Great. Well, sorry for the very, very delighted start. Okay, Alhamdulillah. So what we're going to be talking about today, inshallah, is the importance of kindness as a character trait. So we spent the first portion of the series discussing things that you and I need to do to deepen our relationship with Allah, more directly. So you have two ways of deepening your relationship with Allah. You have what's called hukuk Allah, the rites of Allah, and then you have what's called hukuk al-ibad, the rites of Allah's servants. And it's actually easier to fulfill the rites of Allah relative to the rites of the people, of the servants of Allah. It's much, much harder. Sometimes we slip up on fulfilling the rites of our fellow Muslims and of just humanity in general. And so kindness is one of the fastest ways to do that. And it is a way in which the Prophet ﷺ taught us that you will accelerate your spiritual growth by having good character with people. So our religion is not one in which you just worship, worship, worship, and then treat people poorly, cheat them, bribe them, behave in a corrupt way, are harsh with people, and you just think that, oh, you're practicing the religion correctly. That's not the way of this religion. The way of our religion is that you worship and you do a balanced amount of worship as much as you are able to do. And then you excel in your character with humanity. You and I excel in our character with each other. We talked last week about the importance of excelling in character with our parents and then excelling in character with our siblings, and then excelling in character with our fellow community members, and now just excelling in character with other people in society. So that's what we're going to be covering. Before we get going, one thing that we thought would be useful since the timings are changing pretty quickly is we're just going to start a WhatsApp group for this class. Yeah, sorry? Yeah, and if you guys, if whoever wants to sign up, we'll just handle all communications and giving people kind of a heads up on the timing of the class, whether or not it's happening and whatnot via the WhatsApp group rather than people getting confused, because we don't have clear communication since the time is changing, inshallah. Okay. So the first thing that allows you and I to develop this deep relationship with Allah by serving His creation is Allah wants us to actually love what He loves and we dislike, slash hate what Allah hates. And so the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam says in Hadith that the best of deeds are loving and hating for the sake of Allah. Right? Now loving for the sake of Allah makes a lot of sense. Right? I think most of us have that understanding that if Allah loves something, I should love it. What does it mean to hate something for the sake of Allah? Right? And so he expands upon it further that you want to love obedience. You want to love good things. You want to love goodness in society.  The more sins that are committed, the more harm that happens to everybody. The more that rain is withheld, the more droughts that will happen, the more famine that will happen, the more inflation that will happen, the more economic troubles that will happen. Many of the Ulama described the problems we're starting to face in this and that are getting worse in society today. The level of famine, the level of drought, the level of dryness, the lack of rain, now the skyrocketing inflation, the amount of economic troubles that are coming, the amount of wars that are happening. It is actually a result of the sins of mankind, right? That people commit sins and they stop repenting and so problems come. And Allah tries the pandemic prime example of a really, really tough way for humanity to try to learn our lesson, and yet we still don't turn back to Allah. So we should love what Allah loves and we start to dislike what Allah dislikes. And what that does is it starts to bring an attachment to the people of goodness. The UNI should be attached to people who are people of righteousness and people of goodness, and we should stay away from people who are calling us to sin and who are calling us to something that is not preferred that we do, right? And if we have a group of friends, let's say, that we kick it with, but they're not really the best influence on us. And the time for doing something good comes, the prayer time comes, and like, oh, it's not a big deal, we'll skip it, you can make it up at home. And they're encouraging us to do something that's impermissible, go into places that we know we probably shouldn't be going to. Maybe they don't like that, oh, you're fasting in Ramadan, why don't you also, you know, let's do something in the nights of Ramadan, you're not fasting that you shouldn't be doing in the day or the night or any other time in the year, right? And what ends up happening is if we have an attachment to people like that, we now start to get pulled toward doing something wrong, and towards doing something haram, and towards doing something that would allow a dislike. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he told us that the human being's religion, a man or woman's religion, is that of your intimate, of your intimate friend, whoever's close to you, that's basically the religion that you're going to follow. And so be careful who you get close to, be careful who you're friends with, be careful who you take as an intimate friend. And he, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, also said that a good friend, a good companion, is somebody, is better than being alone. Hanging out with good people is better than being alone, because being alone can result in all sorts of other issues, and someone can get into a state of depression and loneliness if you just are literally alone all the time. But he said that being alone is better than hanging out with people who are going to mess up your character or mess up your religion. And so those are ways in which we should try to distinguish whether or not, when we see people who we could be hanging out with, if we know they're a bad influence, slowly, slowly, slowly, if we want to tread the path of spirituality, and the path of nearness to Allah, and the path of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and the path of the saints, and the path of an ultimate good in this life, which is tranquility and happiness and ease, an ultimate good in the next life, which is eternal bliss in Jannah with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, then we want to tread the path, we want to be with people who will guide us towards that. And if we want to risk our life in this life and the next life, then we might want to, we're a bit more open to hanging out with people who are guiding us towards the wrong decisions, guiding us towards the wrong decisions. And so what happens is that they say that when you associate with someone who does a lot of good, they literally make the love of doing good things implanted in your heart. And we all know this feeling, you hung out with a few people who they have a good influence, and you leave that gathering being like, ah, that was nice, your soul likes it. Even if originally you might be like, oh, this is kind of lame.  Like someone who might be the kick in it with the cool kids and then they go and they kick it with someone. And morality in our society is now seen as like a bad thing.  Usually it's like, wait, what do you mean?  And you're kind of like, people are like, what's up? Did something happen to you? Like why aren't you doing what everybody else is doing? That's like a common thing that happens, especially as you and I are going through high school, college, working life, and you kind of get to a point in life where maybe some people stop doing those things. And so it's looked down upon. And so when you and I let it get to us that, oh, yeah, why am I not doing all that? Why am I being the guy or the girl that's left out? Why am I not going along with the happenings of society at the time? Why am I not being swayed? It's a very easy way for Shaitan to get to us and to try to make it seem like if you don't do what everybody else is doing, something's off. And it's one of the downfalls of the Muslims today. Muslims throughout history were always leaders. Everybody wanted to be like them. Every society wanted to be like the Muslims. They were the intellectual leaders. They were the mathematicians. They were the scientists. They were the doctors. They were the people who discovered coffee, ice cream. I mean, half of the good things you and I used today, these people didn't even have soap before. They used to put oranges in their armpits in order to try to prevent orange peels, to try to prevent them from smelling that. And Muslims introduced the concept of cleanliness when they went to these societies. They didn't shower. We introduced the Russell and the concept of showering. I mean, all of these things that people take for granted, they were introduced by Muslims. Because the time that you spend in the mosque deepening your relationship with Allah was supposed to empower you and enable you to go and transform society. And now, sometimes we kind of have lost that. So we didn't used to be followers. Now, the Muslims, we look towards the West for everything. The Muslim countries worship the Western countries. They worship the Western leaders. They want to be just like the West. They take all their military aid from the West. Everybody in that society wants to dress like Westerners.  Like, how did you even get an idea? They're like, oh, I saw it in a movie. And then I want it to be like so and so and so and so. And then you come from America to the Muslim country and they're like, why aren't you like that? And you're like, because that's not how anybody is in America. That's just the movies, right? But there is a kind of an obsession with a Western way of living. And what's happened over time is we've become followers and rather than leaders. And so one of the ways of transforming that relationship and starting to lead again, Allah says in the Quran, to make this dua. Oh Allah, make our children, our spouses the delight of our eyes and allow us to become leaders for the muttaqeen, the leaders for the righteous. That's a dua that should be made often. That we want to be people who lead ourselves, our families and our communities towards righteousness. And if we see people in our friend group or other slipping, we should try to be those who are helping them out and be like, no, no, no, no. Let's probably shouldn't do that, right? That's probably not a good thing to do. But oftentimes if you're the one, if you're that guy or girl who brings up a year after everyone's like, what do you mean? They'll literally look at you like, why are you talking about the next life, bro? Just relax. We got 50 years. There's a lot of like, we'll delay it, we'll delay it, we'll delay it. It's a trick of shaitan to delay, to delay toba, to delay repentance. And so hanging out with good people will make you love good people. Hanging out with people who are calling towards other than good will make us love that thing, right? And so the Prophet says, I'm literally telling us that you literally are the company you keep. And we should be really, really mindful of that. And if you love someone in this life deeply, and you have a deep connection to them, and I'm talking about it in all of the ways of love, not just the love that someone might have for their spouse or for their children, all of the ways of love, brotherly love, sisterly love, the love that someone has for people in their community, that if you love someone sincerely, you will be with them in the hereafter based on the hadith of the Prophet, at one time the Sahaba, one of the Sahaba, they walked out and they were like kind of down. And it was like, the Prophet says, why are you feeling what's up, like what's going on?  But I was thinking about the next life and if I'm so blessed to make it to Jannah, even then, you're going to be all the way up there at the highest levels of Jannah and I don't know if I'm even going to be there and if I am there, I'm just going to be like, you know, somewhere in Jannah. And I was just missing you and I was thinking, I'm going to miss you so much if I get to Jannah, because I won't get to be with you in Jannah. And the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said, don't worry, he said, you are with the one that you love. You are with the one that you love. And this is the Sahaba, they said that since the happiest day of their life was the day that they took their Shahada, that the day that they converted to Islam. And he said, the second happiest day was this day when they heard this hadith, many of them, because it completely lifted this concern from them and it showed them that love is actually one of the fastest routes towards closeness with Allah but you have to love the right people.  But if someone loves people, like let's say someone just loves a celebrity, you know and when you love the person you know a lot about is if you love some famous basketball player and you just know everything about them, well, you apply the hadith in the same way. If you love some singer and you are obsessed with them, someone is obsessed with Michael Jackson and they just have this deep attachment to him. Okay, well, you would apply that you are with the one that you love. So you have to be careful who you love, who you attach yourself to. We should not be people who are attached to people who, you know the Kardashians and all of these people in society that everybody is always talking about. Muslims have no, there is no relevance for us. You know a little bit about it because you need to converse, it's fine. But to know intimate details about random people's lives who have not really done anything that's worthy of us knowing that information about, that is now considered getting into a state where we don't we are attaching ourselves and associating ourselves with people who we might not want to be attaching ourselves to. And so being really, really careful with who we let into our heart. And then the time of the Prophet's Islam, of course they love they would see the Prophet and that would deepen their love a lot for him. Now you and I don't see him so we have to learn about him and we have to attach ourselves to him and we have to do salawat upon him and ask Allah that he increases us in our love for the Prophet and for the righteous but when you hang out with good people, like with righteous people and you have a chance to spend time with like even if you have like a parent or a grandparent who's like quite worshipful and righteous you feel good when you're with them and you feel good when you're in their company and then if you have a teacher like a sheikh or someone else who you've gotten a chance to hang out with you feel lifted you feel nice when you're in their company and you hope that oh maybe I'll get a chance to see them again and to be with them with their with the companionship of good people in this life and the next life, alhamdulillah and so then once you and I start hanging out with the right types of people good traits start to deepen in our life right, you'll know this by the language that you speak one of the easiest ways to know the type of traits that you and I have is by how careful you and I are about the words we say as soon as you start to hang out with people that they're dropping in the F word here and this word here and this word and every other sentence it's very difficult to not eventually get into cursing often right, it's very difficult to not get into that if you're hanging out with people though that they are constantly praising Allah and saying alhamdulillah and subhanallah and are calling towards good and are increasing and trying to live a life of virtuousness and reminding us when we forget oh we should probably pray and it's good to pray together and so on and so forth you will find good traits being deepened in the heart and it's one of the best ways to know where you stand spiritually is how are you doing with your character traits and the chief of character traits I mean all good character traits are important but the one that we're discussing right now is mercy and kindness towards other people it's one of the fastest doors to get close to Allah and one of the fastest doors to progress in this life and the next and so then he reminds us he says that part of our duty is to be merciful to each other to be merciful to be gentle to be kind and to have manners good manners with people such that you draw them towards you you should never ever ever no matter what someone is doing make them repelled from you like that is really antithetical to Islam and I'm talking about in an Islamic context if someone is like smoking a huge blunt and you're like watching them smoke and they're getting really high and they're Muslim and you know they're Muslim and you know you should not just be like you sinner what are you doing don't you know you take it from their hand you burn it like you have to be really really careful with the way you engage because that person may never come back to the religion because you treat you made them feel terrible because we made them feel terrible we talked about this I think two classes ago on the importance of kindness with engaging with other people but this is like and no matter what someone is sinning or doing good you and I should be really careful how we make them feel like it's of the utmost importance that everybody around us feels good and feels accepted and that then is a door to help them progress in the religion it's not like you love what they're doing and you're like oh yeah come to my house and let's you know that's not what I'm talking about but you make sure that okay you are not the person who turns them away from the religion so kindness and gentleness become important in that and then guidance comes after you guide them after you've shown good character to them this is in the context of religion this is in the context of outside of religion as well engaging with people in society just because someone doesn't believe in Allah does not mean that you and I treat them terribly there's a, except for the proper disbelievers right or like some Zionist Israeli soldier who's like trying to hurt the Muslims those people that's a separate category right you Adil let's an al-Mu'min is that an al-Kafirin that you are gentle with the believers but firm and mighty with the disbelievers you don't like go and you know welcome someone who's doing this level of harm to the Muslim but someone who's just harming themselves from a spiritual sense and is open just doesn't know or just is caught up we have to be really careful and approach them with gentleness and with kindness and do that with ourselves with our siblings with our cousins with our family members with anybody who happens to be in that situation as the Prophet SAW told us that Allah is merciful to those of his servants who are merciful Allah is merciful when you are merciful and those who show no mercy are shown no mercy that those who show no mercy towards others are shown no mercy by Allah and so we want to be really really really expansive and this is the time we live in and the time we live in expansiveness for others is really important for yourselves don't make excuses for others make 70 excuses right so when you and I get when you and I make a mistake hold yourself to account like no no why did I do that I should not be doing that I got it but when someone else makes a mistake don't make don't be the person who reprimands them immediately for that mistake the order has flipped for the Muslims we let ourselves make all the mistakes in the world we backbite we don't care we don't care we watch inappropriate things we don't care the minute we see someone else doing something wrong don't you know it's haram I know bro I know just relax people who are doing something wrong they know it's wrong they need someone to help them they need someone to teach them they need someone to guide them they need someone to show love to them they need someone to be merciful towards them that kindness then will be a means of guidance for ourselves and for others and this is that you will get huge rewards for showing for having good character the Prophets of Islam told us in a hadith that among the wadiest of deeds and the good day of judgment is good character towards other people the wadiest of deeds you could have people who complete Quran Khattam after Quran Khattam after Quran Khattam and they pray all the raka at night and do all the virtuous deeds but they're terrible with their character that has no weight then because what did the Quran do for them the Quran is a book of good character if you don't apply the book reciting praying all the time is clearly not changing your state prayer Allah says is supposed to reform you and it's supposed to make you purified and it's supposed to improve our character right and this is again something that we have lost in our times we have an immense immense immense focus many times on doing things but we delink it from how we treat people unlink it from how we treat people and we have to link it back and the Prophets of Islam also mentioned that a believer who is affable and easy to approach that you want to be somebody who is easy to approach and there is no good in someone who is neither affable nor easy to approach this meaning that again if you are the person who is like nobody wants to be around you whether it's because of whether it's religion related or not but like people don't want to be around us that's a really bad sign like you your nuffs might trick you into thinking oh they don't want to be around you because you're doing good and they're not that's the trick of the nuffs someone who is a proper right trying to be righteous no one should ever think of themselves as righteous trying to be righteous people love to be around them it doesn't matter what they're doing they love to be around them they they thoroughly enjoy their company and that person makes them makes other people feel like accepted right and then again it does not mean that you and I condone something that going that's going on that's that's wrong right and there's also caveats to this if someone is harming other people in society or is harming their family or something like that that's the type of sin that has to be dealt with in a very firm and just way right it's not like someone's like oh you're you know engaging in domestic violence or something and someone's like oh yeah like we'll be merciful towards you no no no you need to be firm and you need to stop it as soon as possible right and get the person help and that that's being harmed and remove the person who is doing the harm as quickly as possible so there's caveats we're talking here about things that are is that did it break again? today of the speaker issues so we're talking here about things that someone is doing that are again between them and Allah and then he says that teach those who don't know teach those who are ignorant and guide those who slip up right and remind those who are distracted all of this is going to come from first you and I having reminded ourselves which is why we literally spent the first 10, 15, 20 chapters of this book talking about we spent the first 10, 15 chapters talking about what we need to do ourselves improving our prayers improving our extra worship improving our charity improving our dhikr and when that is becomes firm now the concern for others starts to become become a part of our practice we're like oh I got to make sure that I'm doing it and then when I see an opportunity I got to gently help those who need help right and he says that beware of neglecting any of these things by saying oh this is only the duty of those who have knowledge and who practice it only they can actually teach in your mind I'm not one of them so I'm not worthy of helping other people or teaching them or guiding them for this is only the attribute of again of the learned right and he says and this is really really important he says this is nothing but a satanic deceit a trick from satan to say that oh you don't know and so you can't help oh you don't know so you can't teach oh you don't know so you can guide he says whatever you know you guide whatever little bit of guidance someone can provide without going above the amount that they know right you and I help other people with and so this is really important the time we live in there's people who just enter the religion if you and I have been in the religion for maybe our whole life maybe 10 years 20 years whatever surely we know enough to help someone who enter the religion we can teach them hey this is how you pray hey this is that these are the core beliefs of the religion hey this is the fatihah this is you teach them you there's something someone can benefit right if somebody just started to practice maybe they grew up practicing but they didn't really they had a period of their life where they skipped out and they just started to practice if someone's been practicing for a little longer than them you can assist them right and nudge them toward the right direction everybody has a role to play in what's called dawa invitation inviting others to the religion and I mean everybody this is something I did not it took me years time I still don't understand but it took me years to even accept this concept because I literally this was the the phrase that I would tell myself all the time the one he just said that is a trick I would just like oh yeah like I have what's the point right like there's plenty of people who are doing it just there's no there's no obligation and then some one of my teachers sat me down and was like no no no no this is an obligation for everybody that you should this is a service that everybody has to be engaged in in some way shape or form is helping others because there's so many people guiding others towards wrong where are where are those people who even if we don't practice it where are those of us who are trying to help bring others right we know we have a lot of work to do on ourselves but we have to make sure we spend a portion of our time trying to assist assist our fellow believers out of a love for them out of a love for them and he says that the evil only here lies in making claims like false claims and in leading others to other than the truth to false right so you we have to be really careful if someone is in that position where they want to help others to not to not lead them towards something wrong if they ask you a question to be like if you don't know say I don't know but to make sure we don't lead them towards something wrong or to ruin their religion because of the way we approach it right which does happen there are people who are in positions of helping but they make things worse because they don't know how to deal with people in America right if you're not trained in America it's very difficult to know how to deal with people in America right and to deal with the nuances of society here and the way in which people here grew up and so on and so that's one of the ways in which you know things can be damaged and then he goes on to say that it is a responsibility and it is an act of virtue to comfort those whose hearts are broken and who are in a state of weakness and who are going through a tough time that you and I want to if you have a friend who's struggling and a lot of this is like you and I will think you know it's this common sense it's surprised sometimes we don't do it right we might prioritize our own selves over over helping somebody else but see it as a huge act of worship that if someone is struggling having a difficult time whether they've gotten a fight with their spouse or their parents or someone is going through a sickness or they lost a family member or they're struggling financially or they're feeling constrained or they're in a state of depression or anxiety or stress it is a huge deal to help them to reach out to call how you doing the text to check in see what's going on with them right it's a really really really important important part of our religion and it is again a part of our religion that it's just as good as doing some of the other acts of worship if not better because you are taking care of someone's feelings at that time right and if you know that and the Prophet Muhammad told us that the one who consoles someone who's stricken by difficulty and you help them endure patiently you get a reward similar to the reward they have by being patient is lost a family member and they passed away and they're really really struggling but they're struggling to the point where they are maybe despairing in the mercy of Allah or like starting to really question like why is this happening to me and really really just confused to try to help them in a very kind way not in a don't you know you have to be patient but in a merciful like trying to reach out take them out to get give them cook food for them take it over to their house come in see how things are going sit down and ask them hey how are you doing is there anything that I can do and then they let them talk ask a lot of questions right and then when the moment comes and you say okay now gently guide them towards you know Allah is with you Allah says that he's with those who are patient and it looks like you're doing your best to be patient Allah is going to assist you I know things are difficult right now and he had to bury the majority of his children with his own hands and so maybe this is happening to you because Allah loves you like he loved his prophet Allah is with you and so you find ways to give them hope that is a huge huge reward there's a huge reward for this right and this would be something we seek out we know when someone is struggling we reach out we we help them and again do it so sincerely not just so we can check the box right in a very very sincere in a very very sincere way and then when someone is let's say a Muslim needs something someone needs to borrow money they're in a state of neediness right the Prophet of Islam told us the reward for a loan exceeds that for charity by eight times and what the commentators say about this is like if someone really needs money right they'll come to you often and they might ask for a loan and there's a huge reward and giving them that loan and then being lenient with them and taking the time to pay back that loan if they're not able to pay it back immediately right and all of these things what do they do they're about taking care of our fellow believers that is a responsibility to take care of each other it's a responsibility to have kindness with each other it's a responsibility to show mercy to each other and it's a responsibility to look out for each other's needs and that's that's sometimes in Western society because we don't really have the community concept as often things are so busy everyone so busy with their own life that we forget this right and we forget to kind of check in but it is a really really important part of living a wholesome life that you will feel good about your own life when there is an element of taking care of other people and when there's an element of service and when there's an element of kindness involved in the loan okay so before moving on to the next section this is the kind of main points here are again starting with associating with people of goodness and this firmly establishes traits of goodness in your heart and makes you love them and makes you want to be like people of goodness and then from there come many times the beautiful traits that manifest towards helping other people the traits of kindness and the traits of gentleness and the traits of mercy and so on and so forth and then it becomes a responsibility for us to help other people in our lives as much as possible the people who are most deserving of this or the people who are closest to us in lineage first and foremost in blood relationship so anytime our family members parents especially are struggling or you could send some things off it's a huge deal to call and check in it's a big deal to take something over and to offer them help same thing with a sibling same thing with somebody else who you are close to anybody have any questions before we move on to the next section of this so in some cases their experience with their hospital scenario where an individual who is not guided might come into a group that is super knowledgeable and super righteous in a way and they are I guess insecure of their lack of knowledge to basically interact with that type of group or to be a part and be guided in that group because there is this environment where you just don't have that knowledge yet and you are surrounding yourself and people who are so deep and ingrained into the practice of maybe their knowledge and that person they have turned off and that scenario how do you welcome that person into that group or how can you be more empathetic that comes out than was for anyone who didn't hear or for those online that if you have somebody who is let's say not as practicing and then they join a group of friends that are very practicing and that have a lot of knowledge and the dynamics are such that those people may not always be welcoming them or that person who is maybe less practicing isn't quite aware of the ways to engage with that group that's a good question and it does happen often so first is if you if those people are truly people who are practicing a lot and have knowledge they need to implement that knowledge and the first way you implement that knowledge is by expansiveness and by being very opening and welcoming to that person so no matter what that person is doing everybody should whoever is in that group should talk and discuss and be like this person is starting to kick it with us more clearly we have seen them struggling with something what are they going to be to do this who is taking them out to coffee who is taking them out to dinner what are we doing to make sure that he or she feels welcome and you want to open that door as much as possible the second thing is you want to first develop a human relationship with them before developing a religious relationship with them you ask them about their life about their family about what interests them if they want to ask them about their job whatever it is you want to discuss with them and then now you start to sprinkle in tidbits of knowledge about each of those things like oh you work oh you do this did you know that that's really really noble what you're doing let's say they're working in a field that's a very praiseworthy field the field of serving others or taking care of others or whatever else it is and you find a way to show them the good in what they're doing in every situation that they mention so they might be like oh yeah I live with my parents and doing this and they're like oh you live with your parents that's amazing the prophecy is told us that living with your parents and taking care of their parents is like a huge reward that's really great that you're doing that but without it should not come across as you're teaching them sprinkling it sprinkling it here and there again here and there not becoming overbearing until now there develops a bit of familiarity between those people and the familiarity develops that the guard comes down and now people start openly talking and when the open conversations start happening now is the time when someone asks about a question that might be a time to kind of give more outward knowledge or very specific guidance or they're like yeah I'm really struggling with I can never pray I'm missing all my prayers or my job is so busy and I just like never make it to Jumma and whatnot now you be like oh yeah I've struggled with that in the past you know here are some tips that help right instead of being like oh I mean that's Haram like you're gonna go to hell like you know you're missing Jumma every week like what are you doing that's far as right like you have to be very very and there are people who think that they're people of knowledge and they say stuff like this they literally say the most random awkward like they have no social training no understanding of how to do things no EQ and then they ruin people they mess people up but they make it seem like what they said is correct right I remember one time I met somebody who and this was like a person who was in a position of knowledge and a leadership this man got married and he held a a lulima at the masjid like and he just it was it was he swattered an animal and he fed people and literally this guy goes up to the man and he's like yeah you know thanks he didn't say thanks he said he had sunnah to slaughter a lamb and you gave chicken I was just like what what dude what did you just say like what do you mean it's sunnah just be grateful that he he gave food right at any why did you have to mention why did you have to and the guy who was like he came to me was like ah man I feel so bad I didn't know that it was sunnah I had no idea this is the best I could do he wasn't like financially well off by any means or anything it wasn't this huge banquet he just had like some food served at the masjid because he got married right and I was just like man this dude like completely missed the mark all of the information that he learned clearly didn't benefit him because he didn't even approach it in the right way so again you have to be really really careful then about how you approach it and that's wisdom right knowledge is the information wisdom is applying it in the right situation the right context at the right level with the right words with the right achalak in the right approach and making sure that you have a sense of the way it will make someone feel and and taking it so I would try you know a couple of those things is that does that make sense yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so if someone is trying now and and feels like hey they want to improve and they want to start associating with people who are practicing more and people of you know trying to do goodness and what not that's really good I would start first with like larger gatherings and just attending larger gatherings if you know there's gathering of dick are going on attending it you know there's a gathering of knowledge going on you know there's a mowlet going on some that any good gatherings that are going on attending them because that's a way that you build a spiritual connection with people just by sitting with them and by associating with them right and then from there you find a few people who you really click with and you deepen the relationship and then what you do is you don't don't forcibly insert in an established group already pick a few people and be like hey let's you know want to go to dinner like let's let's let's you kind of get to know them first right and you get to know them again you develop the brotherhood right or sisterhood first and then you go towards the route of of deepening that relationship and then eventually you'll see that they'll start inviting you to things right they'll start kind of bringing you into the you could say the circle of the other friends that that it is that they might that they might have right but the more usually again people of goodness they'll almost always welcome people it's a bad sign if you have like people who are who you think are people of goodness but they're really closed off something's off there right unless they have a reason to be closed off because you know there's some some danger or something like that but otherwise they'll almost always have a welcoming attitude the province of sun was the most welcoming of people he barely even had a door on his house it was like you could just walk in right like everybody was allowed to sit with him and and everybody made was made to feel like he loved them the most and one time they asked him and he was like oh you love me the most right he was like no I love Abu Bakr the most he was like oh but then I'm after that and like no no then it's you know Omar and then after that like no then it's and he kept going he's like okay just stop right because because he he just made everybody feel like they were the most loved in the room usually it'll be a lot bringing you towards people of goodness a lot will take you continue to bring you deeper in those relationships does that help yeah yeah yeah yeah good question so the question is that if it it makes sense when it comes to creating a welcoming environment in a welcoming community for let's say this generation but when you think about a generation that might be a bit older and maybe not all of them apply this and then this has happened I know what you mean that maybe there's like an uncle in a community who someone comes in and they do something that that person isn't used to and then they make them feel they push them away right so yeah this happens like all the time so first is that ideally and so the question is how do you deal with that right how do you apply this at scale ideally you find a few people in that community who are of similar age or of a position where they can actually advise and speak to that uncle let's say so this happened and one must know that someone came in and they were like they had tattoos everywhere and some uncle was like tattoos like what are you doing praying with tattoos and go get those removed and obviously the like clearly probably doesn't know and even if they do know it's really painful and expensive to get tattoos removed like that's not the first thing you're going to do when you start practicing the religion right now the sheikh the Imam of that community was told about this and so then he very firmly told all of the older the elders that it's not your job to ever ever say anything to anybody else right that's not their job but you want to come here and you want to worship and you want to do anything else but do not turn other people away and he then went and you know fix things with that brother when they were told this so you ideally you have to have somebody who's in a position of authority I would not recommend being the person who goes to somebody who's you know 30 40 50 years older and who tries to give them advice because they might just treat you in the same way they just treated the person and you might leave as well right you never know it so you have to be really really mindful of who's giving that advice if there's nobody present in this position of leadership or who's who's formally an Imam of a masjid or something then you find another uncle or another person who's a bit more who's a bit older who gets it right and you say this is happening can you help us fix this like can we get a few of us and go and talk to the to the person right and let them know but that that's dealing one off this will not be established at scale until it becomes deeply established in the hearts of the Muslims that this is important and you do have a generation of Muslims again who there's a huge emphasis on outward worship but there's a very little emphasis on internal Akhla and so then you get these types of things that happen right and people are turned away and that's not that's like a very difficult problem to just fix immediately it's not like a one off type of thing you have to have a wide portion of the community learn this establish it make it deep in their practice and then they start to reform the way that the community does things because there was a time the Muslims were were practicing this and then came a few centuries where many Muslims stop practicing like this right and now there has to be groups of Muslims who will reform and who will rectify and it might take a generation of Muslims until this becomes very very much fixed but individually what each of us can do is anytime you see someone turned away you're the one who goes and be like this don't worry about it that person just you know might be having a bad day might just have a little bit of a temper you also don't back bite them you have to be very gentle and say just let let me let me let me give you a different perspective right and you try to console them and try to be that person to console them often I've seen this happen one time at a masjid where again some a brother came in you could tell he just entered into the religion and there was an uncle who told them that if you don't have your legs up to your ankles or your your your pants above your ankles then your prayer doesn't even count and that in a very very firm way but he said it all in Urdu and this guy was you know didn't speak Urdu so he looks at me and he's like and he's like what did he say and I was just like oh nothing he didn't say I was like don't even worry about it like and then I just you know but the person who said it was like 70 years old so I wasn't about to like raise my voice at him and I was just like I was like you know if we bought me it's fine you know I just kind of tried to calm it down and then the person who was asking he had no clue and I just made it seem like nothing was that nothing was said I was like oh yeah nothing it's don't even worry but he's just trying to make sure you praying you know like something like that so you have to sometimes be that person who takes them aside after and you might have to spend 10 minutes fixing what someone ruined in 30 seconds by by yelling at somebody but you'll get rewarded for that and then when you establish it and someone else establish it someone else establishes it now you have a few people who it becomes right and then it starts to have a ripple effect and people will know oh that's a welcoming community right come to the lighthouse is a community that Allah bless in Amir Sundiata and Imam Zaid and others in this community that they've made that vibe it's a welcoming vibe right you usually will not have a vibe of turning people away one or two we've had to turn away for certain reasons but that's that's on the other end of the spectrum but otherwise that that vibe won't exist right but there are massages you know reputation and my this is my shit you mess up once you they're gonna say something right and then this is my shit up there's there's a lot of room for a lot of people and it's welcoming with the mistakes that are made and that community leaders and elders will guide those who who may very easily reprimand others and say hey that's not your job right oh yeah yeah 100% yeah yeah I mean there if you think about in our time there's there's hundreds and thousands of Muslims in their 20s and 30s that we have time and we could devote a little bit of time to getting involved and we many people have levels of education understanding and skills they could apply but we don't really either know how to or we don't raise our hand because that goes not my job I can tell you everybody in the old generation wants to pass it on they're like is someone gonna say that they want to help this is getting to be a lot right I just want to retire right though like they want to pass the baton but no one's raising their hand right and so that's a really good point that it is our job to try and raise our hand as much as possible inshallah I'm the love okay um yeah yeah yeah yeah yep no that's a really good point for anyone who didn't hear the idea that only Allah knows someone's inward at the end of the day and so it's not the responsibility of someone to judge or to make people feel like they are somehow better than them right this is a deep trait of humility that all of the shyukh they encourage this trait and yet we don't practice it often right there's like to actually assume that you and I are better than we are the worst person in the room and to literally believe that not just to fake humility to be like I have no idea because you don't know who's going to heaven and who's going to hell and who will make it across the bridge and across the sirat and who won't we have no clue right one of the scholars was walking and he saw a dog and he said if if I make it across the sirat then perhaps I'm better than I am better than you but if I don't make it across the sirat and I fall you are better than me just like talking to the dog really reflecting on this concept of humility so now it's very very good to make the one thing when it comes to judgment and when it comes to you have to be on guard against somebody like per this point of good companionship if you see someone outwardly doing something haram and wrong it's not that you judge them from I'm better than them but there is a hold on and say you evaluate the situation like I can't kick it with them or let my kids kick it with them or let my family associate with someone who openly is doing something impermissible but you don't assume that I'm better than them because of that you say well I don't know Allah may forgive them and guide them and maybe I'm not forgiven I have no idea but you outwardly what's there at face value and then inwardly there's a humility that has to be applied yes if it doesn't affect you personally most of the and even the most part I've said that many studies you know that they wouldn't say anything yeah and the second one is a lot of times to actually have effective advice you have to get to know the person they have to feel like it's coming from a genuine place and even then a lot of times someone can feel like I hope they I wish they didn't say it like that and obviously the person giving advice doesn't necessarily mean it'll go away so how do you suggest that we become better giving advice and also receiving advice yeah good question in regards to becoming more receptive to advice and then becoming better at giving advice with applying this idea that religion is sincere advice so the first thing is to remember that when you and I are dealing with someone we are dealing with a human being with their past experiences with their psychology with their upbringing with what's been good in their life with the difficulties in their life and we have to at least somehow factor some of those things that we know about them into the advice and the way that we give advice you don't give advice to everybody in the same way someone who you know has had a certain type of struggle versus someone you know has not had a certain type of struggle you factor that into the way in which the advice is given and this is from the Sunna of the Prophet ﷺ according to the way that he understood them the second thing is that you learn and we talked about this I think two or three classes ago but you learn the manners of giving advice in the first place the manners of which are first you approach that person you actually begin by making dua before you even start the advice before you even begin before you even give them and you say ya Allah please guide this person and please assist them and please allow whatever is good to manifest in their life and whatever I might say that's not good to be to not manifest and you really sincerely make a lot of dua and a lot of dua and a lot of dua and then the third is when you go to give that advice you do so by evaluating the situation if saying something is going to make the situation worse you actually don't say anything if saying something you believe will improve the situation you say it to the amount that you believe it's going to improve the situation before doing that the fourth thing is you have to have firm knowledge of the advice you're about to give what I mean by that is you can't give advice on something that's like you think it's the right thing to do or you think it's the wrong thing but a bunch of scholars have said it's okay and now you give advice and it's actually the knowledge is not there and then when the advice is being given it has to be as you said done in a way where there's a sincerity associated with it and when it's not received Imam al Haddad says you actually blame yourself you're like oh I probably I probably didn't do it in the right way I messed up we don't first go and say oh this person clearly like doesn't isn't receptive those would be a few of the things that we do when it comes to giving advice when it comes to receiving advice one of the best advice that I've seen this applied is the advice Imam Ghazali gave that if someone were to tell you yo there's a what's like an animal a big spider a big poisonous spider and it's like on your back and they take the poisonous spider off of your back and they remove the spider and you're like why are you removing the spider why didn't you first sit me down and kindly gently find something to remove the spider and then put it to the side and you're like no no no there was a spider and it was about to hurt you I had to act quickly and he says that the way in which you understand this metaphor is that if someone is trying to help you view it as dude they're trying to help me remove something that could deeply hurt me in the next life right that this spider was about to sting me and it was about to poison me I had to just do whatever I could to remove it that's the assumption you have of the other person even if their advice was done in the wrong way right you apply the first principles to yourself but when someone does it to you and me we don't apply that principle we're like okay they were trying I assume some level of sincerity right or I assume all sincerity in that and then the second one is to know that they're just looking out for you and if you don't have someone giving you advice who is going to help us become better people at the end of the day like are we going to wait till we're 60 or 70 or 80 and on our deathbeds and then come the list of things that someone is telling us like I wish you had done this and done this and you were like this and we're just making sorry calls on you know and just saying I'm apologizing for everything rather than having a chance had a chance to fix it right and the last thing here is to know that it was among the sunnah of the sahabah that they would go seeking their weaknesses from other people they would love it they would literally go like at maaz is sitting ask maaz like hey like what do you think is wrong like what are things that could be doing better like what flaws do you notice in me you know that time that you saw me doing this thing like what could I have approached how could I have approached it better and if he's sincere with me ideally and if I have a if I can actually tame my nuffs and my ego right he'll say things correctly instead of be like oh nothing you're great you know and even though he knows I'm not right and and I would be like oh thank you for saying that but usually we never ask and if someone says we're like what do you mean I'm perfect I got no issues you're the one with issues who you're talking to me go fix yourself right we kind of have this repelling this this this this vibe where we don't like to accept it so it's like an internal transformation the last thing is if we apply what what's in the sunnah of the prophet sallam what's in the Quran in the sunnah in terms of of reforming ourselves in terms of worship our character will transform such that we love to accept advice from other people it's part of the spiritual alchemy that that happens when somebody is following this religion properly you love to accept it because that's the way this requires a lot of work but you actually enjoy it there's people who go out they they seek it like could you tell me what I was flaws and because they want to become as close to perfect as possible in this life they want to become reformed in this life okay so we're over time is it and last any any questions on the sister side yes yeah yeah so if if someone grew up you know and didn't know the tattoos were impermissible you know do they require to take it off if they're they do not have the means for it no right if they do some data do know if there's like a firm requirement about on the tattoo issue yeah because that because they're already forgiven for everything the day you convert Islam right and you did it in jahiliya when you didn't know so that would be the you you know generally you just kind of leave that with regards there's different hadith that that indicate that the Prophet told us to not get tattoos that it's the ink of shaitan and in others and so there's a the idea is that the body doesn't belong to us it belongs to Allah and so Allah tells us what we can do with our bodies and what we can't and reforming our bodies in a way that he doesn't like is would go against the loan that he's given us because it doesn't belong to us right so he'll tell us you have to cover this you have to you know not cover this he'll give us all these guidelines amongst the guidelines that he's given is to not to not put permanent ink on onto our bodies right so that would be amongst them and there's many many many others that issue is like discussed often but there's many other guidelines Allah has given us with regards to our bodies that we have to really see it is like I'm just this is a trust that I am just carrying and I just have to make sure I handle it in the best way in this life is that does that make sense yes oh yeah yeah good question so the when the hadith that we mentioned about something being eight times better than charity that's that's that's the reward for a loan actually so like if someone comes to you in need for money and you give them money there's one hadith which mentions that it's better than charity even because someone is literally coming to you expressing their need and you are now taking care of that need right and then there's also a virtue in being lenient with those who have borrowed money from us and you know giving them time to pay it back if they're not able to pay it back immediately yeah okay any other questions okay so we barely got through it but that's because we started late so just a few announcements then we'll go ahead and pray Isha next week is going to be a very special class by a very very very special visiting scholar Imam Fodeh it will be Wednesday but it will be slightly before this it's supposed to start at 6pm between 6 and 6.30 realistically is when it will start it will go through up until Maghrib so that will be in lieu of this class Inshallah highly highly highly encourage if you are able to make time to come and he is one of those people that has sat with people who have sat with people who have sat with people who sat with the Sahaba who sat with the Prophet ﷺ that he has a chain of transmission and so you would be sitting with somebody who has a deep deep deep scholarly chain and that just being in their presence as we mentioned will make you love goodness and the types of insights that this Sheikh gives are very very unparalleled so that's next week at Lighthouse 6pm the class will start probably around 6.30 and then it will be for an hour or so and then there will be dinner as well Inshallah so there's no class at Maghrib next week Inshallah What's the subject of the class? I believe it's on Shukr on gratitude but I'm not 100% sure I think that's what it was and then the following week there's no class so we'll resume Inshallah on June the what shall I say? on June the 7th So next week there is class but by Mamphode Inshallah the following week June 1st there's no class we'll resume on June 8th on Wednesday and then we'll continue and we have about 5 sections left we should be done with the book by the beginning of July Inshallah so if you signed up for the WhatsApp group I'll keep everybody posted on communications there if not just look out for communications from the Masjid once Maghrib starts entering around like late like 8 59 o'clock we will be starting the class at 8 and finishing with Maghrib instead of starting at Maghrib so it doesn't get too late Inshallah We ask Allah that You pardon us and forgive us for our mistakes That You accept us That You allow us to be sincere towards others of believers, Ya Allah, and that you enjoin mercy in our hearts, Ya Rabb Al Alamin, allow us to be people who treat others with mercy and with kindness, Ya Rabb Al Alamin, Ya Allah, and whatever difficulties we are going through, our families are going through, our loved ones are going through, our community is going through, our sicknesses or tribulations or problems or challenges, Ya Allah, we ask that you remove those difficulties and you replace them with ease and with expansiveness and you shower your luth and your kindness upon us, Ya Allah, if Ya Allah, we ask you for everything good, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam ask for, we ask you for protection from everything evil that he asks protection from, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, wa baraka ala Sayyidina Muhammad al-Nabi al-Ummi, wa la alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam, alhamdulillahi Rabb Al-Alamin.


Chief of Naval Personnel, Vice Admiral Bill Moran has announced changes to the performance evaluation system in a new NAV admin. The message explains how command should evaluate sailors regarding command or organizational climate, equal opportunity, military bearing, and character. To achieve high marks in these areas, sailors must demonstrate how they have cultivated or maintained command climates that are free from harassment, assault, and other unacceptable conduct, and where professionalism is the norm. CNP has made these changes in an effort to make sailors realize they must do more to help combat sexual assault and other unacceptable behaviors and create a safe environment for everyone. You can see the NAV admin at npc.navy.mil. From the Defense Media Activity, I'm Petty Officer Brandy Wills.