Ali Dawah - December 29, 2017IS ISLAM EASY OR HARD？
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Summary
Jummah Kutbahaykum: Why is it important to have a good relationship with Allah and His Messenger? What does it mean to be a good Muslim and what does it have to do with our relationship with the religion?
Transcript
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As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh brothers and sisters and dear friends, hope you guys are doing well.
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Yeah, so basically we're on the way to Birmingham.
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We're working, basically, as we were going there, did you bring the hadith or did Musa bring there?
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We just talked about our attitude towards religion.
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Oh yeah, that's it, that's it. Musa just sent a story of some sister that he knows that came to the religion really fast
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Yeah, so came to the religion really fast and now has basically, is going through some trials
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and kind of going back to their old ways a bit, yeah?
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So now, we thought, when he said that then, I think you just came with hadith, right?
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Yeah, so we thought, you know what, this is actually a big problem.
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The reason being is because, this is, you have a trend, you have, this is my personal thing in this, yeah?
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Is we have this trend where we have young people who have the jahli or whatever it may be
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It's not that they don't want to do anything bad.
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But what happens is they go into this cycle of, we call it the paiti itself, me and Musa call it the paiti itself, innit?
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What it means is you just go through this phase where you're just like, yeah, you wear the foe.
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Your actions are good and what you want to do is good.
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But however, if I'm not mistaken, one of the sahaba or the, I mean, the tabi and somebody said that a lot of people start with good intentions,
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Now, this cycle is basically coming extra religious, going in, trying to do everything you can in the religion.
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Because what happens is when you overburden yourself, and this happens with, some people do it with their outer garment.
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And the next thing you know, like, fourth month standard, like five months standard, a year, or even some two months, everything comes off.
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And then you say to yourself, where did they go wrong?
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So briefly, can you just tell us about the hadith?
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So let's go through what the hadith actually reads.
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So ease here suggests that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, as He mentioned in the Quran, He wants our lives to be easy.
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You read Allah bikum al yusra, wa la yuridu bikum al asir.
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So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in the Quran that He wants ease for you and He doesn't want hardship for you.
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Which is a very important attitude that the Islamic model has for individuals.
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That we, it's not intended for us that we go through hardship.
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It's not intended for us that we go through a hard time in the religion.
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It's meant to be actually a thing that facilitates for us in this world and hereafter.
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So in the dina yusra, certainly the religion is ease.
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And to be honest with you, if you look at Surat al-Asr, it says,
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The word salihaat actually just means the few good things because it's called jama'a uqillah.
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So the few good things that Allah is telling us to do like the five pillars and these things.
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They're not actually time consuming and that energy consuming.
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So the deen generally speaking in the context, in the grand scheme of things, in the context of our life,
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All you have to do in terms of action and exertion of energies and time is,
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all you have to do is a few things according to the Quranic discourse.
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Shahaat al-laylalla wa'idhan wa'idhu al- waw'sahu al-shwa'adhu al-shwa'idhu al-zaka'ah, etc.
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The five pillars of the Shahaata, the Salah, etc.
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The al-shwa'idhu al-shwa'idhu al-shwa'idhu al-zaka'ah
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zakah, the psalm Ramadan, hajj, so these are five pillars of Islam, so if you think about
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a lot of these pillars are annually done, like zakah is annually done, you have to pay
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money to charity, the hajj is once in a lifetime, psalm is once a year, once annually done,
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shahada is done once, it's done once, so it's two sentences that you say in Arabic, one
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time, and then you have the prayer, which is the most probably consistent thing you do,
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it's five times a day, and even that, if you think about it, I mean how long is it really
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taking a day, about half an hour, exactly, you know, so it's not, yeah, and only that, you
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know, the bed of a man who came to the Prophet and he said, oh man, what can I do to be a
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Muslim, and he said, you know, the shahada, and then he said, okay, I'll do the shahada,
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he said, then what must I do, he said, then pray the salah, he said, I'll do the salah,
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nothing more, nothing less, then he said, the zakah, he said, I'll pay exactly 2.5%, nothing
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more, nothing less, fast in Ramadan, he said, I'll do fast exactly in Ramadan, nothing
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extra, nothing less, and go had you if you have the means to, and when the man walked
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away, the Prophet pointed out at him, and the companions were there, he said, if you follow
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this man, you'll be successful, so what it shows is, by default, that this is the main
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thing that we need to concentrate on, and I've seen it for major sins, and also, another
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thing, I was speaking to one brother, yeah, he was just asking me a question about, you
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know, Aki, why, why does Allah put us here, you know, it's just, he had a bit of a shabbat,
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yeah, yeah, he had got a shabbat on, always, always, just make sure that,
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safety first, always, you know, that one is not legal, but anyways, yeah, and can we
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say, by default, Allah wants Jannah for us, yeah, exactly, yeah, by default, because some
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people think, oh, you know, but anyway, that's a different topic, but yeah, so, yeah, sorry,
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yeah, Allah is one of the, what will Allah gain from punishing you, do you know what I mean?
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Allah mentions in the Qur'an, yeah, he mentions that in the Qur'an, yeah, so, uh, and then
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listen, uh, and then you share that, uh, when you share that deen ahad illa ghalabahu, illa
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ghalabahu, yeah, that the deen, no one, um, basically, uh, consumes too much of, or basically
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overburdening, overburdening himself or herself with the religion, except that the religion,
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the religion overburdening him. What do you mean, what do we get by that? Because some people
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might say, you know what, look, I'm practicing, what's wrong with me practicing and doing
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extra? Well, there's nothing wrong with that, in fact, that's encouraged, but where it becomes,
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where it becomes actually, um, where it becomes, yeah, yeah, counter, so where it becomes,
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basically, a burden amongst, for you, do you know what I'm saying? So, well, do you know,
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there is a saying in Arabic, and there's also a hadith, uh, that the best deeds, yeah, are
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those which you do small, but consistently, rather than, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,
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if you do something, er, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,
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ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah
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okay I'm gonna wear it in a cup they're not ready for it and then they end up
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taking it all off. Is it better to stick to hijab and be continuous?
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Well it depends on the opinion that person follows but yeah generally speaking if that
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person follows the opinion that the hands and the face are the only things
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that need to be covered, shown, can be shown then that could be an example but
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also the example of like say for example Qiyam al-Layl. If you want to do Qiyam al-Layl
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if for example doing it every single day or doing it a lot for a couple of days
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like say for example doing like one hour one hour and a half for two or three
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days a week it's not as good as doing it let's say 25 minutes every day yeah you
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get it so things like that. You're gonna take the exit by the way yeah yeah so since
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you've spoken to this sister? I've spoken to multiple people. What's your take on it?
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The thing is yeah what we need to understand is that firstly as you know
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from the many many things mentioned we know that the deen is supposed to be
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easy for us. If you're making it hard on yourself then there's a problem there that's
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the first thing. Secondly the hadith that Ali mentioned is very very relevant to what
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we're talking about. Ali did you say oh? I didn't mention it. It's the one that you mentioned yeah.
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Which is about the man that said that he will do the things that Islam requires of him
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nothing more nothing less. And what did the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam say in response to that?
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That this man he will enter Jannah. If he actually does what he said yeah. Of course. Now what do we take from that?
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What we take from that is that just by you doing your obligations and trying to adhere to the Sunnah
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yeah that's enough. Now what the problem is is that when some of us become
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practicing we fall in love with the deen. There's nothing wrong with that. We
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should be falling in love with the deen. It's beautiful yeah. Where the problem
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comes in is that when we're young we have a tendency to become overzealous very very quickly
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yeah. So when we become overzealous what actually ends up happening is you're like
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wow this is amazing I love this I want to pray okay you know what I can pray Qiyam al-Layl I've heard
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about that as well let me pray Qiyam al-Layl okay memorizing Quran. Quran is beautiful let me memorize it.
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start memorizing Quran he's not going to have these classes he starts doing
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everything and what what's happened here bro within the space of a week what's
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happened is he's gone from clubbing what not a lifestyle of maybe going she shot
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maybe not too extreme what not chilling chilling out with his friends to
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completely within a week becoming a student of knowledge it's a big
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transition to make now the problem with that transition is because you haven't
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built yourself up to it the foundations eventually you're building the roof yeah
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yeah you haven't built yourself up to it so now what's gonna happen is when you're
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deep into it and something hits you or Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala tests you something
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you're gonna be overwhelmed you're gonna be like whoa now you know that's a very good point
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yeah are you finished but basically what I'm saying is yeah you know when you're
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overwhelmed that's where there's a deciding point some people when they're overwhelmed
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they can break through but many many people and most people they will fall off
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they will be like this is way too much why I spoke to one person once I was going
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through a specific problem yeah and this person he spoke to me he said you know what
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you don't realize is that think of it as this does Allah want this from you you're
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putting yourself in this problem does Allah want this from you Allah doesn't want this from you
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that's really good so if Allah doesn't want this from you why are you doing it to yourself and you
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know you know I think you know what's really crucial is this and by the way it's not it's not to say it just to
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yeah Musa is not saying that Allah doesn't want you to remember the Quran
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it's good but what they fall into a mistake is is that now you know yourself
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personally yeah but what happens is a lot of people into this when you take your
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matters of righteousness and piety that you're trying to become and now start
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judge judging now what you're doing is you're getting other people involved and
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sometimes that has a big backlash this is specifically if you're let's say you're
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on YouTube or you have a social problem that's a bigger problem because you know
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what's gonna happen you're gonna be stuck in a very bad dilemma because when you
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start off with practicing practicing practicing advising people even maybe
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like refuting them have been harsh on them this that when you are tested with
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fitna now you're at a crossroad because you're like okay now I'm
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portraying this image exactly I've done this now I'm going for a test I need to
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maintain it what am I gonna do now you're in a dilemma of do I carry
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on when I can't because I'm being tested when I fall off what are people gonna say
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now you're in a dilemma now if you do this to yourself and you're practicing and
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you're doing it the fall off that you have is between you and Allah but when
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you go on this thing of where you start judging people and doing this what
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happens is now when you fall off people are going like ah what happened yeah do
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you get it it makes you you it overburdens you even more not just the
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religion but now people are gonna be like ah you're the same guy who was going on a mad
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girl and look what you're doing now now it overburdens you more and now you feel
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like a hypocrite now you're like yeah man look how I was before it's no point do you
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get it and the shaitan comes so it's better for you to do what you're doing but
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it's better for you to do in a private instead of being judgmental and work on
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yourself and I think this is the reason why a lot of people fall into this by
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nose-diving you know I'll give I'll give I'm happy to give my own personal
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example in this year a lot of brothers around me they're practicing like yourself like
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yourself like many other brothers as well that I hang around with and some of the brothers
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sometimes they'll be going to a lot of classes and sometimes they'll push me to go to these
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classes there's one specific brother mashallah may Allah bless him he pushes me to come to
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these classes yeah and then now he doesn't know what I'm trying to do currently he doesn't know what
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I'm trying to do currently yeah so I told him actually right now I've put my studying focus on
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one specific topic I'm focusing on that now I know myself if I start going into that and that
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and that you know this main topic I'm focusing on I'm gonna lose that and everything yes so now what
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I choose to do is in my head even if the brothers are going to class I might come with them but my
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main focus currently is on this specific topic for example Quran or hadith or whatnot that's all one
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topic once I've done that then I'll go to the next topic so don't ever think that you need to be on
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the same level as your friends yeah it's not necessary yeah make sure you set targets in
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your own mind for a specific thing and do that and by the way another clarification which I think
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we should clarify I'm sure we'll all agree on this yeah we're not talking about obligatory acts like
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Salah yeah Salah is something you should be doing yeah you can't come and say I'm often burdening myself
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Fajr no sorry yeah don't start saying oh Fajr you know why it's an overburdened we're talking about acts
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that are Sunan we're talking about going to classes but it's affecting my iman I can't wait we're talking
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about Qiyam and Layl you know extra fasting sometimes these things do wearing a thob outside wearing a hat
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yes yes like portraying this overly pious image yeah of doing extra deeds when you don't need to do them
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right now you don't need to have a burden and so it's young jealous people now the thing is what
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is the Sunna is the Sunna that you go for hardship or the ease what is it so yeah that's a good
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question because the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad SAW is narrated upon him that he said that he
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wouldn't he would never be faced with a decision of two different things yeah except that he chose
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the easiest of the two this is very crucial yeah by the way like emphasis on this yeah okay
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so some scholars have have said that for example this would apply if there are two opinions yeah
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yeah of Islam that you've got like opinion a opinion B and you know you're not much to it yeah maybe
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they're both within a method that you follow whatever yeah and and one of the opinions is
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hard out one of the pins easier and you don't know how to distinguish between those two opinions so
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what's the Sunna to do so according to some scholars you gotta go for the easy you should go for the
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easier option why because it's easier because it's the Sunna of the Prophet and also because it's the
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it goes back to this hadith in a sense right so and that this kind of thinking is important in
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the Western context yeah in the Western context is important some say no it's better to actually be
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more safe than sorry and there's the hadith from Muhammad Bashir everyone yeah
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this hadith in the halal is clear and haram is clear yeah but there's two opinions what do you mean by
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grey matter if there's two valid opinions yeah yeah so that not many people know them so keep away from
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the grey matters and whoever falls into the grey matters goes and falls into the haram but yeah
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some people some people stretch this some people like very stretching at the end of the day if
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there's something this is this is a key point to know there's two things one if there's a legitimate
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opinion within the Sunni Islamic framework yeah and it's legit it's one of the school of four schools
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of thought opinions or something like this yeah then anyone has the right to follow it no one can say
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okay you do it wrong and by the way there's a difference between Al-Amr and Al-Ma'ruf and Al-Nahya
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and Al-Munkar because you know that this is something a lot of people use I'm not going to say the
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haram police there's no such thing as the haram police but this is some people use there is
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there is hadith but not formally yeah maybe not in this country but Al-Amr and Al-Ma'ruf and Al-Nahya
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and Al-Munkar is the idea of commanding to the good and forbidding to the evil yeah and there is a
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difference between Al-Amr and Al-Ma'ruf and Al-Nahya and Al-Munkar Al-Amr and Al-Ma'ruf is for is telling
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people to do good which can include it can include something which is worship which includes something
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which is mustahab so for example if I tell someone you know you should read the Quran this is Al-Amr
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and Al-Ma'ruf no doubt yeah but if he if that person says I don't want to read the Quran right
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now you can't say well you're doing wrong you get it because this is Al-Nahya and Al-Munkar Al-Nahya and Al-Munkar is
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forbidding the evil so Al-Amr and Al-Munkar are two different things and Al-Nahya and Al-Munkar is when
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you're explicitly forbidding against the evil okay and when we say Munkar it has to be a something
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which all of the Muslims agree upon for example drinking um for example doing something like
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Zina, Riba, all of these things are things which all the Muslims agree upon together so if someone says
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okay well do you know what I believe is Munkar for you to um I'm not going to use any controversial
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example but let me use one controversial example yeah I'm not going to use any actually actually
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let me change my mind but that's one opinion another thing is for example the Hanbalis where um
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the Hanbalis they say like okay for example the Naqab is farmed yeah a lot of them will say that and a
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lot of other people from the other schools of thought now a woman that's wearing the Naqab can't
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turn around to a woman that's not wearing the Naqab and say listen what you're doing is Munkar what you're
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doing is evil that you're not wearing the Naqab because the Naqab is farmed the Naqab is farmed according
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to you yeah yes okay it's according to your school of thought it's fine that is a legitimate opinion
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that you can follow but don't turn around to a woman who's not wearing the Naqab and say it's farmed
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basically don't do with differences exactly where there is a which means that there's a
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legitimate difference of opinion you're not allowed here legitimate that doesn't mean that you bring
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start bringing some guy sitting in yeah sitting in Egypt you know exactly in a tent saying he said
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all music is allowed so just to wrap it up yeah it's a nice conversation yeah what advice would
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you give to youngsters i would give to youngsters the following advice yeah personally i would say
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first and foremost if you're approaching the religion think of it as a treadmill if you if you're going
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on the treadmill and you've never run before or if you've had very limited experience with running
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yeah you want to put it on a level where you can maintain pace yeah that's really good you get it
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so if you if you jump on the treadmill and it's on like number 14 or something yeah you'll be able
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to run i'm not saying you won't be able to run but for how long for five seconds for how long is the
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question you might even fall off you might even fly off yeah so the religion is quite similar if you
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if you go into the religion with all of its sunnan you'll go on the treadmill and you'll fly off the
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treadmill do you get it that's the first thing now with what you were talking about judgment
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remember one golden piece of advice yeah just because you are told is haram and now there are
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lots of things that the muslims generally speaking agree that is haram it's very clear things like
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shirk things like kufr things like um drinking alcohol things like zina etc these things are definitely
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haram yeah everyone agrees that is haram however those things which are which are potential there is a
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khilaf mu'atabar which literally there is a difference of opinion which is regarded legitimately
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within the sunni school floor if someone follows an opinion from any of those medahib or whatever
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leave them alone you can't tell them what they're doing is wrong do not do that because that could
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itself be wrong yeah so leave the people alone if they're doing something which is legit which has a
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strong scholarly backing leave people alone because at the end of the day and the beard is a good example of
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that the beard is a good example it is a perfect example of that yeah let's say there are three
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or four main opinions of the beard one of them is to leave it completely so one of the opinions of
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the beard is to leave it completely the other opinion is to have it like al-bani and others like
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have it one fist like one of this opinion and whatever the third opinion is to have a kathif
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yeah so so the lahya is just kind of thick okay and it's distinguished as a lahya okay and the other
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opinion is is there some some some shafi's will go even further than that but we're not going to
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mention that opinion now the point is this um if you see anyone doing any of those things say for
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example you take the first opinion that the beard is should be left you see someone with a beard that's
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his length or you see someone with a beard that's even less than fixed length what are you going to say to
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them you're going to say what you did is monkah yeah that would that would make you that would
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make you non-appreciative of the scholarly yeah uh opinion arrogance it's actually could be classed
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as arrogance you think you know it yeah so things like that i would say keep away from it yeah and
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also you know he's talking about the treadmill yeah just my conclusion is that yes sometimes you're
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saying don't go to the treadmill when it's on 14 but then you have people of influence who are on
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level 14 and they're getting new people and putting them on their treadmill yeah yeah this is another
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problem because what you're doing is you're you're not feeding them slowly you're not telling them
00:22:00.200
okay look slowly what you're doing is just because you're on a certain level you're looking down on
00:22:04.200
people and you want them to be on your level but don't forget where you came from it's really
00:22:08.200
important because then you're advising people the wrong thing and people are jumping on board going
00:22:12.360
on a mad one and the next thing you know they're falling off you know some of these people yeah
00:22:16.440
they will when they started practicing they would be listening to uh certain speakers yeah yeah
00:22:25.080
now that they're up they will say to all of the young kids don't listen to these guys yeah
00:22:29.640
when these guys are the ones that made you practicing so it's like everyone has a let
00:22:35.080
everyone be on their journey everyone's on their journey don't make the religion hard on people
00:22:38.840
one thing that someone's coming in hellfire hellfire hellfire listen because these guys they
00:22:47.240
they'll take it and they'll run with it brother you know yeah and told us to do zinnah yeah
00:22:55.960
anyways yeah so we just wanted to share a message with you guys that look allah wants gender for you
00:23:01.480
the the religion has come here not to overburden you to make your life easy and if that's the reason why
00:23:06.520
allah sent his uh messenger we're traveling we're traveling to a car bro come on if allah has sent
00:23:14.600
this uh religion to make your life easy you are actually opposing that by making it hard on
00:23:19.880
yourself so that's about you guys hope you guys have benefited to a car gang you know how we do
00:23:25.640
traveling unity i'm hungry bro take care guys if you want more of these discussions conversations let me