الحمد لله رب العالمين اللهم سلي وزنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه سلم رب الشهي صدري ويسأل لي أمره وهل الأقتة من الإسان يفقى وقولي وصلا وسلم وبارك على سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه سلم لا إله الا انت سبحانك اني كنت من الظالمين ربنا ذلمنا أنفسنا وإن لم تقفلنا وترحمنا ونركوننا من الخاصرين ربنا فرغ لنا سبرا متبت اقدامنا ونسننا على القوم الكافدين اللهم سلي وسلم وبارك على سيدنا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه ومدنك الجاري ويجمعيني بفقولي أذواري ولا أأله وصحبه سلم يا نول الحمد لله الحمد لله سنقوم بالنسبة في هذه السنة التي نتحدث عنها وحمد لله سنقوم بالنسبة على المتواجد ما هو المتواجد ونحن نتحدث عن seven obstacles على طريق الله كما يبدأ تفرز الطريق سنقوم بالنسبة ونحن تفرز الطريق ونحن نتحدث عنه من who is a guide who can help us navigate those obstacles فقط كما يحدث when anyone is traveling someone is climbing a mountain or someone is going on a long journey لا يمكنك أن تفعل it yourself أنت تحتاج أنت تحتاج من بعض الأجهر أنت تحتاج أنت تحتاج من who to help us along ونحن نحن of course the best guide the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم ومن there the great scholars who are known as the inheritors of the prophets as the prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said that the the scholars are the inheritors of the prophets the prophets don't leave behind wealth and you know cars and these types of things they leave behind knowledge deep knowledge and so we're going to be talking about what exactly is useful knowledge because many people they're trying to learn of us spend our time trying to learn what is actually going to be of benefit to us the main criteria for spiritual knowledge is whether or not it is going to benefit you in the next life and so we'll talk a little bit about that today إن شاء الله we covered a little bit of this last time I'll do a slight recap as well I'm the love so really when it comes to knowledge the goal is to have what's called experiential knowledge which brings a light into your heart a new into your heart as the great Imam Maliki told us that knowledge is a light that enters the heart and the great Sheikh إن شاء الله and many others have talked about how knowledge must be accompanied with an increase in fear and awe and reverence of Allah otherwise it's just facts and figures if you if you have knowledge and it's just information you memorize oh this is how to this is the ruling for this can I say this word or not can I do this thing or not and it's peripheral knowledge that's not hyper relevant to your day-to-day and it doesn't increase someone in their what's called خشية of Allah in their spiritual understanding and reverence of Allah for the most part it's not going to be useful useful knowledge is to find knowledge which brings a light to the heart and which helps somebody tread the spiritual path and it should help make you aware of your faults that's one of the biggest signs of useful knowledge is it's helping you understand where you fall short in your relationship with Allah where you have room to improve and where we have where we're already doing it kind of you know it's it's worth our okay and that's why people who usually don't like useful knowledge they're the people who don't like hearing about their own faults those people they like to hear about all the knowledges that will expose other people's faults so useful knowledge will expose your faults knowledge that's not useful will turn you into a finger pointing judgey Muslim that will expose other people's faults so you have categories of Muslims in the first category you might learn about the knowledge of patients and why it's bad to get angry and why it's basically this is knowledge to help you reform your character knowledge of purification of the heart why it's bad to not trust in Allah why it is dangerous to say speech that's Haram and so on and now we're like I do all these things I'm struggling with this I don't have this trait and so those vices in us they start to become exposed now the nuffs the soul the ego it doesn't like to be exposed doesn't like to be told that it's not doing what's right so it will say well is this really the point of religion and it won't it won't like that type of knowledge but the spirit which is called the روخ in our religion it is the part in us that is longing to return back to the divine presence the spirit you could think about it metaphysically in your inner world is like this you have on top you have the spirit which is receiving spiritual you could say knowledges and spiritual breezes directly from the heavens and then you have the nuffs the nuffs is pointed downwards the spirit is pointed upwards okay and the nuffs is pulling everything from the the it's the heart and the heart if it's impacted by the spirit it's going to become pure if it's impacted by the nuffs it's going to become diseased knowledge that is beneficial which is why they called sacred knowledge or spiritual knowledge is knowledge that impacts the spirit and then reforms your heart a knowledge that might be cloaked as Islamic knowledge but actually won't benefit you that the nuffs it comes rather from the nuffs it's a way of the nuffs to seek the lowly desires that it has through now the form of the theme what do I mean by lowly desires the nuffs has and how can it come in the form of the theme example the nuffs likes leadership it's called حب رياسة the disease of loving leadership loving being in positions where you can tell other people what to do it likes it even more in so somebody may tread out on the path to Islam sincerely they may practice their religion sincerely Alhamdulillah at some point along the way shaytan and the nuffs will try to trick them and we'll try to say well if you get this position in the must shift you'll be in charge of people but you'll also be doing good and you'll be serving the Muslims and so on and so forth so it tell it it makes them desire to have a position of leadership in let's say the must shift and now what happens well they're in the must shift and they're again on the board of the must shift and then you have the board the board members are bickering and they're arguing and they're saying no I'm right no I'm right no I'm right and then they can't even hold one they can't even keep the Imam or the staff of the must shift for more than a year because they are all doing it for the sake of their nuffss let's just say I'm not saying all people are like I'm saying this person would be in this situation so they think they're doing something for the theme but they're actually doing it for their own nuffss the same thing will happen to somebody who learns and they immediately think their responsibility when after they've learned something is to go and tell everybody else what they're doing is wrong and how the sin that everyone else is doing is wrong because they stop doing that sin so they think now it's my responsibility to tell everybody else is wrong and this is fine to a degree when it's when it comes with the intention of what's called enjoying good and forbidding evil however you know it's coming from the nuffs when the nuffs gets a type of satisfactory pleasure from being correct and it loves to see other people in the wrong and it loves to be right the great scholars of this religion Imam Shafi being one of them he mentioned and I'm paraphrasing here that he said if if I could constantly if truth could manifest on the tongue of somebody else that he would love that if he was in a discussion he didn't want he wanted the truth to come the but he didn't want it to come always on his tongue because the truth is the goal if you see a truth is coming from you you actually could fall short called fall prey to the diseases and the tricks of the nuffs this is how subtle it gets this is why it's so important it's why it's so important to work on your spirituality and why it's so important to work on yourself because the majority of the problems in the world exist not even the majority all of the problems in the world exist because people have deep spiritual illness in their hearts and they're trying to fill that spiritual illness with alcohol drugs now with television with devices with their phone with social media with Netflix shows we're just trying to fill all of it with trying to make something out of ourselves and be known and all these sorts of things become the leader of a tech company and become I don't have a successful IPO all the things people are trying to fill themselves with and yet the only thing that can truly and none of those things by the way give them contentment you can fill it this is imagine if this is the heart this is the receptacle of the heart the heart the kalp is empty and you can try to fill it with all sorts of things but all the things you fill it's pure they're filthy it's like filling this and I apologize for the for the kind of directness but it's like filling something with urine you wouldn't want that but people try over and over and over again to do this and they try to fill their heart with filth and the only thing that is going to give you contentment and satisfaction is a deep relationship with your Lord because Allah created you Allah created you and if Allah created you you yearn to meet Allah you yearn to meet God for those who that don't if anyone is online who doesn't know Arabic or about Islam that we Allah is our Lord Allah is God God can be used interchangeably in the English language so you yearn to meet Allah now because you and I don't some people we don't know what it's like to even know about Allah we have this void inside of us and this is when we start to fill the void with everything else but the void will only be fulfilled by Allah by God and only be filled by spirituality and correct spirituality at that just because someone practices the religion of Islam doesn't mean they're filling that void we have all these Muslims around the world that have gone astray that have gone into extremist groups that have started practicing the religion incorrectly you now have people who that their entire focus of the religion is all on outward I must look this way I must look this way and it's all about that meanwhile the inward is completely missing that outside of the home the Islam is there inside of the home they have record levels of Haram going on in Muslim countries inside of the home in terms of the devices and what people are watching on the internet and so on and so forth why? because the inner world is missing because we flipped this theme on its head and we've forgotten the true purpose of our religion which is to purify ourselves the Prophet ﷺ says I was only sent to perfect noble character and that's why this religion when it's applied correctly is a medicine for all of the problems in your life in our lives and it is a way to cure all of the issues this society has going on because every single issue boils down to some character flaw that somebody has someone might be too angry someone might be desiring power too much we have a president in this country who desired power so much he tried to stage a coup and got all these people to try and stage a coup in the country that's all because of what? the desire for power and control had that desire for power and control been tamed then that would not be an issue that would not be an issue and so it's very very important it's very important to purify the self the enough spiritually and amongst another thing that the the very diseased person will constantly desire to discuss facts and discuss aspects of the religion that are irrelevant that will not benefit you if it's not going to benefit you in your grave don't worry about it why do I say that because everybody is going to meet Allah and everybody is going to meet Allah and everybody is going to die at some point and we walk around on this earth thinking that we're invincible and thinking we're not going to die Allah says in the Quran that the human being he thinks he's independently wealthy he thinks he doesn't need Allah he thinks he doesn't depend on Allah and so Allah challenges that human being he says okay try then at the point of death try at the point of death to try and prevent the soul from leaving try and I would challenge anybody especially those that question Islam and so on that try and take the try and challenge at the point of death your soul from leaving the body try to stop the soul from leaving the body you won't be able to no matter how much science you invest in no matter how much technology you develop no matter if you have the most advanced fusion technology and you solve relativity no matter what you've done you won't be able to stop the soul from leaving the body so then what can you really do what are you capable of you will end up 6 feet in the ground at some point all of us with dirt surrounding us and our family will leave the grave at some point and it'll just be us and we'll be deep in the ground and it'll be a dark night and it'll be raining outside what are we going to do with that who is going to be there it's our deeds and it's our Lord Allah is always present and your deeds are going to be the ones who are going to be there for you and so it really really really is important to wake up to the fact that death is real and death is coming and that's what true knowledge does true knowledge casts a real feeling in the heart that you are going to die and that you are going to meet your Lord and that you are going to have to stand before your Lord and answer to Him on the Day of Judgment many questions and what you did with your life why you did certain things where we spent our money where we spent our time where we spent our energy where we spent our youth and then what's going to happen what are we going to say doesn't matter if you're a Muslim you're a non-Muslim you're an atheist what every human being will stand before Allah on the Day of Judgment everybody and not only stand you will stand before Allah in a state of nakedness which sweat up to here for some people just come the sun one mile close that's how serious and real this is and knowledge when it's applied correctly will wake this will wake someone up to prepare for that because this life is short people say this statement you only live once for the Muslim you don't only live once you have many lives you have a life before this life a life in the womb a life on the plane where you swore where you said that Allah is our Lord we have a life in the grave we have the Day of Judgment which is essentially a life in it of itself and then we have the afterlife the full afterlife which is either Insha'Allah in heaven or not so these are the realities which we have to wake up to and we have to measure if what we're learning is helping us wake up to these things and prepare more seriously and you'll know this a few ways to measure this one is how seriously you take the rules of the religion if somebody really seriously applies the rules they're on a good path that's a good sign number two how seriously do you wake up and how much of a priority does someone give waking up early and waking up for Fajr specifically the reason I mention this one is because sorry one second the reason I mention this one but if we can't do what's difficult for the Nus which is to wake up early and to pray we're going to be in a very very difficult situation because we again are only doing what's easy for us we're only doing what is easy for us and so the true knowledge will change your state it will make you worried when you miss a prayer when we miss if we ever miss a prayer the person who's been seeking true knowledge will be in a state of worry and sadness that how could I do this how could I miss a prayer if we miss where Allah wants us to be at a certain moment we'll feel upset how could I miss where Allah wanted me to be if we're in a place where Allah does not want to us to be we'll also feel upset and so knowledge must wake us up Muslims these days are worried about things that are not going to be a benefit to them for the most part in the day of judgment and we think this is knowledge and so the trick that the soul plays that the nuffs plays here the ego is it directs your spiritual energy to incorrect knowledge but it makes you think that you are religious this is a huge deception why is this a deception because imagine you only have so much energy inside of yourself to give to something and you direct that energy towards random facts and figures trying to determine if those facts and figures are part of this religion and you think that you are progressing you're like yeah I know this and I don't do this and I'm getting so close to Allah because meanwhile preparation for death is not there meanwhile we're still immersed in major sins meanwhile we still have yet to improve our character meanwhile we still yet to stop wasting time but we think we are being religious by using our time in these silly discussions and I'll give an example or two of that but the true one who's religious they don't waste their time on stuff that's not going to impact and what's an example recently the amount of Muslims arguing over whether or not you can say Merry Christmas to somebody I mean Muslims should not be celebrating in Christmas it's not our tradition it's not our holiday but if you're going over can I say this phrase can I not say this phrase can I say this phrase meanwhile those same Muslims are still saying the F word and they're still cursing and they think that if I spend time arguing over whether or not I can say this phrase I'm somehow being religious and then they go and they tell everybody else all the other Muslims like you can't say this you can't say that and it's like okay how is that benefiting you at the end of the day I'm not saying you should go out of your way to say Merry Christmas to somebody it's not relevant to you when it comes to meeting your Lord and when you die it's not going to be the thing that you are going to worry about when you die you're going to worry about did you take interest loans or not did you that were you rude to your parents and disrespectful to other people or not were you a person of good character were you jealous were you envious were you arrogant were you that full of person and so on and so forth but when we waste our time in these things what happens and so it's like well yeah I'm religious because I don't say this thing I'm religious because I don't say happy birthday to people because I think birthdays are not permissible or something all the silly silly silly things meanwhile again if I do time comes we're still sleeping that's a big dangerous sign that we are caught up in the deception of our nuffs in the deception of our nuffs when we waste our time arguing over these silly little irrelevant things and yet our heart is so sick is unable to obey the basic commands of the five prayers so we must be careful about what type of knowledge we spend time on what type of knowledge we spend time on it is about relevant spiritual knowledge that is going to transform the human being and prepare them for the meeting with their lord and that's very very critical very very critical and there's there's a lot of types of this but we're not going to kind of get into all of them but we're going to be careful in terms of thinking you are learning religious knowledge when you're just learning irrelevant facts and figures so there's three obligatory knowledges which we covered last time what are called فرد عين this is obligatory for every Muslim to know the prophet SA told us SA that it is obligatory for the Muslim to learn knowledge to seek knowledge and this is the three of فرد عين and of rulings and the third is the knowledge of the heart and how to purify the heart all you have to do to fulfill this basic obligation is make sure that you spend at least a few hours studying one basic test text in one of these in these knowledge it doesn't take long but you have to study the text you have to then learn what the rulings are and then you have to apply it in your life that's it if somebody does that you can do that in a weekend but we go 30, 40, 50, 60 years some people sometimes their whole life without learning this without applying it without knowing what to do and this is a problem we must we must we must learn these core knowledges so the first one the knowledge of Tauheed you must learn أقيدة and this is sound أقيدة that is the أقيدة that was followed by أقيدة and by the early generation believe in Allah it's sufficient to read and we'll cover at the end I would recommend just read you can read the أقيدة it's translated in English it's a text ideally read it understand it and then study it with a teacher if possible and find some lecture why is that important because it tells you what you believe about Allah and what you don't believe about Allah that there's people these days again amongst the the sex that have gone astray that they believe crazy things about Allah they believe in anthropomorphism they believe that Allah physically has hands and eyes and so on and so forth ليس that Allah says in the Quran that he is like nothing nothing is similar to him and yet he is all seeing seeing and all hearing but because when you have a misunderstanding of knowledge and you have yet to study and you don't have a chain back to the prophet in terms of your what's called you misunderstand verses of the Quran and you'll take something literally that's supposed to be taken figuratively and you might take something figuratively that's supposed to be taken literally and this is why you don't go directly without qualification and without scholarly guidance to the Quran to extract all of the knowledge you must accompany that with sitting with teachers and the books of the religion it's very very very important because the life of the prophet and the commentary on his life is the best commentary on the Quran and not every part of the Quran is what you and your life in exactly the way that it was meant to when it was revealed the second then so that's that's knowledge of the second is the knowledge of of of everybody should study at least one book of with a teacher and this should be ideally as we mentioned before within one of the four accepted of the religion the what they've done is they've created a new school they want recognition for themselves and they've created a new school of thought which is rejected in this religion I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the I mean the رمضان، حج، زاكات، and a few other aspects of basic fit to help you understand. Once you know that, you must apply it. And this is where a lot of Muslims, we go wrong because we don't learn. I'll give you one example here. We talked about this before. One of the rukun of prayer, one of the arkan of prayer, meaning to make sure your prayer is valid of the farth prayer. The prayer must be prayed standing up. The farth prayer. If someone is able-bodied meaning that they're not sick. Or disabled. So you cannot pray if it's like lower time. You can't just pray lower in the car. You can't just pray us or in the car. Like driving. You have to stop somewhere, get out of the car and pray standing up somewhere. This is something a lot of Muslims miss. But you don't realize that's one of the things that will invalidate the prayer. And invalid, if you don't apply one of the arkan of the prayer, it's invalid. In order for prayer to be valid, wudu must be valid. Many times wudu is invalid because we have yet to fulfill the requirements of making wudu properly. We have yet to fulfill the requirements of making wudu properly. So this is where that in our religion, there are rules. And there's not that many rules. There really aren't. We have to learn those rules and we have to apply those rules. Once we learn those rules, we're good. But then we can focus on what matters. What matters is to prepare for the meeting with Allah. But you have to make sure the rules are being that we know the rules so we can use this life. And we can apply those rules properly. Because Allah created the rules. Allah created the rules. And it's very, very, very important. And someone here says that question. So the way that this works just for those who are new to the class. We have a class that we're doing and it's on Wednesday nights. And after the class, about an hour or so into it, we do the question and answer. Just because we're doing a live class. So if you have questions, you will feel free to post them or wait till the end. But we have an outline and a topic and a text that we're covering. And so we have to finish that, Insha'Allah. And so if you do pray, let's say someone didn't know this. They pray sitting down. They must make up that prayer standing up if they were able to body during that time. So these are rules. It's a few basic things. We just have to learn them. Right? We've covered this before that nail polish invalid. It's the wudu because you have to make sure all of your nails have water. Water gets on them. It's one of the requirements from the fingertips to the elbows. Water has to get there completely. Something. Someone has a giant. Anything on them or something that's covering it invalidated. We have to make sure then. And this is obviously for our sisters that to take this seriously. And to not be like, oh, this is not a big deal. I hear people say, oh, Allah is not this petty and this small. Allah is the creator of the rules. And if you believe in Allah, you'll respect his rules. If you worship your enough, you'll create your own rules. And this is what is happening in a large portion of the Muslim world where people create their own rules. You now have people who have come up with all sorts of random interpretation of the religion. And they're propagating it and spreading it. But because they've made things quote unquote easy, they've made it what's Haram Halal. A lot of people will listen to them. And they'll follow them. And they'll think it's all good. They're the more kind of what do you call secular Muslims. They don't like to follow the religion that much, but they follow it to a degree. Or you could say not as much practicing, but very liberal. This is all battle. Allah says, وَقُلْ جَاءَ الْحَقْ وَزَهَقَ الْبَاتِلِ. When the truth comes, falsehood is destroyed because falsehood, by its very nature, is in a state of vanishing and destruction. And so we must, must, must make sure that we apply the rules of this, the religion seriously. And I know it's not fun. I know it can be boring and it can be dry. And we just have to learn them, apply to them. And I promise that if you do that, you should taste more fun parts of the rin, which there are a lot of. All of that will have been worth it. But we're getting so caught up in it. We're like, oh, we learned, learned all the intricacies of things. We don't even get to the fun part. What's the fun part? The fun part is when you have a deep relationship with your Lord. And when you feel his presence at every moment. And when you realize he's watching you in every moment. And when you realize that he created you and that he only would have created you if he loved you. And that he has a deep desire for you to love him. And that his love comes when you, you are able to love him only when he first loves you. And you're just in this amazing part of relationship where you're building this relationship with him. That's the fun part. But by fun, fun is not even a really good word for this. But that is the part that you will enjoy more. Because there's a spiritual part that comes with that. But we have to make sure we get the basics right first. We have to make sure we get the basics right first. And yeah, for Halal, nail polish for that question. This is relevant to what we're talking about. That's as long as it's been vetted by scholars. And it works. I mean, it would probably be fine. Just always remember for I would say for brothers and sisters, if something is not essential to your life, just never let it compromise your Dean. Just never let it compromise your Dean. So for this thing that could compromise your Wudu or your prayer. Don't let it compromise your Dean. It's not worth it. Right? For something that is kind of fun to do but you know that you could probably get into Haram but doing it don't compromise. It's not worth it. Because if you lose your religion, you've lost everything. You have nothing left. It doesn't matter how much money someone has, how much they have in their bank account. If we don't have Allah, we have nothing. And if we have Allah, we have everything. We don't need anything else. These are the three knowledges. Highly recommend getting a book of Fiqh. Getting a book of Aqida. In this book actually there's Aqida and Fiqh in one. They've already kind of gotten into the basic type of creed. What is creed? Creed is what you believe about Allah. What you believe about the messengers. What you believe about the afterlife. You have to know what you believe about the afterlife. Right? That the questioning is real. That this is all the life in the grave is real. Because there are groups in Islam that have gone astray because they interpreted the afterlife as metaphor. Like, oh, this isn't real. It's just kind of we think it's happening but it's all figurative. That's obviously not the case. We know that this is supposed to be real. And so you have to make sure that you apply this from the love. Okay. And just a quick question. Are you allowed to read Fajr in your clothes that you slept in? Yeah, yeah, you can. As long as the clothes that you sleep in are clean and they don't have what's called nudges or filth of any sort on them. It's completely permissible to pray any prayer in them. Fajr or the horror or whatever it is. Okay. So the next principle of knowledge is to be expansive in the knowledge that you learn. So when you and I began to tread the path of knowledge and Mama Ghazali talks about this you want to be expansive meaning you don't want to limit everybody around you to one very strict narrow view. At the same time you don't want to be the one who the majority of the scholars are here in a ruling and you're over here saying, well, I think it's like this. You want to be with the majority but you want to respect the differences of opinion that exist in the majority. Why is that important? Because when someone begins to learn they think their way is the only way in my way or the highway is basically so Oh, I follow I do it like this so it must be the only way I don't know how you don't know how many times I hear people say that Oh, I never I've never heard that before. Well I mean, have you spent like 55 years studying the religion and mastering Arabic and mastering the Hadith and Quran and Surah Fiqh and Nahu I mean, have we done that? If we haven't then we shouldn't make a statement like I've never heard that before so it can't be true because there's a lot of things we haven't heard before. In fact, the vast majority of this religion in terms of the deep aspects of this religion we're not going to have heard before because the Muslims we're not scholarly people anymore. We've lost this scholastic knowledge aspect of our religion. We're just kind of like we do it everybody else does back in the day it would have been unimaginable for someone to spend an hour two hours a day watching television unimaginable just scrolling through Netflix just watching stuff that's Haram for the most part bad clothing bad words constant just inappropriate scenes and Muslims we just literally do that like everybody else we talk about the same shows we basically live the same type of lifestyle as everybody else Allah says in the Quran أخرجت للناس you were and are the best people ever sent forth to humanity why though because you have this trait in you where you bring other people to good and call other people to good and forbid people from doing Haram and forbid people from doing Haram but we don't do that anymore we're just caught up in everything what everybody else caught up in the western world has completely brainwashed the Muslims and we've gotten into the same type of fall that everybody else is in and love the dunya in this world in this part of the world in the west they love the dunya because they don't believe in an akhir they don't believe in the next life so if we're doing the same things everybody else is doing how are we going to progress we can't so we have to actively we must actively resist the dominant paradigm have to resist it and that's done by learning knowledge properly because when real knowledge is sought you'll feel a deep desire to want to leave all of the time wasting all of the silliness and focus began focusing on Allah how I'm taking a selfie and how I look and how many people are there and is the filter correct and how many likes will I get and I mean just all sorts of stuff this would have been unimaginable to the early and so we just need to make sure that we get this get this right and so we have what's called that we have what's called a فارد عين and we have what's called a فارد كيفايا in terms of knowledge a فارد عين is an individual obligation this means that it's obligatory it's obligatory to learn this and then it's called there's what's called a فارد كيفايا a فارد كيفايا it's obligatory for someone in the community to learn that but if a few one person learns it or a few people learn it everybody is okay if nobody learns it everybody is in a state of sin what's important here is to prioritize for yourself the individual obligations and not worry about the communal obligations for most of us until we get to a point where we're in a position where we need to worry about example of a communal obligation would be like that the details of arranging a جنازة for example or branches of thick that are not relevant to your daily life right it's important for the scholars and others to know those but it's not important for the person traveling the path to know things that are not relevant directly to them and their family so we must prioritize and this is where also when Muslims will go wrong they'll spend all this time learning things that aren't important to them and the next thing that's not important it's not important for you to know the proofs of everything it is that you do it's not important for you to know the proofs of everything that it is that you do why this is actually a sickness that has gotten into the hearts of the Muslims people want to know the proof of every practice it is that they have why is that well because they've limited knowledge to facts and figures because in so in post enlightenment in the western world knowledge became much more focused on certain facts and figures rather than something that's transformative that was going to help you become a better person and so the more facts and figures and citations and direct understanding that somebody had of something the more knowledge which is actually information that they would have and so now today Muslims we don't even know a lot of basics but we want to know the proof for everything it is that we hear we don't even know the books that the proofs are being referenced from someone who sometimes people ask what's your proof for this what's the proof for this and you'll be like well you can find in this part of the Quran and they haven't even read the whole Quran yet and then they want to know the proofs this is called a waste of time because if you go to the doctor and the doctor the cardiologist says hey you have a cholesterol issue what do you again it tells you okay you have to do this for your arteries and so on and so forth and you say well can you give me the source texts for all of the cholesterol problems it is that I have so I can understand how exactlyuggleries and so on and so on and understand how the blood flows and get into the details of which doctor understand how the chemical compound I will inbound bound together to then cure the problem is anyone do that when they go to the doctor or to the行 fine you can say thanks doctor الإجارة للمسلمين where we have people called scholars or people of knowledge they know the proofs sometimes they memorize the proofs other times the proofs are in texts which they know how to access the great to tell you the proof for everything They just need to tell us the essence of what that thing is but Muslims these days we want to know you said this can you tell the proof and the number of the hadith and where to find it لكنك أن نن toujours نستطيع فعل تلك القرآن سيئة ح之前 كال簡單 العقلة الع produce this religion they في跡كم لو فكرة ام اثنان قحت على السرح في حال صادتك ل này يخرج جدا سi may testify we're not doing these but some of these basic you'll forget caught up in this yet we're caught up in this and so يجب أن نتكلم عن المعلمات التي نحن نتعلم و هذا هو why you have to be careful of who you follow يجب أن نتكلم عن who you follow من who is propagating things that were invented in the last 100 to 200 years يجب أن نتكلم عنهم و there are groups that said let's throw out 1200 years of Muslim history and let's try to come up with what we think and what we think the early generation did based on the books that we have you're never going to have all the information because our religion is not only based on books it's based on living transmission of knowledge from the Prophet ﷺ to the great Sahaba Sayyidina Imam Ali and Imam Abu Bakr and many others and it was given to them many of the great great great companions and then transmitted to the generation of the Tab'een and then from person to person until it came to some people who are still alive today where they have the whole chain and then you have some people who in the year 1800 they decided or 1750 or 1800 well let's just throw out because what we can find in a handful of these books and what everybody else is doing is probably wrong and let's just come up with our own interpretation of the religion and we are going to follow the early generations we are going to follow the quote unquote when you have no connection of a senate back to the Salaf and the people who can tell you the sheikh and the sheikh and the sheikh back to the great sheykh the great Imam Hassan Abassi the great Imam Abdullah Tustri that many of the great early generations people we don't even know those names and we don't want to follow that chain instead we want to follow the group of people who have invented all these new things it's a big problem it's a big problem anyways that's not the point of the discussion but we just have to be on watch for knowledge that is not going to benefit us we have to be on watch for knowledge that is not going to benefit us so we don't need to worry about all these proofs and we don't need to spend time learning deep branches of knowledge which are not going to be transformative you will know it's transformative if after you spend a session of learning you feel a sense of tranquility in your heart and you feel a desire to turn to Allah in worship a deep desire to turn to Allah like you actually turned to Him why? you turned to Him while you were learning you turned to Him after you were learning you turned to Him before you were learning you'll know the knowledge is dangerous when you just turn to people after you're done you're like oh I learned this thing let me go tell everybody else what they're doing is wrong that means it was off either the knowledge was off or your sincerity was off one of the two or you just began thinking about everybody else who does something wrong except for your own self something's off there because knowledge is supposed to make you change yourself it's not until you change yourself Allah says in the Qur'an we will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves focus on yourself do not be focused so much on other people Allah says save yourselves and your family from the fire He starts with yourself this is in the Qur'an كو أنفسكم وأحليكم not save yourself and your family from the fire because if you don't save yourself first and then your family what job do you have trying to save all sorts of other people all sorts of other people and so we have to be on guard against the deluders of this who claim to be people of knowledge and yet we just end up getting more astray from them another sign now he's going to get into dangers of knowledge and then we'll get into useful knowledge and then we'll end each other dangers of knowledge he says there are dangers amongst the dangers is arguing and dispute he says there are deep sickness and that if anyone indulges in them it's going to be very difficult for them to achieve salvation because knowledge is not meant to argue إمام مالك رضي الله عنه that when he would get on a path when he would be sitting and people would begin to argue knowledge in front of him he would leave he'd say this is war you people who argue this is war we know the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم that when Sayyidina Abu Bakr رضي الله عنه was meeting with some that they walked into the masjid and there was someone there who was attacking Sayyidina Abu Bakr it was dissing him essentially and Sayyidina Abu Bakr stayed quiet and the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم stayed and then quiet and then he stayed and then quiet and then he stayed and then Sayyidina Abu Bakr responded to this man again he argued back he engaged and the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم left later Sayyidina Abu Bakr رضي الله عنه said why did you leave يارسول الله he said because when you were there not responding an angel was responding on your behalf however when you began responding the angels left and the devil came and the prophet and the devil cannot be in the same place and so he left the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم hated argumentation first of all Allah does not like it when you argue he says this very clearly in the Quran that he does not like those who argue those who argue without knowledge which is the majority of Muslims these days and the live someone asked what's live about we're covering a text and we're talking about useful knowledge we're covering a text by Imam Ghazali it's a class we do every week on the live this time so this is the that how much they hated arguing and the great scholars of the past they would all leave arguing they would just run they didn't like it there was what's called an intellectual debate that was done for proofs among certain scholars but the vast majority of them stayed away even from this they didn't like this because debate and dispute what it does is it creates an arrogance in the nuffs because naturally when you're debating somebody you want to win but the goal of the Muslim the nuffs is the goal of the Muslims to tame the nuffs but every time you win you inflate the nuffs and so you have Muslims we walk around with these huge inflated egos walking around thinking that we're right that we're on some pedestal that we're some pious people and meanwhile Allah says that he turns all his signs away from the people of arrogance and Islam said that the one with an Adam's weight of arrogance in their heart will not enter the jinn will not enter heaven and so we engage in things that give us arrogance thinking it's a religious but it's actually just a trick of the nuffs so that's one of the big things that's a yes question right right yeah I know that's a very good point for those online and not have a discourse with someone like a dialogue where you can't kind of provide some thoughts or some perspective and someone just wants to keep going going going going and not ever give someone a chance to speak that's a very dangerous sign it's a very dangerous sign and the other thing that's related to that that if somebody question and they like kind of a friendly discourse with somebody where Islam does not prohibit like a healthy Islamic discussion like oh what do you think about this a healthy oh this is the perspective of the scholar this is the perspective of the scholar but Islam prohibits is a argumentative debate where people clash they butt heads and they say no you're wrong and then they say no you're wrong and they say no your scholars are in the fire and then they say no your scholars are wrong and this is and they just constant debate and it just creates anger and animosity hatred and envy and between the Muslims all traits which Allah does not want us to have and he mentioned these as despicable traits in the Quran so if you think it's a religion to spend all this time debating it's a problem it's a problem so we have to be very very very careful when it comes to our understanding of the religion and we have to be very careful from sitting with people who this is the majority of the time that they spend talking about they spend the majority of the time talking about them one off issue that this group is doing is completely wrong for this reason and you just you leave the class or the session or whatever it is knowing all these random facts and figures about everybody else was wrong you haven't improved yourself one minute one Adam knowledge is useful and it won't make you want to debate when you realize how many flaws we have as human beings we realize how much sin we've committed how scary the hereafter how real Allah is how real the day the judgment is how how far away we are from the reality of this someone who knows these things why would they want to spend their time debating when there's so much work to do they get to work immediately and that is a sign of this sincere person and we know this we know this because the prophet said that if someone seeks knowledge to flaunt it before others before the scholars or to argue before fools or make people turn their faces it will cause him to enter the fire of hell that if your intention of seeking knowledge is to debate or to get people to be like oh into you or to just argue with people that's the point of seeking knowledge that's it you would have been better off not seeking that type of knowledge and just seeking off knowledge that was beneficial or at least purifying yourself so you don't get into that and we know in other hadith among the first group to enter hell are the Quran reciders who used to recite the Quran for the sake of showing off and the scholars who used to teach for the sake of attention and who used to learn for the sake of getting people to praise them masha'Allah you know so much and they love that they thrive off of that that's a dangerous sign religious praise very dangerous for the nafs the nafs should not you shouldn't give it much and if you give it if you receive it you should attribute it to Allah we know our own selves we know how weak we are we know how many problems we have we have at the same time you can't just leave knowledge aside because it's dangerous you have to tread the path it's like when you have to go somewhere it's difficult to go you can't do that I'm just going to stay back because it's a hard journey no you got to go you got to get to that place and so when he's getting into these difficult aspects of the spiritual path when he's getting into the aspect of the spiritual path then we have to be we have to know what type of knowledge we should seek and then how we can purify ourselves while seeking that knowledge while seeking that knowledge and so here we'll pause a quick question for a few quick questions and then we'll finish up so there's a question about Dawah and is Dawah argumentative debating so Dawah so first it's important to look at the what the word Dawah means Dawah means an invitation you are inviting someone to the Dean if I were to invite you over to my house for dinner or to an event and I took the invitation and I just threw it at your face and I said see you then would you ever come to my house no you'd be like dude what's up with this guy you wouldn't no one would like that if I came to somebody humbly nicely and said hey would love to have you over are you free on this day please come by at this point like do you have any food allergies like you know I really asked them and invited them and said please come by be honoured to have you and your family over hopefully I would hope that Dawah is an invitation do not do Dawah with an inviting spirit with the intention of invitation and with the methodology of Dawah Dawah has a methodology with the methodology of Dawah if you don't do it like that no one is going to accept your Dawah and then it's not Dawah it's just the Nuffs the Nuffs will attach itself to anything and sometimes it attach itself to religious conversations and topics and stuff but the people who they think that Dawah is inviting is debating and proving you wrong and proving you wrong and proving you wrong and then they think look at me I know how to do Dawah that's not Dawah ilallah that's Dawah ilah Nuffs that's Dawah to their own ego not Dawah to their not Dawah to Allah because Dawah to Allah and his messenger is done with the methodology of the messenger you will not be able to find one instance in the Sunnah of the Prophet in which he argued and debated and arrogantly talked to people to try to call them to the Dean it must be done with invitation and it cannot be done to prove someone wrong and this includes the Dawah of people who try to argue with people of other faiths if you're getting into arrogant arguing and you're just telling everybody else that they're wrong for all these reasons and you're making their feelings hurt and you're denigrating what they worship you're not doing Dawah to Islam you think you are but you're actually just under the influence of the Nuffs and this you have yet to be doing Dawah in the first place if you have yet to focus on these far to the Ain this is where again Dawah is done when the far to the Ain have first been learned and somewhat implemented and someone is on a path and so you have to be really really mindful about getting into a state of argumentation getting into a state of argumentation and then also before Dawah starts you must know a realm of difference of opinion within knowledges that you have to know that there's knowledge out there you might not know the opinion and so you should stay quiet when there's a difference of opinion a lot of people they think their way is the only way and so when a difference of opinion is shared they'll just be like well I don't know what's going to work no reason for why not to listen this is the problem with the age that we live in where people think Islam is a monolithic religion it's not monolithic the Prophet peace be upon him said the Prophet peace be upon him said that difference of opinion in my ummah is a rahmah is a mercy we know there's going to be difference of opinion but as long as the essence is the same it's all good nobody is differing about how many gods there are Alhamdulillah there's no difference in final messenger nobody's differing about the day of judgment nobody's differing about the life in the grave and so these are things we must remember Insha'Allah we'll now get into useful knowledge actually there's a few other questions yes question because that there's that same difference of opinion and it's a lot deeper than here since here for the truth it was mentioned is that the sense of opinion if you have and your heart gentleness and if you really desire truth it will help you in guiding people because you'll know because the one who is really sincere in their religion they want to make room for people in the religion the one who is arrogant in the religion they want to limit everybody and throw them into hell they'll be like well you're all going to hell because you don't do this one thing and you're all going to that you're all you know have failed in the religion because you don't do this one thing they don't know that there might have been 99 scholars or 10,000 scholars that gave a fatwa in the religion in the four madhabs that permitted something right so this is very very important to remember when it comes to practicing this dean is that we have to make room for people and we have to make room for difference of opinion difference of opinion okay so a few questions okay so what if you realize that you were praying wrong for a long time do you just do toba and improve your prayers will you be responsible for difference for women feet have to be covered during prayer okay so if you realize that you were praying incorrectly you must make repentance but if you completely miss like all of the arkan of the prayer you should strive to make up those prayers but if you believe believe that you learn the figure out what is it about those prayers that you missed it's a little bit nuanced because it's not as simple as if you miss something that wasn't an arkan of the prayer your prayer your prayer would be valid if you missed many many many arkan of the prayer all of the arkan of the prayer your prayer technically would be invalid and it would be advised to make those prayers up but it does depend on kind of what you missed so at minimum of course you must make toba but ignorance is not really an excuse in our religion for most things once someone hits puberty the religion the knowledge of the religion becomes farther on them and it was the parent's responsibility to teach them knowledge and the parents are held accountable if they don't teach someone the knowledge of the deen if a child is living under the roof of the parent it is the man's responsibility the father of the household responsibility to ensure that you learn the deen and that you learn how to pray and that you pray on time and if you do not do so they can be asked about that they can be asked about that now it's one thing if you encourage someone they're just not listening okay the question for women do your feet have to be covered when you're praying? no your feet do not have to be covered when you're praying for women but you're up completely up to your right below your ankle right before the feet starts going to be covered well I'd be held accountable for negative thoughts are there practical tips on minimize negative thoughts so you're not Alhamdulillah held accountable for thoughts you held accountable for when the intention comes from the thought and then the action starts you've made a decision to do an action you are now held accountable whether or not you can fulfill that action or not you can get a good reward for a good action that you wanted to do but you couldn't do and if you had a firm intention to do a bad deed but you just weren't able to do it you still get the sin for it right so the thought level Alhamdulillah is not held accountable now in terms of controlling the thoughts the first thing to do is to learn the type of thoughts is to learn the type of thoughts so the first thought is what's called a خاتر that a خاتر شيطاني a thought from شيطان there's no one called خاتر نفساني a thought from the nafs there's what's called خاتر ملكاني a thought from the angels and there's what's called خاتر رباني a thought directly from Allah you have to know you should learn and you can spend time reading in fact the book we're covering the منحج العبيدين بايمام غزالي and he gets into the types of thoughts in this book and he has a more advanced book that get into like really detailed how the thoughts work and so on and you should learn what is a satanic thought look like what does a thought from a nafs look like what does a thought from an angel look like what does a thought from Allah look like then you work on minimizing the thoughts from شيطاني on in the nafs saying trying to purify yourself to increase the type of thoughts then that you get from directly from Allah and from the angels from Allah and the angels so that's very very important okay a few questions can I screenshot the book yeah the book is called yeah you can screenshot it if you don't have it right here Insha'Allah منحج العبيدين by I don't know if I'm holding it far enough or not but hopefully you can screenshot that okay question on which prayers cannot be prayed sitting any of your farth prayers cannot be prayed sitting your sunnah enough prayers can be prayed sitting if you would like they can also be prayed while in the car or moving your farth prayers need to be prayed while standing in a still area ideally right so meaning that you're not like I mean if you're like on a train or on a plane or something you could pray standing still but if you prayed sitting for your not including which you need to make those prayers you have to make those prayers sitting would not count if you were able body to stand if you had an injury your knee your legs something like that you're in a cast then you would not be accountable for that so those are the prayers but let's say your sunnah or four sunnah before the heart two sunnah after the heart two sunnah after maghrib two sunnah after isha the sunnah before isha the sunnah before fajar then the tahajjud prayer all these can all be prayed sitting or even while traveling is the book in English yes it is in English it's the one we're translating the one we're reading it has a translation is it okay to adopt yes it is and it's encouraged it's highly encouraged to adopt someone asked about a beard do you have to grow a beard what's the ruling on having a beard so there's difference of opinion on the ruling on having a beard some of the scholars said that it is a wajib to have a beard a fist length that was a strong opinion to many of the schools other schools said that you need to have a beard that is at least covering the minimum amount of the chin or the goatee and then the scholars for example the shafi scholars said that if you had a goatee or a strap you would be covered but to shave the hair completely would be considered not right for the man to do the best thing that if somebody can that minimum make sure to have facial hair that's well kept right the beard should not be like unkept or anything like that well kept that would be but it's important to know the length of your beard does not determine your takwa and your piety if you know for those who want the outward sonnah of having a lengthy beard but to know that there is difference of opinion amongst the schools there is difference of opinion among some of the I know some some of the most righteous scholars on this planet and not to get into a really long discussion but one of them the great Habib that he passed away about 15 years ago the Prophet will visit him frequently in his dreams and he has one point he wouldn't enter Medina until the Prophet came to him in a dream and gave him permission he was descended now you come to Medina my grandson he would give him permission right and he would he had they said that over 200,000 people in some narrations others say 50,000 converted to Islam at his hands that how much that what he did it was a scholar of the highest caliber but in his in his opinion and his beard was maybe like this this long a little bit more than this this this amount it wasn't super super super long the point is is that if somebody that gets into the the lengthy parts of this they think this is the whole goal of the religion there's a problem there the goal if you're fulfilling the obligations is not to focus on your inside and purify because anyways it's a longer discussion but that hopefully that clarifies that are you so neat yes we are so neat if you adopt do you have to keep the child's last name I don't I don't actually know you would you would not name the adopted child after yourself that's from the Quran so you would keep the child's last name and if it's a you know you should keep their last name as their lineage you would not change okay cool so are hair extensions allowed if you only show your hair around no false hair is not permitted for someone to wear hair extensions that's made from like if it's not real human hair I'm not I'm not sure but it really should be avoided the ruling that I know is hair extensions would not be permitted in most instances okay useful knowledge and then we'll stop so Allah revealed in one of his books that he tells Dawood that oh David learn useful knowledge and then he was asked what is useful knowledge oh Allah Allah that knowledge is to recognize majesty my glory my grand and the perfection of my power of everything for this is what will bring you near to me look at how this is described useful knowledge is a knowledge that increases your understanding of Allah's majesty his glory his vastness and the perfection of his power and it helps you realize that Allah is in control of everything you have what's called experiential توهيد you have توهيد at the intellectual level and then you have the most powerful experiential توهيد is when someone gets into a state where they start to see every single thing that happens in their life as a as from Allah and they have a way to respond to all of that based on what Allah would how Allah would want them to respond and so it's this idea of realizing the perfection of my power over everything meaning everything is happening is happening in the most perfect way possible because Allah is the one who's allowing it to happen and he is the most perfect وهو ألا كل شيء قديد and he is over all things most powerful so you must learning this knowledge this is the knowledge that purifies the heart the knowledge brings the spirit closer to Allah and yes question or statement I see what you're saying yeah good point yeah good yeah right right that's a good point so let's mention for those online that when someone is doing something wrong and when events are going on around the world that are being that are the cause of Haram that's being done by people who are influencing those events is that really a sign of this kind of divine perfection and whatnot and the way we understand that is at the level of the Shari'a Haram that's going on and you try to stop it as much as possible if someone has the ability to stop Haram you have to have been given the ability we don't believe in vigilance justice and things like that but for the most part but if someone has the ability to stop the wrong they stop the wrong but at the level of what's called حكي reality حكي that Allah is in control and that none of this would have been possible without Allah those people are held to account for what they've done but it is ultimately Allah who's enabled things and what's the proof for this the proof for this is in Surah Kaaf in the story of Sayyidina Musa Sayyidina Khidr The Sayyidina Khidr has been given a certain type of knowledge and he has to act in a certain way and he goes Sayyidina Musa goes to spend time with him to learn this knowledge Allah tells him go and seek my servant his knowledge from him and so Sayyidina Khidr says come with me to learn however you will not be patient with me you won't be able to be patient he says no no you'll find me patient so Khidr Allah goes and he he's not acting according to the law he's acting according to what's called ilm ladunnia direct knowledge from Allah that Allah has inspired him and told them to do certain things so the first thing he goes he goes and they're on a boat with some poor people Khidr Allah makes and Musa al-Islam is like what are you doing why are you making a hole in the boat he's like I told you to be patient with me and he says okay I'm sorry I'm sorry there's a few a few other things happen without I'm not going to get into all the details but he explains just the boat incident at the end he says well there was a king like a pirate king who was in that ocean who was seizing and the sea seizing the boats of all people so that they would have a little bit of a defect but the whole boat wouldn't be seized and it was by Allah's command Allah told me to do this but Musa al-Islam is operating on the realm of the Sharia the law Khidr al-Islam is operating in the Haqqika the reality the two are two sides of the same coin but the person who has knowledge they understand both sides of that coin so when we're talking about things happening in your life if you do Haram you don't say this is from the nafs if you drink alcohol or watch something Haram or something this is from the nafs but and from the shaitan but you correct that what we're talking about though when you see everything is from Allah is the idea that when to practice the religions happen in your life true knowledge knowledge that helps you submit to everything that's happening around you submit submit to Allah after the the tests submit to the problems submit to the difficulties that's true knowledge and so that is very very important and Allah and the Prophet said in the hadith that when I went on the Isra'a Miraj the night journey I was shown the fire of hell and I saw that most of the occupants were poor were the poor and then they asked him poor of property Arasul Allah poor of wealth no poor of knowledge what does that mean of course you're not going to be Allah is not going to throw someone into the fire because they don't have wealth but poor of knowledge if you have the opportunity to learn and you don't learn how are we going to handle ourselves if we if we can tell Allah on the day of judgment we spent time learning arithmetic basic math algebra algebra one algebra two geometry trigonometry cosine sine calculus calculus one calculus two statistics biology chemistry physics advanced biology advanced chemistry advanced physics English literature I mean history US history European history world history geology I mean the list goes on we learned all of these things we spent 12 years at least most of us if not when we went to college we spent 16 to 20 years learning these things and we don't even know how to pray properly or what the rules of prayer are if someone were to ask us what are all the the 10 proofs for this for that this geometric equation we'd probably if we were in the mode of geometry back then we would know I remember we had to memorize all these things there's a little flash cards memorizing these things because what are the pillars of the prayer I don't know I just pray I just do it we have to know these things we should know them what are the what are the the requirements of what are the these are the basic things that we got to know and then what are the signs of a diseased heart what are the diseases of the heart what are the 10 big diseases of the heart what are the arrogance in somebody what are the three types of patients or the four types of patients that exist how does one practice patients we don't know many of these things so we have to spend time rectifying that and working on it and set out on a path to learn useful knowledge to learn useful knowledge that will impact us impact our heart impact our heart okay so with that inshallah we will go ahead and and get into any final questions and then we'll end inshallah there's a question about makeup so when it comes from a thick perspective if something prevents water from penetrating and getting to your actual skin it would not be allowed to put on or at least while you have will do if it allows water to reach you would be fine it's a whole separate story about wearing makeup to adorn yourself to attract the attention of the opposite gender just read read Surah Noor in the Quran and a few other Surahs and Allah does not like it when we attract attention to ourselves like that for men for women if a guy is like really built let's say and has been blessed with like a nice body he should not be wearing super tight fitting muscle shirts attracting attention to himself all the time of course not but whose attention is he attracting the opposite gender most of the time Allah does not like that the scholars of our religion always wear generally loose fitting clothing amongst the men as well so the same thing for women women and men both there's codes of modesty amongst those codes of modesty for men and for women is to not adorn yourself to the point but especially for women the Prophet ﷺ emphasize this for women that to adorn yourself to the point where you're attracting unnecessary attention a little bit to kind of patch up some dark eyes and things like that would be fine but like a lot heavy face cakey makeup done to get the attention of I mean that would not be advised no okay question about can you elaborate on why prayer needs to be made up if prayed in car on a rainy day thanks and that's a good question so if it's a rainy day for the at least things before you just pray in your car the first is you try to find an area where you can like pull over and pray let's say it could even be like at a restaurant it could be I mean I'm sure we've all prayed our fair share of prayers and like fitting rooms and malls and rent of course ideally if you can Google map and find a must-shit that would be great but you try to find a place because you are not allowed to plan your prayers around your day you need to plan your day around the prayers this is a laws requirement and so if we know we're going to be somewhere we have to plan in such a way that we are able to take a break for the prayer sometimes if someone is rushing through it we just have to spend a little bit of time though doing it if you try and try and try like let's say God forbid there's an east coast there's a snow storm someone is like stuck God forbid in a place and like of course you pray in the car then and you're fine but if you have a way to pray somewhere standing up you have to pray


Aloha and welcome to another episode of Hawaii Food and Farmers Series where we talk to Hawai'i's farmers, foodies, and also those that are working to help make Hawai'i's local food system that much better. I'm your co-host, Matt Johnson, here with Justina Spiritu, and as always, we're here Thursdays at 4 p.m. So this week we have a slightly different special guest that Justina is going to introduce. They're all special. But yeah, we're lucky today to have Charlie Lorenz, the Executive Director of Feeding Hawai'i Together. Like Matt said, we have a lot of chefs, we have farmers, we have different business operators, and an important issue we haven't touched upon or talked about is what about the folks that don't have access to food, what about the resources in our community that are providing those services, as well as where do some of our food go if it doesn't get bought in the store or excess. And so a good example of one of those organizations is FeedingHawaiiTogether.org. And it's especially important recently, they have lost the lease on their land, so they're looking for some new space. So kind of putting it out there, looking for about 10,000 square feet. So thank you, Charlie, for coming on. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Hi, everybody. So yeah, why don't we start with kind of explaining what is the service you guys are providing? Okay. What we do, what we provide is we provide food up to 3 million pounds of food a year, perishable and non-perishable, and we also provide furniture, dishes, appliances, everything that can go into a household. So if there's something like a desk or something like that, we usually don't take that because the people that we're dealing with are mostly in poverty level and they don't really need a desk because they're really cramped anyway. So what we do is we collect all that stuff, the food and everything and the household goods, and then from there, we give it all away. So there's no money exchanged there. We have a number of different non-profit organizations that come in because we have so many people there, like up to 400. Sometimes we actually realize that when we were doing an audit that there was one day that we had 500 people come and we get 10 to 25, sometimes more new clients a day. And they're hungry. This is not, people think it's only homeless and it's not only homeless. It's in fact, our stats show that it's less than 10% homeless. And we're right in Coqqocco and that's where there's a lot of affordable housing, and I call it so-called affordable housing because it really isn't affordable. But we're making it affordable. We're keeping them from going homeless and they can come and they can shop once a week. They actually shop at the grocery with the shopping cart and they'll go through the pantry and they pick out what they want and what they don't want and everything, you know. And our goal is to fill their refrigerators, their freezers and their cupboards with all the food that we can provide for them. And it's been a long journey. Our landlord was really good to us, very, very good to us and he reduced the price so much because he liked what we were doing. And so, yeah, that's my wife. So we're the co-founders of Feeding Hawaii together and it's just been a good ride. Fifteen years we've been in this building and it's the perfect building. This is just right off of Queen Street, the Queen and what's the street it's on? It's on Kea'avi. Kea'avi Street, okay. It's between Queen and Hale Koela on Kea'avi Street right in the middle of it. Yeah. Charlie, talk a little bit about the, I guess the clientele that you're serving. Who are the people coming and getting food and other materials from you guys and what does that process look like? You were showing us earlier, talking about some of the USD stats, kind of the poverty line levels that you're working with. What are the, I guess, the requirements for eligibility and the kind of people that you're working with? Okay. We have, let me show you this right here, I don't see, probably can't see it. Anyway. We'll just describe it to them. Okay. So we're governed by USDA standards and Hawaii Food Bank too, but mostly USDA standards. And USDA standards has a poverty level and it's a sliding scale on the poverty level. So it's like if a person comes in that earns less than $24,000 a year, we'll let them shop because they're in poverty level. And if the sliding scale goes all the way down to eight persons, eight persons in a household that can earn $78,000, well, just say $79,000 rounded up, $79,000, that's poverty level. That's a lot of people to feed and provide services for, you know, beds and everything. You know, we had this person one time, this guy called me up and he was wanting to give us beds. And so he wanted to give us a thousand beds. Wow. Yeah.  We do food mostly. Yeah.  So he talked me into taking 12, I took 12 beds, and, you know, because the community there, seeing Kakako and all of the low-income housing, they talk about everything like, oh, they've got hamburger now, they've got pork and beans and they've got whatever, you know, all the good stuff that they like, you know, and then we get bombarded, you know. So here we are with these beds, and all of a sudden, our phone is just ringing off the hook with the clients. Oh, wow. Do you have beds? Do you have beds? Do you have beds? You've got a hotel bed, you know.  We make sure there's no bed bugs and stuff, but they're still just, you know, kind of on the margin. Right. So these were really choice beds, and to make a long story short, we gave away a thousand beds. Wow. Wow. And it went like that. Incredible. It was incredible. Exactly. And we don't deliver furniture. They have to take it. They have to come and take it. So this woman that lives in Pobonani, she has just been shopping there for a long time. So she comes in, she tells me, she goes, you know, what she did was she went and got the security guards to carry the bed for her in the building. Oh, okay. She said, I don't have a bed, can you guys, I didn't even know she didn't have a bed. Right. You know. So she was 80 years old. Oh, wow. And for 10 years, from 70 to 80, she didn't have a bed. Wow. How many beds go into landfills every week? Every week. How many beds? I guess that's kind of an interesting concept too, like a group like Reuse Hawaii, right? Yes. Also in the Kakaoka area. Reuse Hawaii, yes. And you guys are kind of doing that. I mean, you're doing the very similar thing where you're trying to reuse food and also other materials that people need. So it's a neat kind of combination of services. And yeah, we talk about all these issues about too much stuff going into landfills. And it's really just kind of like this matchmaking of what you guys are doing. And you're telling us over the break, where you guys are a little bit different than some of the other, I guess, food establishments where you guys are on the, you're literally on the street and people are coming, waiting in line. And they're shopping inside the pantry and then they're going home with stuff. So you guys are kind of like that final, I guess the last mile of how the product actually gets to the people that need it. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't give away food that's been expired. So it's all good stuff. There's sometimes we get a little bit marginal on the produce, but other than that, it's all good food. I mean, we get food that's just amazing, because we're on an island. And so sometimes people get the wrong shipment, you know, I didn't want to buy a Pepsi. I wanted Pepsi and they call it. They don't have like 10 other stores to distribute it out to. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, this woman right there, that is, she's an amazing woman. I mean, she can barely stand up straight. She's really bent over more than, you know, the cart she's hanging onto to try to stay up a little bit straighter. She comes every week, every week, and she's always so happy.  Once in a while, we get some testy people, you know, but we take care of them.   And we're going to take, we're going to take a break and then we'll get right back. All right. Hello. My name is Crystal. Let me tell you my talk show. I'm all about health. It's healthy to talk about sex. It's healthy to talk about things that people don't talk about. It's healthy to discuss things that you think are unhealthy because you need to talk about it. So I welcome you to watch Quok Talk and engage in some provocative discussions on things that do relate to healthy issues and have a well-balanced attitude in life. Join me. Aloha. My name is John Wahee. And I actually had a small part to do with what's happening today, served actually in public office. But if you don't already know that, here's a chance to learn more about what's happening in our state by joining me for a talk story with John Wahee every other Monday. Thank you. And I look forward to your seeing us in the future. Aloha and welcome back to Hawaii Food and Farmers series. I'm your co-host, Justine Espiritu. This is my co-host, Matthew Johnson. Today's guest is Charlie Lorenz from FeedingHawaiiTogether.org. So we spent the past 15 minutes kind of talking about the services you provide and you were talking about some of the stories with some of the particular clients that come. So if you want to finish. Yeah.  And, you know, 399 are so grateful and they're just like really excited and so happy and everything. But human nature is like one person to get that just just doesn't appreciate it or, or, you know, I don't know how. Or has higher expectations. Yeah. How come we don't have this? Yeah, yeah. And so you get those people everywhere. Yeah, yeah. It just ruins their day.   Do you need food? And he goes, yeah, but, but you guys don't give me any. I said, no, we will give you food. I said, can you say please? And he says, please, I said, can you say thank you? He said, thank you. And, and I said, if you just come to the pantry and just say, please and thank you, we will give you a lot of food. Can you do that? And he said, OK. And he came in the next day. Please and thank you, please and thank you. Nice. It was amazing.  And then, you know, after about three months, I had to go go into my wife's office to get to pull her out because he was he was having a normal conversation with a girl. OK. A normal conversation. Look, what's going on?  Yeah, it was amazing.  So he's very money, you know. So it kind of became part of the community. That's great. Yeah, yeah, it is great. He's he's in there helping now and everything. Yeah, it's really cool. And then so really quickly before we kind of go into what it would would mean if you lose your space and don't find another space. What other kind of partnerships you have at your space that you let others, because since you kind of mentioned people kind of wait their turn, they're in that kind of holding area for a while. And so if you could talk a little bit about the opportunity you've given to other nonprofits and other service providers for access. One of the biggest ones is is, of course, we don't we have no money exchange at all. I think I said that already. And so when they come in as a service provider, they cannot charge anything if they charge anything, then it's off. So but we have Helping Hands Hawaii that comes in is helping people get food stamps. And unfortunately, the welfare offices are overwhelmed. And a lot of times when people come in, they make an appointment and they come in and they fill out their form. And a lot of them can't fill out the forms accurately. And we noticed that when we're when we're get when they're filling out our forms, you know. And so so they get a lot of grant money for food stamps and and sometimes first months rent and deposit and things like that. If if somebody is homeless and has a proven track record that they've been working for so many hours or so many weeks. And so and those grants are sporadic. But that and then Blue Jay cell phones, you know, oh, yeah, they they provide a service where it's just an absolutely free phone. Well, no, no money exchanged at all. And I think it's about eight hundred eight hundred minutes a month. And and with that, it happened with what goes on. And yeah, there they are right there. So that's pretty cool. So so so they'll they'll promote to provide the service. And eight hundred minutes a month. And if for texting and calling. And if if it goes over eight hundred minutes, it shuts down. Oh, good. And then at the first of the month, the next month, it kicks back in. So there's no way to get charged. And then you said kind of one of the motivations behind that is is is a way to be contacted when they're applying for jobs or. Or exactly exactly. And then even mailboxes. So so there's a kind of key up in kind of key. There's a place I forget the name of the organization right now. So in my mind that that provides mailboxes. OK, so we all we're all networking. And then IHS comes in to to give them employment. And that's the Institute for Human Services. Yes, yes, them. And then and then also. Um. I think that legal legal age legal age legal age comes in and you know, people can you know, we make announcements whenever there's somebody new and the clients don't know about them. We make announcements and tell them that we can do it. And then we have a guy, Michael, that comes in and he he sees if their medical is up to speed and stuff like that. And so within this network, are you guys right now the only ones that have that space to kind of make this a central location where where everyone can kind of come together and reach these people at the same time? Unfortunately, you know, there's it's hard to get the space. And and without the space, then, you know, they just can't do it. But it's not just the space. It's also the amount of people. So when you when you get a big crowd that's sitting there waiting to come in, yeah, they're waiting to come in. Now, this is the outside. Wow. Going up to the going up to the building now. And if you have a shot of the inside where they're waiting. No, no, no, not that it's not that inside. That's good, though. But there is the inside of where they're all sitting down. So we have a place where they're all sitting down. And that's where all the tables are and all that.  I mean, you have the building right now. Your end is about 10,000 square feet. And then you have that entire. No, it's it's it's. It's it's almost 20,000 or 20,000. Yeah, so we're going to we're going to cut down. I know that. So yeah, why don't you talk about like, what are you? So unfortunately, you're losing the lease to where you are now. Yeah, landlord's been great, but just other things have happened. So you need to move on. What what are you looking for? What's the ideal situation for you? Ideal situation would be 10,000 minimum, 10,000 minimum and have a 10,000 square foot building, 10,000 square foot building and have a place where we could we could have people staged, you know, like sitting in chairs out of the sun and out of the rain, which we have now and they get water and they can go in and out of the building, use a restroom and everything like that. It's almost like an outside owning type area. Yeah, yeah. And you know, right now we have three loading docks. It's covered loading docks. So so that works really well. It's it's great. And then once they get in there, you know, then they can shop and do the whole thing. But we're losing the building and the landlord has been so good to us, you know, so we're not fighting them at all. But we're just we're just looking for something that would be affordable and he made it so affordable. He spoiled us for 15 years.  And they don't want to be known. Right. Yeah. So it's it's it's really good. So we're looking for something like that that that could, you know, I hope we get it because if we don't get it, if we don't get it, if we don't get a place that we can move to and set up the refrigerators and freezers and the pallet shelves and the scales and all the computers and everything that we need to do this operation with most of this food is going to be going in landfills. Right. Well, there's like two issues here. The number of people that are going to go hungry. And like you said, right now, you're giving them the option to use their money for rent instead of food and medicine. Yeah. It's some of these people, they don't even have enough money to pay for all their prescriptions. And, you know, when we really start talking to them sometimes, it's just it's just sad, you know, because these people are paying rent and we're calling it affordable housing. That is not right. It is not affordable. There is no way shape and form it's affordable. But we're helping them to stay in their houses, you know, and and and to to to get all their needs met. Right. Because and one of the things you mentioned is that you definitely want to stay in the Kakaako, Eberle area. And I'm curious how that works out with the kind of development that's that's going on if these kind of people are getting kind of brushed away from that. How do you? Well, that that's one factor that we might not see a reality to. So maybe evil evil, we've searched evil and they want a lot of money and it's it's it's just we might have to go further out. But the main thing if we go further out is that we have a bus line real close to us because without a bus line, you senior citizens only have to pay one fee. And multiple stops. No, only only one fee for the bus pass for the year. OK, for the whole year. They could ride the bus, you know, all day and all night. So that's an important factor. If you get a space that doesn't have that bus stop, you're going to lose some of your clientele in the sense of those people then don't. Well, it wouldn't be losing the clientele. Is that it's it's more that there's more people that's going to be starving and that that's that's the whole thing.  And when they came back in after after we opened up again, it was like we were like they were telling us that they were eating cat food and dog food for the past. For this it was a five week month and the tube last week some crackers, cat food and dog food. And so if you guys stopped operations, there's not necessarily another organization that could take on that surplus. Basically everything you're getting will be because there's not that's the word enough.  Well, we had we did have an opening for Wahi Wa and we I called Hawaii Food Bank and Dr. Roxanne said, hey, we have an opening for food pantry in Wahi Wa. I mean, there is some space available. Yes. And she said Wahi Wa is saturated already. So they have service in the nation. Services providing. Oh, interesting. Yes. So we want to be where we're needed. Yeah. You know, so the people that we serve right now aren't going to hop on a bus and go to Wahi Wa. So I'm trying to make sure that we're going to be in a place that's needed and it has to have a bus stop. Sand Island, the buses don't run past, you know, I already said that. Well, not just to us off camera. You already said it. Oh, I did it. Yeah, we said that before. Oh, OK. OK. So Sand Island, you know, there's building spaces down there and they have platforms where we can put up a spring structure or something. We could probably do that. And if we just had land, vacant land, we could probably do a spring structure with grants and stuff like that. And, you know, it's so it's if if there is not a bus line going to where we end up, then a lot of people can't come. Is that like a conversation you could have with the city in terms of let's find a location and let's work together? Like, can you add this? That might work. That's a good idea. That might work. Yeah, yeah. Because once you turn the corner across Ke Lu Goon, there's some platforms and everything's been wiped off of them and they've got a few warehouses over there. For those work, I don't know. I think it's state. I don't know. We can work on that. Yeah. And then we would pass, you know, with the bridge and it's like, no way. I don't know how the people get out of there. You know, there's got the housing down there. There's no bus stop. So just, we're almost out of time. So I just kind of want to summarize what, I guess you guys are looking for. So it's about a 10,000 square foot building or more. Preferably in the Kakaako, Ivalet, Chinatown area. But also important that there is a bus stop nearby. Also, it needs to be, at a certain price point, needs to be affordable for you guys to be able to cover the costs. Is there anything else I'm missing? No. We looked at the Bolorama. Bolorama, where is that? That's closer to university. OK. And there's a lot of homeless at the university, even students. So they come to us too. So yeah, definitely a resource and a service that's important to keep. So good luck. And thanks for coming on to kind of share what you do. And hopefully this can perk some more interest. Awesome. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Thanks for letting me be good.