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Friday Prayer-1/5/24-Lecture by Sheikh Abdulrahman Cherri
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[0:27]allahar allahar [Music] illall brothers and sisters aldd muham muham muham muham
[2:23]one of the spiritual vices that has been talked about by the
[2:36]scholars of Islam is the spiritual disease of Envy Envy has been
[2:43]considered to be a disease that has to be removed from the
[2:46]heart of a Believer and the Hadith have been quite harsh when
[2:52]it came to dealing with the voice of Envy the disease of
[2:55]spiritual Envy in a Hadith IM says that the Apostle of God
[3:06]the prophet Sall Alam said that God Almighty addressed Prophet Moses peace
[3:15]be upon him and said oh son ofran never be envious of
[3:22]people concerning the favors I have confirmed on them confer on them
[3:28]by my grace do not succumb to your Envy self indeed the
[3:33]envious man or person is indignant at the bestow of my favor
[3:38]and contest my apportioning of gifts among my creatures who so is
[3:46]such he neither belongs to me nor do I belong to him
[3:50]God is talking about giving different favors to different people let me
[3:56]Define what Envy is first and then we can talk about it
[4:01]very briefly inall I won't take much of your time today the
[4:04]definition of envy which in Arabic would be hassad is a psychic
[4:10]state in which a person wishes for the deprivation of a blessing
[4:15]Talent OR Merit real or imagined possessed by another person it does
[4:24]not make any difference to the envious person whether lie possess whether
[4:30]he possesses or not whether he can acquire it or not so
[4:33]when you're Envy towards someone else it's not that you want to
[4:38]have that thing only sometimes you just want that person to be
[4:41]deprived of it you don't want that person to enjoy the thing
[4:47]you see someone has a blessing and you become envious if you
[4:51]wish that that person loses that thing and it happens a lot
[4:54]especially among Believers because they're prone to thisan tries to create disharmony
[5:02]between the Believers by creating these ill diseases inside of them now
[5:08]if you realize from the definition it says that it's related to
[5:15]a blessing a talent or a merit sometimes it could be a
[5:19]person was given or has a very nice house that you don't
[5:24]have or a person just purchased a car that you wish you
[5:26]could have or at least that you know you feel why did
[5:30]he get that car why didn't I get it I worked hard
[5:36]throughout my life I'm also a good human being and you start
[5:38]talking to yourself trying to justify that ill feeling that you have
[5:42]towards the other person getting that blessing well we have to understand
[5:48]that people are created differently with different circumstances people have different conditions
[5:53]in their life Allah subhana wa tala divides things amongst people not
[6:00]in a socialist or communist way where we think that everybody should
[6:04]have the exact same thing but people are abortion things according to
[6:12]their own capacity sometimes sometimes the circumstances of life that allows for
[6:17]one person to progress in their Financial State more than the other
[6:22]person it doesn't mean that they're any better than the other person
[6:26]but a Believer always has to understand that his or her value
[6:32]doesn't lie in the possessions that they have our value lies in
[6:37]the humanity that we have whether I own that car or not
[6:39]yes it could make my life much easier it would be nice
[6:43]to have a very big or spacious house it would be beautiful
[6:48]to have a very nice car but if I cannot earn it
[6:49]and someone else was in a situation where they were able to
[6:55]earn it I should be happy for them why because if I
[6:58]had getting that car gotten that that car and I worked for
[7:02]it or I was given it as a gift I would wish
[7:06]for other people to be happy for me as well right and
[7:08]this is what it means when the prophet or the Imam say
[7:12]that we have to love for other people what we love for
[7:14]ourselves whenever I see somebody who has been given a certain type
[7:22]of gift or a talent or a merit someone is physically more
[7:27]capable than I am then if I was in that person's position
[7:30]I would want people to be happy for me right so this
[7:35]is what how I have to think when I'm judging other people's
[7:38]merits that I should be happy for them because if I had
[7:43]what they have then I would want people to be happy for
[7:47]me and if I want people to be happy for me for
[7:48]what I have then I must be happy for them for what
[7:53]they have this is loving for other people what you love for
[7:57]yourself so going back to the definition it could be a blessing
[8:02]that that person has given it could be a talent that they
[8:04]have or it could be a merit now sometimes a person who
[8:13]possesses a certain thing let's say they have let's go back to
[8:17]the example of a car that person who has that car he
[8:21]might use that car in a way that I might not use
[8:26]it right just because they have a car and I think that
[8:30]I might have a car does not mean that we're going to
[8:32]use it the same way sometimes it's a blessing for me not
[8:37]to have that thing because if I have Envy towards someone who
[8:41]has something that I don't have it means that I'm not at
[8:46]a spiritual level that makes me ready to receive certain blessings or
[8:50]certain things in life because I might misuse them I might if
[8:56]I acquire that car or that house I might use it to
[9:01]show off I might develop other spiritual diseases in my life so
[9:06]sometimes the deprivation of something is not a bad thing at all
[9:09]now that doesn't mean that as Believers we should always seek to
[9:16]be deprived of things this isn't how we should look at life
[9:19]when we deal with things in life we always have to deal
[9:22]with them on a spiritual and moral basis if I want to
[9:30]acquire a possession in this world and Allah subhana tala has permitted
[9:32]me to do so and has asked me to work and acquire
[9:36]things in this world I have to make sure that as I'm
[9:38]developing financially I should equally be developing spiritually in fact I should
[9:45]be developing spiritually faster than financially because if we develop financially faster
[9:51]than spiritually then we're going to decline the more we gain things
[9:55]in this world because with a lot of financial possessions we develop
[9:59]spiritual diseases a lot of it involves showing off for example sometimes
[10:07]a person purchases something and begins to show up as if they
[10:11]got that thing from their own selves yes they worked hard for
[10:15]it but just as they acquired it they could easily lose it
[10:19]at the same time we have to understand that this world is
[10:22]not a world of Eternity and we don't have full control over
[10:25]everything if we receive something we thank Allah subhana wa taala for
[10:32]it we wish for others to have what we have if I
[10:34]advance in my life then I should try to allow others to
[10:39]advance as well a lot of people if they begin to advance
[10:44]and they become wealthier they become more animalistic towards others they try
[10:49]to destroy other people who are trying to become wealthy like them
[10:52]if you gain power in society there's this documentary about dictators I'm
[10:58]sure a lot of you might have watched it of how a
[11:02]dictator becomes a dictator one of the first things that dictators do
[11:06]is they kill all those who are close to them because they
[11:09]think that they're going to compete with them when it comes to
[11:13]power we can see that in the examples of Saddam Hussein Hitler
[11:17]and other dictators around the world the moment they get into power
[11:21]they start killing and assassinating those people who are around them especially
[11:27]family members because family members might be the first people that are
[11:31]going to try to take that power from you so this is
[11:36]a human Vice it's a human trait we gain something and we
[11:42]want to deprive everyone around around us from having it a Believer
[11:46]is not like that a believer's compass is always towards Justice and
[11:52]Justice means that we love for other people what we love for
[11:55]ourselves that we put things where they belong if we gain a
[12:02]special thing in life we don't attribute it to our own Merit
[12:05]and we don't wish that other people are deprived from it no
[12:10]we wish that they have it as well if I'm living a
[12:11]comfortable life then I wish that everybody around me is able to
[12:16]have such a comfortable life as well now if I can't practically
[12:19]do something to change that then at least it's a desire that
[12:24]I have to have in my heart for my other believers and
[12:27]my other human counterparts so this is one of the vices or
[12:38]spiritual diseases that has been spoken about now very briefly um I
[12:43]I'll discuss or just mention a few things that might cause Envy
[12:46]in a person and that person has to tackle these things to
[12:50]get rid of it the first thing that they mentioned is enmity
[12:53]a person might have an enemy so they wish that they and
[12:59]not not a justifiable enemy you just hate somebody because of some
[13:03]you know problem that you had with them so you wish that
[13:08]they don't have an enjoyable life a second cause is your feeling
[13:11]of Supremacy you feel that you're better than other people and this
[13:15]causes you to be envious for others you don't want other people
[13:19]to reach your rank so that you can preserve your nobility or
[13:25]your elevation above them thirdly pride pride also causes an individual to
[13:34]be envy and fourthly wonder the envious person is puzzled to see
[13:43]the great blessing enjoyed by the object of his Envy in the
[13:48]Quran for example it talks about when people were envying prophets you're
[13:53]living amongst people then a prophet emerges Allah subhana decides that one
[13:57]of the people amongst you is going to be a prophet and
[14:01]he didn't choose you and the Quran talks about this it's a
[14:04]it's a human state so for example in one of the verses
[14:10]Allah subh says that the people told the prophets they used to
[14:14]address the prophets and say oh you're just humans like us why
[14:17]do you claim prophecy why do you why do you claim that
[14:22]God is speaking to you why didn't God choose me to be
[14:24]spoken to well just the fact that you have that Envy inside
[14:29]of you is a clear reason why God has not chosen you
[14:31]you haven't overcome that egotistic self that you have so a lot
[14:38]of the times when we think that why don't we receive this
[14:41]blessing from Allah subhana wa ta'ala maybe because the way the attitude
[14:46]that I have towards this blessing makes me not deserving of it
[14:49]that if I had received it I would have used it for
[14:53]the wrong reasons and not the good reasons number five fear of
[14:59]person might have fear of competition for example so they Envy other
[15:04]people you open a business and you fear that someone else might
[15:10]open something similar to it and they might deprive you from money
[15:14]or profit so you envy them and you wish that they are
[15:17]unable to open businesses or be successful in life just like you
[15:24]are a lot of these billionaires or very rich people what they
[15:27]do is they try to eliminate the ability for other smaller businesses
[15:30]to grow they don't want any other competition because anything that they
[15:35]gain is a loss for them even though they have millions of
[15:41]dollars they still don't want to lose that small amount they have
[15:44]that fear you see a lot of people who have things they
[15:50]begin to have this anxiety they have to protect their belongings they
[15:53]want to protect their property the Richer they become the more they
[15:58]possess they have fear of losing it instead of wanting to share
[16:02]it because of their attitude the way they behave they have that
[16:06]fear so these are a few reasons that cause Envy in a
[16:10]person and a person who wants to relieve themselves of this Vice
[16:13]have to tackle these things individually now in theith IM says that
[16:25]Envy um sorry the IM says that Envy eats up Faith just
[16:40]like fire eats up the wood this is how destructive Envy is
[16:43]when it comes to the faith and the soul of the individual
[16:45]it's a very very bad voice to have one of the ways
[16:55]of trying to resolve the problem of of Envy given by a
[16:58]scholar who wrote about morality and ethics he says that if you
[17:05]feel that you have Envy towards an individual someone that you think
[17:11]is better than you and you're unable to accept that you have
[17:14]an ill feeling towards them whether it's a talent or they possess
[17:17]something then try to be extra kind to that individual and one
[17:21]thing that our spiritual schar emphasize on is that you don't always
[17:27]have to be real when you're fixing spiritual problems at the beginning
[17:32]because you have an ill nature or you have a spiritual disease
[17:36]and you acknowledge that you're going to have to understand that when
[17:40]I'm dealing with these other people I'm going to have an artificial
[17:44]type of behavior it's not going to be real so when I'm
[17:48]going to be kind to someone at the beginning it's not going
[17:51]to be real it's going to be artificial now you're going to
[17:56]start getting some westwest satanic thoughts telling you that because it's artificial
[18:04]you shouldn't be doing it you see you can't be real about
[18:07]this just forget about it you're not going to fix your problem
[18:12]but don't listen to that once you begin to change it has
[18:15]to be artificial because that's the opposite of your nature don't expect
[18:19]it to be real but slowly the more you do it the
[18:23]more you practice it the more kind you are to people artificially
[18:29]the more it will begin to develop as something that's real it
[18:34]takes time change in the human being requires time it's not something
[18:39]that happens instantaneously the same thing when it comes to crying for
[18:44]example when it comes to worship we have in our Hadith IM
[18:47]he says those who cry for IM Hussein or act as if
[18:55]they're crying will be rewarded why does he also mention act because
[18:58]some people they're unable to release tears from their eyes whether it's
[19:03]because they're shy or because of the stiffness of their heart they
[19:10]don't have that emotional Purity or Clarity in their heart that allows
[19:13]for them to feel sadness and grief but if you start artificially
[19:18]trying to cry then you slowly begin developing that ability you have
[19:26]to practice it artificially at the beginning and then slowly it will
[19:33]start to improve so if you envy an individual then try to
[19:35]be nice to those people try to think about how if you
[19:40]had that thing then you want other people to be happy for
[19:47]you try to be more compassionate with other people so this is
[19:51]one way we can try to amend this and it applies for
[19:56]every other spiritual disease that we have I ask Allah subhana T
[20:02]to remove Envy from our hearts and to allow us to understand
[20:05]that all the blessings in reality come from him and we ask
[20:11]him to give us what is good for us sometimes if I
[20:13]receive something that I think is good for me it might harm
[20:17]me so we ask Allah subhana T to keep those things that
[20:23]are harmful to us away from us for Al Ali Muhammad Ali
[21:57]Ali Muhammad Hassan as everybody knows of the from the Believers the
[22:26]situation in the Middle East and specifically Palestine has not improved much
[22:38]and I'm going to speak just about General things today without going
[22:44]to specifics inshallah and very briefly so that I don't take much
[22:49]of your time I know a lot of you have to go
[22:51]back to work today but I watched the video the other day
[22:57]somebody showed me a video of a Palestinian activist I believe um
[23:03]she's in the west and she was criticizing a lot of the
[23:07]movements that came out to came out in support of the Palestinian
[23:13]cause and her argument was that the Palestinian voice is the one
[23:20]that has to determine everything that occurs in the situation other people
[23:24]should not be calling for things that they think are right and
[23:29]unfortunately she has a I think a series of videos that she
[23:33]released and she was very angry in these videos and I understand
[23:35]the pain that this individual has of course but it allowed or
[23:41]it made a lot of these activists from the Jewish organizations and
[23:45]other organizations to kind of back off and they released videos as
[23:50]well apologizing for not putting the Palestinian voice at the Forefront and
[23:54]for allowing themselves to take that place and we see that there's
[23:59]a lot of these movements that are fearing protesting or organizing certain
[24:05]types of protest or objections because of this idea now this idea
[24:12]of having a localized narrative it's it's it's a very modern idea
[24:20]a contemporary one and we see it developing in certain political circles
[24:26]the idea is that we can not have a grand narrative we
[24:30]always have to have a localized one and what it seeks to
[24:37]do is it seeks to empower the minority voices so for example
[24:40]if I be if I belong to a minority group then I
[24:45]have to allow that minority group to talk about their narrative from
[24:50]their perspective me someone who let say is privileged should not be
[24:54]the one who speaks about the suffering of other people even though
[24:59]it might be just so the Injustice that happened to the Native
[25:03]Americans we shouldn't allow the non-natives to speak on their behalf this
[25:08]is what this idea is talking about the African-American Community we have
[25:13]to allow them to be the ones that speak about their Injustice
[25:18]instead of us creating the narrative for them and in some aspects
[25:24]there's truth in this in some aspects it's a good thing cuz
[25:27]yes if you're not the one who's suffering and it's not your
[25:30]community who's suffering then the demands the demands that you're asking for
[25:37]or the narrative that you're creating about these people might be overlooking
[25:42]certain types of suffering that these individuals are going through it's true
[25:48]but it's not possible to expect everybody else to become silent especially
[25:54]at a time when people are beginning to become awake about the
[25:59]suffering of a of a group of people yes they're going to
[26:04]make mistakes yes they're not going to understand what's really going on
[26:10]it's true for the longest time in history you know this group
[26:13]of people in uh Palestine have been killed and bombed they live
[26:19]in very brutal conditions and the most for the most part of
[26:25]the world nobody was even aware of their suffering if you watched
[26:28]a lot of the videos that come go online right now a
[26:31]lot of the podcasts that are happening a lot of the voices
[26:33]that are coming out and you read the comments a lot of
[26:37]people especially here in the US say this is the first time
[26:39]we ever hear that the Palestinians have been going through these challenges
[26:44]and difficulties and it's true for the past 75 years their voice
[26:52]has hardly been heard they've always been shown as animals and that
[26:57]they are are the ones who are oppressing other people now I'm
[26:59]not here to talk about details and the history of the whole
[27:04]conflict what happened and there's a lot of things that a person
[27:09]can be talking about but to come and criticize other people for
[27:13]standing with you I don't think it's the right time to do
[27:17]that now unfortunately a lot of times people get together from different
[27:21]F factions to support one cause one common cause and it's obvious
[27:25]that there's going to be conflict in the way we look at
[27:32]this situation some people might see that this is a Palestinian cause
[27:36]other people might see that this is a human cause this is
[27:39]Injustice that's happening whether it's happening to Palestinians whether it's happening to
[27:44]people in Pakistan and their Muslims that are oppressing other Muslims when
[27:50]it's happening in the west over here in the US when certain
[27:53]minorities are not given a proper treatment in certain cities this is
[27:59]a case of Injustice and at least we can agree to speak
[28:03]about that aspect of things now we can respect the other opinion
[28:10]and say okay I'm going to fight for that for the general
[28:13]title which is called oppression and This Is Why when im in
[28:19]the letter he gave to he sent to he said that the
[28:32]an enemy to the oppressor and the supporter of the oppressed the
[28:37]Imam gave a very general title here he says the oppressed he
[28:41]didn't say the locally oppressed one or the minority that lives in
[28:47]your city or because these things if you get too much into
[28:49]the nuances then you're going to have differences and fights and then
[28:55]you will never be able to advance your cause you have to
[28:58]all agree agree to a general theme that Allah subhana wa taala
[29:04]wants us to support that transcends our limitations when we talk about
[29:09]Injustice occurring then Injustice could occur to any person in this world
[29:14]on any level whe whether it's a political level or it goes
[29:20]down to a local level or even a family level a child
[29:22]may be oppressed in a family just like a citizen may be
[29:27]oppressed in a country and a nation could be oppressed as well
[29:31]if we use that title of Oppression to be the thing that
[29:39]unites us to fight against that then that's at least what we
[29:42]have to work towards now the details of everything that follows every
[29:46]Community should be able to have the right to express what they
[29:51]want based on their desire this is something that's acceptable and we
[29:54]have to support that as well I shouldn't be the one creating
[29:57]narratives and solutions for other people that I am not directly involved
[30:01]with but I shouldn't dismiss the effort of other people who are
[30:06]supporting the cause on a certain degree or certain level so we
[30:11]have to be able to differentiate between these two if I see
[30:14]something wrong I will stand against it and I will try to
[30:21]reestablish justice but that doesn't allow me because I did that to
[30:24]come and dictate to the ones who were oppressed what to do
[30:27]and how to live lives they might also require some time to
[30:31]develop to relax to think about things they might not have been
[30:35]given the opportunity for many years to develop some theory of how
[30:41]to live the best life so that when they're given Justice they
[30:44]might fail once they might fail twice that still doesn't give me
[30:48]the right to come and dictate upon them what they should do
[30:53]they should have their own Learning and Development happen they were deprived
[30:58]from that ability for many many years so they're going to make
[31:01]mistakes they're going to fail many times I have to be a
[31:04]supportive person I should allow them if they fail then to help
[31:09]them stand up on their feet again but let them learn how
[31:11]to walk I shouldn't be the one trying to walk them unfortunately
[31:16]some you know people who want to help people that are oppressed
[31:19]believe that just because I help them then I have the right
[31:24]to dictate for them or to them how to live their lives
[31:26]so these are just a few thoughts that we should maybe think
[31:29]about and try to understand that the Islamic message transcends these limitations
[31:35]it tries to go beyond the individual and to focus on the
[31:42]more Divine cause I ask Allah subhana wa ta'ala to allow the
[31:48]Believers and human beings in total in totality to unite with one
[31:56]another to remove the injustices that are practiced upon each other whether
[32:00]it's between the Muslims or the non-muslims at the end of the
[32:03]day we are all the creatures of Allah subhana tal we all
[32:07]belong to him we've been created by Him and we should respect
[32:10]that this this Humanity comes from the Divine what we do not
[32:18]respect or do not tolerate is when wrongness is is occurring between
[32:20]them what if someone belongs to a different Faith or belongs to
[32:24]a different belief system or doesn't believe at all it doesn't give
[32:27]me any right to practice oppression or Injustice towards the individual so
[32:35]we ask Allah subh to elevate us beyond our limitations and allow
[32:38]for uh peace and Harmony to spread against uh amongst human beings
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