something without thinking would the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa alayhi wa sahbihi wa sallam do this thing right and they're all these things and you entering the masjid with your right foot you leaving the masjid with your left foot you entering the restroom with your left foot leaving it with your right foot you doing these do'as they bring nur into every action this is the way that the simple actions turn into noble actions right that somebody could not do that much extra worship throughout the day they do their fard they do a few sunnahs but throughout the day they're doing these dikkur that means the whole day will be dikkur because they'll always be like either you know sleeping waking up putting on their clothes taking off their clothes using the restroom so on so with all the actions that we've covered drinking the water eating food finishing their meal and so on they will have a dikkur associated with they will be mindful of Allah inshaAllah if you remember Allah remember that Allah remembers you we'll end with that fad kuruni af kurkum remember me and I will remember you if you remember Allah alone right Allah or if you remember Allah with people in a gathering Allah remembers you in a better gathering so Allah is remembering you and you couldn't remember Allah if he didn't give you a tofiq to remember him he didn't give you assistance to remember him so it's a huge deal that somebody's able to remember him and it's the best thing that you and I can be doing and with our time is to make sure in all of our moments at least we try to remember Allah and if we can't do so at least in these actions and then we try to go and continue and may Allah assist us in that so the last part that you mentioned you just finished the last sentence I didn't quite hear it are you referring to adults or children yeah okay adults okay so a question was that how important is it to to make sure that somebody is like not forced or coerced to do certain things it's a really good question in general people should not be coerced especially in our society now that's a general rule so someone should not be forced like if you remind someone to let's say let's say you're reminding someone to like um it's slightly different for the action let's just say even the prayer so you're reminding someone to pray they say no I don't want to pray and you remind no you need to pray you remind them to say you don't have any authority in any way over them right if you are their mother or their father and they don't pray you can put consequences there right and the consequences start with merciful consequences and then they get to the more strict consequences right now you have to pray you are required to pray because they literally don't know better they just want to let's say play their video game and watch tv or whatever it is like no no no it's time for prayer all this is off or abc right that's one thing then if somebody is an adult and someone does not is not in a position of like they're not the the leader of the muslim state or something like that they can't there's no consequences you can force someone to do you can't drag someone on the street you muslim is the hard time go pray you can't do that right but now then there's like all these other situations it's like okay somebody does not want to dress in the way that somebody prefers you have to do an assessment if i force them to dress in this way right let's say modestly will it do damage to the longer term understanding of this really the longer term relationship and the longer term understanding of what modesty even is because will they really be doing it for the fear of Allah or will they be doing it for that situation right now this is where like the delicate balance come in the ideal is you advise them nicely and gently hey it would be better if you did this right i would really appreciate if you could do this it would mean a lot and you know that Allah loves it when someone that you advise them nicely and then someone can if they have depending on the dynamic right who it is and what they're saying can say you know if it's a parent and child or if it's a you know spouses it's different than if it's siblings right with siblings you don't have any authority over them essentially right so you can say hey go change your clothes i don't want to it's not it's my decision right not yours they're held accountable for that decision so it kind of will depend but the general rule i would say in our time is don't coerce people and force them you got to give people time because you don't there's so many muslims leaving the religion so many muslims leaving the religion and so many young people struggling with the religion that if someone forces somebody they could get such a sour taste in their mouth for the entire being because you force them to do like a few things that they might you might be the reason why they end up having a bad taste in their mouth for Islam this is actually the case in some of the ways that the muslims how strict and harsh they are with things right just force strict harshness you have to do this you can't do this and like they've lost the mercy they've lost the love they've lost the way that the Prophet Muhammad did things so in general coercion is not not something we should be doing um it's very few exceptions when it comes like you know you really make sure kids are acting up on or acting according to certain things and in general somebody should be very very merciful towards things and direct their attention advise somebody and then direct your attention to Allah but you are not truly you don't truly care about someone actually changing if you're not begging Allah in the middle of the night asking him to help them change it doesn't mean you don't the sincerity has not gotten into its perfect form yet there's a lot of room to go because you actually think your words will do anything you won't do a thing Allah is the one who guides only Allah can guide as he mentioned so Allah wants to guide their heart and you'll guide them you can assist and if Allah puts assistance in your words MashaAllah Allah will guide them through those words but he's still the one who guided and that's why he has to be the one who somebody asks for assistance yes question after the book yeah yeah good question I right now we're like barely we're just getting halfway through it yeah so there's a fair amount more to go but like a lot some of the other next like couple chapters are kind of condensed into one this one was a really a longer one um so the goal is we'll probably be doing from the rest of the schedule for the class we'll we will most likely I think we will have class next week actually and then the following week will be off so most people are off and then we'll resume that the first week of January we'll go until we finish the book the intention is for us to keep the Wednesday class going you know continuously and we'll change the book right at some point or or the topic itself we might not always go from a book we might just have a topic and then go based on the topic and I might pull from different texts and whatnot we did that like two three years ago it was just topic of patience and there's different tests we're pulling from on patience let's say does that answer the question yeah yes question say that one more time oh yeah good question yeah so in the for the for the if the question was about Istihara and what is the format of that so what you would do is you would make a nia for two Sunnah of Istihara okay of this of Allah assisting you in your decision you after you finish your prayer you open up the dua of Istihara you can literally Google it or yeah I can send it to you as well and then you you make the dua after you finish the prayer so you say salaamu alaykum salaamu alaykum sit down takes like a minute to make the dua and in that dua you're asking Allah o Allah if you are the one who knows everything if this situation let's say getting married is good for me do this person please facilitate it and make make it good for me or facilitate it for me right and if it's bad for me then remove it from me and let me be content with whatever the decision is that's the kind of summary of the the dua that someone is making so you do that afterwards and if you you can also you know you try to do it in Arabic but if someone's still learning or someone you can do that in in English with the meanings and then you kind of work your way to do it according to the words that Prophet Salaam did does that answer it Hamda okay Hamda so for the sake of time we'll go ahead and end I apologize always going late here Hamda last day just to clarify we will have we will insha'Allah have class next week and then we will not have class the following week so in between the 25th and the third that week right where it's like many people on winter holiday and so on we will not have class next week we will insha'Allah Bismillah I'm Arheem Alhamdulillah Rab-ul-alameen Wa-sallallahu ala sallam Wa-barak'ala Sayyidina Muhammadin Wa-alihi wa sahbihi wa-sallam La ilaha illa anta subhanak Inni kunsumina baalameen Rabbanah atina fiddhuni hasnathama fil aakhirat hasnathama kanna azaab al-nar Ya Allah Ya Allah we ask Ya Allah that you give us understanding and that you give us forgiveness and that you grant us Nur and that you grant us light and that you grant us knowledge and that you grant us tolfiq to follow the sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Ya Allah pardon anything it is that we have done in our lives or in that we have done Ya Rabb al-alameen Ya Allah that you are just pleased with Ya Allah and please be pleased with us please remove our anxieties please remove our worries please remove our problems Ya Allah we ask you for everything good that the Prophet Sallam asked for and we ask you protection from everything evil that he asked protection from we ask that you remove all of our tribulations that you cure those who are sick and that you assist those who are struggling with any difficulty