Purification of the Soul between Sunnah and Innovation: Muhammad alShareef – Part 1

Purification of the Soul between Sunnah and Innovation
Part 1
Transcribed from a lecture by Muhammad AlShareef and Ali At Tamimi
The following is Part 1:Muhammad AlShareef

We once went for hajj, and as you know how chaotic hajj usually is. There was this one brother who came to Medina with us and it was his first time doing hajj. The brother said that he just wanted to along with us. And that hajj we reached Muzdalifah in 15 minutes, it was the easiest time I had getting to Muzdalifah. It was a due to a new system the Saudis had applied, alhamdulillah, it was the new shuttle bus system. We had gone onto one of the first buses and at the time we arrived it was Salaatul Maghrib and Muzdalifah was empty. We prayed and did what we had to and we lied down to sleep and the brother that tagged along said to us, after all that we had gone through and the easy time to get to Muzdalifah, he said “I don’t like this, it’s too easy. It’s just too easy. I can’t feel the Hajj!” At that time it made me angry because we shouldn’t go looking for hardships in the religion. And very often many people while studying Islam they say I can’t feel it. In actuality this feeling is something that comes from the inside. The taqwaa is something that comes from within oneself. In this place that we live in we think that maybe someone has to come and force this taqwa on us, or force this spirituality down our throats. Taqwaa is part of what we do, and we have to work for it.

This lecture, as far as the Sunnah aspect is concerned is divided into three sections.

1. 5 Symptoms of weakness of eeman
2. 5 Causes or reasons for the weakness of eeman
3. 5 Ways to combat your weakness of eeman

Five Symptoms of Weakness of Eeman

1. Simplicity we apply to committing sins

How easy it is for one of us to commit sins. Also you see the way someone would show off their sins. They would go around and say look I committed this sin, I committed this sin. As the Prophet (Sal Allahu Layhi Wa Sallam) said, “All of my Ummah will be forgiven except those people who announce their sins! Allah has hidden the sins they commit at night and they come out and announce to the people that I committed such and such and such and such!” This is the Prophet (Sal Allahu Layhi Wa Sallam) saying that these people won’t we forgiven.

2. Feeling of Hardening of the Hearts

As Allah (Subhaanahu Wa Ta’la) says,

ثُمَّ قَسَتْ قُلُوبُكُم مِّن بَعْدِ ذَلِكَ فَهِيَ كَالْحِجَارَةِ أَوْ أَشَدُّ قَسْوَةً

“Their hearts are hardened like the rocks, and even harder than rocks” (Suratul Baqarah S.2 V.74)

Allah is talking about how the hearts of some of the Jews have been hardened like rocks. And not only are they hardened like rocks but in fact harder than rocks.

3. Being lazy in our Obedience to Allah (Subhaanahu Wa Ta’la)

Allah (Subhaanahu Wa Ta’la) says,

وَإِذَا قَامُواْ إِلَى الصَّلاَةِ قَامُواْ كُسَالَى

“When they get up for the salaah, they get up lazily” (Surat An Nisaa S.4 V.142)

Meaning that when they get up they are delaying the time to get up and pray, if the prayer is at 8:30 they’ll get up at 8:00 to pray the previous prayer. Allah describes him as being a hypocrite. Imagine someone who is not even praying?

4. Imperfection in a person’s Ibaada

He isn’t really doing things properly. He might be fasting but he is sleeping throughout the day, and his zakaat is not proper, or he is not coming for taraweeh. In the Quran, Allah (Subhaanahu Wa Ta’la) says,

إِنَّهُمْ كَانُوا يُسَارِعُونَ فِي الْخَيْرَاتِ

“Verily they used to race to the goodnesses” (Suratul Anbiyaa S.21 V.90)

This is the characteristic of the pious Muslims. And the Prophet (Sal Allahu Layhi Wa Sallam) said, “Allah does not accept the dua’a of someone who is ghaafil (heedless)!” Ghaafil here means someone who is just not caring about what kind of dua’a he is making, his heart might be somewhere else, and his mind might be somewhere else. At the end of the dua’a he doesn’t even know what he was asking Allah for. He doesn’t have any concentration as to what he is asking for. He doesn’t know the a to b to c of anything that he said.

5. There is no effect when we listen to the Qur’an

As Allah says in the Qur’an,

لَوْ أَنزَلْنَا هَذَا الْقُرْآنَ عَلَى جَبَلٍ لَّرَأَيْتَهُ خَاشِعًا مُّتَصَدِّعًا مِّنْ خَشْيَةِ اللَّهِ

“Had it been revealed upon a mountain, it would have cleft asunder and crumbled from the fear of Allah” (Suratul Hashr S.59 V.21)

And now you see that you have the Qur’an divided into many parts and that is good because you might be using it to memorize, but sometimes it’s all together and wrapped in a cloth just collecting dust. We all now what it’s for, it’s for a Qur’an Khani. The only time it comes down is when someone dies. And as Allah (Subhaanahu Wa Ta’la) says,

إِنَّكَ لَا تُسْمِعُ الْمَوْتَى

“You cannot make the dead hear” (Suratun Naml S.27 V.80)

And Allah (Subhaanahu Wa Ta’la) says,

كِتَابٌ أَنزَلْنَاهُ إِلَيْكَ مُبَارَكٌ

“A book that we revealed to you blessed” (Surat Sad S.38 V.29)

and the people read it in Qur’an Khanis and they we want the blessings to go to this person. As the ulemaa of tafseer said it’s almost as if someone is asking why is this book blessed? And Allah (Subhaanahu Wa Ta’la) says,

كِتَابٌ أَنزَلْنَاهُ إِلَيْكَ مُبَارَكٌ لِّيَدَّبَّرُوا آيَاتِهِ

“A book that we revealed to you which is blessed so that you may contemplate over its verses.” (Surat Sad S.38 V.29)

This is the reason the Quran is blessed and revealed so that a person will hear the Qur’an, listen to it, and follow what’s in it. And that is the guidance that Allah (Subhaanahu Wa Ta’la) will guide him in this dunya and resurrect him in the hereafter.

To be continued………..

UPDATE: Part 2: Five causes or reasons for weakness of eeman