# Imam Ghazzali's - The Alchemy of Happiness - Guide to Inner Transformation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbafypWJSrQ

[00:00] Imazari.
[00:05] His name is Muhammad Muhammad Muhammad.
[00:11] He had the which is a name that's given usually.
[00:18] People are given a like say Hamza was called.
[00:24] And then the is Abu Muhammad but his was uh Zenu Dean, the beauty of the dean.
[00:34] He was born in To inasan in 450 after Hijra which is about 1058.
[00:45] He was born into a very poor family.
[00:47] Not poor, extremely poor but poor.
[00:50] His father was a a weaver and he when he died he died they were very young and he put them in charge of a local sheh there who was probably.
[01:05] he wasn't anam by any means but he was a very righteous man and had some knowledge
[01:12] and he educated them in their early education but Imam alazadi both of them.
[01:19] Ahmed alazari who's his brother became a fak and also a poet
[01:21] and is noted for his um spirituality as well.
[01:28] But Immazari very early on showed his brilliance
[01:31] and they both entered into the medrasa.
[01:37] That's everything that his father left he left towards their education.
[01:41] and he asked this sheh to give them their education and then he ended up becoming a student.
[01:42] He went to one of the nearby cities and studied and during that time one of the greatest shakes of Islam happened to be in the area
[01:58] and that's one of the things that you note
[02:05] In Islamic history.
[02:08] In fact, you, it's really noted in human history.
[02:13] You'll find very often that very brilliant people, they emerge at a time when there are other brilliant people to nurture their brilliance, which is very helpful.
[02:20] So, Imam Al Gazi was very fortunate and so was Im Joani to have a student like IM Kazadi because one of the great blessings of a great teacher is to have great students.
[02:31] And I imi became the student of probably the greatest teacher at the time who was Imi who's called Imam Haram.
[02:45] He was a brilliant chef.
[02:47] His book inul is a very important book in usul.
[02:51] And Imam Gazali would go on to actually develop usul and write his own book inul that surpassed his teacher's book.
[03:01] IM joui was also a great theologian, so I
[03:06] Imadi.
[03:08] His genius emerges in early on and also in Karam.
[03:14] These were the two areas that he was really a master of.
[03:22] And during that time there was a lot of trouble in the Muslim world for a lot of different reasons but partly because the period that he was living in was a period in which the creed of Islam was going through some transitions.
[03:41] First of all, the were still very powerful and the they were rationalists and they were people that believed that the the intellect should actually be the criterion by which you judged matters of religion.
[03:58] So you put the Quran under the microscope of the intellect and the intellect examined the Quran and then the intellect determine
[04:07] how you viewed everything and the opposite of that was the traditionist path which the intellect had very little to do with anything and we just took revelation.
[04:17] So we took the Quran and we took the hadith and we understood them at a literal level and we don't use the intellect to interfere with that understanding.
[04:29] Im Joani was probably in the middle of that.
[04:37] And a later scholar said that in the verse that Allah says in when he says that this is light upon light.
[04:47] He said it was revelation on the intellect.
[04:50] That revelation illuminates the intellect.
[04:53] So you need both and there should be a balance in the two.
[04:59] You don't want revelation that is doesn't have intellect but you don't want intellect overriding.
[05:09] Revelation.
[05:11] Whenever you can't understand revelation by the intellect, you say, "Oh, it must mean this because it certainly can't mean that.
[05:24] Until you know the road to the divine presence and you will reach the witnessing of his majesty and his beauty.
[05:37] And you free yourself from the constraints of desire and anger.
[05:53] And so that you will understand why these other qualities were designed in you, why they were placed in you.
[06:13] So these were not created in you in order for you to be their prisoner, but they were created in you in order to facilitate your journey to take you on your journey so that you can subjugate it for this journey that's in front of You you have this immense journey in front of you and that's why you have these so that you can make one of them your vehicle and the other your weapon in order that you can hunt your joy your felicity.
[06:58] So one is your your your your beast and the other is your sword so that your weapon so that you can hunt your felicity.
[07:03] That's what you're you're here in life to do is to go out and hunt your joy which is to know Allah subhana wa tala and to be in his presence and
[07:14] That's why you have these things.
[07:22] So if you have reached your goal then struggle with it under your feet like when you capture your prey you have it under your foot and return to the place of your joy and that place is the place of the elect of this divine presence.
[07:49] So the elect their final abode is this divine presence and the the common people is the different degrees of paradise and this is an articulation of what you can call the path of sanctification and the path of salvation.
[08:08] The path of sanctification is the path of the elect which is to
[08:16] literally struggle in this life for a sanctified soul so that you actually purify yourself in this world and you're free of the dross of your humanity in this world and that's the path of the aah the path of the kawas the path of the people what we call in English the saints these are the saints and these are the people that are in the divine presence.
[08:42] They're in the divine presence here and and this is the path that the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam definitely tread and this is the path of the the majority of his companions and in in fact all of his companions if you use the meaning of the companions which is specific to a certain group of the people of the Sahaba but but certainly the majority of his companions it's enough just to have seen the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam to have arrived so those who saw him and truly believed in him, they were sanctified just by that by seeing and being in the company.
[09:19] of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in that presence.
[09:23] So the path of salvation is people that just get into paradise and there's nothing belittling about that at all.
[09:34] You know, if you're just whoever is removed from the hellfire, entered into paradise, he's had foes victory.
[09:42] So, but those are the two paths.
[10:01] So you need to have knowledge of these meanings so that you know from yourself a little bit because whoever does not know these meanings all they have is the outward the shells.
[10:16] They have just the shells of this teaching,
[10:24] But they're veiled from the reality.
[10:26] From the truth.
[10:29] So that's the first chapter of end of CD1.
[10:54] And so he was coming out of that madrasa which placed an immense amount of emphasis on the intellect but not to the degree where the intellect overshadowed the revelation.
[11:06] So that's an important aspect of it.
[11:06] Imam al Jaweni said about Imam Alazali that he was an ocean.
[11:14] So his own teacher was aware that he had an ocean.
[11:21] He said he was a copious or vast ocean of knowledge.
[11:24] And what's really
[11:26] extraordinary about him, I think, is despite his brilliance, he was somebody who was incredibly introspective and aware of his internal states, which is often very rare in people.
[11:42] You can you can have the most brilliant person, but they're completely oblivious to their inward state.
[11:49] And you'll see this if you've gone to a university.
[11:52] You have professors that are obviously very brilliant but they just they're not aware of their own internal states.
[11:58] Um they can be arrogant and be completely unaware of it.
[12:00] And he was arrogant.
[12:03] Imam al Gazali was somebody who was he belittled people.
[12:07] His genius was such that he never lost an argument.
[12:10] if he was in any type of debate, he just fled his opponents.
[12:15] And he became very big-headed and aware of his brilliance and aware of his superiority over other people.
[12:24] He was extraordinarily eloquent
[12:26] in both Arabic and Persian.
[12:30] And so when he gave talks, people were just in complete awe of his ability to speak.
[12:38] And what happened was in his 30s at a very young age he's he was only about 34 he became the head professor at the most prestigious university in all of Islam which was the nil amyia in Baghdad.
[12:53] So in academia 34 you're just finishing your PhD by 34.
[12:59] So that's like a young whippers snapper and he's he's being put in charge of and at his at his lessons hundreds of attended a lot this the students didn't even get into the lectures because it was all so you can imagine the situation that he was in.
[13:26] It was the ulma that were attending his lectures.
[13:28] It wasn't the students because a lot of them couldn't understand what he was talking about.
[13:35] So the thing about Imam Alazar I mean this is really an unusual every discipline that he learned he would write a book in it and that book would become the definitive book of that discipline.
[13:49] In every single subject, he became the authority of that subject during his time.
[13:59] And just to give you an example, he wrote a book called meaning the intention, the aims or ends of the philosophers.
[14:10] He learned philosophy in two years.
[14:13] He said in his autobiography in his spare time when he says he learned philosophy that meant he learned what philosophy was at that time.
[14:23] In other words, he knew the subject of philosophy because at that
[14:28] Time philosophy was limited.
[14:31] Now you have a lot of different philosophies.
[14:33] At that time you only had certain philosophies and you could actually learn all of the philosophies.
[14:40] He mastered Plato, Aristotle, Ibanscena, Al Farabi in his spare time.
[14:48] He says he read it when he had free time.
[14:51] And then he wrote this book called Masa.
[14:55] And the book was like a bestseller because he explained the philosophers better than they could explain themselves.
[15:07] And some of the una actually criticized him for making philosophy much more accessible than it had been before him because suddenly it was like it's philosophy for dummies.
[15:19] Do you know he he made it so clear that everybody could understand it and people suddenly thought oh he's a philosopher he's joined the ranks of Al Farab and
[15:30] Iban Cena who were not considered to be within the Sunni matrix at that time.
[15:38] So he wrote this book but he followed the book up with a book called which is the incoherence of the philosophers.
[15:47] And the reason he did that was he wanted first to make sure everybody knew that he knew philosophy and then he wanted to deconstruct philosophy.
[15:57] So he put a book out to let everybody know okay and so all the philosophers read it and they said Muhammad you know he's really he's quite a philosopher.
[16:07] And then he wrote a book to say here's what's wrong with philosophy.
[16:12] So he showed them and people don't realize the service that he did for Islam because philosophy was threatening Islam and that's why he did it.
[16:20] He says that he didn't find anybody else amongst the that was doing that and he felt an obligation to do that.
[16:32] he did that and he wrote a book called
[16:35] and he also did a great favor because he
[16:38] went through philosophy.
[16:41] He defined six branches of philosophy and he said out
[16:43] of the six branches five branches are
[16:45] actually fine.
[16:48] They're not really a problem.
[16:50] Politics isn't a problem.
[16:53] That's an Islamic science.
[16:55] Ethics isn't a problem.
[16:59] Mathematics is not a problem.
[17:03] He said these are all fine.
[17:05] But when we get into what's called metaphysics,
[17:06] we have a problem.
[17:09] And then he identified 20 problems within metaphysics in philosophy.
[17:12] And from those 20 problems, he identified three problems in particular.
[17:14] And he wrote that in his
[17:16] that the philosophers are a problem
[17:18] because they believe in the eternity of
[17:20] the world.
[17:23] They don't believe that the bodies are resurrected and they don't
[17:26] believe that Allah knows particulars.
[17:28] they believe he knows universals.
[17:31] So he refuted why the and he did it using
[17:33] logic because that's also one of the branches of philosophy.
[17:35] He said not only was logic not a problem, he said it was actually a kaya which was quite radical at the time as well and that Iben Tamia took case with Abu Muhammad because he said even Tama said that m logic should not be used in calam in theology and he actually makes a brilliant case for it and he probably preceded a a modern understanding of one of the problems with logic that nobody had identified earlier.
[18:10] Ibent Tama.
[18:10] So actually Ibent Tamir's contribution to the attack of logic is really important too because Iben Tama noted that one of the problems with logic is there's presuppositions in logic that are never challenged.
[18:25] This nobody really noticed that that you have to believe certain things within the framework of logic before logic becomes useful.
[18:32] So what he was saying is the
[18:34] first principles of logic are not really being questioned and that's a problem.
[18:39] because they can be questioned and and that's a very modern idea.
[18:42] Imam Kazadi said logic was was fine.
[18:46] It it was basically just a a method for reasoning.
[18:49] It was a heristic tool that somebody could learn and then use in their reasoning.
[18:54] And he said he felt it should be fay because if people don't know how to reason they're susceptible to flaws in their reasoning and also the sophistical reasoning which is logically flawed reasoning is very common and if you don't learn the problems that go with reasoning you can fall into them very easily.
[19:18] Like a common flaw that's used in people's arguments is what they call an ad homonym attack for instance where where you're not really attacking the the argument, you're attacking the arguer.
[19:27] So people will reject what
[19:35] Somebody says because of who it is.
[19:38] And there are many others that he felt people should learn.
[19:40] And then he wrote a book on logic which became a very popular book also.
[19:45] So he wrote this to have philosopher.
[19:48] And some people say that philosophy, he struck philosophy a blow in the Muslim world that it never recovered from.
[19:57] That's been an argument.
[20:00] And some people say that Imam Alazadi, it's actually problematic what he did because philosophy was something that was beneficial.
[20:11] And about a hundred years later, one of the great Andrewian scholars, Ibn Rushed, the grandson, not the grandfather.
[20:16] Ibn Rushed of wrote a book, the incoherence of the incoherence, which was a reputation of Imam Alazadi's book.
[20:26] And that book was taken up, oddly enough, in the west.
[20:28] So that became a major major intellectual landmark in the
[20:35] west. The the west did not take to have
[20:39] falasifa. They took to hut. So the west
[20:43] actually
[20:44] chose to go the way of Ibnched and not
[20:47] the way of Imam Khazadi. The Muslim
[20:50] world chose to go the way of Imazi and
[20:52] not the way of Ibn Rush. Now one could
[20:54] argue and many modern Muslims have
[20:57] argued is that Immazi
[21:00] is actually at the root of the
[21:03] backwardness and the problems that are
[21:06] wrong with the Muslim world. I mean this
[21:08] is this a modern argument that you'll
[21:10] actually find in books and amongst
[21:13] certain groups of thinkers in the Muslim
[21:16] world particularly in the late 19th
[21:18] early 20th century there there was a
[21:20] real attack on Imam Gazadi. Now you have
[21:23] to understand the importance of that
[21:25] attack because I imadi was called Islam
[21:29] the proof of Islam. Imazi is to Islam
[21:33] what St. Thomas Aquinas was to
[21:35] Catholicism. He really laid the
[21:38] foundations for the Islamic religion
[21:42] during his time and those foundations
[21:45] carried the religion for the next
[21:48] several centuries really almost a
[21:50] thousand years. So there are Muslims
[21:53] that argued that. Now if you look at it
[21:56] at a deeper level you have to become
[22:00] aware of the fact that the west has lost
[22:03] their religion.
[22:06] the path that the course that they chose
[22:08] to take
[22:10] destroyed their faith.
[22:12] Europe is a faithless civilization. Now
[22:17] really now America is not a
[22:20] philosophical country.
[22:23] America has never uh engaged in serious
[22:26] philosophy. The only philosophical
[22:28] tradition in America is pragmatism.
[22:30] Europe
[22:32] was engaged in philosophy at a very deep
[22:35] level. America's it's a pragmatic
[22:37] country and it's had a very interesting
[22:41] relationship with faith. It's kind of a
[22:43] lovehate relationship, but it's had an
[22:45] interesting relationship with faith. But
[22:48] Europe's faith, the underpinnings of it
[22:51] were beginning to erode in the 17th and
[22:56] 18th century. By the 19th century at the
[22:59] intellectual level, there was serious
[23:02] erosion. The 20th century with two world
[23:05] wars pretty much wipes out the faith of
[23:07] Europe. That's that's what happens. Now,
[23:11] one of the real interesting aspects of
[23:14] the modern world is the faith of the
[23:16] Muslims.
[23:18] I mean this is something that if you
[23:20] look at the modern world, the faith of
[23:23] the Muslims is an anomalous aspect to
[23:27] the modern world.
[23:29] And what's interesting about the faith
[23:31] of the Muslims is the faith of the
[23:33] Muslims is still very strong amongst
[23:36] even the intelligencia. Although you
[23:38] we're seeing the erosion of it now which
[23:40] is a very dangerous sign because
[23:43] secularity is becoming very strong in
[23:46] the intellectual classes like if you go
[23:48] to South Asia if you go to Pakistan and
[23:51] you meet with the intellectuals
[23:55] the people at that are at that very high
[23:57] level you'll often find that they're
[24:00] opposed to religion the same will be
[24:03] true in the Arab world you'll find a lot
[24:05] of the intelligencia the people that
[24:08] study thought, philosophy and things
[24:11] like that you'll find that so that is
[24:14] becoming the case but it wasn't the
[24:16] case. So I imazadi
[24:18] he dealt this blow to philosophy. Now
[24:23] the second thing that he did which is
[24:25] extremely important
[24:28] is Imam Alazadi
[24:30] took the esoteric element to religion.
[24:35] And if you look at any religious
[24:37] tradition you will find there's very
[24:40] often a split occurs early on between
[24:43] exoteric religion and between esoteric
[24:46] religion. Exoteric religion is the
[24:48] formal aspect of the religion. the
[24:50] outward it's the body of the religion
[24:52] and so you have for instance in Judaism
[24:55] the exoteric aspect of Judaism is the
[24:58] 613 laws that they have to follow to be
[25:01] a Jew so you learn these laws and they
[25:04] become often ritualized and people tend
[25:08] to forget what they were originally
[25:10] there for and begin to really make that
[25:13] outward aspect of the religion the sole
[25:16] aspect of the religion that's
[25:17] exotericism
[25:19] esotericism
[25:20] is when you focus on the inward aspects
[25:23] of the religion and forget the outward
[25:25] aspects of the religion. In Islam,
[25:28] probably the most significant example of
[25:30] that is isism,
[25:32] right? The isah
[25:34] where probably the most significant
[25:36] example of esotericism where the
[25:39] religion is all secret esoteric meanings
[25:43] and the exoteric religion is for the
[25:45] common people. is for the people that
[25:47] don't understand what true religion is
[25:50] that they need those outward forms. And
[25:54] during Imam Alazadi's time, probably the
[25:57] biggest threat to religion after
[25:58] philosophy was esotericism.
[26:02] So not only did he defend Islam from the
[26:05] philosophers, he defended Islam from the
[26:08] iseli baltist. And that's why they do
[26:11] not like him to this day. The iseli
[26:14] tradition does not like im Pazari
[26:16] because much of his emphasis was against
[26:18] the Baltist. Now one of the aspects of
[26:21] the Baltistus were the assassins who
[26:25] were very powerful at the time. They
[26:27] they were like terrorists. I mean they
[26:29] they really did terrorize the rulers.
[26:32] They were assassins. They would live
[26:34] amongst a ruler for 10 years, get their
[26:36] secret message and then one day just in
[26:38] the court literally stab the ruler.
[26:42] Everybody thought it was a loyal
[26:43] servant, but he was actually a a spy for
[26:47] the assassins. So he was fighting these
[26:50] and you can't imagine the courage of the
[26:52] man because it was an incredibly
[26:55] dangerous thing to do at the time. So he
[26:58] had immense courage in doing that. Now
[27:00] what happens to Imam Alazadi in his late
[27:03] 30s is he begins to have an an internal
[27:07] crisis. I mean what some people might
[27:09] call a midlife crisis. But he he was
[27:13] deeply troubled by his personality
[27:17] and he was troubled by the fact that
[27:20] all the things that he was teaching he
[27:22] wasn't really practicing
[27:24] and so he he was having this crisis of
[27:27] being the teacher who wasn't practicing.
[27:30] One of the things that he says in the is
[27:32] he says the zakat of
[27:36] the zakat of being a preacher is
[27:40] is practicing what you preach
[27:44] that that's the zakat of wow you that
[27:47] you can't tell others
[27:52] you know the Quran says do you command
[27:54] people to righteousness and you forget
[27:56] about yourselves
[27:58] and he was aware of that that He's he
[28:00] was teaching and he wasn't practicing
[28:03] and it was really troubling him and his
[28:05] personality was bothering him. He
[28:07] noticed that
[28:09] you know the Quran says that avoid the
[28:13] outward sins and the inward sins right
[28:19] you know avoid the outward sins
[28:22] and the inward sins. And so he felt that
[28:26] the formalists he called them
[28:29] mutarasimon the people of the rum the
[28:32] people of the the form of the religion
[28:36] and he said that the of his time were
[28:39] mutarim they had really turned Islam
[28:42] into a formless tradition and he said
[28:45] that the spirit of Islam was lost
[28:48] and he said the esoteras on the other
[28:52] hand had removed the form
[28:54] and had this esoteric tradition that
[28:59] didn't have the protection of the
[29:02] exoteric tradition. So he saw this
[29:04] crisis in Islam that the inward and the
[29:08] outward were not unified.
[29:12] And so that was another challenge that
[29:14] he took up. But he realized he couldn't
[29:18] do that if he wasn't real. If he wasn't
[29:22] living that thing, he couldn't do that.
[29:24] He couldn't tell people that this
[29:26] religion is about purifying the heart
[29:28] and his heart wasn't pure. He couldn't
[29:30] do it.
[29:32] So at the age of about 38, at the height
[29:36] of his eminence,
[29:38] literally everybody knew about this man.
[29:41] His books were his book of ethics was
[29:44] the book that surpassed all the previous
[29:46] works of ethics. Ibnomsawi
[29:50] I mean there were many great ethsists
[29:52] but it was his book everybody was
[29:54] reading his book on logic his book on
[29:59] his book inul is still considered I mean
[30:02] I asked Abdullah bin because he's a
[30:04] master oful I asked him of all the books
[30:08] oful which one did he I said if you were
[30:12] on a desert island and you could only
[30:14] have one book of usul what would it me
[30:18] and he said the muak which is Immab's
[30:21] book and I said but that doesn't really
[30:23] have all the it doesn't have all the
[30:26] books oful it doesn't deal with all the
[30:29] subjects oful and he said well if I had
[30:32] to have a book that dealt with all then
[30:33] it'd be of imi
[30:37] so and I imazadi he's really the first
[30:40] person to develop the science of the IMI
[30:46] took it to another level but it was
[30:47] Imazali that really developed the
[30:51] science of mass.
[30:54] So,
[30:56] I imadi at that time he said that
[31:00] internally one day he would say you have
[31:02] to give up all this dunya and you have
[31:04] to turn away and the next day he would
[31:06] say you can't give up how can you give
[31:08] up your position and this is just
[31:11] whisperings and so shaitan would come
[31:14] and say things and he really was it was
[31:17] happening internally he was going back
[31:19] and forth between these two states and
[31:21] then one day he went to class and he
[31:24] couldn't talk literally. He just looked
[31:28] out which would be incredibly
[31:29] embarrassing for a teacher obviously to
[31:32] come and literally couldn't talk. So
[31:34] he's looking at hundreds possibly
[31:37] thousands of people many of them
[31:40] and he can't talk
[31:43] literally just imagine that state
[31:47] and he they take him home the doctors
[31:51] come and he describes all this and the
[31:55] doctors are all looking scratching their
[31:57] heads some say it's this some say it's
[31:59] that this humor's overridden the other
[32:01] humors he needs blood letting he needs
[32:04] this, he needs that. And finally the
[32:06] doctors concluded, this isn't in his
[32:08] body, it's in his soul. And they said,
[32:12] "We're not psychiatrists. We're
[32:14] physicians. So he needs a psychiatrist."
[32:17] I mean, at that time they said, you
[32:19] know, he needs somebody who knows the
[32:22] psychiatry, the knowledge of the self.
[32:25] And Immazadi at that point realized that
[32:29] he had to set out on this journey.
[32:34] So he
[32:36] puts his family in a situation where
[32:37] they were taken care of. He had
[32:39] daughters. His only son died, Muhammad.
[32:42] And his wife was taken care of. And he
[32:45] he said he was going to go on Hajj. And
[32:48] he set out. And he spends 10 years of
[32:53] his life pretty much just traveling in
[32:57] the Muslim world and not telling people
[33:00] who he was and
[33:04] living
[33:06] in a total state of abasement.
[33:09] His livelihood was done by copying books
[33:12] out. He used to copy books and sell
[33:14] them. And he actually became a janitor.
[33:22] He became a janitor at the Umead mosque
[33:25] in Damascus.
[33:31] So he used to sweep the the mosque and
[33:34] then he would uh he was given a room
[33:36] there and he used the room as a khalwa.
[33:39] But literally nobody knew who he was.
[33:42] They were teaching his books in the
[33:44] mosque
[33:47] and he actually mentioned you know he
[33:48] came upon places where they were
[33:51] teaching his book. He was once in a
[33:53] madrasa and
[33:55] one of the teachers
[33:58] was saying well like the great sheh
[34:01] Abuhammed alazali said and he said he
[34:04] had to leave because he feared the
[34:08] coming into his heart.
[34:10] just
[34:13] really amazing person
[34:18] for 10 years. That's what he did.
[34:20] There's actually at one point there was
[34:23] a group of sitting and this man came up
[34:27] and he asked a question and I imazadi
[34:30] was literally sweeping
[34:32] nearby and he heard this man ask this
[34:36] question and none of the could answer.
[34:40] So, Imm Kazadi saw this man and he was
[34:44] worried that he wasn't getting the
[34:46] guidance that he needed. So, he went up
[34:48] to the man and he told him, you know,
[34:51] the answer to your question is this. And
[34:54] the man looked at him, he started
[34:55] laughing and he said, all those couldn't
[34:59] answer me and you think I would believe
[35:02] you. You're you're just a janitor.
[35:06] And uh somebody from the thing called
[35:10] him over and he said, "What are you
[35:12] going on about?" And he said he said
[35:14] that the answer to the question was such
[35:16] and such. And they all all these men
[35:19] were amazed at that. And he said he had
[35:21] to leave. He left at that point again
[35:23] cuz he just didn't want anybody
[35:26] to know who he was. And that was his
[35:29] state. So at the age of 48 he goes back
[35:33] partly because he missed his family and
[35:36] he wanted to see his daughters but also
[35:39] because he had accomplished what he set
[35:41] out to do and during that time he wrote
[35:43] the
[35:48] so he goes back and he did not want to
[35:51] go back to teaching
[35:53] and he actually went back to Nisapur. He
[35:56] went back to to his city and he set up a
[36:00] little place and then he because the
[36:02] ruler there imposed upon him to teach,
[36:05] he started giving some public classes
[36:08] but he basically had just private
[36:10] teaching and during that time he wrote
[36:13] auhad and he wrote a few other books
[36:16] during that time. But one of the
[36:18] scholars at that time who had known him
[36:22] Pharisees said that I remembered what an
[36:26] arrogant and pompous person he was and
[36:29] I'd heard that his character had
[36:32] completely transformed and I didn't
[36:34] believe it. So I wanted to go see. And
[36:37] he said that he went
[36:40] and he watched him and he said initially
[36:42] I thought that he was just faking it.
[36:47] that he was just faking this humility.
[36:51] And he said, "As I watched the man, I
[36:53] became to realize that he was completely
[36:57] transformed
[36:59] as a person."
[37:01] And so, Imazi wrote this book.
[37:06] And in this book, what he did was he
[37:09] joined the esoteric and the exoteric
[37:12] aspects of Islam. He did something
[37:14] nobody had done before which is he made
[37:16] a book of of
[37:19] like he has he has zaku
[37:23] he made a book of fik into a spiritual
[37:27] treatise. So instead of learning the
[37:30] formalistic rules of fasting he was also
[37:33] teaching the secrets of fast why you're
[37:35] fasting.
[37:37] So he was teaching the massid the
[37:39] spiritual massid
[37:42] of and nobody had done that. They done
[37:45] it in books, separate books, but nobody
[37:47] had the idea of putting these two
[37:49] together and saying, "This is the way
[37:52] you should teach this to people because
[37:53] they have to know why they're doing
[37:55] these things."
[37:57] Because if they don't know why they're
[37:59] doing them, you'll turn this religion
[38:01] into this formalistic,
[38:04] meaningless ritual in which people don't
[38:08] know why they're doing these things.
[38:09] They don't know what the purpose of it
[38:10] is. So that's what he did. And it's
[38:14] really this incredible contribution to
[38:16] the Islamic tradition. And for that
[38:18] reason that
[38:20] was taught all over the Muslim world and
[38:23] really became one of the most important
[38:26] books. Many scholars said that that was
[38:30] really the only book after the Quran
[38:33] that people needed.
[38:35] Many many scholars have said that if you
[38:38] look at the Yemeni tradition like the
[38:40] way they teach in Tim the entire
[38:42] tradition is based on the I mean
[38:45] literally the entire tradition I imad
[38:48] all of his books are based on the
[38:53] and on the books of Imazi.
[38:56] So that's his contribution and people
[38:59] really people have no idea I don't think
[39:01] they have any idea of this man's stature
[39:06] in the history of Islam but also that he
[39:10] has
[39:11] this incredible honor of being literally
[39:15] the man who saved Islam.
[39:18] That is who I alazi is. He's the man who
[39:23] saved Islam. And even though Islam is
[39:27] Allah's religion, he protects it. He
[39:29] protects it nonetheless through people.
[39:32] And and that's the man that Allah
[39:35] subhanahu wa ta'ala used to do that. And
[39:38] the reason which is very clear I think
[39:43] is because of his las and that's really
[39:47] the focus of his entire work is he is
[39:52] saying
[39:54] if you should do one thing in your life
[39:57] it's to get las that's really the whole
[40:02] point
[40:03] is to get to be sound in your heart and
[40:07] if you do one thing in your life, you
[40:10] should do that. And all of the accolades
[40:14] that go with life, all of the positions
[40:16] that go with life, all the things that
[40:17] people strive after, what he is saying
[40:21] is all of those things are completely
[40:25] irrelevant if you have not worked on
[40:27] your heart. Not only are they
[40:29] irrelevant, they will destroy you. And
[40:32] so he was willing to completely give up
[40:36] all of that out of fear of being
[40:40] destroyed because he says very clearly,
[40:43] "I was afraid of my soul falling into
[40:49] pition. I was afraid of being
[40:53] firewood for the hellfire." That's he
[40:56] states it very clearly that that was my
[41:00] fear and I was willing to do anything
[41:04] to remove myself from that state
[41:09] and that and that's what he did and
[41:11] that's why he is who he is. I mean that
[41:15] is why we honor him today that that's
[41:20] why he has the position that he has.
[41:22] That's why Allah elevated him
[41:26] because he abased himself for the sake
[41:29] of Allah.
[41:32] And so he is somebody eminently worth
[41:35] studying. And he's written no book that
[41:39] isn't a masterpiece. Even before he had
[41:43] some criticisms of the books that he
[41:45] wrote before his spiritual
[41:48] period and he only lived 6 years after
[41:50] he came out of his 10year kalwa. He died
[41:54] the same age as his teacher Imam Mashi
[41:56] not his direct teacher but he did not
[41:59] live
[42:01] to be 80 or we couldn't even imagine
[42:04] what he would have produced. He wrote
[42:06] over 200 books.
[42:08] So we couldn't even imagine what he
[42:10] would have produced had he had a a very
[42:13] long life. But he had a life obviously
[42:15] filled with baraka. So he wrote a book
[42:18] and this is a his Arabic version of it.
[42:22] He wrote a book called Kima which means
[42:24] the alchemy of happiness.
[42:26] And he wrote this book. It was in
[42:29] Persian the initial book. and he wrote
[42:32] it for common people.
[42:36] It's an abridgement of his but then he
[42:38] wrote a very small Arabic treatise which
[42:41] he called
[42:43] also the alchemy of happiness about the
[42:46] heart and he begins it alhamdulillah
[42:54] praise be to the one who elevated the
[42:57] bodies of the purified ones with
[42:59] struggle. So
[43:02] he elevated the the people
[43:08] he engendered happiness in the hearts of
[43:10] the with witnessing
[43:14] witnessing divine witnessing.
[43:19] And he ornamented the tongues of the
[43:21] believers with remembrance.
[43:25] And he cleared the thoughts of the
[43:28] Gnostics of people who know with
[43:30] meditation
[43:34] and protected the majority of his
[43:36] servants from corruption.
[43:41] And he constrained the people of Zud of
[43:45] giving up in what was right and upright.
[43:52] And he saved the people of tawa from the
[43:57] oppression of their desires.
[44:02] And he purified the spirits of people of
[44:05] certainty from the oppression of
[44:08] doubtful matters.
[44:14] And he
[44:16] accepted the works of righteous people
[44:19] but through the performance of their
[44:20] prayers.
[44:25] And he helped the qualities of free
[44:27] people, the virtues of free people by
[44:30] giving them connection to him.
[44:39] I praise him. The praise of one who sees
[44:42] the signs of his power and his strength
[44:48] and witnessed the witnessing of his
[44:52] uniqueness and his unity
[44:58] and has traversed the paths of his
[45:01] secrets and of his of his righteousness.
[45:09] and has picked the fruits of his
[45:11] knowledge from the tree of his glory and
[45:13] his generosity.
[45:20] I thank him the thanking of one who has
[45:25] forged and drunk from the river of his
[45:29] bounty and his generosity.
[45:41] And I believe in him the belief of a man
[45:44] of someone who believes in his book, in
[45:47] everything that he has stated, in his
[45:49] prophets, in his pure ones, in his
[45:52] promise, in his threat, in his reward,
[45:54] and in his punishment.
[46:00] And I testify that there's no God but
[46:02] one true God, Allah, the unique, who has
[46:05] no partner.
[46:09] And I testify that Muhammad is his
[46:11] servant and his messenger.
[46:16] The one who sent to the children of the
[46:20] wretched and the proflegates as one who
[46:24] breaks their back.
[46:29] And to the handles or those things that
[46:33] the atheists and the heretics cling to
[46:37] to break it
[46:41] and to the transgressor with doubt and
[46:45] shik who overwhelms them.
[46:50] And for those who follow the truth and
[46:53] virtue he gives victory.
[46:59] and then he says in the beginning of
[47:02] this book
[47:05] the chapter on knowledge of the self
[47:20] know that the key to knowledge of Allah
[47:23] the exalted is knowledge of yourself.
[47:27] Allah says, "Glory be to him, we will
[47:30] show them our signs in the horizon and
[47:33] in themselves on the horizon and in
[47:35] themselves until this becomes clear to
[47:37] them that it's true.
[47:44] Whoever knows and the prophet sallallahu
[47:46] alaihi wasallam said it's generally not
[47:48] considered a hadith. Some of the do
[47:50] consider it a hadith but it's generally
[47:53] not considered a hadith but it is a
[47:56] sound statement. Whoever knows himself
[47:58] certainly knows his lord and it's said
[48:02] that it's a statement of
[48:05] and imi said it's not
[48:09] this is not a confirmed
[48:12] and some of them said it means whoever
[48:14] knows himself
[48:19] If you know that you're finite, you know
[48:21] your lord's infinite. If you know that
[48:22] you're created, you know your lord's
[48:24] uncreated. There are many
[48:26] interpretations of that statement. But
[48:29] generally some of the actually wrote
[48:31] entire books just explaining that
[48:33] statement. So Imazi, if there was one
[48:37] area that he was not considered a master
[48:39] in, it's the science of a hadith. But I
[48:42] will say that by today's standards, he
[48:45] would probably be the greatest muadith
[48:47] alive. So when he says he wasn't a
[48:49] master of hadith and he says that
[48:51] himself, it doesn't mean in any way that
[48:54] he didn't know. He knew hadith very
[48:56] well. But he was at a time when the
[48:59] great collections of hadith had already
[49:01] been gathered. So a lot of people tended
[49:04] to focus on particularly and on. So that
[49:08] was his environment.
[49:10] towards the end of his life he did begin
[49:11] to seriously study hadith. That was one
[49:14] of the things that he was doing at the
[49:16] last portion of his life. So those who
[49:18] criticize his knowledge of hadith are
[49:20] ignorant. And another thing that's
[49:22] important to remember many of these had
[49:25] their own chains. They had studied they'
[49:28] taken hadith. There are many many
[49:30] hadith. This is why
[49:33] who did a
[49:36] critical edition of the and looked at
[49:39] all the hadith in the will often say
[49:43] I didn't find a source for this hadith.
[49:46] They don't say which is a very common
[49:49] thing. Modern hadith writers who
[49:52] criticize hadith will say there's no
[49:55] origin for this hadith. Whereas these
[49:58] people knew that there are hadiths, we
[50:01] might not know the chain. So they would
[50:04] say, I didn't find a source for this
[50:06] hadith. Or if they knew it was
[50:07] fabricated, I mean, there are hadith
[50:09] that are fabricated and we know they're
[50:10] fabricated and who fabricated them, then
[50:12] they would say it's mold. So he does
[50:15] have weak hadith in his collection. But
[50:18] again, like many of the scholars have
[50:21] pointed out, he was not doing anything
[50:23] that people did not do at his time. weak
[50:25] hadith were used in
[50:29] and most of the books of exhortation
[50:31] were filled with weak hadith. Even the
[50:33] greatest of have books with we even the
[50:36] people that accused him of having weak
[50:38] hadith have books with weak hadith in
[50:41] them like Josie criticized some of his
[50:45] books. In fact, Telbisu which a lot of
[50:49] people quote he has some criticisms of
[50:52] Imazari. He got the name of his book
[50:55] from Imam Alazari. Telbisu was Imazari
[50:59] said, "I hope to write a book which I'm
[51:02] going to entitlel
[51:04] to show howl has tricked so many of the
[51:08] Sufis and people that are on." So Josie
[51:11] wrote the book Telbisu
[51:14] to show how the Sufis had been tricked
[51:16] byl. He got the idea from you but he
[51:20] criticized the imali in the book and
[51:22] even Josie was a great and you know
[51:27] from the people of
[51:30] so the criticized each other and that's
[51:33] just part of what do so I wouldn't take
[51:37] those things seriously there's a lot of
[51:39] foolish people that read the criticisms
[51:41] of of other there's a lot of reasons why
[51:45] they criticize each other sometimes it's
[51:47] just h has flat out very common and
[51:51] sometimes it's they genuinely think that
[51:53] this is a problem and they could be
[51:55] wrong
[51:57] and sometimes it's because during their
[51:59] time they do have a problem like during
[52:02] even in Jos's time there was a real
[52:04] problem of extremism in Sufism and so he
[52:07] wrote this book as a corrective which is
[52:09] why Sid Ahmed Zar says you have to be
[52:11] careful with that book because he wrote
[52:13] it as a corrective and when you write a
[52:16] correct ive book you will often go to
[52:18] the other extreme in order to create a
[52:21] corrective.
[52:22] So that's important to remember. So
[52:25] anyway he mentions this hadith and he
[52:28] says
[52:31] there's nothing closer to you than your
[52:33] own self.
[52:37] If you don't know yourself how are you
[52:40] going to know your Lord? If there's
[52:41] nothing closer to you than yourself, if
[52:44] you don't know yourself, how can you
[52:45] know anything else?
[52:52] So if you say to me, I know myself,
[52:56] I say to you,
[53:00] you know your outward form.
[53:07] The hand, you know the hand, you know
[53:08] the foot, you know the head, you know
[53:10] your body.
[53:18] You don't know your internal reality.
[53:21] I'm talking about that aspect of
[53:23] yourself that if you get angry, you want
[53:25] to argue. You don't know why. Why do you
[53:28] get angry?
[53:34] Or if you become desirous, you look to
[53:36] what's going to satisfy your desire.
[53:40] Or if you get hungry, you're suddenly
[53:42] looking for food.
[53:46] That if you get thirsty, you go looking
[53:48] for drink. You don't know why you do
[53:50] those things.
[53:52] What's the thirst mechanism?
[53:58] And animals share all those things that
[54:01] I just mentioned. Animals have all those
[54:03] things. If they get hungry, they go and
[54:05] they eat. If they get thirsty, they go,
[54:08] they drink. The animals have that. So
[54:11] you have the knowledge of the animals.
[54:22] So it's an obligation upon you to know
[54:25] yourself in reality. the reality of
[54:27] yourself so that you will know who are
[54:31] you. You'll know who you are
[54:37] and where you came to arrive at this
[54:39] place.
[54:42] And why were you created?
[54:46] Through which thing is your felicity?
[54:50] And through which thing is your
[54:52] damnation?
[54:59] in you.
[55:03] Certain qualities have been gathered.
[55:05] There are attributes that have been
[55:06] gathered in you.
[55:09] Amongst them the qualities of ruminants
[55:11] like goats and cows and sheep
[55:18] and in them the qualities of predators
[55:22] like lions and tigers.
[55:27] And in them the qualities of demons.
[55:32] And in you has been gathered the
[55:35] qualities of angels.
[55:44] the
[55:46] is the reality of your essence. The
[55:50] spirit that's the reality of your
[55:51] essence. You're not a body.
[55:54] The reality of your essence is the and
[55:57] everything other than that is alienated
[56:00] from you. It's a stranger and it's only
[56:03] borrowed. It's on loan. It's that's all
[56:06] it is. It's alone.
[56:11] So it's absolutely necessary that you
[56:14] know this
[56:20] and to know that each one of these
[56:23] qualities that are there, the ruminants,
[56:26] the predators, the demons and the
[56:29] angels, they have nourishment
[56:32] and they have joy. So each one of them
[56:35] has something that nourishes them,
[56:37] strengthens them and also makes them
[56:39] happy.
[56:51] So the joy of the ruminance is eating,
[56:55] drinking, sleeping, and culation.
[56:59] That's the joy of the ruminance. So if
[57:02] you're one of those,
[57:04] then exert all your effort in the works
[57:09] of your stomach and your genitals. if
[57:12] that's who you are.
[57:18] And the the joy of the predators is in
[57:23] attacking and ripping the flesh.
[57:35] And the joy of the demons is in trickery
[57:41] and evil and strategies and minations.
[57:44] So if you're one of them, then occupy
[57:48] yourself in what they're occupied in.
[57:59] And the joy of the angels is in
[58:02] witnessing the beauty of the divine
[58:05] presence.
[58:07] And there's no room for anger or for
[58:10] lust or desire. They have no inroad into
[58:15] these.
[58:21] So if you are from an angelic essence
[58:25] then struggle to know your source.
[58:31] This begins CD2.
[58:52] to
[58:55] man.
[59:01] So
[59:03] yesterday
[59:05] we looked at the section on
[59:08] knowledge of the self and why it was
[59:10] important.
[59:12] And then he talked about the different
[59:15] types of
[59:17] attributes that are in people. The
[59:19] ruminant attribute, the predatory
[59:22] attribute,
[59:24] the demonic and the angelic. And then
[59:27] this section he begins by saying
[59:36] if you want to know yourself know that
[59:37] you're composed of two things.
[59:42] The first is the heart
[59:46] and the second is called the or the
[59:55] and the ns is the heart that you know
[59:59] through the inward eye. So the nuffs and
[01:00:02] the heart really are the synonyms
[01:00:05] for the same thing.
[01:00:08] Your reality is the internal reality
[01:00:14] because the body is the first but the
[01:00:18] heart is is the end. It's the last
[01:00:24] and the self is the end and it is the
[01:00:28] first meaning the the heart. So the body
[01:00:31] is the beginning of this world, this
[01:00:34] experience, but the heart precedes it
[01:00:38] and in the end it's the heart that you
[01:00:40] take with you into the next world. So
[01:00:42] the heart is the first and the last in
[01:00:44] reality.
[01:00:53] And the heart is not this lump of flesh
[01:00:56] that's in your breast inclining towards
[01:00:58] the left side.
[01:01:03] Because this is shared by animals and
[01:01:06] dead things
[01:01:15] and everything that you can see with the
[01:01:17] outward eye
[01:01:19] is from this world. And this world is
[01:01:21] called the so you have and you have and
[01:01:26] Allah subhana wa ta says that he created
[01:01:29] both.
[01:01:31] So everything that you can see he's
[01:01:34] saying is from
[01:01:36] the world that's witnessed or
[01:01:38] experienced. Now that includes things
[01:01:42] that we can see through
[01:01:45] machinery. I mean you had in the 19th
[01:01:47] century you had some of the
[01:01:49] some of these rationalists who attempted
[01:01:52] to to say for instance that the
[01:01:56] shaaltine were microbes and
[01:02:00] that the unseen was really all of this
[01:02:04] microscopic world and things that we
[01:02:06] can't see anymore. So you had a trend
[01:02:09] among some of the scholars to try to do
[01:02:10] that. But all of that is part of the
[01:02:13] mulk.
[01:02:14] Everything that that we can see or even
[01:02:18] understand through material means. So
[01:02:22] modern physics all of these type of
[01:02:24] things that enable us to know about
[01:02:28] subatomic particles about all of this
[01:02:32] mul which is the dominion here. It's
[01:02:34] material world.
[01:02:37] So he says
[01:02:42] But the reality of the heart which is
[01:02:44] consciousness really what he's talking
[01:02:45] about is consciousness. And in the west
[01:02:49] you have a a trend for some time now
[01:02:53] that has been trying to prove the
[01:02:56] biochemical foundations of
[01:02:58] consciousness.
[01:02:59] They want to prove that consciousness is
[01:03:02] actually material.
[01:03:04] This is the idea of mind and matter. And
[01:03:07] part of the reason they want to do that
[01:03:08] is because consciousness is a problem.
[01:03:12] It's a metaphysical problem. I mean, I
[01:03:14] was uh at a martial arts studio where
[01:03:19] one of my my sons was taking a class and
[01:03:23] I started talking with one of the other
[01:03:25] parents and he was a biochemist, PhD
[01:03:29] from Berkeley. He was teaching
[01:03:31] biochemistry
[01:03:32] and he asked me what I did. I said, "I
[01:03:35] taught religion and ethics." And I said,
[01:03:38] "I'm on the other side of the coin."
[01:03:42] And he said, "Well,
[01:03:45] maybe less so than you think." And I
[01:03:48] said, "Uh, what do you mean?" And he
[01:03:49] said, "Well, consciousness, we can't
[01:03:52] really explain that, can we?" So, he was
[01:03:55] a biochemist recognizing that problem of
[01:03:58] consciousness. It's it's a problem in
[01:04:00] science. Where does our consciousness
[01:04:02] come from? How do we know anything?
[01:04:04] Where does infinity come from? Where
[01:04:06] does that concept come from? Animals
[01:04:08] don't have that. Why can we even think
[01:04:11] of something like infinity?
[01:04:13] Infinity is not We don't see it
[01:04:15] anywhere. We're temporal. We're in the
[01:04:17] world, but we can come up with concepts
[01:04:20] like that. That's consciousness. But how
[01:04:22] can we even think about God? Just the
[01:04:24] idea of being able to contemplate God is
[01:04:27] an extraordinary thing. One of my
[01:04:30] favorite quotes is Einstein said, "The
[01:04:33] only incomprehensible thing to me about
[01:04:35] the universe is its comprehensibility."
[01:04:40] That is an amazing statement. The only
[01:04:44] thing incomprehensible to me about the
[01:04:46] universe is its comprehensibility.
[01:04:49] How are we able to know the universal
[01:04:51] law of gravity?
[01:04:54] I mean, how how is the human
[01:04:56] consciousness capable of something that
[01:04:59] extraordinary to understand the
[01:05:02] universal law of gravity? How do we know
[01:05:05] about strong and weak nuclear forces?
[01:05:08] How do we know about electromagnetism?
[01:05:11] How are those concepts even
[01:05:12] comprehensible to the human intellect?
[01:05:14] Because the intellect was designed to
[01:05:15] know them.
[01:05:28] know that the desire and the the
[01:05:32] irassable and the concupisent souls are
[01:05:36] fetching servants of the nefs. They're
[01:05:40] fetching servants. They're the ones that
[01:05:42] get what you need.
[01:05:44] They protect
[01:05:48] you in matters of food, drink, culation
[01:05:54] for the labor of the senses because you
[01:05:57] need those things in order for you to be
[01:05:59] well.
[01:06:03] And then the soul is the servant of the
[01:06:06] senses
[01:06:09] which is the net of the intellect.
[01:06:13] So the senses are the hunting net of the
[01:06:17] intellect. It's how the intellect knows
[01:06:20] it. It uses the senses as a net that it
[01:06:24] throws out to to catch reality so that
[01:06:27] it can understand these things. So you
[01:06:29] have sight, you have sound, you have
[01:06:31] this is a it's like a hunting net.
[01:06:36] See how
[01:06:39] and it's also the spies
[01:06:41] that are able to see the creation of
[01:06:44] Allah subhana wa ta'ala
[01:06:48] majestic is his power
[01:06:55] and then these five senses are the
[01:06:58] servant of the intellect.
[01:07:07] And they are for the heart, for this
[01:07:09] consciousness, a lamp and a candle,
[01:07:13] the light by which they're able to see
[01:07:16] the divine presence.
[01:07:19] They're able to experience it
[01:07:28] because the delight of the senses and
[01:07:32] this is their portion of the stomach and
[01:07:34] the genitals. That's what the the senses
[01:07:36] delight in. That's their Jenna. The
[01:07:39] Jenna of the senses is food and sex.
[01:07:43] That that's the pinnacle of their
[01:07:46] delight in this world. These are
[01:07:48] insignificant
[01:07:50] in relation to this other delight which
[01:07:54] is the delight of divine awareness of
[01:07:56] divine consciousness.
[01:08:03] And the intellect is the servant of
[01:08:05] consciousness.
[01:08:10] And the heart was created to
[01:08:14] see and contemplate
[01:08:17] the beauty of the divine presence.
[01:08:21] So all of these things are servants for
[01:08:25] this heart.
[01:08:27] It's not the other way around. But what
[01:08:29] happens in the world is people make all
[01:08:31] of these things the commanders and the
[01:08:33] heart becomes subservient.
[01:08:40] So the one who is exerting his energies
[01:08:44] in this craft
[01:08:48] that for which he was created in this
[01:08:50] thing for which he was created. This is
[01:08:52] a true servant
[01:08:55] from the the
[01:08:58] youth of this presence.
[01:09:07] I only created jin and ins to worship
[01:09:10] me.
[01:09:12] So if you're doing this, you're indeed a
[01:09:16] true servant. You're you're fulfilling
[01:09:20] what you were created to do.
[01:09:28] What this means is we created the heart.
[01:09:32] We gave it a mul a dominion.
[01:09:37] We gave it a dominion and troops to
[01:09:40] protect the dominion.
[01:09:45] And we made the soul its vehicle
[01:09:53] in order for it to traverse travel upon
[01:09:57] this beast of the nuffs from
[01:10:01] this dusty world
[01:10:04] to the highest of the heights.
[01:10:07] I mean that's that's what what we've
[01:10:09] been given.
[01:10:18] So if he wanted to fulfill the right of
[01:10:22] this blessing,
[01:10:26] then he sits like the Sultan
[01:10:30] in the midst of his dominion.
[01:10:38] And he makes this divine presence hisl
[01:10:42] his direction and his goal.
[01:10:48] And he makes the next life his true
[01:10:53] nation, his true uh birthplace and his
[01:10:57] final abode.
[01:11:01] And his nuffs is his riding beast.
[01:11:06] And the world is his way station. It's
[01:11:10] it's only a temporary al lighting place
[01:11:15] and his two hands and his two feet are
[01:11:19] his servants
[01:11:22] and his intellect is his minister
[01:11:26] and his desire is his laborer.
[01:11:30] It's doing the labor
[01:11:33] and his wrath is his police force
[01:11:39] and his senses are his spies that he
[01:11:42] keeps in touch with his dominion
[01:11:52] and every one of them is entrusted with
[01:11:55] a world or a domain amongst these
[01:11:58] domains in order for him to understand
[01:12:02] the conditions of the domain. So each
[01:12:05] one of these is there so that he can
[01:12:08] know what is the condition, what's the
[01:12:10] state, what's going on.
[01:12:18] And the ability, the faculty of
[01:12:21] imagination
[01:12:23] is in the forefront of his intellect
[01:12:26] like a chief.
[01:12:32] It's able to gather
[01:12:35] the information of the
[01:12:38] so the what he's saying is your neoortex
[01:12:42] is is it's it's in the front this this
[01:12:45] incredible ability that is unique in the
[01:12:49] human being animals don't share this
[01:12:51] quality the ability for us to perceive
[01:12:54] this this ability of perception he's
[01:12:56] saying that this is like a chief
[01:12:59] And it takes in the news of the jois.
[01:13:01] The spies bring the news and they tell
[01:13:03] them the spies are the senses. It comes
[01:13:06] into the intellect. It tells them what's
[01:13:08] going on. And then he says
[01:13:21] and then the the the memory
[01:13:26] is in the the middle of the the brain.
[01:13:29] This is like the the map master.
[01:13:34] It's the one who knows the terrain and
[01:13:37] he gathers all of of the he's listening.
[01:13:40] He's there next to the chief and he's
[01:13:43] gathering all the information and
[01:13:45] keeping it. Oh, he brought news from
[01:13:48] because he brings the map and he says
[01:13:50] this is happening over here. There's
[01:13:51] troops amassing over here. So, he brings
[01:13:53] that and he's maintaining all of this
[01:13:56] and when the intellect needs it, when
[01:13:58] the minister needs it, he's there to
[01:14:00] bring the information. That's what the
[01:14:02] purpose of the memory.
[01:14:12] So if all of if if if they bring the
[01:14:15] news to the to the the minister the he's
[01:14:19] able to know the condition of his
[01:14:21] dominion.
[01:14:23] In other words, he can assess reality in
[01:14:26] reality.
[01:14:30] So what he's saying is basically is that
[01:14:33] this this is an incredibly orderly
[01:14:36] system that we've been given and if it's
[01:14:39] used properly you you will be in touch
[01:14:42] with reality and you'll be fulfilling
[01:14:44] your purpose. But just like out there
[01:14:48] things go very very wrong. They're going
[01:14:51] to greet you with flowers
[01:14:54] when you come in to the city. When the
[01:14:57] army comes in, they're going to throw
[01:14:58] flowers at you. The Jewis weren't doing
[01:15:02] their job. Intelligence wasn't doing its
[01:15:05] job. They have weapons of mass
[01:15:06] destruction. Intelligence wasn't doing
[01:15:08] its job. So now reality is distorted.
[01:15:13] And what happens? Disaster.
[01:15:17] That's what happens. Disaster. Because
[01:15:18] they're out of touch with reality.
[01:15:22] And then you have the shehna is down
[01:15:25] there. Oh, um, we can make some money
[01:15:29] here
[01:15:31] because my my my salary is not enough.
[01:15:36] So, you know what? I know the minister.
[01:15:38] We can get a you know, I get a contract
[01:15:41] with you. You know, the police force
[01:15:43] needs new guns. Doesn't need new guns,
[01:15:46] but I'm going to say that it needs new
[01:15:48] guns because I'll get my 10% when we buy
[01:15:51] the new guns from such and such
[01:15:54] corporation. that's making the gun. So
[01:15:56] now it's all out of control. That's what
[01:15:58] happens. That happens inside the cell.
[01:16:00] So you're looking outside and you're
[01:16:02] thinking, "Oh, look at all these
[01:16:03] problems in the world. It's all messed
[01:16:06] up." No, you're messed up. Seriously,
[01:16:10] you're you're a reflection. All of that
[01:16:12] is reflecting to us our inner states.
[01:16:17] The same confusion that rains outside is
[01:16:20] raining inside.
[01:16:22] And that's why the reality outside is
[01:16:25] just expressing the reality inside of
[01:16:27] the human condition. This is the state
[01:16:29] that human beings are in because they're
[01:16:31] not following this incredible order that
[01:16:35] was given to them. In fact, worse than
[01:16:38] that, they're even denying it.
[01:16:41] Just just deny it flat out that there's
[01:16:44] an order here. So, if you want to
[01:16:46] understand why there's chaos outside,
[01:16:48] you just need to understand the chaos
[01:16:50] inside. When your irrassible nature is
[01:16:54] controlling your rational nature, when
[01:16:57] you can't control your anger, then you
[01:17:00] can understand why things are chaotic
[01:17:03] out there,
[01:17:05] why everybody's angry out there.
[01:17:16] If you see
[01:17:19] any one of these is rebelling against
[01:17:21] you, you have to struggle to suppress
[01:17:24] the rebellion.
[01:17:27] If the troops are are rebelling, if
[01:17:29] they're out of control, you need to
[01:17:31] suppress the rebellion.
[01:17:36] Don't kill them. You don't want to kill
[01:17:38] them.
[01:17:43] because the kingdom is not sound. It's
[01:17:46] not stable except with them. You need
[01:17:48] them.
[01:17:50] You you need the the concupent. You need
[01:17:53] desire. You need anger. If you don't
[01:17:55] have those, you don't you don't have the
[01:17:58] anger is your police force. You can't
[01:17:59] defend yourself. If you don't get angry,
[01:18:02] you can't defend yourself. If you don't
[01:18:04] have desire, you can't
[01:18:07] there's no there's no farmers
[01:18:10] to plow the fields to bring food to the
[01:18:14] to the uh marketplace.
[01:18:19] If you do that, you'll be felicitus
[01:18:23] and you'll fulfill the obligation of
[01:18:25] this blessing.
[01:18:31] And the robe of honor will come to you
[01:18:33] in time, this robe of honor.
[01:18:41] If not, then you're damned.
[01:18:47] And there's nothing but punishment
[01:18:50] and chastisement that you warrant.
[01:18:53] That's it.
[01:19:04] End of CD2.
[01:19:07] I mean that's what you have to conclude
[01:19:09] that that there is a relationship
[01:19:11] between consciousness and between the
[01:19:14] the objects of consciousness and that
[01:19:16] relationship is designed. So he's
[01:19:20] talking here about
[01:19:24] this
[01:19:26] organ of consciousness
[01:19:32] but it's not so it's not from this world
[01:19:33] but it's from the unseen world.
[01:19:38] It's a stranger in this world.
[01:19:42] It's alienated from the world. So
[01:19:44] consciousness itself is alienated from
[01:19:47] the world. One of the reasons one of the
[01:19:50] Andian scholars said that one of the
[01:19:52] reasons why people have to sleep is
[01:19:55] because the ru is not of this world.
[01:19:59] It's of another world. And the ru can't
[01:20:03] take too much materialism. It literally
[01:20:06] has to go back into
[01:20:09] the unseen world in order for it to get
[01:20:12] rest from the dunya. So sleep is a
[01:20:17] spiritual nourishment for the soul. And
[01:20:19] that's why people that are sleepdeprived
[01:20:21] become like me become really uh agitated
[01:20:26] and have a really hard time. So,
[01:20:33] so this
[01:20:35] piece, this lump of flesh is the vehicle
[01:20:39] for consciousness. That's what it is.
[01:20:41] It's the vehicle
[01:20:43] for consciousness.
[01:20:49] And all of the limbs of the body are its
[01:20:52] soldiers.
[01:20:54] And it is the king.
[01:21:01] and the knowledge of God and the
[01:21:03] witnessing of the beautiful presence,
[01:21:06] this divine presence. These are the
[01:21:09] attributes of this heart
[01:21:12] and all of responsibility is upon the
[01:21:15] heart. If if you're not conscious, you
[01:21:17] can there's no
[01:21:21] the the
[01:21:23] pen has been lifted for the sleeper. If
[01:21:25] you're in a state of sleep, there's
[01:21:27] there's no responsibility because
[01:21:29] there's no consciousness. So, which is
[01:21:31] why alcohol is prohibited because you
[01:21:33] lose your consciousness. You lose your
[01:21:36] your your ability to think
[01:21:41] and this lordly
[01:21:44] speech that is being articulated to us
[01:21:48] is to the consciousness. Quran is
[01:21:50] speaking to your consciousness. It's not
[01:21:52] it's not speaking to your body. It's
[01:21:54] speaking to your your heart, your
[01:21:56] ability to perceive
[01:22:01] and in accordance
[01:22:03] actions are by intentions.
[01:22:06] The place of the intention is the heart.
[01:22:08] So all of your reward and your
[01:22:12] punishment is based on what happens in
[01:22:14] the heart. The whole thing, it's all in
[01:22:17] the heart.
[01:22:29] and felicity and damnation, the
[01:22:32] salvation in the and also damnation,
[01:22:34] they follow it. They follow the heart.
[01:22:39] And this animal spirit, what the what
[01:22:42] they used to call the the the
[01:22:45] vital force, it's what the Chinese call
[01:22:48] chi. The vital force is something that
[01:22:51] is in the body, but it's not really of
[01:22:53] the body, and it's what animates the
[01:22:55] body. The the the Arabs called it,
[01:22:59] the living spirit.
[01:23:01] 20th century medicine really denied that
[01:23:04] aspect. They they don't really put a lot
[01:23:06] of credence in that. But he's saying
[01:23:08] that this vital spirit or vital force is
[01:23:12] in everything subservient to it and with
[01:23:15] it.
[01:23:17] So, you need this. And that's why
[01:23:18] there's a massive difference between the
[01:23:21] living and the dead. If you if you see a
[01:23:22] dead body, it's if you see somebody you
[01:23:25] know, it's it's really amazing to see a
[01:23:27] dead body of somebody who you knew
[01:23:30] because they're gone. And it's very
[01:23:33] clear they're gone. What that what
[01:23:36] animated the body is gone. The animus,
[01:23:38] the spirit, the animal.
[01:23:41] So it's the same animous you know the
[01:23:45] same as the Latin meaning.
[01:23:54] So knowledge of its reality and
[01:23:56] knowledge of its attributes is the key
[01:23:59] to knowledge of Allah subhanahu wa
[01:24:01] ta'ala.
[01:24:05] So
[01:24:07] you must struggle until you come to know
[01:24:11] it
[01:24:17] because it is a inestimably precious
[01:24:21] essence
[01:24:23] from the nature the essential nature of
[01:24:26] the angels
[01:24:29] because angels are pure. The angels are
[01:24:31] light. Angels are they don't have the
[01:24:33] dross of the body. Angels are pure
[01:24:35] consciousness. They're conscious
[01:24:36] creatures. They're aware of only their
[01:24:39] Lord. So they have that consciousness.
[01:24:43] And that's what he's saying. That's your
[01:24:44] essential nature.
[01:24:48] And the source of its origin
[01:24:54] and the source of its origin is from the
[01:24:56] divine presence. The soul was in the
[01:24:58] divine presence.
[01:25:00] We were all there in the divine
[01:25:02] presence. And the pain and the
[01:25:04] alienation of the is the recollection of
[01:25:07] that presence. So that's why people are
[01:25:10] in the states they're in cuz they're
[01:25:12] alienated. That's why the only people
[01:25:14] that have
[01:25:16] in the are the people of everybody else
[01:25:19] is a mess.
[01:25:25] From that place
[01:25:27] the consciousness came and to that place
[01:25:29] it goes back.
[01:25:32] That's where we came from and that's
[01:25:34] where we go back to.
[01:25:37] So he says
[01:25:39] what is the reality of the heart
[01:25:44] as for your question what is the reality
[01:25:46] of the heart?
[01:25:55] They ask you about
[01:25:58] say the is from the command of my lord
[01:26:07] because the
[01:26:09] is from the collection the summation of
[01:26:14] the
[01:26:16] the divine power
[01:26:20] Allah subhana wa ta'ala is omnipotent.
[01:26:23] So the ru is basically the greatest
[01:26:28] expression of the divine power because
[01:26:32] obviously if you can make life inanimate
[01:26:35] things is one thing. We can make forms
[01:26:38] and do things with inanimate things.
[01:26:40] Humans can do that. but to put life in.
[01:26:42] That's why the
[01:26:47] people that have the greatest punishment
[01:26:48] are the form makers
[01:26:51] because Allah subhana wa ta says blow
[01:26:53] life into it now put life into it
[01:26:56] because that's only Allah can do that.
[01:26:59] So that ability to give life is the
[01:27:02] greatest expression of divine power
[01:27:05] that he can animate us and give us life
[01:27:08] and it's also an attribute of Allah
[01:27:09] subhana wa tala
[01:27:12] is an attribute of Allah subhana wa tala
[01:27:15] and it's the that gives this life
[01:27:21] doesn't he have the and the so creation
[01:27:25] and the command so the command And
[01:27:29] the is from the command of Allah
[01:27:31] subhanahu wa ta'ala and the command
[01:27:34] precedes creation.
[01:27:36] So Allah creates but he creates by the
[01:27:40] command.
[01:27:44] When he wants a thing he just commands
[01:27:45] it to be and it is. So that's the
[01:27:49] command of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
[01:27:51] But
[01:27:57] So the human being is from the created
[01:27:59] world from one aspect but he's from the
[01:28:03] world of the command from another aspect
[01:28:06] because he has a so you have a body and
[01:28:09] a
[01:28:17] everything that can be measured
[01:28:21] that has place that has quality, aess,
[01:28:28] all of that is from the created world.
[01:28:39] But the heart does not have a space like
[01:28:42] that. Nor does it have measurements,
[01:28:45] consciousness. And that's what the
[01:28:47] scientists know. They can't they don't
[01:28:49] know how to they can't measure it. And
[01:28:51] if they can't measure it, they they
[01:28:53] don't know how to give it a reality
[01:28:54] because they're materialists
[01:28:57] generally.
[01:28:59] That's what they're working in. They're
[01:29:00] working in the world of material. And so
[01:29:02] consciousness becomes the great problem
[01:29:04] because it doesn't have maha. It doesn't
[01:29:07] have mdar. So they can't place it like
[01:29:09] they can other things. Nor is it
[01:29:12] amendable to
[01:29:15] aotment. You can't aortion it. You can't
[01:29:17] say, "Oh, this part is here. This part
[01:29:19] is here." You can't split it up. You
[01:29:21] can't dissect it.
[01:29:23] So, it's not
[01:29:26] dissectable.
[01:29:33] If you could dissect it, then it would
[01:29:35] be from the the created world.
[01:29:43] It would be from the aspect of ignorance
[01:29:46] ignorant and from the aspect of
[01:29:47] knowledge knowledgeable.
[01:29:52] Everything that has knowledge and
[01:29:53] ignorance, it's as the same attributes.
[01:29:57] It's impossible. You can't join two
[01:30:00] opposites.
[01:30:04] So
[01:30:06] another meaning here is that it's from
[01:30:08] the world of the command.
[01:30:18] So the animal is a way of expressing
[01:30:22] something among created things that does
[01:30:26] not have and it doesn't have
[01:30:29] measurements. You cannot measure it.
[01:30:32] There's no there's no way to measure it.
[01:30:38] So some people because of this they
[01:30:40] thought that the was eternal.
[01:30:44] The philosophers
[01:30:46] see they thought the because they
[01:30:48] couldn't measure it they thought oh then
[01:30:50] it must be eternal. So he's saying this
[01:30:52] is a mistake to think that the is
[01:30:59] created but what he's saying is it has a
[01:31:02] different quality and so Allah has he
[01:31:05] said
[01:31:08] he has the creation but also he has the
[01:31:10] command. The command is different from
[01:31:13] the creation. So the created world and
[01:31:16] the world of the command are different.
[01:31:18] One is describing the material world and
[01:31:20] what can be seen and the other is
[01:31:22] describing the immaterial world and what
[01:31:24] can't be seen. So they're differentiated
[01:31:27] these two qualities. But he's saying
[01:31:30] because of that differentiation some
[01:31:32] people
[01:31:34] mistakenly thought oh that must mean
[01:31:37] it's not created.
[01:31:39] It's it's eternal with Allah subhana wa
[01:31:41] ta'ala. And that was the belief of some
[01:31:43] of the philosophers.
[01:31:47] And some of them said, "Oh, it's an
[01:31:49] accident. An accident in logic is
[01:31:53] something.
[01:31:57] It's whatever needs something else to
[01:32:00] exist."
[01:32:01] So for instance, you have the flower and
[01:32:05] then you have the color. The color is an
[01:32:07] accident because the color exists
[01:32:10] through the substance.
[01:32:12] So the substance is essential. The color
[01:32:15] is accidental. That's what they call. It
[01:32:17] doesn't mean by accident like we use it
[01:32:19] in common language. An accident is
[01:32:21] something that is not essential. And so
[01:32:25] that's what he's saying. Some of them
[01:32:27] said that the the ru was non-essential.
[01:32:31] It existed through the body. So what was
[01:32:34] essential was the body. the was
[01:32:36] accidental,
[01:32:37] but that's a mistake
[01:32:41] because the accident cannot be
[01:32:45] substantiated by itself. It's not
[01:32:47] self-substantiating
[01:32:51] and it always follows something else
[01:32:57] is the origin of the children of Adam.
[01:33:01] It's the origin. So, it can't be an
[01:33:03] accident.
[01:33:09] And the form of the son of Adam is
[01:33:12] actually subservient. It follows
[01:33:15] the the spirit.
[01:33:18] So how could it be an accident? So he's
[01:33:20] refuting these views about the that uh
[01:33:24] other people had.
[01:33:28] And some of them said, "Oh, it's
[01:33:29] material."
[01:33:31] These are the materialists. I mean he's
[01:33:33] refuting each one of these different
[01:33:37] groups in his time. So there's some
[01:33:39] said, "Oh, it's it's a body. It has it
[01:33:42] must be material." And this is very
[01:33:45] modern. This is what they're trying to
[01:33:46] say now. They want they want to
[01:33:48] substantiate the materiality of
[01:33:50] consciousness. That consciousness is
[01:33:52] that it's really just chemical changes
[01:33:54] and exchanges. That's all it is. And so
[01:33:57] you take away that and and you don't
[01:33:59] have consciousness anymore. Which is why
[01:34:02] from our point of view, if you have
[01:34:04] somebody in a coma, you you're just
[01:34:07] assuming they're not conscious.
[01:34:10] That's an assumption. If you go to a
[01:34:12] hospital and there's somebody there, you
[01:34:14] know how people talk to people in a coma
[01:34:16] and you know the doctors are kind of
[01:34:18] scratching their heads and
[01:34:21] you know this guy's in a vegetative
[01:34:23] state. You know, you're just wasting
[01:34:25] your time. Well, it makes him feel
[01:34:27] better. Something like that. Th those
[01:34:29] are all assumptions because there's
[01:34:31] animation in the body.
[01:34:34] We're just saying, "Oh, they can't have
[01:34:36] consciousness because the material basis
[01:34:39] for consciousness is no longer there.
[01:34:42] Therefore, there's no consciousness." We
[01:34:44] don't believe that.
[01:34:46] We We don't believe that
[01:34:50] because consciousness is something that
[01:34:52] transcends any material basis.
[01:34:56] And that's why even when you die, your
[01:34:58] consciousness is elevated slightly above
[01:35:01] your body.
[01:35:03] That's what happens when you die. And
[01:35:06] the people in the grave hear the
[01:35:09] people's pattern of their footsteps
[01:35:12] above the grave. We know that it's in
[01:35:14] the hadith. So there's consciousness.
[01:35:18] And people who have been had what they
[01:35:20] call near-death experiences have had
[01:35:22] those experiences where they separate
[01:35:23] from the body. People have tried to
[01:35:25] explain that material. It's just this
[01:35:27] massive release, endorphic release,
[01:35:30] etc., etc. You can do that till the end
[01:35:32] of time. Try to explain away the
[01:35:35] experience of consciousness. But in the
[01:35:36] end, it it's a mystery. It's a great
[01:35:38] mystery consciousness. And that's what
[01:35:40] he's saying. Don't try to explain this
[01:35:42] away.
[01:35:45] It's an accident. It's a body. It's
[01:35:46] material. It's uh this or it's that
[01:35:53] because you can dissect the body.
[01:35:57] But where is the
[01:36:01] where is it? Where where can you put
[01:36:02] your scalpel into it? So how can you
[01:36:05] call it a body?
[01:36:17] So this that we are naming the heart
[01:36:23] and it is the place in which
[01:36:26] consciousness awareness of God knowledge
[01:36:28] of God dwells
[01:36:31] is not a a material substance. It's not
[01:36:33] a body. It's not an accident.
[01:36:38] It is of an angelic nature.
[01:36:41] It's of an angelic nature.
[01:36:48] Knowledge of this is extremely difficult
[01:37:00] because there's nothing in the religion
[01:37:02] that has come to us that will give us
[01:37:05] this knowledge. when they asked him
[01:37:07] about the Allah said say the ru is from
[01:37:10] the command of of my lord that's the
[01:37:13] extent of the knowledge so he's saying
[01:37:16] we can't have knowledge of its reality
[01:37:17] but but this is what we can know about
[01:37:19] it
[01:37:24] because the religion is struggle that's
[01:37:27] the essence of the religion if you want
[01:37:30] to understand the religion the religion
[01:37:31] is not a metaphysical
[01:37:35] teaching Okay.
[01:37:37] The religion is a struggle in the world.
[01:37:42] That's what the dean is. It's a struggle
[01:37:44] in the world. It's
[01:37:47] when
[01:37:50] and all knowledge is is it's a sign that
[01:37:53] you're guided.
[01:37:56] That that's what knowledge is. It's a
[01:37:58] sign that you're guided.
[01:38:07] Those who struggle for our sake, we will
[01:38:10] guide them to our pathways.
[01:38:14] We'll guide them to our pathways.
[01:38:24] So if you're not extending all of your
[01:38:28] expending all of your energy,
[01:38:32] it's not permissible for you to even
[01:38:35] talk about the reality of the
[01:38:39] it's it's not permissible if you're not
[01:38:42] expending all of your energies. Whoever
[01:38:44] does not expend all of his energies, he
[01:38:46] says it is not permissible for him, it
[01:38:49] is not permissible to speak with him
[01:38:51] about the knowledge of the reality of
[01:38:53] the
[01:39:04] and the the the the first the
[01:39:08] foundational phase of struggle of
[01:39:12] is to know the army of the heart to know
[01:39:16] what the armies of consciousness is
[01:39:19] because the human being if he does not
[01:39:22] know his army he can't go to war.
[01:39:27] If if if if you don't know who your
[01:39:30] soldiers are you can't fight.
[01:39:34] So he's saying this if you don't know
[01:39:37] who your is you're wasting your time.
[01:39:44] Why was the heart created?
[01:39:51] Subhan
[01:39:55] know that the the nuffs the this
[01:39:58] consciousness
[01:40:02] is the vehicle of the heart. So the
[01:40:06] naps, this self that we've been given,
[01:40:09] it's a vehicle for the heart
[01:40:14] and the heart has troops.
[01:40:19] Subhan just as Allah glorified and
[01:40:22] exalted be he said and no one knows the
[01:40:27] soldiers of your lord save he. So only
[01:40:30] God knows the number of soldiers that he
[01:40:33] has.
[01:40:41] The heart was created for other worldly
[01:40:44] labor
[01:40:47] in order to seek
[01:40:50] felicity of the next life. That's why
[01:40:52] the heart was created.
[01:40:54] That's the purpose of the heart
[01:41:02] and its felicity.
[01:41:05] is knowledge of its Lord, the exalted
[01:41:10] and the majestic.
[01:41:17] And this knowledge of its lord, the
[01:41:20] exalted is achieved
[01:41:23] through the creation itself.
[01:41:26] So the way that you know your lord is
[01:41:28] through the creation. The way the heart
[01:41:30] comes to know Allah subhana wa ta'ala is
[01:41:32] through the creation.
[01:41:35] in your own selves.
[01:41:40] He he began it with that. It's through
[01:41:42] the self.
[01:41:45] And then he says
[01:41:49] and the heart itself is among the
[01:41:52] totality of its world.
[01:42:01] And you cannot know these wondrous
[01:42:04] aspects of the world except by means of
[01:42:08] the senses
[01:42:09] your
[01:42:17] so the the senses are from the heart. So
[01:42:22] they're part of consciousness. The
[01:42:24] senses are from the heart and the
[01:42:29] because the Arabs say the you have the
[01:42:32] the essence and then you have the the
[01:42:35] body. So the body is the vehicle for the
[01:42:39] senses for the experience of the senses.
[01:42:48] So you cannot get this knowledge except
[01:42:52] also by knowing how to hunt. You have to
[01:42:57] know how to to seek this out and also
[01:43:00] knowledge of the net that you hunt with.
[01:43:03] So you have to in order to achieve this
[01:43:06] knowledge of Allah through his creation,
[01:43:08] through the use of the senses, you have
[01:43:10] to understand how to do that. And you
[01:43:12] also have to understand the tools that
[01:43:14] you've been given to do that.
[01:43:32] So he says
[01:43:36] the body which is the vehicle for the
[01:43:39] senses, the vehicle for this knowledge,
[01:43:41] it's only substantiated, it's only maint
[01:43:45] maintained through food, through drink,
[01:43:48] through this heat having caloric
[01:43:51] content,
[01:43:53] through the moisture of life. And it is
[01:43:56] extremely weak. It's constantly exposed
[01:43:59] to hunger, to thirst inwardly. And it
[01:44:04] has the danger of of water and fire
[01:44:06] outwardly. It can drown. It can be
[01:44:09] burnt.
[01:44:10] And then it is constantly facing many
[01:44:13] enemies.
[01:44:15] So
[01:44:18] how do we know then the
[01:44:22] troops of the heart?
[01:44:27] You need to know two troops.
[01:44:36] The outward
[01:44:39] troop
[01:44:41] is
[01:44:42] and it's desire and anger. Those are
[01:44:46] actually troops. So those are there for
[01:44:49] the heart
[01:44:51] and anger. what's called the
[01:44:53] concupiscent and the irrassable soul.
[01:44:59] And the way station of these places, the
[01:45:02] way stations along the way, the places
[01:45:05] where they aligning
[01:45:07] places, the abodess of these
[01:45:10] are the hand
[01:45:17] and all of the limbs. So that's the
[01:45:21] first the outward
[01:45:23] the outward army
[01:45:25] the external army is
[01:45:29] the desire
[01:45:31] and anger and the al lighting places is
[01:45:34] in the hand where it manifests in the
[01:45:37] feet in the eyes in the ears and in all
[01:45:40] of the limbs.
[01:45:46] As for the external troops, their
[01:45:48] aligning places are in the brain
[01:45:50] consciousness.
[01:45:53] So he says
[01:46:00] and these are the powers of imagination,
[01:46:04] of reflection,
[01:46:06] of memory,
[01:46:07] of recollection,
[01:46:09] and of supposition.
[01:46:12] So these are all powers that you've been
[01:46:14] given.
[01:46:17] in the heart. So you have the external
[01:46:20] and the internal and these were created
[01:46:23] for you in order for you to achieve the
[01:46:27] goal of the heart.
[01:46:33] Every one of these
[01:46:36] faculties
[01:46:38] has a specific function.
[01:46:47] So if any of them is weakened then the
[01:46:50] condition of the son of Adam in the two
[01:46:53] abodess is weakened. any one of these
[01:47:02] and the totality of these two armies is
[01:47:05] in the heart
[01:47:07] and the heart or the consciousness is
[01:47:10] the it's the commander
[01:47:29] So if the heart commands the tongue, it
[01:47:33] speaks to remember. If it commands the
[01:47:35] tongue to remember, it remembers. So the
[01:47:38] heart commands the tongue to remember
[01:47:40] Allah. And so the tongue says
[01:47:43] the command came from the heart. If it
[01:47:46] commands it to say subhan Allah, it says
[01:47:49] subhan Allah.
[01:47:51] If it commands the hand to strike, it
[01:47:54] strikes. If it commands the foot to
[01:47:56] move, like if you're going to go to the
[01:47:58] Omrah,
[01:48:00] it's the heart that commanded the foot
[01:48:03] to go. That's how you set out. You if
[01:48:06] you get up, it's the heart that
[01:48:09] commanded you to get up. Anything that
[01:48:12] you do, the command center is the heart.
[01:48:16] That's where it's coming from.
[01:48:18] This is very important because what he's
[01:48:21] trying to do is lay for you a foundation
[01:48:24] of understanding
[01:48:26] not only the nature of your
[01:48:28] consciousness but the fact that you're
[01:48:30] going to be responsible for all of your
[01:48:33] actions because people don't think about
[01:48:35] this stuff. They go through life on
[01:48:38] automatic pilot
[01:48:41] and they're not thinking about the fact
[01:48:43] that they're not on automatic pilot
[01:48:48] that they actually have valition
[01:48:51] they have animality they have knowledge
[01:48:56] they have all of these attributes that
[01:48:58] are attributes of the divine Allah
[01:49:00] subhana wa ta'ala has put
[01:49:03] divine attributes
[01:49:06] in the human being and then said you're
[01:49:09] responsible for these divine attributes.
[01:49:10] I'm giving them to you for a reason. Not
[01:49:12] to play,
[01:49:14] not to eat, not to drink. I've got
[01:49:16] creatures that I created to do those
[01:49:18] thing. You do those things also, but I
[01:49:21] have other creatures to do that. I don't
[01:49:23] need you to copulate. I don't need you
[01:49:26] to drink. I don't need you to eat. I've
[01:49:29] got creatures, plenty of them, that do
[01:49:31] that. That that's their function. And
[01:49:33] yes, you share those qualities with
[01:49:35] them. But there's a hikmma. There's a
[01:49:37] reason it creates humility.
[01:49:41] There's a lot of reasons for it. That's
[01:49:43] the most essential. It keeps you down to
[01:49:45] earth
[01:49:47] because they're better than you at it.
[01:49:53] So if you want to compete with them,
[01:49:55] they can eat more than you can.
[01:49:58] Really, a lion can eat more than you
[01:50:00] can.
[01:50:02] A rooster can copulate more than you
[01:50:04] can.
[01:50:06] All of them can outdo you in those
[01:50:08] things.
[01:50:09] That's not why you were created.
[01:50:12] So
[01:50:14] know what your amir is. The amir is the
[01:50:17] heart. And he's going to explain why you
[01:50:20] have to have that knowledge because the
[01:50:22] troops
[01:50:24] mutiny.
[01:50:25] You have time when the army overthrows
[01:50:30] the commanderin-chief. It's called a
[01:50:32] coup d'eta.
[01:50:36] So that happens. The troops get out of
[01:50:39] control
[01:50:41] and they take over and then what happen?
[01:50:43] They wreak havoc in the land.
[01:50:47] You know, Ghana, you know, they have a
[01:50:49] coup every couple of weeks. But what
[01:50:52] happens? Every time they have a coup,
[01:50:53] there's another it's all disaster.
[01:50:55] People get shot.
[01:50:58] There's all this bloodshed, all this
[01:51:00] turmoil. They they show pictures. It's
[01:51:03] all in chaos. The town's in chaos.
[01:51:05] That's what happens when the troops
[01:51:06] rebel.
[01:51:09] And then he says, "So, you've been given
[01:51:12] these five senses in order to protect
[01:51:15] yourself. If there's fire, you touch it.
[01:51:17] Ouch. That burns. Okay. I know not to do
[01:51:21] that again."
[01:51:24] Right? You You kick the rock.
[01:51:28] You know, Dr. Johnson
[01:51:32] Berkeley said everything is in the mind.
[01:51:35] Berkeley was an idealist. So he he said
[01:51:38] none of this has any reality. So Dr.
[01:51:41] Johnson was walking with Boswell and he
[01:51:45] he kicked a rock and he said I refute it
[01:51:47] thus.
[01:51:52] But that's why you have senses because
[01:51:54] that hurts. If you kick a rock it hurts.
[01:51:56] You know not to kick a rock again.
[01:52:00] That's the purpose of the senses is to
[01:52:02] preserve the nest
[01:52:06] in order that you can
[01:52:09] put away provision for the next life.
[01:52:15] So the soul can also
[01:52:20] capture the hunt what it's going after
[01:52:24] and the transaction is completed.
[01:52:29] and gather the seed of other worldly
[01:52:33] felicity. So this is all why you've been
[01:52:36] given this.
[01:52:39] All of these are in obedience to the
[01:52:42] heart
[01:52:45] subhanahu wa tala
[01:52:48] just as the angels are in obedience to
[01:52:51] their Lord. Glory and exalted is he. And
[01:52:54] they do not disobey his commands.
[01:52:59] So these things that you've been given,
[01:53:01] they're in subservience to you.
[01:53:05] Just like the angels don't rebel.
[01:53:08] They're created to be in subservience to
[01:53:10] Allah subhana wa tala. These were
[01:53:12] created to be in subservience to you.
[01:53:14] But there's a difference.
[01:53:17] So he says,
[01:53:24] It's been said in a well-known proverb,
[01:53:28] the soul, the self is like a city.
[01:53:37] And the two hands, the two feet, all of
[01:53:40] the limbs are like the estates, the
[01:53:45] farms around the city that supply the
[01:53:47] city.
[01:53:54] And the concupisent soul, this
[01:53:57] concupisent faculty, the desire
[01:54:01] is its governor.
[01:54:07] And the irassable
[01:54:10] faculty anger
[01:54:13] is its police force.
[01:54:18] and the heart is its king
[01:54:24] and the intellect is its minister.
[01:54:29] So he's saying this is a well-known way
[01:54:32] of looking at this that the self is like
[01:54:36] a city
[01:54:43] and the king
[01:54:45] is
[01:54:48] managing
[01:54:50] them in order for his dominion, his
[01:54:54] kingdom to have stability
[01:54:56] and the conditions to be stable.
[01:55:00] who was
[01:55:05] because the the governor
[01:55:08] is
[01:55:10] its desire and it's it's a liar. It's
[01:55:13] officious mealsome. It's
[01:55:17] confused, disordered. That's the
[01:55:19] governor. See, this is why if you wonder
[01:55:21] why there's bad governments and you
[01:55:23] always have these people, it's because
[01:55:24] it's all for you to understand the
[01:55:27] nature of yourself. Everything out there
[01:55:31] is in here. So when yourself is
[01:55:33] disorderly, everything out there has to
[01:55:35] be disorderly
[01:55:40] as you are. So people put over you.
[01:55:44] This is for you to understand the nature
[01:55:46] of yourself. Everything out there is for
[01:55:48] you to get self-nowledge, for you to
[01:55:50] understand yourself because in
[01:55:51] understanding yourself, you're going to
[01:55:52] know your Lord. So if you look out
[01:55:54] there, he's saying
[01:55:57] the governor is a disaster.
[01:56:00] He's out of control
[01:56:03] and he needs to be controlled. And then
[01:56:06] the police force, it's this the
[01:56:10] irassable soul,
[01:56:16] right? He's murderous, devastating,
[01:56:20] vile. He's a criminal. Those are police,
[01:56:23] Rodney King.
[01:56:26] That's what he's saying. It's they're a
[01:56:28] disaster. If you let them out of
[01:56:30] control, they'll go out of control. So,
[01:56:33] how what do you do?
[01:56:39] If the king leaves them to do whatever
[01:56:41] they want, the the city's destroyed.
[01:56:45] It's it falls into ruin
[01:56:48] because they're doing their functions.
[01:56:50] That's all they know. They they they
[01:56:52] know what they're supposed to do. But if
[01:56:54] they're not being controlled, they go
[01:56:56] out of control
[01:56:59] because they're not a command center.
[01:57:01] They don't have that akal
[01:57:05] The police have guidelines and you have
[01:57:08] to keep them within the guidelines
[01:57:09] because they they lose it. They don't
[01:57:11] know. You give a man a gun and he
[01:57:13] suddenly becomes arrogant. Put a gun on
[01:57:16] anybody's side and they'll there's a
[01:57:19] swagger that shows up,
[01:57:22] right? They start walking differently.
[01:57:25] They look at you differently, right?
[01:57:29] You got a problem,
[01:57:31] right? Serious. cuz he's got a gun. I
[01:57:34] mean, I told my boys, if people would go
[01:57:36] back to carrying swords and guns, you'd
[01:57:38] see an amazing change in the basic
[01:57:41] courtesies of people
[01:57:44] out there. Because part of the problem
[01:57:46] is if they're afraid, suddenly they
[01:57:48] smile. And really, it's like the police.
[01:57:51] Oh, officer, I'm Did I do something
[01:57:54] wrong? Why are you being nice to him?
[01:57:56] Because you're afraid. You were just
[01:57:58] miserable to the person in the at the
[01:58:01] cash register. Hurry up. Get my I'm in a
[01:58:04] hurry. You know, latte, no phone, right?
[01:58:08] Where is it?
[01:58:12] And then they go out. Serious. That's
[01:58:13] what people do. They're pathetic
[01:58:18] cuz they're out of control.
[01:58:21] Completely out of control. So that's
[01:58:23] what happens in a city. It's all a
[01:58:25] disaster.
[01:58:27] And that's why when somebody comes in to
[01:58:29] a city that has authority, suddenly
[01:58:32] everything changes. People's behavior
[01:58:34] changes. It happens. People rectify
[01:58:37] cities. If you get a serious ruler, a
[01:58:42] governor that knows exactly what to do
[01:58:44] and has the wisdom to do it. Things
[01:58:47] change. People change.
[01:58:49] Benjamin Franklin said one preacher came
[01:58:52] into Philadelphia
[01:58:53] and he said he saw within months the
[01:58:57] effects of the preacher on the character
[01:58:58] of the people
[01:59:02] and all the other preachers became
[01:59:03] jealous of them. So they tried to get
[01:59:06] him prohibited from teaching in the
[01:59:10] churches because he was so popular.
[01:59:13] So Benjamin Franklin actually built it's
[01:59:14] in his autobiography. He built a
[01:59:17] non-denominational
[01:59:19] center and he said, "I built this so
[01:59:22] anybody who has something good to say to
[01:59:24] the people of this city can come and say
[01:59:26] even if the MUI of Constantinople wanted
[01:59:28] to come and teach us Islam, he'd find a
[01:59:31] pulpit in my city."
[01:59:34] So,
[01:59:35] so he says,
[01:59:41] so the king has to take counsel with the
[01:59:44] minister. He has to know what's going on
[01:59:45] when the king's out of touch, which is
[01:59:47] what happens. This is what happened to
[01:59:48] the Sha of Iran. He's completely out of
[01:59:51] touch. Kings get out of touch with
[01:59:52] reality.
[01:59:54] The Sha wasn't he he wasn't aware of
[01:59:58] people being tortured in the things with
[02:00:01] electrodes and things like that. they
[02:00:02] get out of touch
[02:00:04] and then everybody's afraid to bother
[02:00:06] them with the details
[02:00:09] and then suddenly they're overthrown. So
[02:00:11] he's saying no the king has a job.
[02:00:14] A minister once came to visit Imazi and
[02:00:17] he said
[02:00:20] your time is all taken to account for.
[02:00:23] What are you doing visiting me?
[02:00:26] Go do your job
[02:00:28] is much better for you than to come and
[02:00:30] visit me.
[02:00:33] Because these people have immense
[02:00:34] responsibility. I mean these people are
[02:00:36] going to have the biggest hab on the day
[02:00:39] of judgment. The people that had
[02:00:41] authority over other people
[02:00:43] that were responsible for the well-being
[02:00:45] of people and how they betray them. They
[02:00:48] betray their trust. If you have an army,
[02:00:50] what's an army for? An army is for
[02:00:52] defense. That's what an army is for. An
[02:00:54] army is for defense. It's to defend a
[02:00:57] people from threats of aggression. If
[02:00:59] you use that army to aggress,
[02:01:03] they're not aggressors. The army is not
[02:01:04] aggressors. They just follow orders. But
[02:01:07] if you use that army to aggress and you
[02:01:09] kill people doing that, you're
[02:01:12] responsible for every single one of
[02:01:14] those lives that you wasted on the day
[02:01:17] of judgment. No. People have no idea the
[02:01:19] immensity of it. If they did, they
[02:01:21] wouldn't do it. If they did, they
[02:01:23] wouldn't run for office.
[02:01:26] Is only a fool runs for office.
[02:01:29] Which is why the prophet sallall alaihi
[02:01:30] wasallam said, "We don't give this
[02:01:32] affair to anyone who seeks it." Why?
[02:01:36] Because the very fact that they're
[02:01:38] seeking it means they don't understand
[02:01:39] what it is.
[02:01:42] If they knew what it was, they'd flee
[02:01:43] from it. So, we don't we're not going to
[02:01:46] give you that authority. Why? Because
[02:01:48] you want it.
[02:01:51] And which means that is the indication
[02:01:53] that you don't know what it is.
[02:01:58] It's an immense responsibility. It's a
[02:02:00] burden. And that's why he said, "A man
[02:02:02] who leaves this world and has never been
[02:02:05] an amir over anyone is successful."
[02:02:11] People want authority. Everybody wants
[02:02:13] authority
[02:02:16] because they don't know what it is. Even
[02:02:18] a man in the house,
[02:02:21] the responsib
[02:02:27] shepherd is responsible for his flock.
[02:02:31] You're going to be asked about every
[02:02:33] single one of the people you were
[02:02:35] responsible for.
[02:02:40] So the king has to take counsel with the
[02:02:51] and he has he has to put the governor
[02:02:54] and the police under the authority of
[02:02:58] the minister.
[02:03:00] So there's hierarchy. So the police
[02:03:02] aren't out of control.
[02:03:11] If he does that then the conditions of
[02:03:14] the kingdom are stabilized. You have a
[02:03:17] stable kingdom
[02:03:18] and the city flourishes
[02:03:26] and like that the heart must take
[02:03:29] counsel with the intellect. Cuz if you
[02:03:31] follow your heart without the intellect,
[02:03:34] you have to listen the minister. The
[02:03:37] king can't do it on his own because the
[02:03:38] minister is the one that's in touch with
[02:03:41] reality. Do you see? The king is not in
[02:03:44] touch with reality. Where does he get
[02:03:46] his reality from? The minister. Where
[02:03:48] does the heart get its reality from? The
[02:03:50] intellect.
[02:03:51] Because the intellect's in touch with
[02:03:53] reality. So the intellect, he needs to
[02:03:55] take counsel with the intellect.
[02:03:57] Counsel, not be controlled by the
[02:03:59] intellect, not be dominated by the
[02:04:00] intellect, but he needs to take counsel
[02:04:02] from the intellect.
[02:04:10] And he has to place the desire and the
[02:04:12] anger under its authority. So these
[02:04:15] troops have to be under the authority of
[02:04:18] the intellect your
[02:04:21] and your desire. The intellect is the
[02:04:24] minister. The the desire is that's the
[02:04:28] governor and then the the the anger is
[02:04:32] the is the uh the police. So that's he's
[02:04:35] using this as a metaphor so you can
[02:04:37] understand it. You can see it in the big
[02:04:38] one, you can see it in the little one.
[02:04:42] So that the this the psychological
[02:04:45] condition is stabilized.
[02:04:48] People don't lose it. So the
[02:04:51] psychological condition is stabilized.
[02:04:59] And so you arrive at the means of
[02:05:01] felicity
[02:05:03] from knowledge of the divine presence.
[02:05:06] That that's the whole point.
[02:05:15] But if you place the intellect under the
[02:05:18] authority
[02:05:20] of the the the desire and anger,
[02:05:25] the soul is destroyed
[02:05:28] and the heart is wretched in the next
[02:05:30] life.
[02:05:32] That's what happens.
[02:05:36] This begins CD 3.
[02:06:05] This section is called uh
[02:06:11] three things that joy or felicity or
[02:06:14] happiness is based on and by he means
[02:06:19] the joy of the next life.
[02:06:22] So he says
[02:06:27] complete joy
[02:06:29] or the completion of joy
[02:06:33] is based on three things.
[02:06:40] The faculty of the irassable
[02:06:45] faculty, the concupiscent. I mean those
[02:06:48] are the terms that we use in the west
[02:06:50] for those. If you we go into ethics,
[02:06:52] they're a little quaint now. I suppose
[02:06:55] we don't really use that term anymore,
[02:06:57] irrassable or concupisent. So is the
[02:07:01] irassable
[02:07:02] soul from Ira, which is a Latin word for
[02:07:05] anger. We still use the word iate.
[02:07:09] Somebody's irate if they get very angry.
[02:07:12] And then the concupiscent
[02:07:15] soul or the concupisible which is the
[02:07:18] lustful soul or the soul of the
[02:07:20] appetites of the stomach and the
[02:07:22] genitals. And then which is also
[02:07:27] the rational component
[02:07:30] or the faculty of knowledge.
[02:07:46] So he says it's necessary
[02:07:49] for
[02:07:50] these matters the and the shah
[02:07:55] to be balanced
[02:07:58] and moderate
[02:08:00] in order that the concupiscent
[02:08:05] soul
[02:08:07] not increase and
[02:08:11] cause someone to deviate and fall into
[02:08:17] meaning lenient matters where they
[02:08:22] they're just not working on themselves
[02:08:25] at all and so it destroys them
[02:08:32] or the irrassible nature increases and
[02:08:36] that causes him to incline towards
[02:08:39] unruliness
[02:08:42] ungovernable somebody who is
[02:08:47] defiant
[02:08:49] and recalcitrant they're not
[02:08:52] they're not following the rules or
[02:08:54] orders. So this is the problem he's
[02:08:56] saying that the self gets imbalanced in
[02:08:58] these two ways.
[02:09:07] So if these two strengths are balanced
[02:09:12] by the guidance
[02:09:14] of the rational soul
[02:09:19] then
[02:09:21] they will follow the path of guidance.
[02:09:31] Anger if it increases then it becomes
[02:09:34] very easy to strike or to even kill.
[02:09:37] That's the extreme of the sin of anger
[02:09:40] because anger is actually the prophet
[02:09:43] sallall alaihi wasallam said
[02:09:45] don't get angry and if he said don't get
[02:09:48] angry it's a it's a nei it's a
[02:09:50] prohibition on getting angry which means
[02:09:53] don't allow your anger the say it
[02:09:55] doesn't mean don't get angry but don't
[02:09:57] allow your anger to cause you to do
[02:09:59] things that take you outside of yourself
[02:10:02] and result in harm to others.
[02:10:05] So he's saying that if
[02:10:09] increases if the iate nature the
[02:10:11] irassible nature increases in the self
[02:10:14] then it it'll lead to somebody losing
[02:10:16] control. And you see that a lot in
[02:10:18] people that don't have control over that
[02:10:21] aspect of themselves. They'll lose it.
[02:10:23] They become very emotional. They become
[02:10:26] in situations where they're not in
[02:10:29] control of themselves. They can lash out
[02:10:31] at people. They lash out verbally. They
[02:10:33] lash out physically at people and also I
[02:10:38] mean this is a particular problem now in
[02:10:42] around the globe. I mean I'll give you
[02:10:44] an example in they have a program I
[02:10:48] don't know if they still have it they
[02:10:50] used to have it in Arab television which
[02:10:53] called like candid camera
[02:10:56] and they'll do things like they'll hide
[02:10:59] a camera and then they'll have a
[02:11:00] scenario and they'll have a situation
[02:11:02] where somebody will do something really
[02:11:05] bothersome
[02:11:07] and it's a spin-off of an old program I
[02:11:10] think from the 60s in America. Again, I
[02:11:13] don't know if they still have it, but
[02:11:15] they used to have a program where they
[02:11:17] would do things and hide a camera and
[02:11:20] then people would like they have a fake
[02:11:22] policeman and he'll just give a person a
[02:11:25] hard time for no reason. There's no real
[02:11:27] reason why he should be doing that. And
[02:11:30] people would respond to this. Now, in
[02:11:33] the West on that program, people used to
[02:11:37] get bothered by it. They'd get upset and
[02:11:40] then after a little while they'd tell
[02:11:42] them, "Oh, this is you're on candid
[02:11:44] camera." And they'll point to the camera
[02:11:45] and they'll all laugh. In the Arab
[02:11:47] version of it, almost every single time,
[02:11:51] right before they went to blows, some
[02:11:53] big giant guy would come out and hold
[02:11:55] the man physically back.
[02:11:59] And there was nothing funny about it at
[02:12:01] all. It was actually really troubling to
[02:12:04] see the behavior because
[02:12:07] people don't have that patience. Now,
[02:12:09] there's reasons for that. There's a lot
[02:12:11] more stress.
[02:12:13] People are under a lot of pressure.
[02:12:15] There's a lot of oppression. I mean, we
[02:12:18] tend to forget that the average person
[02:12:20] in the average day in the Muslim world
[02:12:23] is the victim of forms of oppression.
[02:12:27] if they just go to get, for instance,
[02:12:30] their driver's license,
[02:12:32] there's a whole experience involved in
[02:12:35] getting your driver's license. Like, if
[02:12:37] you go in California, where I live, you
[02:12:40] might be a little miffed that you have
[02:12:43] to wait a half an hour. But in some of
[02:12:45] the Muslim countries, you have to bribe
[02:12:47] people just to get something that the
[02:12:51] government is supposed to give you just
[02:12:54] because you're a citizen. But it doesn't
[02:12:57] work like that. So people go through
[02:12:58] these experiences and they lead to
[02:13:02] certain states of mind. I mean there's a
[02:13:05] I have a friend here in some of you
[02:13:09] might know him but he has an advertising
[02:13:10] company
[02:13:12] and in that advertising company he had a
[02:13:15] campaign for tea
[02:13:17] called uhic
[02:13:21] which in Saudi Arabia
[02:13:24] means
[02:13:26] straighten out your state or you know
[02:13:29] just relax.
[02:13:31] So the the campaign was all about, you
[02:13:34] know, the tea, if you just drink the
[02:13:35] tea, you're going to calm down. So he
[02:13:38] had a scenario where this guy comes in
[02:13:42] and he's he's asking to get his
[02:13:46] some, you know, that he needed some
[02:13:50] official paper and the guy tells him,
[02:13:53] you know, come back later, you know,
[02:13:56] like
[02:13:58] 2 hours or something. So he he gets
[02:14:01] really angry but he remembers drink tea.
[02:14:04] So he goes and he drinks tea and then he
[02:14:06] comes back and the guy says I told you
[02:14:08] come back 2 hours. He said the habibi
[02:14:13] you know 2 hours 2 weeks doesn't matter
[02:14:17] you know. So but that is social
[02:14:19] commentary in a commercial because
[02:14:23] that's the state that people are in. So
[02:14:26] it's not tea that's going to help you. I
[02:14:29] mean, that's why advertisers are false
[02:14:31] advertisers.
[02:14:33] It might help a little bit. So, I didn't
[02:14:36] have any tea. But that's what he's
[02:14:38] saying is that if you allow this soul to
[02:14:42] get out of hand, the irassable soul,
[02:14:45] you'll end up in this state where you
[02:14:48] could even kill somebody. And that
[02:14:50] happens to people. People literally
[02:14:52] strike people. they strike their wives
[02:14:55] or the wife strikes the husband in less
[02:14:58] common situation but it happens.
[02:15:02] So
[02:15:04] people fall into domestic violence
[02:15:06] because they can't control themselves.
[02:15:08] So the wife says something and one of
[02:15:11] the things and I pointed this out many
[02:15:13] times but one of the things for people
[02:15:15] that that haven't heard this one of the
[02:15:17] things that husbands and wives get into
[02:15:20] is they fall into
[02:15:22] these
[02:15:25] what they call in kind of a pop
[02:15:28] psychology dysfunctional relationships.
[02:15:32] But what'll happen is people in
[02:15:35] marriages, they learn buttons to push.
[02:15:39] So if the wife gets angry at the
[02:15:41] husband, she says something,
[02:15:44] you're just like your father. And he
[02:15:46] might have a problem with the behavior
[02:15:48] of the father. So that just sets him
[02:15:50] off. Or he says to her, you're just like
[02:15:53] your mother or whatever they want to do.
[02:15:56] They have these buttons they know and
[02:15:58] they push the button and the person
[02:16:00] completely loses it. They lose control
[02:16:03] of their character. I had my 7-year-old
[02:16:08] I heard some screaming and I went
[02:16:10] upstairs and one of them screaming, the
[02:16:14] other's looking sheepish and I said,
[02:16:17] "What's going on here?" And he said, "I
[02:16:19] pushed his buttons."
[02:16:22] So I was pleased that he understood what
[02:16:25] he was doing because children learn that
[02:16:27] also. They know buttons to push. So
[02:16:29] these are automatic behaviors that
[02:16:31] people get into. What this is really
[02:16:34] about, what this science is about is
[02:16:37] learning instead of being an automatic
[02:16:40] like an automaton where you have buttons
[02:16:43] that you just react and you're not
[02:16:45] behaving as a conscious human being.
[02:16:48] What he's challenging you to do is to
[02:16:52] fully realize your humanity, your
[02:16:54] consciousness. So you're no longer
[02:16:56] behaving in a reactionary mode because
[02:16:59] that's what the concupisent and the
[02:17:01] irassable soul are reactionary souls.
[02:17:04] They're souls that are just reacting to
[02:17:06] events. You see something you desire and
[02:17:09] you can't control yourself. You go on an
[02:17:11] automatic pilot. You get into a certain
[02:17:14] situation and you can't control
[02:17:16] yourself. you react and become angry.
[02:17:19] And people do it all the time. They do
[02:17:21] the same thing. A good example of the
[02:17:22] irassable soul, there's people that just
[02:17:25] argue
[02:17:27] that that's all they do. Every
[02:17:28] conversation they get into, they have to
[02:17:30] argue
[02:17:32] every single conversation. They can't
[02:17:34] control themselves because they're on
[02:17:36] this automatic pilot. So he's saying if
[02:17:38] if these aren't balanced in the self,
[02:17:42] then this is the situation that you
[02:17:44] have.
[02:17:48] If the irassible soul is deficient,
[02:17:53] there's no jealousy and there's no
[02:17:58] there's no zeal to protect what needs to
[02:18:01] be protected, honor. So on the other
[02:18:04] hand, it can be deficient.
[02:18:07] So somebody that for instance,
[02:18:10] if you see the situation in Lebanon,
[02:18:12] that should get your blood boiling. It
[02:18:14] should it shouldn't be just something
[02:18:16] that you watch and then you go and have
[02:18:17] your dinner which is what a lot of
[02:18:19] people do. It just doesn't mean a whole
[02:18:22] lot to them because that aspect of their
[02:18:25] soul is diminished. And also you can
[02:18:27] have it's diminished in the right things
[02:18:30] but it's excessive in the wrong things.
[02:18:32] So that's also another type of imbalance
[02:18:36] that occurs.
[02:18:40] So he says
[02:18:43] in both religion and worldly matters
[02:18:53] when it's balanced you will see
[02:18:56] patience, courage and prudence.
[02:19:00] So by patience here he means temperance
[02:19:04] and by courage and hikma. So you have
[02:19:07] these three virtues and these are called
[02:19:09] the cardinal virtues
[02:19:12] in both the Greek and the Islamic
[02:19:14] tradition. The Greeks felt that the
[02:19:17] moral virtues were four
[02:19:22] ora which is the ability to control
[02:19:24] oneself
[02:19:26] which is courage and hikma which is
[02:19:29] prudence or wisdom practical wisdom. And
[02:19:32] the three of these when they were
[02:19:34] balanced
[02:19:36] they
[02:19:37] led to
[02:19:40] justice. So you were a just human being.
[02:19:44] And this is why this is also related to
[02:19:46] classical medicine which is the
[02:19:50] orani they call it if you go to Pakistan
[02:19:54] the Hamdard brothers. People know the
[02:19:56] Hamdard brothers. Guruafsa.
[02:20:00] You Hamdad. Yeah,
[02:20:03] that's all based on thisani
[02:20:07] which is Greek medicinei
[02:20:10] is based on the idea of
[02:20:13] that you have
[02:20:17] four humors in the body and each one of
[02:20:20] these humors
[02:20:22] should be in a balance and if it loses
[02:20:24] balance
[02:20:26] then it overcomes the other three humors
[02:20:30] and you get certain certain behavioral
[02:20:32] characteristics. So they actually see it
[02:20:34] as illness
[02:20:36] and so the idea in having this balance
[02:20:41] is related to these virtues. So for
[02:20:46] instance
[02:20:48] the flagmatic personality
[02:20:52] is somebody who
[02:20:56] is depressed.
[02:20:59] The sanguin personality is somebody that
[02:21:02] there's excess there. And you have the
[02:21:07] safarawi and the sodi. You had these
[02:21:11] four qualities balam
[02:21:14] blood bile black bile
[02:21:17] and flem.
[02:21:19] And depending on
[02:21:23] the balance of these humors was the
[02:21:25] state of the person. And there's a
[02:21:28] belief that food affects these. And Imam
[02:21:31] Bajuri says one of the proofs that the
[02:21:33] prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam acted
[02:21:35] in accordance with this understanding is
[02:21:37] that when he ate dates he used to eat
[02:21:41] with them sallallahu alaihi wasallam
[02:21:44] cucumber
[02:21:45] and he would say
[02:21:48] this cools off this because dates in in
[02:21:52] this medicine are hot and dry
[02:21:55] and cucumbers are cold and wet. So they
[02:21:59] balance. If you look at an egg, an egg
[02:22:01] is a balanced food. In this science,
[02:22:04] it's the white is cold and wet and the
[02:22:06] yolk is hot and dry. It doesn't mean dry
[02:22:09] like
[02:22:11] dry meaning
[02:22:13] lacking uh moisture in its substance,
[02:22:17] but it has to do with the qualities that
[02:22:19] they talk about. So each of the foods is
[02:22:22] classified under this and there are
[02:22:24] extraordinary books written in the
[02:22:25] Islamic tradition where all the foods
[02:22:29] have been classified. So for instance,
[02:22:31] coffee is very hot and it's very dry.
[02:22:35] Hot and dry things are good for memory.
[02:22:37] Desert people are hot and dry. Desert
[02:22:39] people have better memories than city
[02:22:41] people. People uh that are cold and wet
[02:22:46] tend to be slower in their mentation
[02:22:49] than people that are hot and dry. But
[02:22:51] you all of them lead to imbalances. The
[02:22:53] best thing is to be balanced between
[02:22:55] these. So that also relates to these
[02:22:59] qualities. So if you look at or
[02:23:02] temperance,
[02:23:03] sabar relates to the shaha, the ability
[02:23:06] to control the shaha.
[02:23:09] So temperance relates to the concupisent
[02:23:11] soul in that you can control yourself.
[02:23:14] The
[02:23:16] relates to
[02:23:18] the the irassible soul. The irassable
[02:23:22] courage is a mean between full
[02:23:25] hardiness, being impetuous, getting
[02:23:28] angry too quickly, running into the fray
[02:23:32] without really thinking about what
[02:23:34] you're doing and between cowardice,
[02:23:37] which is not having enough control. So
[02:23:40] it's a balance between and is related to
[02:23:42] the the
[02:23:45] or the rational soul, wisdom, prudence.
[02:23:47] So that's what he's saying. When they're
[02:23:49] balanced, you get these three virtues.
[02:23:55] And like that, the concupent soul, if it
[02:23:57] increases, then you get proflegacy
[02:24:00] and debauchery. You get people that
[02:24:04] transgress the boundaries.
[02:24:10] And if it's deficient, then you will see
[02:24:18] this dissipation
[02:24:21] you will see this dissipation
[02:24:21] where there's no energy and you will see
[02:24:25] laziness, slothfulness. And slothfulness
[02:24:29] is a deadly sin also because
[02:24:35] desire, you need desire to act. People
[02:24:38] without desire don't and the energy of
[02:24:41] desire is a very useful energy that
[02:24:44] needs to be channeled into the right
[02:24:48] venues.
[02:24:53] If it's balanced then you will see the
[02:24:56] and the
[02:24:58] so when the
[02:25:02] the
[02:25:03] concupisent soul is balanced then you
[02:25:06] see temperance and contentment.
[02:25:10] People eat they have enough food they
[02:25:12] don't need to go to extremes. They have
[02:25:15] their relations they have relations
[02:25:17] within moderation. So
[02:25:20] that's basically he's saying that when
[02:25:23] you have this balance in the soul then
[02:25:27] people are healthy
[02:25:30] and you have these virtues.
[02:25:36] The next section is
[02:25:40] the section on the states of the heart
[02:25:42] with its troops.
[02:25:54] So he says know that the heart with its
[02:25:57] troops has states and qualities or
[02:25:59] attributes. Some of it is called virtue
[02:26:03] and others is called vice. Some of it is
[02:26:05] called good character and other is
[02:26:07] called bad character.
[02:26:18] So with good character, with beautiful
[02:26:20] character, he reaches the degree of
[02:26:22] felicity and with bad character or vile
[02:26:25] character, he's destroyed and falls into
[02:26:31] which is damnation.
[02:26:40] And so each of these are four different
[02:26:43] types of species of so each one is a
[02:26:48] genus
[02:26:50] and a is actually related to the word
[02:26:53] genus
[02:26:56] the character of demons.
[02:26:59] the character of ruminants,
[02:27:04] the character of predators
[02:27:07] and the character of angels.
[02:27:17] So deeds, foul deeds when they're
[02:27:20] related to eating, drinking, sleeping,
[02:27:23] and culation,
[02:27:24] these are the qualities of the
[02:27:27] ruminants.
[02:27:28] They're the bah the beasts. This is the
[02:27:31] character of beasts.
[02:27:34] So people that
[02:27:36] overeat, it's a beastial quality.
[02:27:40] People that
[02:27:42] drink too much, people that sleep too
[02:27:44] much, people that copulate too much,
[02:27:46] these are all beastial qualities. And
[02:27:49] what he's saying is that they have the
[02:27:50] the character of these bahim. So they're
[02:27:54] closer to the behema than they are to a
[02:27:57] human being.
[02:28:00] And again, that's one of the things that
[02:28:03] you see is people are becoming more
[02:28:06] beastial
[02:28:07] obsessions with all of these things. If
[02:28:10] you look at the time and that people put
[02:28:12] into food, the amount of time that
[02:28:15] people put into food is amazing.
[02:28:18] Alah says people will be and this is 9th
[02:28:22] century and this is quite late. people
[02:28:25] will be
[02:28:26] at the the green grosser and he said
[02:28:30] they'll spend
[02:28:33] long periods of time looking at the
[02:28:35] fruit, feeling the fruit to pick the
[02:28:38] fruit.
[02:28:40] He said that they'll take a
[02:28:43] and squeeze it and make sure it's just
[02:28:45] right and then put each one in. And he
[02:28:48] said when they go to pray they pray like
[02:28:51] the the chicken pecking.
[02:28:57] So he said the things that for their
[02:29:00] stomach they give all of this time but
[02:29:03] for their prayer they give no time. And
[02:29:06] he said the prayer is eternal. It's
[02:29:08] going to Allah. The food that you're
[02:29:11] picking out is going to the the toilet.
[02:29:16] That's where it's headed.
[02:29:18] So he said, "Well, what what a state
[02:29:20] that human beings are in." So this this
[02:29:23] is what he's saying is if if these are
[02:29:25] your obsessions,
[02:29:28] then you're like the ruminance. You're
[02:29:30] like beasts
[02:29:40] and also
[02:29:43] deeds that are related to anger,
[02:29:48] striking, killing, argumentation.
[02:29:51] These are the characteristics of
[02:29:53] predators, aggressiveness.
[02:29:56] That's what the predators have. So your
[02:29:58] character is closer to the lions and the
[02:30:03] leopards.
[02:30:07] This is not human.
[02:30:14] And also those qualities of the ego of
[02:30:18] the
[02:30:20] thes
[02:30:28] things like subtrifuge, faithlessness,
[02:30:32] disloyalty, deception,
[02:30:34] strategies, plotting and planning. Those
[02:30:37] are all qualities of the demons.
[02:30:42] So when that's your focus,
[02:30:45] you've become a demonic character. And
[02:30:48] people, if you don't think people don't
[02:30:50] plot, people are plotting. People plot.
[02:30:53] People plot. People plot in the most
[02:30:55] petty of matters. People will plot your
[02:30:58] downfall at the office,
[02:31:01] a place where you work. There's people
[02:31:04] that are literally plotting to make sure
[02:31:06] you don't get the promotion.
[02:31:10] I mean, this is a state of people. This
[02:31:12] is going on all the time, all around us.
[02:31:14] These are the states. There's ruminants
[02:31:17] out there, predators, and demons.
[02:31:21] And some people are an ad mixture of all
[02:31:25] three.
[02:31:28] And then he says
[02:31:31] and also the actions or the deeds of the
[02:31:34] intellect.
[02:31:36] And intellect unfortunately
[02:31:39] he's using intellect as a very specific
[02:31:41] meaning. Now we use intellect to refer
[02:31:44] more to
[02:31:47] cognitive processes, mathematics and
[02:31:51] things like that. The the real
[02:31:55] is a light
[02:31:57] and
[02:32:04] it restrains the the soul from its
[02:32:08] caprice. That's the real role of the the
[02:32:14] it's there to do that.
[02:32:18] I mean that the deeds of the intellect
[02:32:20] are mercy. Why? Because
[02:32:26] have mercy on those on the earth and the
[02:32:28] one in the heaven will have mercy on
[02:32:30] you. That's revelation. Revelation
[02:32:33] illuminates the intellect. So once you
[02:32:36] know that rahma
[02:32:38] is a reason for which rahma is bestowed
[02:32:41] upon you, you become a more merciful
[02:32:43] person.
[02:32:45] So that's the intellect when it's
[02:32:47] functioning properly. It's directing the
[02:32:51] soul to those things that are beneficial
[02:32:53] to the soul in the next life because
[02:32:55] that's the purpose of the intellect is
[02:32:57] to benefit you not here but in the next
[02:32:59] life as well as here but more
[02:33:02] importantly is the next life because
[02:33:04] it's eternal. So your temporal existence
[02:33:07] is going to determine the nature of your
[02:33:09] eternal existence. So if you're a person
[02:33:12] of intellect then the intellect is going
[02:33:14] to be guiding you in that way.
[02:33:20] knowledge,
[02:33:22] increasing one's knowledge, striving to
[02:33:26] be
[02:33:27] a person of knowledge.
[02:33:30] Jahalia is ignorance. The sheh talked in
[02:33:33] the class on s about the age of
[02:33:36] ignorance. Like the man who said, "I'm
[02:33:39] from Hosea.
[02:33:42] I'm from the tribe of Hosea. If they go
[02:33:44] astray, I go astray. If they're guided,
[02:33:46] I'm guided." That's the age of
[02:33:48] ignorance. I just follow my tribe. My
[02:33:51] tribe, right or wrong, my country, right
[02:33:53] or wrong, we're number one.
[02:33:56] That's all ignorance. Somebody who's
[02:33:58] knowledgeable
[02:34:00] transcends those types of the
[02:34:03] limitations
[02:34:07] of ignorance because that's what
[02:34:09] ignorance is. It limits people. And then
[02:34:11] also
[02:34:15] charitable actions, actions that are
[02:34:18] beneficial and good.
[02:34:21] And these are the
[02:34:24] the characteristics or the virtues of
[02:34:26] the angels. These are the angels. So now
[02:34:29] you're moving into the angelic realm.
[02:34:32] The people that are preoccupied with
[02:34:34] these are in the angelic realm.
[02:34:38] And then he says,
[02:34:46] Know that within
[02:34:50] the
[02:34:51] shell of the son of Adam are four things
[02:34:57] the dogir
[02:34:59] the pigan
[02:35:03] the demon and al- malik the angel. So in
[02:35:08] each person are these four qualities.
[02:35:11] The quality of the dog, the quality of
[02:35:14] the pig, quality of the demon, and the
[02:35:18] quality of the angel.
[02:35:24] The dog is blamew worthy in its
[02:35:27] qualities,
[02:35:31] but it's not blameworthy in its form.
[02:35:33] Its form is not blameworthy the way it
[02:35:35] looks. There's no nothing wrong with the
[02:35:37] way it looks, but it's blameworthy in
[02:35:39] its behavior. So if you train a dog, a
[02:35:44] dog actually can become a praiseworthy
[02:35:46] creature. But if he's not trained, he's
[02:35:50] blameworthy. He's jumping all over. He's
[02:35:52] spilling things. He is aggressive. If he
[02:35:56] sees something he doesn't know, he just
[02:35:57] starts growling. He doesn't know why
[02:36:00] he's growling. It could be a friend, not
[02:36:02] a foe. But he doesn't distinguish
[02:36:04] between friend or foe. He's just in that
[02:36:07] aggressive mode. So the dog, that's the
[02:36:10] state of the dog.
[02:36:17] And like that, the demon and the angel.
[02:36:20] The blame and the praise of these two
[02:36:22] creatures is in their qualities. It's
[02:36:24] not in their forms.
[02:36:28] The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
[02:36:29] said God doesn't look at your forms
[02:36:35] but at your deeds and what's the state
[02:36:37] of your heart your intentions. That's
[02:36:39] what Allah looks at. He doesn't look at
[02:36:40] your outward forms.
[02:36:47] It's not in their form or how they've
[02:36:49] been created.
[02:36:55] And like that the pig is blamew worthy
[02:37:01] in his qualities, in his
[02:37:03] characteristics, and he's not blamew
[02:37:04] worthy in his external appearance. You
[02:37:07] can't blame a pig for the way it looks,
[02:37:11] right?
[02:37:14] But the way it behaves,
[02:37:16] that's another thing.
[02:37:20] Adam.
[02:37:27] And the son of Adam was commanded
[02:37:32] to
[02:37:34] to expose the darkness of ignorance with
[02:37:37] the light of knowledge, with the light
[02:37:39] of intellect. That's what human beings
[02:37:41] were commanded by Allah subhana wa
[02:37:43] ta'ala to do. to expose the darkness of
[02:37:47] ignorance with the light of the
[02:37:50] intellect.
[02:37:52] And the light of the intellect is guided
[02:37:56] by revelation.
[02:37:58] So you've been given an intellect and if
[02:38:00] it's illuminated by revelation then it
[02:38:03] can dispel the darkness of ignorance.
[02:38:06] But if it's not, it can't. Because no
[02:38:09] matter how intelligent a person is, if
[02:38:12] they don't have a knowledge to balance
[02:38:16] these things out, if they don't have a
[02:38:18] knowledge that tells them in this
[02:38:20] situation, you should behave thus, in
[02:38:23] this situation, you should behave thus,
[02:38:24] you won't know. You won't see your own
[02:38:27] behavior. You won't challenge yourself.
[02:38:29] You won't look at your intentions.
[02:38:36] So all of this is out of fear of this
[02:38:38] fitna.
[02:38:40] Fitna is a beautiful word
[02:38:44] in that it conveys an immense amount of
[02:38:47] meaning in one word. The word feta means
[02:38:51] to test the metals for impurities.
[02:38:55] So when you heat metal and it begins to
[02:39:00] melt away, you get what's called dross.
[02:39:02] D R O S S.
[02:39:05] That's what Fitna does. It reveals the
[02:39:08] draws of humanity.
[02:39:11] So I'll give you an example.
[02:39:13] When you had the cartoon controversy in
[02:39:16] Denmark,
[02:39:18] remember that?
[02:39:20] See, everybody's like, you know, now
[02:39:23] it's over. The Fitna's over and
[02:39:26] everybody goes, the cartoons are still
[02:39:28] there.
[02:39:30] They're still there. You can look them
[02:39:32] up on the internet or wherever you want
[02:39:33] to. They're still there, but the fitna
[02:39:35] is over. Now, the 30 dead people,
[02:39:39] they're dead. They're in their graves
[02:39:41] now because of that fitna or however
[02:39:43] many people died. So, the fitna is over.
[02:39:47] That's what fitna is. It reveals
[02:39:50] people's character based on the
[02:39:52] circumstances.
[02:39:54] Now, in Muritania,
[02:39:58] how did they respond to the fitna? Well,
[02:40:00] unfortunately the news didn't cover
[02:40:02] Muritania. They the had an evening where
[02:40:06] they all got together in a huge
[02:40:08] auditorium and people came and they
[02:40:10] recited
[02:40:13] against Denmark.
[02:40:15] So they had a poetry protest
[02:40:19] where they had these deniar maron denun
[02:40:24] you know Denmark a low mark in history
[02:40:29] and then the next day they had a
[02:40:31] demonstration but before the
[02:40:32] demonstration they handed out flyers
[02:40:35] adab and mulahara the adab of protest
[02:40:40] and amongst the things that they guided
[02:40:42] the people to was not to do anything
[02:40:45] inappropriate, not to break the law, not
[02:40:48] to throw anything, not to attack or harm
[02:40:52] the Danish embassy because it was an
[02:40:55] embassy that was legitimately there. And
[02:40:58] so it had the ammon of the Muslims. So
[02:41:02] that's how they dealt with it, the
[02:41:04] fitna. They dealt with it like Muslims.
[02:41:09] But other people, they didn't. They
[02:41:11] dealt with it like the dog.
[02:41:16] the irassable soul.
[02:41:18] They completely lost it. They went crazy
[02:41:22] and threw things. And a lot of it is
[02:41:24] that it's an opportunity to do that
[02:41:27] because there's there's just a lot of
[02:41:30] pressure. A lot of those people, they're
[02:41:32] not religious people. There's just, oh,
[02:41:34] a riot.
[02:41:36] Seriously, they just go to be in part of
[02:41:40] the it's what's happening. Something's
[02:41:42] happening.
[02:41:44] I mean there's some places I know
[02:41:46] there's some in South Asia any any
[02:41:48] excuse for a good riot right in Karach
[02:41:52] it's a riot today that it's true or not
[02:41:54] true people that's what they want to go
[02:41:56] out and just riot
[02:41:59] because they're in a state and so the
[02:42:02] circumstance provides the excuse
[02:42:06] to behave accordingly that's what fitna
[02:42:08] is so out of fear of fitna we've been
[02:42:12] commanded ed to dispel ignorance with
[02:42:15] intellect in every situation
[02:42:18] because in every situation
[02:42:21] if it's an ethical situation there's
[02:42:23] either or now one of the meanings of is
[02:42:27] also to act with zealousness it's to act
[02:42:31] without is forbearance
[02:42:35] he was the most forebearing of men he
[02:42:37] never lost it if you study his you will
[02:42:40] not see that the prophet sallallahu
[02:42:42] alaihi alaihi wasallam ever lost control
[02:42:45] of his nature. He just never he didn't
[02:42:48] happen because he was always in
[02:42:51] possession of his
[02:42:54] he was and
[02:42:56] it restrains. And so even when he was
[02:42:59] angry, his anger was measured.
[02:43:03] It was measured. It was appropriate
[02:43:05] because there's a time for anger. It's
[02:43:07] not just accept everything and don't get
[02:43:09] angry. No, you should get angry and
[02:43:11] things should make you angry that are
[02:43:14] unjust that are improper.
[02:43:17] But how does that anger manifest? That's
[02:43:20] the difference.
[02:43:23] So the prophet sallallahu alaihi
[02:43:25] wasallam
[02:43:40] There's none of you except that he has a
[02:43:42] demon.
[02:43:45] Even I have a demon.
[02:43:48] The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
[02:43:50] even I have a demon but Allah has helped
[02:43:54] me with my demon and he became a Muslim.
[02:43:59] So he's telling us there you have a
[02:44:02] demon. When Aisha got very angry what
[02:44:05] the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam said
[02:44:09] did your shaitan give you a visit
[02:44:14] and he said
[02:44:17] do I have a demon?
[02:44:19] Everybody has a demon.
[02:44:23] So now you know.
[02:44:26] So what's going on? Are you behaving
[02:44:29] as a human being or are you under the
[02:44:32] influence of a demon in your behavior?
[02:44:36] That's the question.
[02:44:39] Is this from your demon?
[02:44:43] The Greeks believe that too also. They
[02:44:45] called the demon
[02:44:47] that there was a spirit that uh
[02:44:49] influenced people and it was either
[02:44:53] negative or positive.
[02:44:56] So those are those the four things. So
[02:44:59] the is the
[02:45:03] it's the irassable soul the metaphor of
[02:45:06] that. I gave a talk in
[02:45:10] in Oxford and I was talking about the
[02:45:13] Danish cartoons and I said in the talk
[02:45:16] that if you have a sleeping dog
[02:45:21] and you go and you you take a stick and
[02:45:23] you hit it and then it bites you, who's
[02:45:27] responsible
[02:45:31] morally? Who's responsible? Is the dog
[02:45:34] responsible for biting you or are you
[02:45:37] responsible for eliciting that response
[02:45:40] from the dog? And that's an ethical
[02:45:43] question.
[02:45:44] And one of the Muslims got really upset
[02:45:46] that I was like comparing Muslims to
[02:45:48] dogs.
[02:45:51] But I was basing it on this idea
[02:45:54] that this is part of the M Muslim
[02:45:57] ethical tradition that the dog is the
[02:46:00] irassable part of your soul and the dog
[02:46:02] is a good quality when it's guarding
[02:46:05] when the dog is guarding. But if if it's
[02:46:08] biting your baby
[02:46:11] and tearing its leg off like the
[02:46:14] pitbull, people that have pitbulls
[02:46:18] and so the neighbor's baby is out
[02:46:20] playing and the person his pitbull goes
[02:46:23] over and eats. That happens in America.
[02:46:25] You have people that have pitbulls.
[02:46:27] There's people that have pitbull natures
[02:46:31] and they're not aware of it. So if you
[02:46:34] don't have your pitbull nature on a
[02:46:36] leash
[02:46:37] so that when it's going crazy, you're
[02:46:40] restraining it so that it doesn't go and
[02:46:43] eat the next door neighbor's baby.
[02:46:48] So that's the dog nature. And then you
[02:46:51] have the nature.
[02:46:54] People have their nature, the pig
[02:46:56] nature. The pig eats all day long. It
[02:46:59] lives in its own filth.
[02:47:03] If it gets too hungry, it will eat its
[02:47:05] own children.
[02:47:08] That's the pig. So that's the pig.
[02:47:11] Nature
[02:47:13] will actually destroy
[02:47:17] the human being
[02:47:20] if it gets out of control.
[02:47:24] But if you can control it, then it
[02:47:27] becomes beneficial for you.
[02:47:30] And then the demon and then the melik he
[02:47:34] also calls it the which is the sage as
[02:47:38] well.
[02:47:41] So
[02:47:43] like that is the concupisent.
[02:47:51] So it has to be under the sovereignty,
[02:47:55] the control of the intellect. So that
[02:47:57] they do not do anything except with the
[02:48:00] command of the intellect. The intellect
[02:48:02] is the one guiding the concupiscent and
[02:48:05] the irassable, the the dog and the pig.
[02:48:08] It's the shepherd. The intellect is the
[02:48:10] shepherd of these two qualities.
[02:48:16] If he is able to do that then the result
[02:48:20] is beautiful characteristics.
[02:48:22] The result is virtue. That's the result
[02:48:25] that the person becomes a virtuous
[02:48:27] character.
[02:48:29] And these are the qualities of angels.
[02:48:33] And this is the seed of felicity in the
[02:48:36] next life. You're planting the seeds of
[02:48:38] felicity in the next life by acting
[02:48:41] according to this.
[02:48:54] But if they act in contradiction to that
[02:48:58] and serve the concupiscent and the
[02:49:00] irassable soul, the result is vile
[02:49:06] qualities.
[02:49:08] The result is vicious
[02:49:11] character.
[02:49:14] And these are the qualities of demons.
[02:49:18] And these are the seeds of wretchedness
[02:49:21] in the next life.
[02:49:31] This will manifest in a dream as if he's
[02:49:34] standing in a state of total
[02:49:36] constriction serving the dog and the
[02:49:38] pig.
[02:49:39] So if somebody sees in their dream that
[02:49:41] they're serving a dog or a pig and
[02:49:44] they're in a state of constriction, this
[02:49:46] is what it means. That's what he's
[02:49:48] saying. That in the science of dreams,
[02:49:49] that's what that means.
[02:49:55] and mean.
[02:49:59] And this type of person is comparable to
[02:50:02] the one who
[02:50:05] takes a group of Muslims prisoner
[02:50:09] and hands them over to caffirine to
[02:50:13] disbelievers.
[02:50:16] It's as if you're taking the intellect
[02:50:18] prisoner and you're giving the intellect
[02:50:20] the Muslim, you're giving them
[02:50:24] over to the cafir. That's what he's
[02:50:27] saying. That when you surrender your
[02:50:29] will to the your concupiscent and your
[02:50:31] irassable soul to the pig and the dog
[02:50:33] and the demon, this is what you've done.
[02:50:36] You've surrendered Muslims to the
[02:50:39] caffirine
[02:50:41] because they're ingrates. They they're
[02:50:43] not they don't appreciate the the
[02:50:45] blessings.
[02:50:55] So how will you be on the day of
[02:50:57] judgment if you have jailed the angel
[02:51:02] your intellect or jailed the king? It
[02:51:04] could be either one.
[02:51:08] Under the
[02:51:11] the sovereignty
[02:51:14] of desire and anger.
[02:51:19] You've taken the king and put the king
[02:51:22] under the sovereignty of desire and
[02:51:24] anger. How will your state be?
[02:51:29] So, you've put the king into the hands
[02:51:32] of the dog and the pig
[02:51:49] and know today that the human being is
[02:51:53] in the form of an Adamic
[02:51:57] creature.
[02:52:00] But tomorrow the realities will be
[02:52:03] revealed
[02:52:04] and the true state
[02:52:07] will be shown.
[02:52:10] So what he's saying is that you might
[02:52:13] have the form of a human being but your
[02:52:15] meaning is a dog or a pig or a demon.
[02:52:20] And that that meaning is going to
[02:52:22] manifest.
[02:52:24] And that's why one of the blessings of
[02:52:26] this umah is the prophet sallallahu
[02:52:27] alaihi wasallam said it does not have
[02:52:31] it will not have transmogriication
[02:52:33] externally the external form will not be
[02:52:36] transformed into a pig or a donkey or or
[02:52:39] a rat that won't happen to this ummah
[02:52:43] any of the um which includes the umah
[02:52:47] because the um of the prophet
[02:52:49] sallallaihi wasallam we forget this the
[02:52:51] Europeans the Asians the Americans
[02:52:54] They're all from in our belief they're
[02:52:57] all from the ummah of the prophet
[02:52:58] sallall alaihi wasallam. We forget that
[02:52:59] they're his ummah because the ummah is
[02:53:03] there's two the um the people that were
[02:53:06] invited to his path and the people that
[02:53:09] responded to the invitation. They're all
[02:53:11] considered from the um which is why the
[02:53:13] um of l are the people he was sent to.
[02:53:16] They're called the people of L. They
[02:53:19] didn't believe in him but they're still
[02:53:21] his people.
[02:53:23] So even the people that disbelieve in
[02:53:26] the prophet are from his ummah.
[02:53:31] So
[02:53:33] from the blessings of the prophet
[02:53:34] sallall alaihi wasallam there is no
[02:53:36] outward transformation.
[02:53:38] People will not be exposed. So you can
[02:53:41] see pigs and donkeys and all these
[02:53:44] animal forms that are low. You'll see
[02:53:46] them out there. One of the interesting
[02:53:48] things about extinction is it's not the
[02:53:51] pigs that are going extinct. It's not
[02:53:53] the cockroaches. It's not the rats. It's
[02:53:56] all the high quality. It's the falcons.
[02:53:58] It's the eagles.
[02:54:01] It's the lepers. That's what's going
[02:54:02] extinct. It's not these common
[02:54:04] creatures. It's all the extraordinary
[02:54:06] creatures. They're the ones going
[02:54:07] extinct. Why? Because those qualities in
[02:54:10] human beings are going extinct. Because
[02:54:12] we are the the reflection. All of
[02:54:16] creation is in us. So those things that
[02:54:18] are the the whales
[02:54:21] that are going extinct, that's because
[02:54:22] those qualities in us are disappearing.
[02:54:25] That's what happens out there. It's a
[02:54:28] reflection.
[02:54:29] So there's plenty of cockroaches
[02:54:34] really. There's plenty of pigs,
[02:54:37] but those high qualities are leaving.
[02:54:40] One of the things the Moroccan poetshib
[02:54:43] said
[02:54:49] The cosmos are meanings set up in
[02:54:52] images.
[02:54:55] You see an image, but there's a meaning
[02:54:57] behind the image.
[02:55:06] Whoever understands this is among the
[02:55:09] people of discernment. In other words,
[02:55:11] the people that perceive meanings as
[02:55:13] opposed to the sensory. The sensoria are
[02:55:16] there. We experience the sensoria. But
[02:55:19] all of the sensoria has meanings. Why
[02:55:21] are we attracted to flowers?
[02:55:25] What is the attraction? Why are we
[02:55:26] attracted to colors? Because they
[02:55:28] reflect meanings.
[02:55:30] They're tal of qualities of God. Beauty.
[02:55:35] So what you're seeing is jamal and
[02:55:38] that's what you're attracted to. And
[02:55:40] jamal is an attribute of God. So you're
[02:55:42] witnessing an attribute of God.
[02:55:44] manifesting in creation and that's what
[02:55:47] you're attracted to. If you don't see
[02:55:48] that, you're like the beasts. You're a
[02:55:51] person of sensoria because you're not
[02:55:52] recognizing the meaning.
[02:55:55] Why are we attracted to beauty?
[02:55:58] Because it's an attribute of God. Why
[02:56:01] don't we like ugliness? Because God is
[02:56:03] not ugly. And that's why the fra nature
[02:56:07] when it's healthy, it's attracted to
[02:56:09] those things that are beautiful and it's
[02:56:13] put off by those things that are ugly.
[02:56:15] When the the nature becomes distorted,
[02:56:18] corrupted, it's actually attracted to
[02:56:20] ugly things. It likes ugly sounds.
[02:56:24] That's why if you look at the way people
[02:56:26] dress today,
[02:56:28] it's ugly dress.
[02:56:31] really. They put like ugly tattoos on
[02:56:35] their bodies and they do these things
[02:56:37] because they're not well. Those are all
[02:56:39] indications of their states, but they're
[02:56:42] even unaware of that. They're not even
[02:56:43] aware they're sick
[02:56:45] because people in fra will not do things
[02:56:48] like that. Those are distortions of the
[02:56:51] fra state. Human beings always have
[02:56:54] dress. If you look at embellishment
[02:56:57] in Muslim clothes, why do Muslims put
[02:57:00] embellishments on their clothes? Why in
[02:57:02] Afghanistan? Why do they do that? Why do
[02:57:04] they could just have a functional cloak,
[02:57:06] but why do they do the embroidery? What
[02:57:09] is that?
[02:57:11] It's in their nature. They're people
[02:57:13] ofan. So, they make things beautiful.
[02:57:17] You could just make a functional carpet.
[02:57:19] Why make the design? Why? But that's an
[02:57:21] ugly design in my estimation. But why?
[02:57:24] Why make the design?
[02:57:26] Do you know why? Why? Why did whoever
[02:57:28] did this? Why did they do this?
[02:57:31] Do you see? Really? Why did they do
[02:57:33] this? Whoever whoever made this here,
[02:57:36] somebody did this. They took time to do
[02:57:38] this. We could just be sitting up here
[02:57:40] in a functional thing without flowers,
[02:57:42] without just sitting here. What is that
[02:57:45] in the human being that wants to do
[02:57:47] that? That'sanan
[02:57:49] means to make beautiful.
[02:57:51] It means to bring about
[02:57:55] the beautiful names of God. Why are they
[02:57:57] beautiful? Because they are qualities of
[02:58:00] God. So anything that you see in the
[02:58:02] world that is beautiful is manifesting a
[02:58:05] quality of God. Those are the meanings
[02:58:07] in the forms.
[02:58:09] So the forms are there, but the meanings
[02:58:12] in the forms are what the people of
[02:58:13] discernment see. They don't see the
[02:58:15] externals.
[02:58:17] They see the internals. They see with
[02:58:19] the not with
[02:58:23] the eye of the heart and not with the
[02:58:25] eye this outward eye that we see.
[02:58:28] So this is what he's saying that there
[02:58:30] are people out there that you see them
[02:58:33] in the form of a human being but they're
[02:58:35] they're not humans. They're demons.
[02:58:39] They're pigs. They're dogs.
[02:58:43] That's their that's the reality of their
[02:58:45] state.
[02:58:48] And it's not for me or you to judge
[02:58:50] because we could be in the same thing.
[02:58:54] So you're pointing the finger at
[02:58:55] somebody else. Look at that dog over
[02:58:57] there. And you're the you're a dog
[02:58:59] yourself.
[02:59:04] So it's much more important to be
[02:59:06] concerned with your own state. What's my
[02:59:08] state? Not what's their state. What's my
[02:59:10] state?
[02:59:20] So those who are overwhelmed by the
[02:59:22] irassable soul, they will stand on that
[02:59:25] day like a dog.
[02:59:34] And those who are overwhelmed by their
[02:59:36] concupisent soul, they will stand on
[02:59:38] that day as a pig
[02:59:43] because the forms follow the function.
[02:59:47] The forms follow the qualities. In
[02:59:49] physiology, you say form follows
[02:59:51] function. Whatever the function of the
[02:59:53] organ is, the form follows the function.
[02:59:55] Whatever the function of the organ is,
[02:59:57] the organ is going to be designed to
[02:59:59] fulfill that function.
[03:00:05] So
[03:00:06] this is the reality is that these forms
[03:00:08] will follow the meanings.
[03:00:15] So people see in their sleep
[03:00:18] the reality of their inner state.
[03:00:26] So now you know the the reality of man
[03:00:29] his internal reality is one of these
[03:00:31] four.
[03:00:39] So it is absolutely necessary that the
[03:00:44] person is vigilant and observes
[03:00:48] his movements,
[03:00:52] his states of movement and stillness
[03:00:56] to see among which of the four does he
[03:01:00] belong.
[03:01:03] So this is about introspection, looking
[03:01:05] at yourself, reflecting on your
[03:01:07] behavior, on your character. What am I?
[03:01:12] Am I a pig? Am I a dog? Am I a demon? Or
[03:01:16] am I an angel?
[03:01:28] Because these qualities
[03:01:33] emerge in the heart and will remain with
[03:01:36] him until the day of judgment.
[03:01:39] These are the qualities. So whatever
[03:01:41] your heart is filled with, if it's
[03:01:44] filled with anger,
[03:01:47] that's the reality. If it's filled with
[03:01:49] desire, that's its reality. If it's
[03:01:52] filled with treachery, unfaithfulness,
[03:01:59] all those things, then it's got the de
[03:02:01] demonic qualities. And if it's filled
[03:02:04] with good, then it has the angelic
[03:02:06] qualities. Those are its realities.
[03:02:17] So if those things,
[03:02:20] the the righteous
[03:02:22] perpetual truths that go on forever,
[03:02:26] your prayer, your charity, your zakat,
[03:02:30] your hajj,
[03:02:32] all of those qualities, every good act
[03:02:35] that you did, even smiling in the face
[03:02:38] of your brother or sister, right? If
[03:02:41] you're a sister, even smiling in the
[03:02:44] face of your brother or sister, that's a
[03:02:46] charity that goes on. It's perpetual. So
[03:02:49] all of those qualities are going to be
[03:02:52] preserved by Allah. And these are all
[03:02:54] the seeds of felicity. These are all the
[03:02:56] things that you're planting here. And
[03:02:58] you will reap the harvest in the
[03:03:05] And if anything remains other than that,
[03:03:08] these are the seeds of wretchedness.
[03:03:11] These are the seeds of damnation.
[03:03:23] and and the the son of Adam is neither
[03:03:25] free of nor released from motion or
[03:03:28] stillness. You're either in motion,
[03:03:29] you're either doing something or you're
[03:03:30] not doing something. You're either in a
[03:03:32] state of or right in the duas of the
[03:03:35] prophet the
[03:03:38] right
[03:03:40] in my motion and my stillness. So you're
[03:03:43] in one state or the other and your heart
[03:03:46] is like a glass.
[03:03:49] It's like a glass.
[03:03:55] And the foul characteristics are like
[03:03:59] smoke and like darkness. They're going
[03:04:03] to distort the glass so that you can't
[03:04:06] see through the glass.
[03:04:12] So if these bad qualities
[03:04:16] reach the heart then they cause a
[03:04:20] darkness
[03:04:24] that does not enable you to see with
[03:04:28] clarity.
[03:04:33] and then also
[03:04:37] and the good characteristics are like
[03:04:39] light and clarity.
[03:04:45] If they reach the heart, they purify the
[03:04:48] heart from the darkness of
[03:04:50] disobediences.
[03:04:52] From the darkness of disobedience. If
[03:04:54] these good qualities are being acted,
[03:04:56] then they cause a light to emanate in
[03:04:58] the heart. So the heart becomes
[03:05:00] functional. You can see with it
[03:05:08] follow up a bad deed with a good deed.
[03:05:10] So it wipes it.
[03:05:13] The effects of it are wiped away. It's a
[03:05:16] polishing because there's oxidation that
[03:05:20] occurs. And that's what he's saying.
[03:05:32] And the heart is either illuminating
[03:05:36] or it's in darkening. It's one of the
[03:05:39] two. It will either in darken or it will
[03:05:41] enlighten.
[03:05:44] And
[03:05:46] no one has salvation unless they come to
[03:05:49] Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with a sound
[03:05:51] heart.
[03:05:56] There's no benefit on that day except
[03:06:00] the one who comes to Allah with a sound
[03:06:02] heart.
[03:06:19] End of CD3.
[03:06:22] This begins CD 4.
[03:06:56] section on the wonders of the heart.
[03:06:59] And he says,
[03:07:10] Foreign
[03:07:48] So he says know that the heart has two
[03:07:51] doors
[03:07:53] to the knowledges
[03:07:56] the
[03:07:57] sciences
[03:07:59] sciences in the old use of that word to
[03:08:04] know.
[03:08:08] One of them is for dreams or really
[03:08:11] visions he means here because Muslims
[03:08:15] discriminate between
[03:08:17] dreams that are from the ego from the
[03:08:19] nef and then
[03:08:22] or spiritual
[03:08:26] experiences that happen during sleep
[03:08:28] that are from Allah subhana wa ta'ala
[03:08:31] and then the second is in the awakened
[03:08:35] state or the world awake waking
[03:08:38] consciousness.
[03:08:42] So it's the
[03:08:45] external door to the outward world.
[03:08:54] When he sleeps, he shuts the door of the
[03:08:56] senses because the experience that
[03:08:59] occurs in the sleep, it's not of this
[03:09:02] world. It's you're entering into the
[03:09:05] world of of meanings. It's not This
[03:09:08] world has meaning, but most people are
[03:09:11] overwhelmed by the sensory perception of
[03:09:13] the world, the sensor. And so they don't
[03:09:16] delve into the meanings. They only see
[03:09:18] the outward form.
[03:09:22] The Quran says they know the outward of
[03:09:24] this world.
[03:09:28] But about the real world, they they're
[03:09:31] in a state of heedlessness. So people
[03:09:35] experiencing the world experience it in
[03:09:38] a sambulant state. They're sleep
[03:09:42] walkers. The world is like dreams that
[03:09:47] they don't really know what it means.
[03:09:48] People have jumbled dreams.
[03:09:52] The Quran calls it in Ysef. When the
[03:09:55] king asks them what what his vision is,
[03:09:58] they say, "Oh, this is just meaningless
[03:10:01] dreams.
[03:10:03] because they don't know what it means.
[03:10:04] So, they just deny it has meaning. And
[03:10:07] that's a very common strategy for
[03:10:09] dealing with what you don't know what
[03:10:11] something means.
[03:10:14] When you're ignorant of something, you
[03:10:16] become its enemy because you don't know.
[03:10:18] So, oh, that's that doesn't mean
[03:10:20] anything because you don't understand
[03:10:23] it. So, that's one way of dealing with
[03:10:26] meaning is to deny meaning because you
[03:10:29] don't understand it. So he's saying that
[03:10:32] when you sleep,
[03:10:34] you're shutting off the world of the
[03:10:36] senses
[03:10:37] because the senses are the biggest veil
[03:10:40] that Allah has made for man. The senses
[03:10:43] veil you from reality.
[03:10:48] And people that are of the senses, they
[03:10:50] can't get beyond the senses. So they're
[03:10:52] trapped in the senses.
[03:10:54] Which is why in many traditions
[03:10:58] the basic strategy was to flee from the
[03:11:00] senses.
[03:11:02] So if you look in Hinduism, in Buddhism,
[03:11:05] they go to great means to turn off the
[03:11:09] sensoria to try to get to meaning. In
[03:11:12] the Christian tradition, the same is
[03:11:14] true. The monks would literally
[03:11:16] completely
[03:11:19] detach from the world, go to
[03:11:21] monasteries, often in deserts because a
[03:11:23] desert is a place that is very useful to
[03:11:26] shut off the sensor because there's so
[03:11:29] little to stimulate you in terms of the
[03:11:31] senses.
[03:11:34] If you look at Ibraimisam, it's amazing
[03:11:36] that he put his family in Mecca because
[03:11:40] it's a place,
[03:11:42] you know, he describes it as
[03:11:45] that it's it's a valley without any
[03:11:47] foliage.
[03:11:49] So, and often the desert
[03:11:52] was a place where people went, hermits
[03:11:55] and monks and the desert fathers, they
[03:11:58] literally went into the deserts of Sinai
[03:12:01] and attempted to
[03:12:05] disconnect from the world. Islam
[03:12:08] rejected that. But if you look at the
[03:12:10] early period of the prophet's spiritual
[03:12:13] life, what did he do? He went to a cave.
[03:12:18] And a cave is sensory deprivation.
[03:12:22] And when you go into a cave,
[03:12:25] you deprive yourself of the senses.
[03:12:26] Because one of the things you deprive
[03:12:27] yourself is light. And light is a major
[03:12:31] door to the senses, external light. One
[03:12:35] of the things that you do as a strategy
[03:12:37] to help your prayer. If you're moaswiss
[03:12:40] or if you're mushawish, somebody who's
[03:12:43] easily distracted, then it's it's
[03:12:45] usually makru to close your eyes during
[03:12:47] the prayer. But it's permitted if you're
[03:12:49] somebody who is easily distracted
[03:12:52] because the eyes open up the door of the
[03:12:54] senses.
[03:12:56] And so this is what they would do is
[03:12:58] disconnect, meditation, all these
[03:13:00] different things. But at the end of the
[03:13:03] prophet's life, or not even at the end,
[03:13:05] but later when he's in Medina, he's
[03:13:08] praying in front of his wife. I mean,
[03:13:11] she's literally on her bed lying in
[03:13:14] front of him and he's injudicing
[03:13:20] with Allah subhana wa tala and
[03:13:21] completely
[03:13:23] undistracted by any external
[03:13:27] temptations or forms. And even when he
[03:13:31] went on the it said
[03:13:36] you could imagine if the unseen's being
[03:13:39] unveiled to you because that's what was
[03:13:41] happening. The unseen there is a inward
[03:13:43] sensory experience also. So there's a
[03:13:47] sensory experience of the unseen world.
[03:13:49] It's inward. It's not outward but it's
[03:13:51] inexperienced. But his vision was not
[03:13:53] distracted by the unseen world because
[03:13:56] he was so focused on his lord. Even in
[03:13:59] the midst of all these wonders that are
[03:14:01] being revealed before his eyes, his eyes
[03:14:04] didn't divert and his heart never
[03:14:06] diverted because his heart was
[03:14:09] completely in tune with reality. And
[03:14:12] reality is unicity. Reality is absolute
[03:14:15] unadulterated oneness. So there's no
[03:14:19] there's no other in reality. There's no
[03:14:21] distractions in reality. Reality is
[03:14:24] pure.
[03:14:26] So what he's saying is when you sleep
[03:14:28] you're being deprived of this door of
[03:14:31] the senses and you're opened up to an
[03:14:35] internal door a door of the inward and
[03:14:38] there are elements of the unseen that
[03:14:40] are being opened up to you in the unseen
[03:14:43] world and it's from the
[03:14:46] so this is a door to knowledge for the
[03:14:48] heart and this is why the prophet
[03:14:49] sallallahu alaihi wasallam said true
[03:14:51] dreams are 146th of prophecy
[03:14:56] . And true dreams are
[03:15:02] 146th of prophecy. And true dreams are
[03:15:02] the access that the average human being
[03:15:04] has to prophecy.
[03:15:07] And that's why people will see dreams
[03:15:09] that come true.
[03:15:12] They will have meanings revealed to them
[03:15:14] in dreams.
[03:15:16] And these are related to prophecy.
[03:15:18] That's what that hadith means. So it's a
[03:15:20] door of perception. Dreams.
[03:15:25] And it's an opening to the malakut which
[03:15:27] is what in the gospel is called the
[03:15:29] kingdom of the heavens.
[03:15:32] And there are many many reference to
[03:15:34] this in the gospel. Isaam
[03:15:37] talked about the kingdom of the heavens
[03:15:40] being revealed to his disciples.
[03:15:45] So those things that are from the
[03:15:50] in the unseen world,
[03:15:56] it's like a light that is
[03:15:59] revealing things.
[03:16:04] And perhaps
[03:16:06] his understanding of these things, the
[03:16:09] illumination of these things is
[03:16:12] stipulated upon
[03:16:14] some knowledge of the interpretation of
[03:16:16] dreams. In other words,
[03:16:18] he won't be able to understand what they
[03:16:20] mean unless he has access to
[03:16:24] interpretation of the dreams. And not
[03:16:25] everybody has that knowledge. That
[03:16:26] knowledge is limited to certain people.
[03:16:29] Abu Bakr Sudik had knowledge of the
[03:16:32] meaning of dreams. So the prophet
[03:16:33] sallall alaihi wasallam himself would
[03:16:35] ask Abu Bakr what dreams meant because
[03:16:38] that was one of the knowledges that Abu
[03:16:40] Bakr had. So interpretation of dreams is
[03:16:44] not a knowledge that everybody has. Some
[03:16:46] people have it. It's haram to if you
[03:16:48] don't know the interpretation of dreams
[03:16:50] to tell people what dreams mean because
[03:16:53] true dreams are a portion of prophecy.
[03:16:56] So it's as if you're making commentary
[03:16:59] on something from the unseen world
[03:17:01] that's true and so you shouldn't do it
[03:17:03] if you don't have knowledge of it.
[03:17:07] And then he says as for what's of the
[03:17:09] outward people think that this is what
[03:17:13] the waking state is that they think the
[03:17:17] waking state is reality
[03:17:21] but the waking state is actually a dream
[03:17:24] for most people. They're not they're not
[03:17:27] in reality.
[03:17:30] They only think they're in reality. So
[03:17:32] that's what people think this outward
[03:17:35] door perception is.
[03:17:37] But he said it's what you see between
[03:17:40] sleep. And they also think that what is
[03:17:43] seen between sleep that what's seen
[03:17:47] while you're awake is something that you
[03:17:50] should have knowledge of that you just
[03:17:51] have mifa of it because you see it while
[03:17:54] you're awake. But it's not true. People
[03:17:58] see things all the time and they don't
[03:17:59] know what they mean.
[03:18:02] That there's signs all around people.
[03:18:04] There's signs everywhere. but they don't
[03:18:07] know how to read them, but they assume
[03:18:09] they do because they're in a waking
[03:18:11] state. They might not necessarily assume
[03:18:14] they know what their dreams are, but
[03:18:17] they automatically assume they know what
[03:18:19] outward perception is, that what a tree
[03:18:22] means.
[03:18:24] They just assume they know what things
[03:18:26] are on the outward. And he's saying that
[03:18:29] it seems natural that they would do
[03:18:31] that. But
[03:18:33] in reality,
[03:18:37] what they're seeing in the outward is
[03:18:39] nothing of of the the the the real
[03:18:42] world.
[03:18:44] They're signs.
[03:18:46] They're indicators. That's all they are.
[03:18:48] They're indicators. There's nothing of
[03:18:49] the real world, but they think it's the
[03:18:51] real world because they're trapped in
[03:18:53] this outward world, veiled by their
[03:18:56] senses.
[03:19:02] But what is understood
[03:19:05] in this state that is not sleep and it's
[03:19:08] not this normal wakeful consciousness
[03:19:11] that is what should be more worthy of
[03:19:15] understanding of this mifa of it than
[03:19:18] what they know through their senses.
[03:19:23] So understanding reality
[03:19:26] that is what people should have
[03:19:29] knowledge of not this this assumed state
[03:19:32] of what knowledge is this outward
[03:19:34] experience of the world that they're
[03:19:35] assuming is reality.
[03:19:38] And then he says
[03:19:44] what you should know in concerning this
[03:19:47] matter is that the heart is like a
[03:19:49] mirror. The heart is like a mirror.
[03:19:56] and and the which contains all of what
[03:20:00] Allah has decreed in the world is also
[03:20:04] like a mirror
[03:20:07] because in it is the reflection of every
[03:20:09] existent thing. So it's like a mirror
[03:20:12] also.
[03:20:20] And when one mirror is placed in front
[03:20:22] of the other mirror, then you see the
[03:20:25] reflection in that mirror of all the
[03:20:28] things that's in the other mirror. So if
[03:20:29] you put one mirror next to another
[03:20:31] mirror, it's going to reflect what's in
[03:20:33] that mirror.
[03:20:38] I don't know if you've ever done that.
[03:20:39] If you put two mirrors together, you can
[03:20:41] see it's a very strange phenomenon.
[03:20:44] So what he says is
[03:20:52] And this is part of Imazi's teaching is
[03:20:54] that he believes in what's called
[03:20:57] that the heart is open to unveilings.
[03:21:01] So he says if the heart is pure and
[03:21:06] freed of the preoccupations
[03:21:09] and the desires of this world
[03:21:14] then
[03:21:16] it will see what the world is in
[03:21:19] reality. It will see these realities.
[03:21:22] And he says that
[03:21:25] but if
[03:21:28] but if it's preoccupied
[03:21:30] with desire and filled with the world
[03:21:38] this kingdom of the heavens is veiled
[03:21:41] from it. So it doesn't have access to
[03:21:42] it.
[03:21:44] Doesn't have any access to it.
[03:21:57] But if
[03:21:59] in the state of its sleep it's freed of
[03:22:02] the attachments of the sensory then it's
[03:22:05] able to view or look upon
[03:22:09] this malakut world. You have mul malakut
[03:22:13] and yabarut. The the mul is the the
[03:22:16] world of senses. It's everything you can
[03:22:18] see and touch. It's palpable. It's what
[03:22:20] you can feel. The malakut is the world
[03:22:22] of the unseen
[03:22:24] which is around us. It's also here
[03:22:26] alongside of us. And so he's saying that
[03:22:30] you will be able to see the essences of
[03:22:33] this other world. And you will see some
[03:22:37] of the meanings that are in the
[03:22:41] some of these realities. Not all because
[03:22:44] only Allah knows all of the unseen. But
[03:22:48] people have these unveilings from that
[03:22:50] world. And of all people, the prophet
[03:22:53] sallallaihi wasallam had the greatest
[03:22:54] portion of that.
[03:23:01] And then if he shuts the door of the
[03:23:04] senses, then this imaginal world will
[03:23:08] emerge. And this is a technical term.
[03:23:10] It's not really imagination, but it's
[03:23:12] the imaginal world.
[03:23:18] And so what he will see is under the
[03:23:21] veil of the externalities.
[03:23:26] So what he's saying is when you shut off
[03:23:29] the senses, you've still got the
[03:23:31] imagination. So there's still a filter
[03:23:35] that you don't see even the uh the
[03:23:37] reality of the unseen world as it truly
[03:23:40] is. You're still veiled by the nature of
[03:23:43] your experience. And then he says
[03:23:48] you won't see reality as it truly is. It
[03:23:52] won't be unveiled to you completely
[03:23:54] because you're still filtered by your
[03:23:58] experience in this world. As long as
[03:23:59] you're in this world, there are filters.
[03:24:13] But if you die, in other words, your
[03:24:15] heart dies. Your sensory consciousness
[03:24:18] dies. So the possessor of the heart, the
[03:24:22] imagination goes and the senses go. The
[03:24:25] imagination is to the intellect what the
[03:24:29] senses are to the body. It's still a
[03:24:32] type of veil. It's something we need. We
[03:24:34] need the senses to have some knowledge
[03:24:36] of reality, but the senses veil us. And
[03:24:39] the imagination, you need to have some
[03:24:41] knowledge of reality also, but it's
[03:24:43] still a veil.
[03:24:45] The reason that we can imagine paradise
[03:24:47] is because we have imagination.
[03:24:51] So, you can think of things of the
[03:24:53] unseen world that you're told angels. We
[03:24:55] can imagine beings that are made out of
[03:24:57] light, that have wings. We don't know
[03:25:00] what they are in reality but Allah has
[03:25:02] given us an imagination and the
[03:25:04] imagination is a door to perception of
[03:25:07] reality but it's still a filter just
[03:25:10] like the senses are a filter. So then he
[03:25:13] says at that time you will see without
[03:25:16] any illusion
[03:25:19] and you will see without any
[03:25:20] imagination.
[03:25:28] We have removed the veil from you and
[03:25:30] now you have piercing sight. You see
[03:25:33] reality as it truly is. That's what
[03:25:34] happens when you die. And that's why
[03:25:37] you'll feel like you've just woken from
[03:25:39] a dream.
[03:25:41] When you die, it's the awakening because
[03:25:46] you're no longer veiled by the senses
[03:25:48] and you're no longer veiled by the
[03:25:49] imagination. You are going to experience
[03:25:52] things as they truly are.
[03:25:57] So what he's saying is is that your
[03:26:00] heart is a mirror. Now what is a mirror?
[03:26:03] Is the mirror the thing itself?
[03:26:06] When you look in a mirror, is it the
[03:26:08] thing itself?
[03:26:09] It's not, is it? Is a reflection of the
[03:26:12] thing? You know, when you look in the
[03:26:14] mirror, you wonder, do I really look
[03:26:16] like that?
[03:26:19] Is that how people are perceiving me?
[03:26:21] You don't know cuz you can't see
[03:26:23] yourself.
[03:26:25] It's a very strange thing that Allah has
[03:26:27] done for all of us. We can see other
[03:26:29] people but we can't see oursel except
[03:26:31] through a mirror. But the mirror is it
[03:26:34] distorting it? Do you know how mirrors
[03:26:36] distort? Sometimes your face looks
[03:26:38] longer than it does or shorter or wider.
[03:26:41] That's the nature of mirrors. So the
[03:26:43] heart is like that also. The heart you
[03:26:46] don't know is is is my perception of
[03:26:49] reality distorted? If you're a
[03:26:51] introspective person, a lot of people
[03:26:52] don't think of these things.
[03:26:58] So the mirror might be distorted.
[03:27:01] It might need reframing. It might need
[03:27:03] recasting.
[03:27:07] So that's what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
[03:27:09] says in
[03:27:15] we have removed the veil from you
[03:27:18] and now you see with piercing sight
[03:27:22] it's clear as day
[03:27:35] and know that there's nobody except that
[03:27:40] sound thoughts will enter his heart
[03:27:44] and the clarification of truth will
[03:27:46] enter his heart by way of inspiration.
[03:27:50] Everybody will have true inspiration if
[03:27:53] they're humans. They're going to have
[03:27:55] true inspiration in life. Like Winston
[03:27:57] Churchill said, "Everybody stumbles on
[03:28:01] the truth at least once in their life."
[03:28:04] But
[03:28:07] like myself,
[03:28:09] they usually get up, brush themselves
[03:28:11] off, and carry on.
[03:28:14] You know that that that's what kufur is.
[03:28:18] It's when you know the truth, but you
[03:28:20] just choose to ignore it.
[03:28:23] You choose to cover it up. So he's
[03:28:25] saying that people will be exposed to
[03:28:27] the truth in their life, and their
[03:28:29] hearts will be open to the truth by way
[03:28:32] of inspiration.
[03:28:36] But
[03:28:40] it won't come by way of the senses. It's
[03:28:42] something that comes by way of the heart
[03:28:45] and he will not know where it came from.
[03:28:51] Because the heart is from this other
[03:28:55] world. It's not of this world. Your
[03:28:58] consciousness is not of this world. It's
[03:29:00] of another world.
[03:29:03] That's what consciousness is. And that's
[03:29:04] why sleep is so important
[03:29:08] because that's what sleep does. It's a
[03:29:10] door to that other world.
[03:29:12] It's a door to that other world. And
[03:29:14] you'll hear people say, "Oh, I had Isn't
[03:29:16] that strange? I had this dream and then
[03:29:18] it happened. Isn't that strange?" See,
[03:29:20] they can't understand it. Isn't that
[03:29:22] strange? Isn't that weird?
[03:29:25] Because they don't know what it means.
[03:29:27] They don't Most people are cut off from
[03:29:29] these realities. So when they experience
[03:29:32] them, they experience them as strange,
[03:29:35] as wondrous. There's other people that
[03:29:37] that's their normal state.
[03:29:40] It's not strange at all. It's just their
[03:29:42] normal state because they they have much
[03:29:45] more access to reality than most people.
[03:29:54] The senses were created for this world,
[03:29:58] the world of the mul of the dominion,
[03:30:00] the outward dominion.
[03:30:08] And for that reason, he is veiled from
[03:30:12] looking on to the other world.
[03:30:16] if his heart if he's not emptied
[03:30:20] of the distractions of the senses. So if
[03:30:24] you're not emptied of these distractions
[03:30:26] then you're veiled. You don't have
[03:30:28] access which is the state of most people
[03:30:32] or preoccupied.
[03:30:35] And then he says,
[03:30:41] "But don't think that this capacity
[03:30:44] is opened during sleep and death only."
[03:30:50] Don't think it's these only these two
[03:30:53] means by you have to die or you have to
[03:30:55] go to sleep to see reality.
[03:31:12] No, it opens during the wakeful state to
[03:31:16] those who are sincere in their jihad and
[03:31:19] in their and that's why from Morocco he
[03:31:23] said whoever is sincere for 40 days
[03:31:26] sincere for 40 days seeking God his
[03:31:28] heart will be open the bos
[03:31:31] is open.
[03:31:34] So if you have sincerity in your
[03:31:36] struggle and in your spiritual exercise
[03:31:39] and you're freed of this desire and
[03:31:41] anger, I mean these are the two great
[03:31:44] enemies of men, sheha and the the
[03:31:48] concupiscent and the irassable soul. if
[03:31:51] you're not freed of their sovereignty.
[03:31:53] So that your
[03:31:57] is the one that has authority over them
[03:32:01] and from foul character and from vile
[03:32:06] deeds if you're not freed of these also.
[03:32:09] So not only do you have to be sincere in
[03:32:11] your struggle but you al actually have
[03:32:12] to be realized. And this is what in this
[03:32:15] tradition they say there's these stages.
[03:32:18] The first stage is what's called which
[03:32:20] is the emptying out and then you go to
[03:32:23] and then the final stage is which is
[03:32:26] where you have the unveilings. So the is
[03:32:30] the is emptying the self of desire and
[03:32:33] anger and emptying the self of vile
[03:32:37] characteristics. And then the is
[03:32:40] embellishing the self, adorning the self
[03:32:42] with prophetic character that you begin
[03:32:44] to follow the sun and not just the
[03:32:46] outward sun. There's plenty of people
[03:32:48] that cut their mustache or trim their
[03:32:51] nails or wear their robe a certain way
[03:32:54] or eat with three fingers or
[03:32:58] go into the masid with the right foot
[03:33:01] and come out with the left foot and say
[03:33:02] the duas when they do certain things. If
[03:33:05] they drink, if they eat, whatever they
[03:33:07] do, they follow those outward sunn which
[03:33:09] are important and they shouldn't be
[03:33:11] belittled in any way, shape or form
[03:33:13] because they're part of the prophetic
[03:33:15] character. They're the externals of the
[03:33:17] prophetic character. But who are the
[03:33:20] ones who take on the inward prophetic
[03:33:22] character?
[03:33:24] The of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
[03:33:26] wasallam, his forbearance, his patience,
[03:33:28] his mercy, his charity, his generosity,
[03:33:32] his kindness, his humility.
[03:33:36] That's the
[03:33:41] that adorning the self with the
[03:33:43] qualities and characteristics of the
[03:33:44] prophets and
[03:33:47] all of the character of the prophets are
[03:33:49] in the prophet Muhammad sallallahu
[03:33:50] alaihi wasallam because he's
[03:33:52] he's of the
[03:33:55] he has all of the characters and
[03:33:57] qualities of the prophet.
[03:34:01] So that's what he's saying that if you
[03:34:03] do that then these things will happen.
[03:34:09] So if he's sitting in an empty place, a
[03:34:12] place like the that's where was right
[03:34:15] she was in the what was she doing? What
[03:34:18] was the prophet sallallaihi wasallam
[03:34:19] doing in
[03:34:21] what was he doing in his what was he
[03:34:23] doing? He he was in a place where he was
[03:34:25] freed of distractions
[03:34:30] and he basically cut off the inroads of
[03:34:35] the senses
[03:34:38] and opened up his inner eye. See, just
[03:34:41] as you have this eye and it's closed,
[03:34:43] you can close it like that and then you
[03:34:45] don't see anything. If you open it,
[03:34:46] suddenly you see things. You have an
[03:34:48] inner eye also. The inner eye for most
[03:34:50] people is not only closed, it's like a
[03:34:53] spiritual cataract.
[03:34:58] It doesn't have access. It's literally
[03:35:00] blinded by the veils
[03:35:02] of wrong action, by the veils of
[03:35:06] ignorance, by the veils of desire, all
[03:35:10] of these different things. That's what
[03:35:11] the state of the spiritual eye is. The
[03:35:13] spiritual eye is more sensitive than the
[03:35:16] physical eye. Look what happens when a
[03:35:18] little piece of dust gets in your eye or
[03:35:20] a hair like a hair follicle from your
[03:35:23] eyelash if it gets in the eye. And look
[03:35:26] what displeasure
[03:35:28] and distraction you fall into. You can't
[03:35:31] even open your eye.
[03:35:34] You can't see. The spiritual eye is more
[03:35:37] sensitive than the outward eye. And the
[03:35:39] spiritual eye if you open it up and look
[03:35:41] what we fill our sensory eyes with that
[03:35:44] are all inos to the spiritual eye.
[03:35:48] So the spiritual eye is blinded by the
[03:35:50] senses. I one of the most extraordinary
[03:35:53] aspects of the prophetic character is
[03:35:55] lowering the eyes.
[03:35:58] Even when the prophet walked he said one
[03:36:01] of the adabs of the road is
[03:36:05] when you're on the road. Now, what about
[03:36:07] all these forms that we take in? What
[03:36:10] about all the images? If you live in
[03:36:12] North America, the average person takes
[03:36:13] in over 3,000 advertisements a day.
[03:36:19] 3,000 advertisements a day. So, the
[03:36:22] modern world is just completely
[03:36:24] spiritually blinding people. That's what
[03:36:28] it's doing. It's it's the modern world
[03:36:30] is like a a spike being driven through
[03:36:34] the spiritual eye of man. And that's why
[03:36:36] we're blind as a species. We've become
[03:36:39] blind. We don't even know there's a
[03:36:40] spiritual world because we don't have
[03:36:43] access to it anymore.
[03:36:45] We've been cut off. We've been severed
[03:36:47] from our roots. Our roots are in the
[03:36:48] unseen world. Our roots aren't here.
[03:36:50] When you look at the tree, the tree's
[03:36:53] roots are not in the the seen world. You
[03:36:56] can't see the roots. If you can see the
[03:36:58] roots, the tree is dead.
[03:37:01] You have to pull the tree up to see the
[03:37:03] roots.
[03:37:05] But the roots of the tree are in the
[03:37:07] unseen world. That our roots are in the
[03:37:10] unseen world. That's why we're alive.
[03:37:14] So people can't see those roots. They
[03:37:17] don't even know they exist. If a child
[03:37:20] looks at a tree, it doesn't know it has
[03:37:22] roots. You have to have some level of
[03:37:25] knowledge about trees to know that
[03:37:26] there's roots. Well, the same is true
[03:37:28] for the human being. You have to know
[03:37:29] what are our roots? Where do we come
[03:37:31] from? What's our source? What was our
[03:37:33] seed? How did we grow?
[03:37:36] Where did consciousness come from?
[03:37:39] What's the purpose of consciousness?
[03:37:44] So if you sit in an empty place
[03:37:48] and you turn off the inroads of the
[03:37:51] senses and you open up your inner eye,
[03:38:00] internal hearing. Just like you have
[03:38:01] external hearing, you also have internal
[03:38:03] hearing like the hatiff. People hear how
[03:38:07] this is not like mad people see and hear
[03:38:10] things also. So
[03:38:13] there's also people that have and and
[03:38:14] part of that is people have unveilings
[03:38:17] as well. Mad people I mean unveilings
[03:38:19] can lead to madness also. So the
[03:38:22] veilings of the world are also a rahma
[03:38:24] from Allah subhana wa ta'ala. If the
[03:38:26] world was unveiled to you, you could go
[03:38:27] mad and that happens to people. Doors of
[03:38:30] perception can be opened and people can
[03:38:32] go mad. Doors of perception can be
[03:38:35] forced open with drugs and people have
[03:38:38] experiences. You have inward sensory
[03:38:41] experiences and and inward meaning
[03:38:43] experiences. You have inward terrestrial
[03:38:45] experiences, inward celestial
[03:38:47] experiences. So they're different. And
[03:38:49] there's a whole science of discerning
[03:38:51] what experiences are. And it's not just
[03:38:54] us. The Catholic Church has this
[03:38:56] science. The Buddhists have this
[03:38:58] science. The Hindus have this science. I
[03:39:01] mean this is known in other traditions
[03:39:03] also not in the same way that it is in
[03:39:06] our tradition but they they do discern
[03:39:08] between different types of experiences.
[03:39:10] So the Catholic Church has a science of
[03:39:12] discernment and they believe it's a gift
[03:39:15] of the Holy Spirit that you're able to
[03:39:17] determine whether an experience is a
[03:39:18] genuine spiritual experience or whether
[03:39:20] it's an emotional experience that you
[03:39:22] think is a spiritual experience. You've
[03:39:24] got people in Pentecostal states
[03:39:27] speaking in tongues, feeling the Holy
[03:39:30] Spirit throughout their body. They have
[03:39:31] physical sensations. Don't deny their
[03:39:33] reality. Those people, if you meet
[03:39:35] people that have been born again, they
[03:39:37] have had very real experiences.
[03:39:42] They've had very real and powerful
[03:39:44] experiences.
[03:39:46] And that's why their faith is often very
[03:39:49] strong. But a lot of those experiences
[03:39:51] are not spiritual experiences.
[03:39:55] They're actually
[03:39:57] experiences. They're inward experiences
[03:40:00] that sometimes have physical aspects to
[03:40:02] them, but they're of the inward sensory,
[03:40:05] not the inward meaning.
[03:40:08] So, they're not true experiences, but
[03:40:10] that's a knowledge to discern between
[03:40:12] these type things. And it's a
[03:40:14] sophisticated knowledge that people
[03:40:17] have. So, people can be deluded. This
[03:40:19] this is very easy. And that's why when
[03:40:21] you really get into
[03:40:24] serious practice, you need a guide in
[03:40:27] that. You can't do this
[03:40:29] on your own. I mean, I imi did. is very
[03:40:33] rare and there are people that do do it
[03:40:36] but the prophet had.
[03:40:41] So then he says
[03:40:48] and then his heart is
[03:40:52] entrained with the this
[03:40:58] Allah Allah. So this is called
[03:41:03] which is where he's in a state of
[03:41:06] awareness of the divine presence.
[03:41:09] He's not saying it with his tongue
[03:41:14] until the ego is completely eaced. So he
[03:41:19] doesn't experience himself
[03:41:22] and he doesn't experience the world.
[03:41:30] And this is what they call and I really
[03:41:32] I'm I'm just this is from the book. So
[03:41:35] I'm not we're just looking at what he's
[03:41:37] saying in the book and what they say
[03:41:39] about this knowledge. So he says then
[03:41:43] this capacity is open
[03:41:49] and then he begins to see in his waking
[03:41:52] state the same as the true visions in
[03:41:55] his sleeping state. So his waking state
[03:41:59] becomes one in which his spiritual inner
[03:42:02] eye is open and he begins to see the
[03:42:05] world as it truly is in reality. He's no
[03:42:08] longer veiled. So he is experiencing
[03:42:13] the divine presence. This is the state
[03:42:15] of the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam
[03:42:16] without a doubt and it's the state of
[03:42:17] his
[03:42:20] and it's the state of the
[03:42:22] you know if you're with the abdal
[03:42:28] seen him that that's the state he's in
[03:42:29] all the time
[03:42:32] you know he's looking out and you're
[03:42:33] seeing him look out but he's not seeing
[03:42:35] what you're seeing
[03:42:39] you know and you sit with for people
[03:42:42] that went there.
[03:42:44] I mean, you see it. I mean, you sit with
[03:42:45] him and he's in another state. They call
[03:42:48] it he's present, absent.
[03:42:55] He's just does vikar all the time. He
[03:42:56] does in his sleep. And I slept I lived
[03:42:59] in his tent with him. So I slept on the
[03:43:01] bed with him. He does vikar in his
[03:43:04] sleep.
[03:43:07] He reads Quran in his sleep. I mean I
[03:43:10] saw it with my own eyes.
[03:43:12] There was a man in Morocco I knew too
[03:43:14] also. He did
[03:43:17] in his sleep and he would snore. He was
[03:43:20] literally snoring and doing prayer on
[03:43:22] the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.
[03:43:23] So I've seen I've seen it. People can
[03:43:26] you know
[03:43:29] like the people who see aren't like the
[03:43:31] people who are told about something. You
[03:43:33] see it the
[03:43:37] people doing prayer on the prophet and
[03:43:38] they're sleeping
[03:43:47] and then he sees the spirits of the
[03:43:49] angels.
[03:43:56] The kingdom of the heavens and the
[03:43:57] earth. It's in the gospels and it's
[03:43:59] talked about this a lot. the kingdom of
[03:44:01] the heavens and the earth.
[03:44:04] It's the same teaching.
[03:44:10] And he sees things that you can't
[03:44:14] elucidate
[03:44:16] and you can't articulate in a book.
[03:44:20] These are things that I can't write
[03:44:22] about.
[03:44:29] The earth was folded up for me and I saw
[03:44:32] its various easts and west. What does
[03:44:35] that mean? You know, now we know that at
[03:44:38] every horizon there's a new east and a
[03:44:41] new west. You know, as you're moving,
[03:44:43] there's always a new east and a new.
[03:44:45] It's not just one east and one west.
[03:44:48] We know that it has multiple east and
[03:44:50] west based on where you are, right? So
[03:44:52] the prophet said, "I saw all of the
[03:44:54] earth.
[03:44:56] It was shown to me all of the different
[03:45:00] horizons of the earth."
[03:45:03] So he had knowledge there were multiple
[03:45:05] horizons.
[03:45:08] It's an unseen experience. And also
[03:45:17] and like that we showed Ibraim the
[03:45:21] kingdom of the heavens and the earth is
[03:45:23] in the Quran.
[03:45:25] We showed Ibraim the kingdoms. Why?
[03:45:32] So that he had certainty.
[03:45:36] So he had certainty.
[03:45:45] This is how the knowledges of the
[03:45:47] prophets come. They don't have book
[03:45:49] learning.
[03:45:51] Their knowledge is not of the books.
[03:45:53] They weren't taught by books. We learn
[03:45:55] by books.
[03:45:59] The prophets didn't have book learning.
[03:46:02] The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
[03:46:03] had learning just by having the hand
[03:46:06] placed on his back in the hadith. And he
[03:46:08] said,
[03:46:10] It's a
[03:46:13] I knew everything just by having the
[03:46:16] hand placed on his back at the point of
[03:46:18] the seal of prophecy.
[03:46:21] And he said,
[03:46:23] "I knew everything."
[03:46:27] So that's the those are the doors of
[03:46:30] perception that the prophet said
[03:46:32] it's not the senses. We learn through
[03:46:34] the senses. We touch, we dissect, we
[03:46:37] feel, we take apart, we open up the
[03:46:39] heart, we look in, oh, the heart has
[03:46:41] four chambers. There's people that know
[03:46:43] the heart has four chambers, and they
[03:46:44] don't have to look inside the heart
[03:46:47] because it's unveiled to them.
[03:46:52] But this is how we learn. We learn by
[03:46:54] taking things apart. There's people that
[03:46:56] don't learn to do that. They look at
[03:46:57] something, they know what it is
[03:47:00] because it's unveiled for them.
[03:47:09] Allah says
[03:47:12] what is mean?
[03:47:15] It means to detach,
[03:47:21] disconnect,
[03:47:26] cut off in order to go to him. In order
[03:47:29] to be open to your Lord, you need to
[03:47:31] detach from other than your Lord.
[03:47:41] It means to disconnect from everything,
[03:47:44] to purify the heart from everything
[03:47:50] and to beseech him with your entire
[03:47:52] being.
[03:47:55] It's to beseech him with your entire
[03:47:57] being. People make dua,
[03:48:00] right? People make dua, but maybe
[03:48:02] they're thinking about other things or
[03:48:04] they're just not really there. Even
[03:48:06] there's people when they pray, they're
[03:48:08] not present at all. The Sahabah,
[03:48:10] according to the hadith, the man was
[03:48:12] shot with the arrow, they waited till he
[03:48:14] prayed to pull it out
[03:48:16] because he didn't feel it. That's in the
[03:48:18] we have that in the books
[03:48:21] because he was in prayer and he was
[03:48:23] completely oblivious to pain. Those are
[03:48:27] real experiences that people had.
[03:48:32] This is the path of the people of and
[03:48:35] imi
[03:48:37] if you read his
[03:48:40] he said there were basically four types
[03:48:44] of knowledge. There was scientific
[03:48:46] knowledge
[03:48:50] and there was the philosophical
[03:48:54] knowledge.
[03:48:56] People that use theories. It's not
[03:48:59] scientific in that way, but they come up
[03:49:01] with theories about the world. They
[03:49:02] could be right, they could be wrong.
[03:49:05] It's what we call opinion, but not
[03:49:07] opinion in the modern sense of the word.
[03:49:09] Opinion is a type of knowledge. Opinion
[03:49:13] is conclusions that are arrived at after
[03:49:16] much thought and it could be right or
[03:49:18] wrong. So it's not like knowledge in
[03:49:20] that way but it is a type of knowledge.
[03:49:22] It's not just uneducated. People say
[03:49:24] what we call an educated opinion but it
[03:49:27] used to be that's what opinion meant.
[03:49:31] And then there's revelation
[03:49:35] which is from the prophets. And then
[03:49:37] there's Kesh which he said was the
[03:49:40] knowledge of the people of Tasaw.
[03:49:44] And he also felt that the people of
[03:49:46] Tasov he said that
[03:49:50] he felt that their path was the soundest
[03:49:52] path because it led to a type of faith
[03:49:56] that was rooted in experience. It wasn't
[03:49:58] rooted in believing in what you were
[03:50:00] told. It was actually that you
[03:50:02] experienced the truths of these things.
[03:50:05] And he felt that that was truly
[03:50:08] following the prophet sallall alaihi
[03:50:09] wasallam because you weren't just
[03:50:10] following him in his words and deeds but
[03:50:12] you were actually following him in his
[03:50:13] states in the same way you can't follow
[03:50:16] him in his words and deeds as he was
[03:50:19] indeed and the same is true is in his
[03:50:21] states but that's what he understood and
[03:50:23] it's not the just like you have that are
[03:50:27] a disaster you have people that claim to
[03:50:29] that are a disaster and part of the
[03:50:31] problem is the majority of people today
[03:50:34] are so far you know I mean people from
[03:50:36] South Asia you know what the state of
[03:50:38] the peers and all those it's it's a
[03:50:41] disaster or if you go to Egypt and
[03:50:45] Morocco and a lot of Muslim world and
[03:50:47] you look at people that have these
[03:50:49] claims and they've given tas a very bad
[03:50:52] name but historically tas was part of
[03:50:55] Islam it was it was the inner dimension
[03:50:58] of Islam and the best book for it is the
[03:51:02] that is the best book that we have in
[03:51:05] this science
[03:51:09] end of CD4
[03:51:11] this begins CD5
[03:51:18] but the way of learning book learning
[03:51:20] that's the way of the but this isn't
[03:51:22] book learning that's what he's saying
[03:51:24] now I'll give you an example
[03:51:26] who was all an who became a Sufi he was
[03:51:30] originally anam then he became a Sufi
[03:51:32] and then he had openings and that's
[03:51:34] where we about the ofdam
[03:51:39] used to go sit in his class and he would
[03:51:42] say
[03:51:46] these words are coming directly
[03:51:51] in close proximity to the merciful. In
[03:51:54] other words, he was saying it's not book
[03:51:55] learning. He didn't get this knowledge
[03:51:57] from books.
[03:51:59] He didn't get it from books.
[03:52:02] And what he said is only the
[03:52:05] externalities of what he knew and
[03:52:07] experienced.
[03:52:14] And this high degree of knowledge is an
[03:52:17] abrbridgement
[03:52:19] of the path of prophecy. In other words,
[03:52:22] just as you follow the prophets in their
[03:52:24] outward teaching, this is the following
[03:52:26] of the prophets in their inward
[03:52:28] realities.
[03:52:29] And it's not prophecy
[03:52:33] because only the prophets have access to
[03:52:35] revelation but it's inspiration. It's
[03:52:40] Omar had this right. The prophet
[03:52:42] sallallahu alaihi wasallam said from my
[03:52:46] the people that hear they have this
[03:52:49] inner hearing and he said Omar and Omar
[03:52:53] is one of them Omar
[03:52:56] had this knowledge. I mean the Sahabah
[03:52:59] many of them had great access to this.
[03:53:17] I mean this is what Allah says
[03:53:21] right when MS
[03:53:23] when they came upon
[03:53:27] and he's not a prophet
[03:53:29] the majority of say that he's not a
[03:53:32] prophet who was
[03:53:36] He says that he was a slave,
[03:53:40] right? They found
[03:53:43] a servant from amongst our servants.
[03:53:49] We gave him mercy, grace from our
[03:53:53] presence
[03:53:56] and we taught him from our presence.
[03:53:58] This is what they call.
[03:54:02] This isn't book knowledge.
[03:54:05] Al had a different type of knowledge.
[03:54:10] And then what did Moses say?
[03:54:16] The of his question is amazing.
[03:54:21] May I follow you?
[03:54:26] First, he's asking,
[03:54:30] "May I follow you
[03:54:34] in order that you might teach me
[03:54:39] some of what you've been taught." He
[03:54:42] doesn't say, "All of what you've been
[03:54:43] taught." He's not assuming, "I'm going
[03:54:44] to learn everything. Maybe can I follow
[03:54:47] you? Maybe so that you can teach me some
[03:54:50] of what you've been taught."
[03:54:54] And then what it from this guidance
[03:55:00] you won't be able to be patient because
[03:55:02] knowledge is hard. This knowledge is is
[03:55:05] knowledge that takes patience. It takes
[03:55:07] much perseverance, much practice. He
[03:55:09] said,
[03:55:13] "And how can you be patient about what
[03:55:16] you don't encompass?" In other words,
[03:55:18] because you don't understand this, how
[03:55:20] are you going to be patient to learn it?
[03:55:32] you will find me inshallah
[03:55:36] patient and I won't disobey you. And
[03:55:39] that's a relationship between the
[03:55:42] student and the teacher. You have to be
[03:55:44] patient and then if the teacher is a
[03:55:46] true teacher and he tells you to do
[03:55:48] things, you have to do what they say for
[03:55:50] your own benefit.
[03:55:56] This is a path that will never be
[03:55:59] comprehended except by continuous
[03:56:02] practice
[03:56:04] is to over and over again not one time
[03:56:09] means to do it many times.
[03:56:12] People want to do one time and then oh
[03:56:14] nothing happened. I didn't get any
[03:56:16] benefit.
[03:56:19] And told me that you don't even you
[03:56:21] don't worship Allah for to have
[03:56:23] experiences. It's not why you do it.
[03:56:26] There's people that want to have
[03:56:27] experiences. I pray, nothing happens. I
[03:56:29] do this, nothing happens. I get up at
[03:56:32] night, nothing happen. He said, if
[03:56:33] that's what you're if that's what you're
[03:56:35] trying to do, then that's what you're
[03:56:38] doing the thing for. Whereas you should
[03:56:40] be doing it just solely for the sake of
[03:56:42] Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And he said
[03:56:44] if Allah gives you gifts out of that
[03:56:47] alhamdulillah if he doesn't
[03:56:48] alhamdulillah it doesn't matter
[03:56:51] because you're a servant of Allah
[03:56:53] subhana wa ta'ala
[03:56:59] and what can't be acquired by taste
[03:57:02] won't be acquired by study.
[03:57:08] really they theoretically they believe
[03:57:10] that the ability to recreate you from
[03:57:13] your genetic material is on the horizon.
[03:57:16] They believe that they're going to be
[03:57:17] able to do it and they don't believe
[03:57:18] Allah can do it.
[03:57:32] And then the second is to know so the
[03:57:33] first is to know that he has complete
[03:57:38] and the second is to know that Allah
[03:57:41] subhanahu wa ta'ala that
[03:57:44] he has complete knowledge. So he's
[03:57:46] omnipotent and omniscient because he
[03:57:49] encompasses all things. He could not
[03:57:52] make all of these wonders and marvels
[03:57:54] unless he had complete knowledge. And
[03:57:55] the third
[03:58:11] and then the third is that you should
[03:58:13] know that his kindness, his grace, his
[03:58:15] mercy, his providence, his care is
[03:58:19] connected to all engaged with all of
[03:58:23] these things. And there's no end to it.
[03:58:27] And you should see this in the flora and
[03:58:31] the fauna and the the the minds and all
[03:58:35] of this vast power that he has displayed
[03:58:38] in creating these beautiful forms and
[03:58:40] colors that we witness in the world
[03:58:46] because all of these things are the key
[03:58:48] to knowing the divine attributes.
[03:58:53] And this is a a honorable knowledge.
[03:58:59] It is the knowledge of the wonders of
[03:59:01] God's creation
[03:59:04] and to know the vastness of God, the the
[03:59:06] majesty and magnificence of God subhan
[03:59:11] and his power.
[03:59:15] If you know this is this
[03:59:18] preciousness
[03:59:20] and this honor, this perfection
[03:59:23] this beauty, this majesty.
[03:59:27] Once you know the essence of the heart
[03:59:30] of consciousness
[03:59:33] that this essence is is a precious
[03:59:36] essence,
[03:59:37] it was given to you
[03:59:40] and after that it was hidden from you.
[03:59:42] this gift.
[03:59:45] If you don't seek out what's been hidden
[03:59:47] from you, this treasure in your heart
[03:59:51] and you're heedless of it and and you
[03:59:54] and you lose it, you forget about it.
[03:59:59] It's a great tragedy and loss on the day
[04:00:02] of judgment for you.
[04:00:06] Exert every effort in seeking it
[04:00:10] and leave the preoccupations of this
[04:00:12] world. All of it.
[04:00:18] Because every honor that doesn't
[04:00:20] manifest in this world in the next world
[04:00:22] it will be joy without grief
[04:00:27] and perpetuity without
[04:00:30] cessation
[04:00:33] and power without incapacity
[04:00:37] and knowledge without ignorance
[04:00:41] and great beauty and majesty.
[04:00:47] But today nothing is more
[04:00:51] lower than this thing.
[04:00:54] It's impoverished, neglected.
[04:00:59] The honor is tomorrow.
[04:01:04] If this alchemy
[04:01:06] is thrust
[04:01:09] on the essence of his heart
[04:01:12] until he's free of being
[04:01:16] like animals
[04:01:21] and he achieves the ranks of angels.
[04:01:28] So if he returns to the desires of this
[04:01:30] world, animals are preferable to him.
[04:01:34] on the day of judgment
[04:01:38] because they go to dust
[04:01:41] and he goes to punishment and
[04:01:42] chastisement.
[04:01:45] We seek refuge in Allah from that
[04:01:48] and we seek refuge in Allah subhana wa
[04:01:50] ta'ala and we seek his protection.
[04:01:55] What a great master he is. What a great
[04:01:57] giver of victory.
[04:02:12] This completes the last CD in this
[04:02:15] series
[04:02:25] and it's an obligation to believe in
[04:02:26] this and this is what's important. For
[04:02:29] us, we should believe in this and its
[04:02:32] people
[04:02:34] so that you're not deprived
[04:02:38] of the emanations of their joy.
[04:02:45] At least you should believe in the
[04:02:47] people so that when you sit with them,
[04:02:48] you're not deprived of the emanations of
[04:02:51] their joy. So even if you're not one of
[04:02:53] them, you're not deprived of their
[04:02:55] state.
[04:02:59] They're the people that the people that
[04:03:02] sit with them are not wretched.
[04:03:05] Just sitting with them is a blessing
[04:03:07] with those people.
[04:03:09] You know,
[04:03:12] it's not making and saying, you know, we
[04:03:15] know who Allah's elect or chosen are.
[04:03:17] No, but this is the prophet said we in
[04:03:19] Canada.
[04:03:22] This is what I think about him.
[04:03:26] We don't say anything.
[04:03:30] Everybody's under like one friend of
[04:03:33] mine said about he's a student of he
[04:03:36] said
[04:03:44] he's still under the microscope of
[04:03:47] examination. In other words, as long as
[04:03:49] he's alive, he's susceptible to fitna.
[04:03:52] susceptible to. So we don't make any
[04:03:57] this is what we believe about them. This
[04:04:00] is our perception of them. That's and
[04:04:03] that's what he's saying. And I imani
[04:04:06] said this is the least level of it's the
[04:04:09] people that deny these people that are
[04:04:11] in really serious trouble. really
[04:04:13] they're ser they're not well and if you
[04:04:15] sit with them you'll know they're not
[04:04:17] well
[04:04:18] and they're obsessed with attacking them
[04:04:21] and speaking ill of them it's amazing I
[04:04:24] mean their hearts are just they're not
[04:04:26] well
[04:04:29] and the fact that Allah has put them in
[04:04:31] that you know that that's their state
[04:04:36] so don't be with those people don't
[04:04:39] listen to them I mean the people that
[04:04:41] talk about the are really not well
[04:04:48] guide us in them but it's a bad state to
[04:04:51] be in
[04:04:53] you know there's people I mean I I I
[04:04:55] once went to a and this man just started
[04:04:58] attacking
[04:05:01] I was like why is he attacking him what
[04:05:06] I mean somebody the um
[04:05:11] the has testified that he was amongst
[04:05:13] the righteous. So why you want to put
[04:05:16] him amongst somebody else?
[04:05:19] Why even risk that?
[04:05:22] It's a very strange thing to do. But
[04:05:24] people do that. But why do they do that?
[04:05:27] Well, he says
[04:05:29] it's from the wonders of the heart.
[04:05:35] Those who don't see don't believe.
[04:05:46] They denied what they had no knowledge
[04:05:48] of. Nor did they have knowledge of its
[04:05:51] interpretation.
[04:05:54] That's what Allah says. They just denied
[04:05:56] it because they didn't have knowledge of
[04:05:57] it.
[04:06:05] If they don't have any knowledge, if
[04:06:08] they haven't reached guidance of this
[04:06:10] matter, they just say, "Oh, these are
[04:06:11] just old lies.
[04:06:15] These are just lies.
[04:06:17] They've been repeated before." And what
[04:06:20] he's saying is this knowledge is a
[04:06:22] knowledge of tigbut. The beauty of that
[04:06:23] statement is what makes something a
[04:06:26] science is what sir Carl Pauper called
[04:06:30] its falsifiability.
[04:06:34] Something is scientific if it's
[04:06:37] replicable.
[04:06:38] If you can falsify, in other words, if
[04:06:40] you can't replicate it, you can prove
[04:06:43] that it's not replicable.
[04:06:46] So, for instance, if you freeze water,
[04:06:50] like we learned, I learned water freezes
[04:06:52] at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, right? Or zero
[04:06:56] Celsius if you're from England.
[04:07:00] That's what you learn in school. Did you
[04:07:01] ever actually test that? No. You just
[04:07:04] assumed that it must be true because
[04:07:06] they're telling you in school and it's
[04:07:07] in the books. That's tak.
[04:07:12] That's called tak. You just believe the
[04:07:14] authority because he's an authority and
[04:07:17] who am I to question authority, right?
[04:07:21] I'm just a humble
[04:07:23] insignificant bloke.
[04:07:26] He's a big professor.
[04:07:29] So,
[04:07:31] but if you take a thermometer and you
[04:07:35] put it in the water and you put the
[04:07:38] water
[04:07:39] into a freezer and you watch the water
[04:07:43] and it gets down to 32° if you touch the
[04:07:46] wa Oh, it's ice. So, you do the
[04:07:49] experiment yourself. There's a really
[04:07:50] nice book for people that have children.
[04:07:54] It's a book of replicating the great
[04:07:56] scientific experiments
[04:07:59] like all the a lot of the great
[04:08:01] experiments of human history are very
[04:08:02] simple to do
[04:08:05] like Newton when Newton refracted light
[04:08:07] and saw that there were seven colors in
[04:08:10] refracted light he just took a prism put
[04:08:13] in the sun and and replicated it.
[04:08:19] So
[04:08:20] this is also a replicable science.
[04:08:24] People that follow this science have the
[04:08:26] same experiences.
[04:08:28] They have the same they see the same
[04:08:30] things and they have the same that's why
[04:08:32] somebody who's gone down that path and
[04:08:34] done it knows what to expect and also
[04:08:38] knows the pitfalls of it.
[04:08:41] Right?
[04:08:46] That's what Iban Aisha says. He
[04:08:48] accompanies a teacher who
[04:08:51] knows the byways of this path. He knows
[04:08:53] the ways of the path and he'll protect
[04:08:56] him from the pitfalls. Because if you go
[04:08:59] down a road and somebody knows the road,
[04:09:01] oh, watch out the bend coming up. If
[04:09:03] you're driving, watch out the bend
[04:09:04] coming up. There's a big hole on the
[04:09:06] left side.
[04:09:08] Right? That's what if somebody knows the
[04:09:10] road, he can tell you. But if you're
[04:09:12] driving 80 mph and you don't know
[04:09:14] there's a big hole and then you turn and
[04:09:17] suddenly your car you lose control, you
[04:09:20] crash.
[04:09:22] That's why on the road they have signs,
[04:09:24] don't they? They tell you soft shoulder
[04:09:26] ahead. They do that. Why? That's
[04:09:29] somebody who knew the road put those
[04:09:30] signs there for you to let you know if
[04:09:32] you don't obey the signs you endanger
[04:09:34] yourself. So there's a and this is what
[04:09:38] the prophets did. They took the majority
[04:09:40] of humankind who the people that follow
[04:09:42] them, they're the real guides on the
[04:09:44] road.
[04:09:47] But the sh are like those signs.
[04:09:51] That's what they are. But the prophets
[04:09:53] are the ones that put the signs. They're
[04:09:55] the ones that did the real work. The
[04:09:57] other ones, they're lesser guides.
[04:10:00] They're not like the prophets. But they
[04:10:02] had their the prophet sallall alaihi
[04:10:03] wasallam said
[04:10:07] the scholars and this is not outward.
[04:10:10] This is the
[04:10:14] people of inward and outward knowledge.
[04:10:16] They have outward knowledge like Abdalah
[04:10:18] has outward know but then he has he has
[04:10:21] he has tawa he has piety. He's done all
[04:10:24] his life. He gets up at night. He does
[04:10:26] all that work. So he has the inward
[04:10:29] reality as well. So he's got these two
[04:10:31] realities. So those are the
[04:10:34] they're the inheritors of the prophet.
[04:10:36] So you're taking from the inheritance of
[04:10:37] prophecy. So when you sit with them,
[04:10:39] it's like sitting with the prophets.
[04:10:41] It's the closest thing we have to
[04:10:43] sitting with the prophets.
[04:10:46] Allah doesn't deprive people of every
[04:10:48] generation of having that blessing of
[04:10:50] sitting with the people of knowledge.
[04:10:53] So that's what he's saying. So the
[04:10:55] people that deny that well
[04:11:12] they denied the people before them. So
[04:11:14] look at what happened to the oppressors,
[04:11:17] people who deny the amongst them are
[04:11:19] those who believe in him and amongst
[04:11:21] them are those who don't believe in him.
[04:11:23] And Allah knows best who are the
[04:11:26] Allah knows who's who are the who are
[04:11:29] the
[04:11:32] he knows better who is guided
[04:11:48] and if they deny you say I have my
[04:11:51] action you You have your action.
[04:11:56] I have my actions. You have your
[04:11:58] actions. I'm free from what you do.
[04:12:01] You're free from what I do. And I'm free
[04:12:03] from what you do. I'm not responsible
[04:12:06] for what you do. You're not responsible
[04:12:07] for what I do.
[04:12:18] So those who disbelieve, they say to
[04:12:21] those who believe, if this really was
[04:12:23] good, they wouldn't have got it before
[04:12:26] us.
[04:12:28] this. So there's some people just
[04:12:50] don't think this is limited to the
[04:12:51] prophet. That's what he's saying. And
[04:12:53] this is the whole point of this book. Do
[04:12:55] not think that this is limited to the
[04:12:56] prophets and the oliah because the Johar
[04:13:01] of the son of Adam of the children of
[04:13:03] Adam in the origin of its creation
[04:13:10] was made for this. We were created to
[04:13:13] know Allah. This is what we were created
[04:13:14] for. We were created for
[04:13:20] what doesb say in the
[04:13:25] what he said it mean to know Allah
[04:13:30] know that there's no god but Allah
[04:13:33] is
[04:13:36] but it's not book knowledge a Christian
[04:13:38] a Jew a Hindu anybody can learn to they
[04:13:42] can study a book and they can teach
[04:13:44] You could have a professor of here from
[04:13:48] Cambridge
[04:13:49] and he can teach you our creed better
[04:13:52] than a lot of Muslims.
[04:13:54] Why?
[04:13:57] They have orientalists that know the
[04:13:59] creed, the book knowledge of the creed
[04:14:01] better than a lot of Muslims do. Even
[04:14:03] some of the
[04:14:05] they have deeper knowledge.
[04:14:08] That's not what he's talking about.
[04:14:12] like iron. The iron was created to make
[04:14:16] mirror out of it so that you can see the
[04:14:19] forms of the world in it
[04:14:23] unless it oxidizes.
[04:14:28] Deoxidizing it, removing that rust
[04:14:36] or it becomes dried and it needs to be
[04:14:39] polished.
[04:14:44] or it needs to be reframed because it
[04:14:47] was broken.
[04:14:48] So you have to recast it.
[04:14:57] And just like that, every heart if it's
[04:14:59] overwhelmed by desire and by
[04:15:01] disobedience, it can't reach this
[04:15:04] degree. It can't reach this level.
[04:15:15] No child except that it's born on this.
[04:15:20] It's open to this knowledge. The child's
[04:15:23] open to this knowledge. It's born like
[04:15:24] that.
[04:15:31] And then he caused them to witness over
[04:15:34] themselves. Am I not your Lord? And they
[04:15:36] said because that's what
[04:15:41] when your Lord took from the children of
[04:15:53] so that they can't say on the day of
[04:15:54] judgment
[04:15:58] we had no knowledge of this
[04:16:01] so we've already witnessed this
[04:16:05] it's just a reaffirmation of what we've
[04:16:07] already witnessed
[04:16:09] We've already witnessed the our Lord in
[04:16:11] in the unseen world. We've already
[04:16:12] witnessed him that he's one and that
[04:16:15] he's our Lord. And so it's a
[04:16:17] reaffirmation in the reality
[04:16:32] and also Adam in their
[04:16:35] lordship of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
[04:16:37] just as Allah subhana wa tala said this
[04:16:39] is the of Allah this is the original
[04:16:42] nature that Allah has created the human
[04:16:44] being
[04:16:51] They are the children of Adam.
[04:16:54] So they're the models. The prophets are
[04:16:58] the models for human being. But they're
[04:17:00] human being.
[04:17:03] Subhan.
[04:17:06] I am a man just like you. You
[04:17:11] but I have this revelation coming to me.
[04:17:17] All those who sew the seeds will reap
[04:17:21] the fruit.
[04:17:25] And if you set out on the path, you'll
[04:17:27] arrive.
[04:17:30] And if you seek, you'll find. I mean,
[04:17:32] that's in the gospel, too. Then
[04:17:35] you seek, you'll find.
[04:17:40] But seeking is only
[04:17:43] achieved through struggle.
[04:17:46] If you if you sit if you sit on a couch
[04:17:50] and somebody says, "What are you doing?"
[04:17:52] And he said, "I'm I'm seeking my
[04:17:54] provision."
[04:17:59] It's not you're not seeking your
[04:18:00] provision. You're sitting on a couch.
[04:18:05] If somebody really if somebody's sitting
[04:18:07] there and I'm hungry,
[04:18:14] he doesn't get up and go to the kitchen
[04:18:16] and make himself something to eat. He's
[04:18:18] waiting for somebody else to do it. I'll
[04:18:20] wait till the wife come home.
[04:18:24] Right? Seriously, that's what people do.
[04:18:26] They don't want to struggle themselves.
[04:18:28] They want somebody else to struggle for
[04:18:30] them.
[04:18:31] So he's saying no you have and and then
[04:18:34] he says so
[04:18:41] and also finding a truly gnostic a
[04:18:44] knowledgeable person who has this
[04:18:46] knowledge who's gone on this path
[04:18:53] and if you have these two things come
[04:18:55] together it's from Allah subhana wa tala
[04:18:58] if you struggle with yourself and if you
[04:19:00] have the company of people that have
[04:19:01] struggled with themselves until they've
[04:19:03] achieved that overcome themselves
[04:19:08] and that's from Allah subhana wa tala
[04:19:18] until he himself or or she herself
[04:19:21] achieves this level
[04:19:29] and this
[04:19:32] The true joy
[04:19:36] and the true delight
[04:19:38] of the children of Adam is in knowledge
[04:19:41] of Allah subhana wa ta'ala.
[04:19:52] So know that the joy of everything and
[04:19:55] its delight and its repose
[04:19:58] is that which is in accordance with its
[04:20:01] nature.
[04:20:04] The joy of everything is that which is
[04:20:06] in accordance with its nature.
[04:20:11] And the nature of everything is that for
[04:20:13] which it was created. So you have to
[04:20:16] know if you want to know the nature of a
[04:20:18] thing you have to know its telos why was
[04:20:21] it created what's its purpose so if you
[04:20:24] look he says
[04:20:29] the delight of the eye is in its
[04:20:32] witnessing beautiful things
[04:20:38] it's if you see a beautiful face the
[04:20:40] eyes delighted to
[04:20:43] if you see a beautiful power. The eye is
[04:20:46] delighted to why? Because it was created
[04:20:48] to witness beauty.
[04:20:51] That's what it was created to do. So its
[04:20:53] joy is in fulfilling the purpose of its
[04:20:56] creation. That's where its real joy is.
[04:20:58] The eye, that's why the eye doesn't if
[04:21:00] it sees something ugly, there's no joy
[04:21:02] in it. Why? Because it wasn't created
[04:21:04] for that. It was created to witness
[04:21:06] beauty. That's its purpose.
[04:21:09] And that's why
[04:21:12] when they all looked at the dead carcass
[04:21:14] of the dog they said the dog and he said
[04:21:21] how white its teeth are
[04:21:24] because he was in that state of
[04:21:27] so he looked at the beauty even in the
[04:21:29] ugliness. That's what he saw. He saw the
[04:21:32] beauty even in the ugliness.
[04:21:35] So the delight of the eye is in seeing
[04:21:38] beautiful
[04:21:43] and the delight of the ear is in
[04:21:46] beautiful sounds.
[04:21:49] The ear delights in beautiful sounds
[04:21:51] because that's what it was created to
[04:21:53] hear good things to hear beautiful
[04:21:55] things.
[04:21:57] It delights in wisdom. It delights in
[04:22:00] the speech of the righteous. It delights
[04:22:02] in in truth.
[04:22:05] because that's what it was created for.
[04:22:07] And likewise, it's
[04:22:14] the ugliest of sounds is the sound of
[04:22:17] the donkey because the ear hears it.
[04:22:20] It's ugly sound
[04:22:29] and the rest of the limb, the tongue is
[04:22:31] created to taste.
[04:22:34] good things. It's why it delights in
[04:22:37] sweet things. It delights in sour
[04:22:39] things. It delights in those things
[04:22:41] because it was created to do that. It
[04:22:43] has all the different taste buds on it.
[04:22:47] People like salty things. They say
[04:22:49] lassie sweet or salty.
[04:22:52] Some people they like sweet, some like
[04:22:54] salty, but they're all there.
[04:22:57] But that's the joy of these things.
[04:23:02] And touching to touch something
[04:23:05] beautiful
[04:23:15] and the
[04:23:18] the leather of the hearts specifically
[04:23:29] and the joy of the heart is in knowledge
[04:23:32] of Allah subhana wa ta'ala because
[04:23:34] that's why the heart was created that
[04:23:35] was it was created for that
[04:23:39] but when people are sick
[04:23:44] they take joy in cacophonic sounds when
[04:23:47] people are sick they like to see ugly
[04:23:49] things there are people that enjoy
[04:23:51] seeing terror watching war they do
[04:23:55] really because they're sick they're
[04:23:56] unwell
[04:23:58] there's people that that take pleasure
[04:24:00] in those things in being cruel to people
[04:24:03] because they're sick and the same way
[04:24:05] their heart
[04:24:07] but there it's not real he's talking
[04:24:09] about
[04:24:11] all those are false
[04:24:18] everything that the son of Adam knows
[04:24:21] once you have of it you rejoice in it
[04:24:26] anything that you have knowledge of you
[04:24:28] rejoice in
[04:24:32] even the game of chess.
[04:24:38] If you know how to play chess, you get
[04:24:40] excited. You're happy about it.
[04:24:47] And if he's prohibited from playing it,
[04:24:49] he he doesn't want to leave it and he
[04:24:51] gets impatient. I really want to play.
[04:24:54] There's people obsessed with chess.
[04:24:57] So he's saying if you have mifa of
[04:24:59] something you get a joy that's the
[04:25:01] nature of the son of Adam even foolish
[04:25:03] things they get a joy. There's people
[04:25:06] that can do the most ridiculous thing
[04:25:08] and they like to do it and they like to
[04:25:10] show you juggle 10 plates and hold
[04:25:14] something on their nose.
[04:25:17] Really?
[04:25:19] There's people that can do that and they
[04:25:20] get a pleasure out of that knowledge
[04:25:22] that they have a knowledge of something
[04:25:38] and just like that if you have knowledge
[04:25:40] of Allah which is knowledge of the
[04:25:41] greatest thing
[04:25:44] everything you desire
[04:25:46] exists with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
[04:25:50] Everything you desire exists with Allah
[04:25:52] subh. It's the highest. It's it's the
[04:25:53] truest thing. It's reality. And so for
[04:25:57] that reason he'll be impatient without
[04:26:00] this witnessing without this knowledge
[04:26:02] because this the joy of the heart is in
[04:26:05] knowledge.
[04:26:12] Every time the knowledge is greater, the
[04:26:15] joy is greater. The greater knowledge
[04:26:17] you have, the greater joy you have.
[04:26:24] And like that, if somebody knows the
[04:26:26] minister, he's so happy. I know the
[04:26:28] minister. There's people, even Muslims,
[04:26:30] they want to have their picture taken
[04:26:32] with the president. You know, you go
[04:26:34] fill the gas tank up and the attendant
[04:26:36] comes. You don't say, "Oh, can I have my
[04:26:38] picture with you?"
[04:26:40] and be next to the gas attendant.
[04:26:45] Why don't you do that?
[04:26:48] Because anybody can know the gas
[04:26:50] attendant, but not everybody can know.
[04:26:52] And then they say, "Oh, see they take
[04:26:54] the picture and look see and they put it
[04:26:57] in their office. They have a picture.
[04:27:00] That's me with Right.
[04:27:03] I'm ashamed of."
[04:27:06] But that's what they do. They put in
[04:27:07] their office and people come in and oh
[04:27:09] yes, I met the president and
[04:27:15] Why?
[04:27:17] Because he's happy.
[04:27:22] So if he knows the king, oh, he's just
[04:27:25] flying out of his skin.
[04:27:29] If he knows the minister, it's a big
[04:27:30] thing. But if he knows the king, then
[04:27:32] it's like the minister.
[04:27:38] This is the way people are. Wai, it's
[04:27:41] amazing. This is pathetic.
[04:27:49] Nothing in existence is more honorable
[04:27:53] than Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. There's
[04:27:56] no greater sh
[04:28:02] because the honor of everything is
[04:28:04] because of him.
[04:28:08] The honor is because of him.
[04:28:11] And from him,
[04:28:16] every wondrous thing in this world that
[04:28:17] you wonder at and are amazed at, they're
[04:28:20] just traces of his power. Of his
[04:28:23] creative power. Everything that amazes
[04:28:26] you in the world is just a trace of
[04:28:28] Allah subhana wa ta's creative power.
[04:28:34] There's no knowledge greater, more
[04:28:36] precious, more inestimable than his
[04:28:39] knowledge.
[04:28:43] And there's no joy more vast than the
[04:28:46] joy of his knowledge.
[04:28:51] And there's no presence like the
[04:28:54] presence of the divine.
[04:28:56] This is the
[04:29:02] all the joys of the desires of this
[04:29:05] world are connected with the naps.
[04:29:09] They're all related to the ego. All of
[04:29:11] them. Everything that you have is
[04:29:12] related to the naps.
[04:29:18] And it all comes to an end with death.
[04:29:21] All the pleasures of this world, they
[04:29:23] end with death. It doesn't matter what
[04:29:26] you can think of. And before you die,
[04:29:30] I mean, there's people that they lose
[04:29:32] their appetite. They don't want even
[04:29:34] want to eat. They get to a certain age,
[04:29:37] food doesn't even taste good anymore
[04:29:40] all the they go
[04:29:45] they're called
[04:29:48] and they say that's part of the end of
[04:29:50] life the genitals and the stomach the
[04:29:52] joys of those two they go.
[04:29:57] So he says
[04:30:01] but the joy of knowledge of lordship
[04:30:07] is connected to the heart to human
[04:30:09] consciousness.
[04:30:12] It doesn't end with death.
[04:30:15] So all the joys end with death but the
[04:30:18] joy of knowledge of Allah doesn't end
[04:30:20] with death because all the joys in this
[04:30:22] world are connected to the senses and
[04:30:24] the heart is not of the senses.
[04:30:26] Consciousness is not of the sentence.
[04:30:35] The joy is even greater when you die
[04:30:38] because the expands and becomes pure and
[04:30:41] more knowledgeable.
[04:30:46] Its lights are greater
[04:30:50] because he leaves
[04:30:54] darkness and enters into light. He
[04:30:55] leaves the darkness of this world and
[04:30:57] enters into the light of the next world.
[04:31:04] Know that the soul of the children of
[04:31:06] Adam is an abridgement of this world.
[04:31:10] It's
[04:31:12] that's what Alan said.
[04:31:19] You think that you're some insignificant
[04:31:23] mass,
[04:31:25] no real significance to you and in you
[04:31:28] the entire cosmos exists.
[04:31:32] And one of the extraordinary things
[04:31:34] about the human being, and this is
[04:31:35] something
[04:31:38] that a Nobel Prize winner discovered,
[04:31:43] was that
[04:31:46] if you measure the greatest things in
[04:31:48] the world and you measure the smallest
[04:31:50] things in the world, their sizes,
[04:31:53] the biggest
[04:31:55] and the smallest thing, and then you add
[04:31:57] them together and divide by two, it's
[04:32:00] approximately the human being. So we're
[04:32:03] literally we are the bar between the
[04:32:07] physical world, the subatomic world and
[04:32:11] the macrocosm, the microcosm. We
[04:32:13] literally are the bar between these two
[04:32:14] things. This where Allah has put us. So
[04:32:17] we're an extraordinary creature and
[04:32:18] there's a beautiful book called the
[04:32:20] power of 10. If anybody's ever seen
[04:32:22] that, it just keeps taking things by
[04:32:25] power of 10 going out into outer space
[04:32:27] and then it goes into the skin. So it
[04:32:28] starts with a human being sitting and
[04:32:31] then they move out and then move in and
[04:32:34] show you that in us are vast worlds as
[04:32:38] vast as what's out of us.
[04:32:41] Inside of our bodies there is a vastness
[04:32:44] that is not less significant than the
[04:32:46] vastness of the cosmos. And that's who
[04:32:48] we are. And that's why human beings have
[04:32:51] been degraded.
[04:32:53] They've been made to believe that
[04:32:54] they're insignificant, that they're
[04:32:56] meaningless, that they're pointless,
[04:32:57] that they're there for their the lowest
[04:33:00] of their nature, the shehawat,
[04:33:03] that that's all they're there for is to
[04:33:05] eat and drink and copulate and dance and
[04:33:08] laugh and be entertained until they die.
[04:33:11] That's all.
[04:33:14] It's all it is. No, human beings are
[04:33:16] something vast. That's what he's telling
[04:33:17] us.
[04:33:21] Every form that you see in the world,
[04:33:23] there's the trace of it in the human
[04:33:26] being.
[04:33:46] Look, the bones in your body, they're
[04:33:48] like the mountains.
[04:33:50] The bones in your body are like the
[04:33:52] mountain. The mountains hold the the the
[04:33:54] earth together. They're the peg. They're
[04:33:56] the And you have these bones in your in
[04:33:59] your body. Your flesh is like the earth.
[04:34:03] Hair is beautiful. It adorns the person
[04:34:07] just like the foliage adorns the earth.
[04:34:11] Your blood is like the rivers.
[04:34:16] Your lungs are like trees. Look at the
[04:34:20] bronchial tree.
[04:34:22] And what do trees do? They breathe air.
[04:34:25] They breathe our carbon monoxide. And
[04:34:28] then they in turn exhale oxygen. We
[04:34:32] breathe in oxygen and we exhale carbon
[04:34:34] monoxide. So the trees are our lungs
[04:34:39] and we're their lungs.
[04:34:43] So all of these things out there are in
[04:34:45] you. And he says he could go on in great
[04:34:48] detail about this.
[04:34:55] And in your interior are all of the
[04:34:59] craftsmen of the world.
[04:35:04] The the the power in your digestion is
[04:35:08] like the cook.
[04:35:12] There's a cook that's mixing. There's
[04:35:15] ingredients that go in the in Chinese
[04:35:16] medicine, they call it the soup of the
[04:35:19] stomach. It's a soup.
[04:35:23] And just like you can ruin soup, your
[04:35:27] digestion can be ruined. You put the
[04:35:29] wrong ingredients in,
[04:35:32] eat the wrong things.
[04:35:40] And what's in the liver is like the
[04:35:43] baker.
[04:35:45] The liver is like the baker. It takes
[04:35:48] the glucagen and it stores the glucagen
[04:35:52] and then when you need it, it releases
[04:35:53] it into the I mean this is all happening
[04:35:55] in your body
[04:36:01] and and in your intestines is like the
[04:36:03] tanner
[04:36:05] as it's coming through. It's taking the
[04:36:07] impurities out. That's what a tanner
[04:36:09] does. Takes the impurities out and it
[04:36:11] keeps what's good, what's useful.
[04:36:20] And the thing that's making the milk
[04:36:22] white in the breast and the blood red is
[04:36:26] like the the dye, the dyer. You have the
[04:36:29] dyer who makes the wool and dyes the
[04:36:32] wool. That in your body there are things
[04:36:34] that are giving color.
[04:36:36] the hemoglobins in your body. He's
[04:36:38] saying these are like the dire. So you
[04:36:41] have all these crafts.
[04:36:44] I could go on in great detail. He's
[04:36:46] saying, but you get the idea.
[04:36:49] When
[04:36:52] my whole point is to tell you how much
[04:36:55] is in your interior
[04:36:58] that's going on.
[04:37:04] all these worlds in you and they're all
[04:37:06] preoccupied with your service. They're
[04:37:09] at your service. They're all doing this
[04:37:12] work for for what? To serve you. Your
[04:37:15] consciousness.
[04:37:17] That's all it's there for to serve your
[04:37:20] heart.
[04:37:21] That's they're all there to serve your
[04:37:23] consciousness. What's your consciousness
[04:37:26] there to serve?
[04:37:30] If each one of these has a purpose,
[04:37:32] what's the purpose of the summation?
[04:37:37] You're meaningless. You don't have a
[04:37:39] purpose. There's no point to exist.
[04:37:41] That's what these ignorant people tell
[04:37:43] them now. All of this that's going on,
[04:37:45] all these marvels. So he says all of
[04:37:48] this is in your
[04:37:51] and you're completely heedless of this.
[04:37:56] They never get rest. The heart is
[04:37:59] pumping
[04:38:01] thousands of gallons. If you looked what
[04:38:03] the heart does in a day, if you had to
[04:38:04] do the buckets, you would be completely
[04:38:07] worn out. You couldn't do in a day what
[04:38:09] your heart does.
[04:38:12] Your physical body could not carry in a
[04:38:14] day what your heart is carrying in a
[04:38:16] day.
[04:38:19] You completely be be wiped out. your
[04:38:22] breathing, your lungs,
[04:38:25] you're inhaling and exhaling.
[04:38:28] The digestion, if you had breakfast this
[04:38:30] morning, there's they're working down
[04:38:32] there. You're just sitting here.
[04:38:37] They're down there working. Sh. Come on.
[04:38:41] You know,
[04:38:44] we need the gallbladder. Send down more
[04:38:47] bile. They ate too much fat this
[04:38:49] morning.
[04:38:50] We need to break this down, right? And
[04:38:53] then the pancreas, they add too much
[04:38:55] sugar. Emergency release insulin,
[04:38:59] right? The insulin's going out, grabbing
[04:39:00] the sugar, taking it to the the liver,
[04:39:03] the liver. Oh, too much sugar. We need
[04:39:05] to transform glucose into glycogen.
[04:39:07] Store it here. Move that. It's all
[04:39:09] happening. It's a factory in there. And
[04:39:12] there's all of these workers and they're
[04:39:15] all serving you. And you're sitting here
[04:39:16] in a complete state of heedlessness.
[04:39:21] How many blessings?
[04:39:26] He's completely showered you in
[04:39:29] blessings inwardly and outwardly.
[04:39:32] And we're in heedlessness,
[04:39:35] complete state of heedlessness.
[04:39:43] And you don't give gratitude to the one
[04:39:46] who gave you all of these blessings. How
[04:39:48] do you give gratitude?
[04:39:57] Shuk is to exert all of the blessings
[04:40:01] that your Lord has given you in what
[04:40:03] your Lord intended for them.
[04:40:07] That's shook. That's gratitude.
[04:40:15] This knowledge of all of these things is
[04:40:19] a vast knowledge. The knowledge of
[04:40:20] anatomy and physiology and it was a very
[04:40:24] important knowledge of imi. He wrote
[04:40:26] actually wrote a book just describing
[04:40:29] all the wonders of creation. He
[04:40:31] considered a very important knowledge
[04:40:34] and like that the knowledge of medicine.
[04:40:48] anybody who wants to look into himself
[04:40:50] and look at the wonders of God's
[04:40:51] creation, he needs to have the knowledge
[04:40:53] of three things from the divine
[04:40:56] attributes.
[04:41:00] You should know the creator of the
[04:41:02] individual is omnipotent and and has
[04:41:06] complete capacity over perfection.
[04:41:10] He's not incapacitated by anything
[04:41:14] and that is Allah.
[04:41:18] There's no action in the world that is
[04:41:20] more wondrous than the creation of the
[04:41:22] human being
[04:41:24] from a vile drop of fluid. There's
[04:41:28] nothing like it. It's over.
[04:41:34] And the perception of this person in
[04:41:37] this wondrous form
[04:41:40] just as Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
[04:41:43] has said that Allah has made him
[04:41:46] in this wondrous form he's fashioned him
[04:41:49] in this wondrous form just as Allah
[04:41:51] subhana wa tala has said
[04:41:56] we have created the human being from a
[04:41:59] mixed fluid and And we know now that
[04:42:03] it's a mixture of the male and female
[04:42:05] come together and the genetic material
[04:42:07] is mixed. And it's amazing because it
[04:42:09] says
[04:42:11] it's a singular with a plural which is
[04:42:13] very rare in Arabic is actually the
[04:42:15] muasun it was a problem with the mufas.
[04:42:18] They talk about this but this what
[04:42:19] happened when you get the the the sperm
[04:42:22] and the oam come together all of the
[04:42:25] genetic material they bring together.
[04:42:27] It's vast
[04:42:29] vast. So they come together and from
[04:42:32] that and then we try him. It's a
[04:42:34] tribulation.
[04:42:37] And you should know that his recreation
[04:42:40] of this first creation would be easier.
[04:42:42] If you think it's impossible, you're
[04:42:44] insane because to do something a second
[04:42:46] time for us is easier than the first
[04:42:48] time. For Allah, it's all the same. But
[04:42:51] for us, it's easier. So we should know
[04:42:52] that if he created us the first time, he
[04:42:55] can certainly do it the second time. And
[04:42:57] now we have these fools think that they
[04:43:00] can clone human beings themselves. They
[04:43:04] think they can recreate a human being
[04:43:06] and they don't think Allah can recreate