QUOTES
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The real Muslim really doesn't care what people think, he only cares what Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala "thinks"— and his way to knowing what is the Divine Judgment is through following the consensus of the Ulema (scholars).
The mark of the person who has successfully embarked upon that [inward] journey is that he finds what is within so challenging, but also so interesting, that he doesn't have much time left for trying to diagnose the faults of others.
Few would seriously deny that for a Muslim to venture beyond established expert opinion and have recourse directly to the Quran and Sunnah, he must be a scholar of great eminence. The danger of less-qualified individuals misunderstanding the sources and hence damaging the Shariah is a very real one, as was shown by the discord and strife which afflicted some early Muslims, and even some of the Companions themselves, in the period which preceded the establishment of the Orthodox Schools.
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If you think you're becoming more religious but at the same time you're becoming less merciful, less understanding, less compassionate, and more judgmental and needlessly critical of people around you— you're definitely not becoming more religious.
True faith is trusting in Allah before you can figure out what, how, or why.
To know that Allah exists is different than knowing Allah. Many of us focus on the intellectual pursuit of learning about the existence of Allah; without doing the requisite worship that is the path to knowing Allah.
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If it were not for His grace, we would not have abstained from sin. And if it were not for His grace, we would not have been forgiven.
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Healing happens when grief over your past and anxiety about your future no longer prevent your deep appreciation of the present and your self-actualization in this moment.
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Those who lack the love of God actually lack knowledge concerning Him.
If they knew Him intimately through experience, reason, and revelation, and… through reflecting on the bounties of their existence, they would necessarily love Him.
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We must not undermine the sensitivities of others towards Islam, as our pious predecessors never did this— hence, when one gives someone naseeha (advice), give it as if serving dessert on a tray to a guest. A tray of muhabba (love)!
In the face of injustice, it doesn't matter who you're in front of, you must speak the truth, you must identify with the truth. You cannot be [a coward].
Allah manifest His love upon human beings by sending a human Messenger to guide them.
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When we turn to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala and we establish what He has made an obligation upon us, that is the door that opens all the ways of alleviation and relief and success.
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Islam doesn’t replace you with someone else— it enhances who you already are.
Work towards becoming a devout Muslim who is still genuinely you.
[Being Muslim, pg. 3]
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Every single one of us has our own journey to God, and no two people's journey to God is the same.
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We can see people that we judge as disbelievers— tomorrow they might be with you at Fajr!
…we hold that this reality belongs to Allah and we beg His guidance that He might keep us on the straight path and overlook our mistakes and give us the best of this life and the next life.
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In Mauritania, hafith al-Qur’an is more than just somebody who has the rote memorization of Qur’an. They’re also defenders and protectors of the Qur’an because they can actually write the entire Qur’an from the Rasm Al-'Uthmani with blank paper and ink.
So if all the Musahif disappeared from the Earth, there would be scholars in Mauritania that could create it from their memories with the Rasm Al-'Uthmani, all ten variants.
This is a fact.
You have to trust in Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala that what's happening to you is happening for a wisdom, because He is Al-Hakeem
The cure for hatred is straightforward. One should pray for the person toward whom he feels hatred, making specific supplications that mention this person by name, asking God to give this person good things in this life and the next. When one does this with sincerity, hearts mend. If one truly wants to purify his or her heart and root out disease, there must be total sincerity in carrying out the treatments and conviction that these cures are effective.
[Source]
This journey is a journey of love! It’s wanting to know God.
[Source]
We live in the age of Noah alayhi salam in the sense that a flood of distraction accosts us. It is a slow and subtle drowning. For those who notice it, they engage in the remembrance of God. The rites of worship and devotion to God’s remembrance (dhikr) are planks of the ark. When Noah alayhi salam started to build his ark, his people mocked him and considered him a fool. But he kept building. He knew what was coming. And we know too.
[Source]
And this is what Allah is demanding of us, it’s a very high thing— is that you have to be the teachers, you have to show what dignity is.
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"Nature responds"
"The Universe listens"
"The earth pays back"
It's amazing how a human being is programmed to believe in a higher power, sees the signs, & then still attributes it to undeserving creation.
You can’t run from God, when every atom of your being belongs to Him.If we worshiped the Almighty only when our prayers were answered for things we asked for, our lives would be miserable.
The All Knowing gives us according to His knowledge and what is *best* for us in this life and the next.
Imagine every single time you ask you get what is best.If you saw what God had in store... you’d be happy that you didn’t settle for everything that wasn’t meant for you.
Give up your heart’s constant attachment [to] the reactions of others, argument and debate, and being busied in earning their favor… a heart that’s busied with the creation becomes detached from the remembrance of the Creator.
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One of shaytān’s traps is to encourage a person to excessively doubt their sincerity. We can never be sure of how sincere we are and it is important to not become complacent or overconfident but also to have balance. We are taught to work on our sincerity but not to let our self-doubt debilitate us. A practical way to assess our sincerity is to look at the consistency in our actions. Does our commitment waiver when we don’t get the results that we want? Or is it stable?
Allah is always there. We always have the opportunity to direct our actions and worship to Him and so achieving stability in our worship is akin to achieving sincerity.
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Nothing has harmed faith more than the increasingly loud voice of rigid harshness especially in a time when principled ease is the suitable path of salvation.
All the careful strategy that is founded in principled ease is destroyed by the mutashadidin — the rigid harsh hearted.
The only viable option then left to the people is (the opposite extreme): a justification of complete permissibility, watering down [rulings] and loss of one’s religious identity.
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[Allah] wants to bring us, through that test, closer to Him!
In every step of the way there’s qabd and bast— there is constriction [and] there is expansion.
…the constriction is there to test us, [and] the expansion is there to test us.
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One thing I always tell students is that if the person who is teaching you religion is teaching you to hate people, and look down on other people, and think you’re better than them, and find faults in them, and be suspicious of the believers all the time, then they’re probably not actually teaching you the religion.
They have been deluded by their base selves and are feeding you the same thing, and the reason it feels good and right is because it’s all nafs (base self). Go serve somebody. Go do something good in the world.
Go read the descriptions of how the Prophet ﷺ was, without all the whatabouttery and with some sincerity, humility, and decency. Go seek people who remind you of that. Not those who fill YOUR emptiness with the filth they have filled their emptiness with. -
Always be mindful that your life is Allah’s decree. So that in times of ease, you are mindfully thankful, and in times of difficulty, you are mindfully patient.
Remember, your journey is His decree so always take a lesson from the doors that open for you and close on you.
In this day [and] age, don't be shy to inquire about a person's actual study qualifications especially when you don't know any other learned people that vouch for them. I'm not even surprised anymore to see people who did some online courses, can barely read Arabic, and yet on the internet qualifying themselves to give fatwa to the public.
Be careful with this social media/youtube age. There is outright deception in the name of deen.
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There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and even if you take the largest number of... all these [violent] groups, and you add all this together and you divide that by 1.6 billion Muslims— you know the number you get? I calculated it... 0.006%. Absolutely, statistically, insignificant!
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Everyone deserves to have a relationship with God. Don't let anyone ever take it away from you— including yourself.
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How can we paint everyone with the same brush and say that they lack faith when it's faith itself which keeps so many alive and going from day to day?
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People look at our forms, so we beautify ourselves to appeal to them; but Almighty God looks at our hearts, therefore we should be more concerned about how our hearts look and adorn them before God with the best of qualities.
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Having good, positive and pious company is one of the most important things for a person’s physical and spiritual wellbeing. This includes both in person, as well as online.
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Embrace the diversity of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-jamaʿah—the ʿaqidah of the Atharis, Ashʿaris & Maturdis; the fiqh of Hanafis, Malikis, Shafiis, and Hanbalis; and its various forms of tazkiya and suluk—and take pride in their scholarship.
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Don’t spend so much time grieving over the past or worrying about the future that you miss out on the present.
The moment you’re in right now can serve as an expiation of your past and elevation of your future.
Be careful with mocking someone over a sin in their past. It may be that they’ve repented and been forgiven while the sin of your ridicule remains.
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Do not deem yourself incapable of repenting even if you keep committing the sin a hundred times a day. Do not forget that you have a Lord Who is completely aware of you. As long as you repent to Him sincerely He will see this, even if you keep repeating the same sin. He will rid you of this disobedience in due course, according to your sincerity.
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We are people of beauty. And the more that we become people of our Islamic tradition, the more beautiful we will be, and the more we will cultivate beauty.
This is our nature, we are a race of worshipers. And if we don't worship God, we will worship something else... because human beings must worship, they cannot leave this nature that they have.
And it’s also very important that we do not break our fast by gorging ourselves and overindulging… when you break your fast, break it in moderation.
You know that Allah exists, you know that God exists, you know that God is one, you know that there is a Garden and a Fire. The knowledge you have in your heart— you cannot measure. So the proofs of Allah... they actually work on the innate knowledge that we have and they enable us by that to restore the heart, to get it sound again.
[Source]
The world and everything in the world is a sign of God’s existence.
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In imitation of the Prophet, Muslims are expected to be merciful, to bring good, and to seek the benefit of others—all others—not wish them harm or rejoice in the evil that befalls them. Indeed, the Tradition of Primacy promotes a doctrine of universal, all-embracing mercy.
Commentators emphasize this point, clarifying that the mercy Muslims are commanded to show is not exclusively for themselves or the righteous amongst them. It extends to all human beings: Jews, Christians, the believing and unbelieving, the upright and the immoral, and it goes beyond the human family to include both the animate and inanimate: birds and animals, even plants and trees.
[Source]
May Allah make us people who live in the present moment… who do not live in our own worlds that we create— we live in a world that God created! [A world] that includes me and you, not just me.
…you find yourself completely empty and unhappy. And that’s because this heart is created to love God! And we will substitute for God other things, like our passions, our angers, our wealth, our careers— but that never works, because that is finite and limited and not real!
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What’s promised to you if you follow [the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ]?
…you are guaranteed to have your sins all forgiven, wiped clean, and you are guaranteed to receive and achieve the greatest thing that anybody could ever achieve… and that is the love of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala.
True love for Allah is when you want what Allah wants over what you want, even if you love it.
There is nothing more important for our children than living and dying on Islam. No, not good grades, college degrees, titles, money, marriage, car, house, etc. These things are important, but not nearly as important as their iman.
The downfall of Shaytan, Fir'awn, and Abu Jahl was arrogance. They all thought they were better than somebody. That's what lead to their wretchedness in the hellfire. Be humble and don't think you're better than anyone. InshAllah, that will lead to your happiness in paradise.
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People will do what they do, but don't change the deen. It's not yours to change. Approving or celebrating of something haram is essentially saying it's halal and good and that Allah was wrong about it.
It’s all how you choose to look at things— there’s nothing sweeter than having a good opinion of Allah.
We ask while drawing in our mind the generosity of the Giver, not the purity of the asker. If sinlessness was a pre-condition, nobody would ever have the right to make dua.
Cut off the bad suhba, purify your heart with dhikr of Allah, and study [with qualified scholars]. The combination of these three will remove doubts.
The laws of nature explain the structure of life, not its purpose or it’s story, which are infinitely more important if we are to understand our place and our role in existence.
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One must remember that any good deed one has been able to perform, any knowledge one has been able to attain, is from the grace and tawfeeq (facilitation) of Allah (Subhanahu wa Ta’ala) alone and not from our own selves. Deep consideration of our humble origins and the reality of the Source of our knowledge can help us overcome our arrogance.
We must possess a maturity that extends beyond a petty ‘clap back’ culture, to a broad, visionary way of teaching that includes strategy, composure and calm, and that is deeply sourced in knowledge. This is the true work of du'aat. It is not giving a platform to emotional and juvenile ranting, that gives a momentary sense of valor for the deen but brings about no actual benefit, and actually does the opposite of what is intended.
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Jannah is not fantasy— don’t let the world of atheism and secularism get to you!
This is NOT fantasy, this is absolute conviction. This is not even faith… this is yaqeen.
This is absolute conviction that, in sha’ Allah Ta’ala, this is just the beginning of the journey of the soul, and we will in sha’ Allah all be back together.
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A major sign of inner spiritual healing is when we begin to see the beauty in others before their faults.
We belong to a tradition of healing, taught to us by the Ultimate Healer and His Messenger ﷺ who healed. When we heal ourselves, the healing emanates from our inner being to our outer. Spread healing. Spread beauty.
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The Shaykh, he told me… you should dig yourself in a deep land— meaning hide your good, because what’s not dug deep won’t grow nor will its fruit become ripened.
You don’t need to share every one of your accomplishments with people online nor do you need to show yourself all the time.
Dig yourself in that deep land and grow and learn and ripen.
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No matter how much 'ilm a person has attained, if their 'adab does not match or exceed it then do not attach yourself to them.
'Ilm is like fruit that grows on a tree, it is very appealing, very fragrant, and very delicious, but without 'adab the fruit is actually poisonous, and you would consume it without being any wiser.
Some particular things that one should look for in a religious teacher are how they respond to questions, to criticism, to other scholars, and to the common folk ('awam). If they cannot control their temper, or they mock or belittle or backbite about others, or they look down upon the majority of people, don't just walk away but run instead - no matter how knowledgeable the person may be. Otherwise you will find yourself becoming like them without even realizing it.
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Many people are eager to increase their (Islamic) knowledge, but not as eager to act upon the knowledge. What benefit [is] knowledge that does not lead a person to emulate the ways of the Prophet ﷺ?
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Inspiring love— this is perhaps the greatest sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ! Those who beheld him loved him.
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God puts you into situations in life where you hit rock bottom. That's when you turn to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala and in realizing your powerlessness and your dependence on Him, He will give you the greatest gift of all— guidance.
When you follow the teachings
of the Prophet ﷺ, the best aspects of what Allah put in you are what come out.The first level of sincerity... is that your private and public state [are] the same.
One of the greatest benefits of sending salawāt upon the Prophet ﷺ is that Allah will remove all anxiety from you...
One of the things that I found... I have never seen anyone who sends abundant salawāt upon the Prophet ﷺ that’s not a happy and cheerful person, personally; I have never met someone who I know has a strong connection with the Prophet ﷺ and sends abundant salawāt upon him ﷺ except that they tend to be the lightest of spirits; they tend to be the most jovial and cheerful people— from the blessings of our Prophet ﷺ.
When you know the characteristics (shama’il) of the Prophet ﷺ, you will know from whom to take knowledge.
We will always be bound by the sacred law no matter what it is that we experience. And the people of this science [of tasawwuf], even though they go through very powerful spiritual states and witness amazing things, are the firmest people of all upon the sacred law.
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It is the most virtuous thing, that when Allah Subhanahu wa Ta’ala places you over something, regardless of how you feel about it, regardless of how exhausting it is— that you exert all of your efforts to do that thing with itqan, with excellence.
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Of the characteristics of the believer is that not only is he an optimist, he exudes a confidence and hope in all those around him so that they too become optimistic.
This optimism stems from his strong faith in Allah and the ḥusn al-dhann he has in Him.
The believer thinks the best thoughts of Allah and knows that the plan of Allah will always be for his best.
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True faith causes a person to be introspective— they start to worry about their own faults more than the faults of others.
True hypocrisy is to worry about others’ mistakes.
…Islam teaches us to point the finger at one’s self and to refine.
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Come as you are, to Islam as it is.
Having a good opinion of others is part of our religion. We should always look for an interpretation of the actions of others that implies soundness in their religion and a good standing with God. To do otherwise is to open ourselves up to opinions that will imply sinfulness or even disbelief.
By covering up the faults of other Muslims, we are inviting God to cover up our faults.
We must be extremely diligent in guarding our speech. There is nothing that can ruin a servant as rapidly or as thoroughly as his speech. The general ruling for the tongue is silence. As is the case in all affairs, we do not move away from a general ruling except for a religiously countenanced interest. Hence, if there is no interest to be advanced by our speaking, we should remain silent.
At the end of the day all we have is Allah. If we can recognize that fact then we will realize that if we have Allah, we have everything; and if we do not have Allah, we have nothing.