Practical Formula To Spiritual Perfection - 10th Muharram 1435/2013

So these movements of Salat, parts of Salat that we have to follow, but those things that we say, no. For example, tashahhud, in tashahhud I do not have to wait for the Imam to say al-hamdu li-Llah, ashadu an la ilaha illa Allah and then I say, ashadu an la ilaha illa Allaha, and wait for him to go on, and then I go on. No, no.

I might have gone ahead in the tashahhud, but it is okay. Okay. So number one. Number two, well this one does not have to do with salat jumu'ah, but this is a misconception sometimes, and I have gotten this question before and the brother who asked me, it was a long time ago though, did not trust my answer that is how sure he was that this is the case. I was praying somewhere and, that that's when I was younger, a lot younger, and this is like more than 10 years ago, and when he saw me praying and when I would go to sajda I would put this part of my arm [forearm], my whole arm, would go on the ground for sajdah, not just the palms, but the whole arm to the elbows. For whatever reason I would do it like that.

After salat he pulled me over: "Son, for men, they have to keep their arm off of the ground. Just the hands have to touch", he told me. And it was my first year after Hawza, I had gone back in the summertime and I said, "No, brother, we have studied this, it is actually the other way around: it is not wajib for a man, they can put this down [the forearm]" He said, "No, that is for women only", I said "No, no men can do that too it is ja'iz, it is permissible, it does not break the salah.

"Then what does?" "Nothing". If you put your arms down without the palms, then yes it would break the salah. But if you put all of them down [the palms and forearms] that is okay. Yes, it is mustahabb, it is mustahabb for men to lift their arms up and only the palms on the ground, but it is mustahab; it will not break the salat for whatever reason. Sometimes it is crammed and people are forced to, you know, put their arms together when they go for sajdah: does not mean it is going to break it. Yes, for sisters it is mustahabb to put the arms also down, but these are mustahabb. It will not break the salah. This is also another thing. Recite Salawat, three Salawat please [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa Aali Muhammad. Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa Aali Muhammad. Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa Aali Muhammad].

I can just say some more ahkam, let us not waste time. Okay. [Can we continue? Okay. Thank you, will we be recording by the way? (to technicians)]. Let's move in to what we are talking about, so no more ahkam. We were talking about how, for the dhuhoor we have to be at the peak of our spirituality and we said this is not something cliché, something that is for real, and there is practical steps towards it. Only real men and real women will make it there. Okay - the others, others who do not have that resolve, who do not make that decision they will not have it.

The most they will get out of Ashura and other things, which is also good, which is also good, InshaAllah, InshaAllah, is that Allah will be pleased with them, Allah will forgive them for their sins, etc. There is 'ajr and thawaab in there, it is ibadah, all of these things are there: but as I said, we wanted more, we wanted dhuhoor to come out of this. So we said Ashura should push us towards this being solid in Iman, which only comes through peak spirituality.

And slowly we work our way with the help of the ulama, and learn that spirituality can only come through the wajib and haram: observing these, first and foremost, to solidify the base. Impenetrable; only through practice. Think about it, 30 years and you are proud to tell Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala, say Allah with Your help I was able to, 95% of the time listen to you; okay. This person will be solid in his Iman. And when the time comes, he passes with flying colours.

The Qu'ran says, "Yuftanuna fi kully amin marratan aw marratayn" {9:126}. The Qu'ran says we are going to test you once or twice or three times or how many times a year, right. Those big competitions that I was talking about, weightlifting competitions, they are going to come up, whether you like it or not. Whether it be when your spouse gets on your nerves and you want to get abusive, which you hold back, because you have held back every day of your life, and practiced holding back when it comes to haram. When the going gets tough, you can you pass with flying colors. Whether it is that, whether it is your siblings, whether it is something you see, something you hear, etc. That is how we get solid: through practice every single day.

People do not like it like this, people want the good stuff. It is like the the guy who watches the final product of, like, these bodybuilders and like, 'I want to be like that' and goes and buys a gym: a little home gym, puts it at home, and that is it. No more. But the other guy who does no even buy anything but jogs every day, does some sit ups every day. Think about it. Twenty years he does this, what happens: this guy will be solid. That [other] person has slacked off. But we do not like these preliminary steps. Alright.

Some people say, 'I want to pump those weights: I know it is hard but I like it'. Yes, those are the good preliminary steps: people like it although it is hard, they like it. 'I want to do the Salat ul-Layl, I like it. It is hard to wake up, but I am going to wake up.' That is the weightlifting part, that is the part that you are hyped about: you are ready for it! But then you have the cardio that I keep saying: the part that you do not like, we do not like. There is some preliminaries, as you know, this is one of them, the ones that we do not feel a change usually very soon when we do it; it takes a long time.

This is one of those. Our spirituality has to be peak for dhuhoor to happen. Ashura pushes us in this direction. It only happens through wajib and haram: it is a step that we might not like. And as I said yesterday: wajib- haram starts from the most individual insignificant wajib and haram, because if you can call it wajib and haram, that means it is going to affect your spirituality. It starts with the most individual, insignificant wajib and haram, and goes up all the way to the activism and social duties and obligations that we have. Cannot neglect any of these or else you are neglecting wajib and haram again: your spirituality is low. Imam Sahib az-Zaman 'okay, I need some people'. That is when we turn away. We should write this. We should write this on our hearts.

Thirty thousand sinners came on Ashura. I keep saying this. They would not let Aba Abdillah's voice reach the rest. Aba Abdillah said 'you have committed haram. You filled your stomachs with haram.' That is the only thing that Aba Abdillah says. Wake-up call.

Let me give you an example. There is one of these brothers that I really love. He has done so much. He is great: shares the same line of thought, and everything is on the same page. Al-hamdu li-Llah. I was talking to him once, and I got a chance to sit down with him. He has done a lot of big things. He was talking to me and then all of a sudden, it turned out that at his work I found out that there is a haram that he sometimes is committing. Right. You know, when it comes to the socialization with the opposite gender, there is something that is haram that is happening.

I told him: 'So listen, you are doing all of this, you have come this far: this, you have to take care of this haram too.' And then he pulled me over and we were just sitting in the car: he kissed me and said 'thank you so much, I did not know' and stuff like that. We have to learn to identify what it is, and work on it. So he has taken care of the activism. He has taken care of that social duty and obligation, which is part of it, as I said the other night.

But this also individual side, the little ones that we take for granted, as I said, both of them, some hide behind these individual ones, to stay away from the social obligations: the wajib activism sometimes. Some, they fall on this side, they go for the social stuff, the extra stuff, and then they neglect this side: both have to be there. When both are there something like Imam Khomeini comes out. And he can cause change in the people's hearts. You think these ulama they change people's hearts because of their words only? No. You have to have Noor within you to be able to pass noor on to the rest.

That is why I keep saying that the mimbar has to be placed where Noor is spread. So, we're talking about three things - two of them we have covered, one more left. We spoke about what counts when it comes to spirituality. What counts as what? Wajib and 'ubudiyya, that we said. Why? How does it work?

We talked about yesterday a little bit of the theology, because every haram, there's a good in it for us, Allah wants us to have that good. And it is so good that he said,' I cannot accept you not having this'. And when you obey in this obedience, there is a Salah in it for you, there is an advantage, a benefit in it for you, you grow. So till now, that verse that I was talking about "Wa ma khalaqtu al-jinna wa al-ins illa li ya'budooni "(51:56), we were going by the surface meaning of this verse: "Wa ma khalaqtu al-jinna wa al-ins illa li ya'budooni "(51:56). We said ubudiyyah equals wajib haram, spirituality - this stuff.

Now let's look at the other side of it. And I hinted at it before. The Hadith that comes up and says 'ailiy 'arifuun'. So the verse said do 'ubudiyyah, Imam as-Sadiq alayhi as-salam, in a hadith said: 'When you do ubudiyyah, when you take care of wajib and haram, it ends up with ma'arifatu Allah. Ma'arifatu Allah equals love of Allah, equals spirituality, equals higher Iman. And that is we are going to talk about tonight.

So we know what we are supposed to do, Ayatollah Bahjat told us, Allamah Tabataba'i taught us, imam Khomeini teaches us: take care of the wajib-haram first and foremost. We know that that is what we have to do, and why we have to do it? Because there is good in it, otherwise Allah would not have made it wajib on us. But now let's talk a little bit more, details. What happens now, when we do that?

And this is a formula: the higher Iman goes, brothers and sisters, the higher spirituality goes. The higher 'ubudiyyah goes the higher Iman goes. The higher Iman grows, the more the rada'il go away. The bad qualities themselves go away. There is two approaches when it comes to rada'il: bad qualities in a person. Some like this approach. They say, OK, listen, I have jealousy in me. Let me go address this separately. I have arrogance in me, let me go address this separately. One by one these rada'il, this person will go and study and learn about them, learn how to fight it. This is an approach.

I am not saying it is bad, but a person like that will have to devote a lot of time, and dedicate a lot of time to each and every bad quality, and there is lots of bad quality qualities in us, ones that we know, and some that we do not even know yet about. But then there is another approach that these ulama teach us. They say, listen, raise the Iman: as Iman rises up higher and higher, you are seeing Allah more and more. When you are seeing Allah more and more, whether you like it or not, the bad stuff goes away.

Because you are seeing Allah, the rada'il, for example, the takabbur, the arrogance, I cannot be arrogant because I am seeing Him. His adhama, His greatness. This sounds cliche, we will talk about it though. So as much as the Iman goes up, rida'il come down. So I do not have to go one by one by one to uproot these weeds, one by one by one. No, just cut off the water source, which is dha'af ul-Iman: weakness of Iman. That is what Taqwa does.

When you perform the wajibat when you stay away from muharramat, slowly, slowly, but it does happen. Slowly the Iman rises and grows higher and higher and stronger and stronger day by day. Whether you feel it or not, you are growing in your Iman. When the Iman grows, it is like an immune system that is strong. You do not have to take medication to fight the bad stuff in you, immune system takes care of itself.

Recite a Salawat [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa Aali Muhammad]. That is what we are after. Remember this formula. Every single problem: I cannot pay attention in my salat, it is because you have dhaf ul-Iman, you are weak in your Iman. Well, how do I fix my Iman? You have to go back and look and see what is what is wrong with your 'amal throughout the day. Are you through dhikr amali - practical dhikr, practical remembrance of Allah - are you remembering him outside of salah? So that inside salah will not be that hard for you, or not? No, outside of salah I do not remember Allah at all. I let go. I do whatever I want, but in salat I want to have that spirituality that I have heard.

Well, you have to take care of it outside of Salah, what is why when they go to Ayatollah Bahjat the say 'We want to fix our salah', he says 'Go fix outside of salah. Take care of wajib-haram, because wajib-haram equals higher Iman. Higher Iman equals: that there eye in the heart opening up and seeing Allah. "But we cannot see Allah, Subhana wa Ta'ala!". That is what one of the companions of Imam Ali alayhi salam also said. Let me read you a Hadith. The Hadith goes like this. Says there was a man who by the name of Dha'ilib. - "Fa qala, ya Amir al-Mu'minin". "Oh Imam Ali, have you seen your Lord?", and this is a very famous hadith, we have all heard of it. "Hal ra'yit Rabbak?" 'Have you seen your Lord?'. He said [Imam Ali ('a)], "Woe unto you"- "Way'lak way'lak". - "What is wrong with you, ya Dha'ilib!". 'Lam akun bi 'lladhee a'budu Rabban lam 'ara' " - I am not the type of person to worship a lord I do not see". Well, can we see God? 'You have taught us that we cannot see, Imam Ali, you have taught us that we cannot see Allah. And that is what he says. He says, "fe kayfa ra'itahu? Sif-hu lana" - "How do you see Him? Now that you have seen Him, please describe for us what does He look like?"

You know, all of us when we were kids, we wanted to know what God looks like. 'Qala " waylak lam tarahu al-uyoon" - He says, "Whoe unto you again". "Lam tarahu al-uyoon" - "These eyes that are on the head do not see Him, of course not". Then what sees Him? "Bi mushahadat il-absaar. "Wa lakin ra'athu ul-qulub bi haqai'qi al-Iman". And the Hadith goes on. He says "It is not the eyes that see it, it is the heart through haqai'qi al-Iman" - high and true Iman that see Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala.

So we have to be able to see Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala, with the eye of the heart, through high Iman - haqai'qi al-Iman, al imman al-haqiqi, true Iman. How does that happen? We have to work on it. The same way it takes twenty years for those huge bodybuilders to become so big - we have to, we had to want to get big, we want to make our soul big and strong - it takes 10, 20, 30 years. But it is worth it.

They say 'Allama Qadi, the ustad [teacher] of Ayatollah Bahjat, and I have related some stories from him. This is very famous, also. When you read about him, you say this man must have been born like this. No, they say he was until forty years of age, nothing was going on for him. And this is a man who might have never disobeyed Allah in his life. Till forty years, I even heard someone say fifty, but let's go with forty, forty years he is obeying Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala, not asking for anything of course in return. Some of us ask for something in return - 'Oh Allah, I was a good individual, please now compensate and give me special powers, special things that I see. No, no, no. He is worshipping Allah for Allah, obeying Allah for Allah.

Eventually say in Bayn ul-Haramayn in Karbala, someone, and usually it is these someones who will tell you what to do later, someone told him "Go to the haram of Aba al-Fadil al-Abbas, what you want is there". He went there, and the,n it was there that Abu Fadil Abbas took his hand. Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala through Aba al-Fadil al-Abbas, gave him what he needed, and it was there and he just, you know, just rocketed up towards the sky: yani, spiritually, not physically. So for forty years he continued this. So, yes, it takes a long time sometimes. What if we never see anything special? - Who cares? We want to be 'abd, we want to be solid. We want to have the key to Jannah.

So this hadith that I recited, that is very key, let's move on now. And then this brings me to this now question. Sometimes when you ask people, or people ask you, they say, 'I want to make my Iman solid'. Or you ask them, 'what do you think is the way?' They come out with all these books, philosophical books. I want to prove to myself that Allah exists.

I heard sometimes, I see like a layman, not layman, let's not use that word, a person who is not an expert in this field, all of a sudden he is holding books: philosophical, mystical books that, you know, even some of the greatest people want to understand. He is holding these books and every now and then will read them. Why? 'Because I want I want to pay more attention in my salat, I have to know what my Lord is like'. Brother, villagers and village men have reached high ranks without even knowing any of this stuff. It is in practice, it is not in knowing these things.

People think that Iman means that I have to prove Allah to myself in a way that others haven't. Well if others haven't, are not sure that he exists they are not even mu'minn or Muslim yet. No, Iman is not that complicated. Just look around you. Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala in the Qur'an says, quotes the Anbiya', the prophets, when they are arguing, arguing for Allah's existence, they do not come up with philosophical arguments. All they say -"Afi Illahi shakkun fatir as-samawati wa al-ardh" (14:10). The Prophets tell the people, "Is there a doubt in Allah?". In other words, look around you, and then you bring me an argument that He does not exist. Just look around you and all of creation. Look at the eye. Just the eye is enough.

Imam Ali (as) in Nahj al- Balagha, he describes different creatures, he describes the peacock, he describes the insects, he describes the digestive system of the insects. Subhana Allah. This is enough. We don't need to go out and... One of our teachers, one of my friends asked him once, he said, "How come, why is it that in the past, in the past, people had stronger faith? Now it is different." He said "Now, when you walk around, you do not see the sky that much anymore: there are all these buildings, all these distractions. Back then, he would take his flock of livestock out, he would see the skies, he would see the deserts and everything, this was enough of a sign for him."

This is enough to see. This is Imam right here. This is Imam. We do not need anything extra theoretically. We need to strengthen it now with 'amal. And I recited this verse for some of you - "ilayhi yas'adu al-kalam ut-tayyib wa al-'amal as-salih yarfa'u" (35:10). The Qur'an says, the proper Iman, proper aqeeda, proper belief: is pointed towards Him - "ilayhi yas'adu", it goes towards Him. If you have Iman, if you have kalamatu la ilaha illa Allah, that means you are sitting in a ship going towards Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala.

It is not going down, it is not going left and right. If we if we say Allah is somewhere up there, this is going towards it. "Ilayhi yas'adu al-kalam ut-tayyib". Alhamdu li-Llah. So we are sitting in this spaceship of la ilaha illa Allah, and willayah, but the Qur'an goes on to say, "wa al-'amal as-salih yarfa'u" . Yes, this spaceship is pointing towards Allah, will go towards Allah, is, the what is the word for it? Has been designed for this, but it needs fuel. "Wa al-'amal as-salih yarfa'u" - good deeds, Taqwa, is the fuel of this spaceship. You are sitting in the spaceship, but turn it on and go- 'Oh, I need fuel'. Fuel is what? 'Amal as-salih. So it is not 'Iman, I want to take my Iman up of there, let's go do some theoretical 'irfan'. Some people do that unfortunately. And they get that spiritual high that I keep talking about, it is not enough. You have to make sure you supplement it with 'amal.

So let us move on to a very important point here. We have been talking about Taqwa all these nights: Taqwa, Taqwa, Taqwa, Taqwa, Taqwa. I want to talk about, a little bit more, about the importance, I want to kill it, InshaAllah tonight. I want to nail it. Not me, Ahl ul-Bayt want to nail it for us, they always nail it.

When it comes to our actions and deeds, what are we after? There is two things that when it comes to Allah and the way He looks at our deeds, two ways He looks at them. Sometimes we do an 'amal so that we are excused after that. For example, I have to do salat udh-Dhuhr and salat ul-'Asr, I do it. Why? Because I do not want to be punished! Allah says it is haram if you neglect this, so I do it. I perform the salat, this makes me 'bareu adh-dhimma', I do not owe Allah anything any more in this regard. And I do not like to use that word, 'owe' Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala, because if He makes it wajib it is for us, it is not for Him. But anyway, let's just word it like that, for now.

So we do not owe Him anymore anything, we do that. Sometimes our 'amal are accepted like this, sometimes the 'amal that we do, the good deeds that we do, they are accepted, meaning that they have that effect that they are supposed to have on our spiritual development. We have all heard the hadith that says a person who drinks like liquor or alcohol or whatever, something haram like that, for forty days his salat is not accepted. So sometimes you see people, they have done this wrong act, na'audu bi-Llah, we seek refuge from that, and then they will not pray for forty days. Now why? Because look, the hadith says it is not going to be accepted for forty days. No, you still have to pray!

But it is not going to have that special effect that salat is supposed to have- "inna as-salat tanha 'ala al-fahshari wa al-munkar" (29:45) - and all that stuff, it is not going to have this good effect. It is not going to bring about that spiritual growth that you are after, so you get closer and closer, so that that eye opens up more and more. The eye in the heart opens up more, it is not going to have that effect, for forty days. Some sins are like that.

So there is two things here: one, so that we don't owe Allah anything. Two, no we want that, we want that mustahhab act or whatever act it is, to have its effect spiritually so that we grow stronger in our Iman.

So that is what we are after - the qabul, qabuliya, maqbuliyaa- the acceptance of our 'amal. Let us see what the condition is for the acceptance of our 'amal. And this will show us that, listen, before we go for other 'amal let us make sure that we have taken care of this Taqwa first, because, man is it so important. It is so important. Ya Allah , I mean, when I speak here, I feel so bad because I am struggling like all of us.

We are all struggling, ya Allah, there is mish mish mujamila- No, what do the Pakistanis say, no takalluf here, Allah, You know better how I am. Anyway, How do we make sure that our 'amal are accepted so they have the effect, so that eye opens up? Surat ul-Ma'ida, verse twenty seven. It is about the story of Habil and Qabil - let me bring it up. Recite a salawat [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa Aali Muhammad]

'A'udhu bil-Lahi, min al-Shaytan, al-rajim. "Watlu 'alayhim naba ibnay Adama bi 'l-haqq, idh qarraba qurbanan, fa tuqubbila min ahadihima, wa lam yutaqabbal min al-akhari qala laqtulannak" (5:27). 'Oh prophet of Allah, tell them the true story of the two sons of Adam, Habil and Qabil. Each one of them offered a sacrifice, God accepted the sacrifice of one of them, Habil, but not that of the other, Qabil.' So they both offered a sacrifice to Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala, and from what I have heard in the Hadith, one of these turned on fire and went up to the sky, which was a sign that Allah has accepted from Habil's, but Qabil's stayed there. Nothing happened. It was not accepted.

The Qur'an says: " fa tuqubbila min ahadihima, wa lam yutaqabbal min al-akhar" (5:27), it was not accepted from the other one, and he got so jealous, Qabil, that he said I will kill you - la aktulannak. He did not say aktuluk - aktuluk means I will kill you. La aktulannak means I will indeed kill you for sure - two emphases extra here, extra. That jealous, that mad.

But look at this part, this is the cool part. Habil says something which is very key here and the Qur'an does not quote things in vain. There is a reason for it. "Qala inama". Habil told Qabil, he did not say do not kill me or whatever, he said let me let you know why mine was accepted, yours was not, why. Now, I am going to speak a little here on behalf of Habil. Habil says you know what we were living together, who are we kidding? I know you, you know me. I know how you are at home. I know how you are outside. I know, I know how you live your life. I know you commit haram, things that you are not supposed to do. That is why I am going to tell you why your sacrifice was not accepted, but mine was.

"Qala innama yataqabbalu Allahu min al-mutaqqeen" (5:27). Subhana Allah. Habil says, you know why, because Allah only- innama, only ya taqabalu Allahu min al-mutaqqeen, Allah only accepts from those who have Taqwa. It is like you, like you walk up to this guy, you slap him in the face and then you offer him a gift - you say please take this gift. It's like if you like me did you slap me in my face?

Oh Allah I am going to give, I am offering you a sacrifice, but throughout my life I do not listen to you. I mean, if I, if I if there is a salat I will do it, if there is, I mean if I am in the mood, if I am not in the mood, if my parents make me upset, I will hurt their feelings sometimes, but other times I will respect them. Clean up, clean up your diet man. You have got to make sure it reads with the book. Solid. Solid. You know Imam Sahab az-Zaman will not come unless there is people out there that are similar to Abu 'l-Fadhl 'Abbas.

No one is going to be like Abbas, but similar As-salam alayik ayyuha al-'abd us-Salih. Solid. The Imam says, one of the Imams says about him, he says, Our uncle Abbas, he was "sulb ul-Iman", his Iman was solid. We want to make our Iman solid. Why? Because we want Dhuhur. We said we do not Aba Abdillah's blood to be spilled so that oh we make sure we pray on time, or oh we make sure that we will, we go by hijab. That is something we do not need Aba Abdillah's blood for.

He says only Allah accepts from those who have Taqwa, and that is why you have Amir al-Kalam, Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib salawat Allah wa as-salam alayih, he says in a very nice Hadith, and you can tell he is saying it this hadith, he is looking at this verse of the Qu'ran, when he is saying it. He says, "La yaqillu amalun, ma'a at-Taqwa", no deed is small if it is supplemented with Taqwa next to it. I always use this example, and it has happened to me before personally, OK, in our center back in the day like 17, 18 years ago, maybe. Sometimes like these kids who had lots of cousins and stuff, they would come and get on your nerves, the kid was like one third your height, you push him and he was done. But you would not mess with that little kid because that little kid was holding the hand of his cousin who was holding the hand of his bigger cousin and and so on and so forth, the chain goes.

So if you mess with that little kid, what in reality you are doing is you are messing with all of these guys. So all of a sudden that little kid turns into the greatest monster you could imagine, because he is holding the hand of somebody else. The deed might be small, but Imam Ali says if you have Taqwa next to it, that little deed is holding the hand of a big guy. It does a lot of work. One salawat with Taqwa might do much more than reciting the whole Qur'an of a person that has on the side has gheeba, on the side disrespects the parents sometimes, on the side abuses his wife or husband, etc.

It might be higher, and I am pretty sure it is. That is why when you go to the ulama' sometimes you say, I forgot, I could not wake up for whatever good deed that I would do in the sahr time, you know, like a dhikr or something, you know. He would say, well, have you committed a haram or not? He said, no, I am careful about that, I am taking care of that, he says okay then it is all right. Just make sure you do not commit haram ever, ever, ever. Because our Iman wants to be solid, we want our Iman to be solid.

Yes, if I miss a mustahab act I can make up for it later, I can not do it at all, I said we are beginners. Let us take care of that first. Or else if we do not take care of the Taqwa first, our little deeds are just standing there alone, they are not holding the hand of somebody else. If they are not holding the hand of somebody else, it is not going to have an effect.

Taqwa is that catalyser; you spray that stuff on and all of a sudden this thing grows into the into the big beanstalk. That little seed, Taqwa is a catalyser. So we want to make sure we have that first, because if we do not have that, the other stuff is not going to work. We want our Iman to grow higher and higher, we have to make sure we have this next to it.

What if we do not have to have mustahab acts? We only have wajib and haram. Ayatollah Bahjat says, throw your hat up in the air out of joy. This is a saying that they have in Farsi. Throw your hat up in your in the air and you can be happy that you have done what is necessary. Right. Remember last night, or two nights ago, we talked about it theoretically, if someone does not have any mustahab acts, theoretically speaking, theoretically speaking, does not have any mustahab acts, but wajib and haram he takes care of it completely, ooh, do not ask me where he is going to be.

This Hadith has another nice part, though. That is only half of it. Imam says: it is not small. And if any that has Taqwa next to it is not small, why? He brings the reason for it, Subhana Allah. Don't you love it when you arrive at a conclusion, you know, through ulama'? I mean this is, I came across this ahadith later in my life. Don't you love it when you know, when you like, you come to this conclusion regarding something and then all of a sudden you see there is some proper ahadith that that support it? It feels so good.

He goes on to say, "wa kai'fa ya qilumma yutakabbal?" How can it be small, the thing that is accepted? So if you do a small deed, but there is Taqwa next to it, equals accepted. And equals accepted, is not small. Everything is big when Taqwa next to it because Taqwa is big. But as I said, you got to be careful. What is Taqwa? It is not just the fasting and praying, it is all the stuff that I talked about before, I do not wanna go over again. If we want to have that solid Iman this is how it comes, InshaAllah.

And then that is why when you go and look in a hadith, there is a very famous hadith called hadith Qurbun Nawafil, which explains all of this in two lines that I have said. All of what we said, in two lines. Hadith of Qurbun Nawafil, it is very famous. And unfortunately, this is also one of those ahadith that I have seen is not, the part of it that I like is not highlighted that much. Not because I like it, but because I see this is what ulama' highlight usually. But when speakers usually speak I have not seen it highlighted as much as it is supposed to be.

Ali Abi Abdillah, Imam as-Sadiq, alayhi as-salam, says: "Qala, qala Rasul Allah, salla Allahu alayhi wa sallam, recite salawat [Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammad wa Aali Muhammad]. Rasul Allah says: Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala said: 'ma tahabbaba ilayha 'abdi bi shay'in ahabbu ilaya min athtararduth alayh'. My servant does not get closer to Me with anything other than what I made wajib on him. Meaning that is the only, that the best thing to get to Allah, the thing that Allah loves the most to get close to Him is what He has made wajib on us, the fara'id.

That is what we get closer to Him through. Through the Wajib. But see, people block this part, because this part is the the bad, the boring preliminary stuff. You know, it is like the Karate Kid, the wax on, wax off part. I do not know how many of you were born back then, I do not know, this movie is old, alright. But this karate, this kid that gets bullied in school, for those of you who do not know, he goes to this sensei to teach him karate. And this sensei tells him alright, you want to learn karate so you can get the bullies back? Come. You see these 10, 15 cars that I have here, go wax them up first, wax these cars, okay wax them first, and then come to me. So this kid goes and he waxes the cars and in the he is like, why is he doing this? Why is he asking for this? I want the good stuff, you know, the fighting part.

No, you have to develop your core first. If you develop your core, you have gone 70, 80 percent, then will just teach you a few move and that is good. You do not have the core strength yet, but the kid does not understand this and he learns the lesson later as he goes on. Same thing. Same thing here.

People do not see this part that we get closer to Allah through that everyday wajib and haram that we are so careful about, but then they see this part of the hadith, the hadith goes on. He says, he gets closer to me through what I made wajib on him and then: "wa innahu la yhatahabbabu layha bi 'n-nafila, hatta a'hibbu"- and then after that he commits, he performs mustahab acts and he gets closer to Me and closer to Me, Allah says. Until I become his eyes that he sees with, I become the ears that he hears with, I become his hand that he uses. This Hadith goes on to say. Wow, so we can do this this through mustahab? No, you do it through wajib and then you add some mustahab later, even if it means forty years from now. I do not know.

I have to make sure I have the base, then build on it with mustahab. Oh shaykh is saying do not do any mustahab acts, even the nights of Qadr, do not go for them anymore, because it is mustahab not wajib', right? No, I said this last night. There are some of those huge mustahab that we cannot, you know, turn a blind eye to, no. And ulama' say this, they say if you have Taqwa, you will understand that this and that and a couple of these very important ones, you will try to do this as much as you can. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, theoretically speaking, this is how it works. This is the formula, InshaAllah.

I am going to go on a little bit more on a little but more and then I will end it. No, let us end it here. InshaAllah, tomorrow night what we are going to do is we are going to talk about a little bit some of the questions that come up now regarding this whole concept. 'Yeah, Taqwa is going to get me everywhere' and stuff like that. That means do I have to be ma'asum and so on and so forth, InshaAllah, tomorrow night and some of the benefits and some practical examples of Taqwa, what I mean when I say in the scope of it, InshaAllah.

Assalamu alayka ya Aba Abdillah. Tonight is the night of Ashura, and there is so much to say, you do not know which part of it to talk about, and InshaAllah, brother Rami, he will get comprehensive here, InshaAllah, I cannot do it. I am just going to point out one part. And Allah knows that this is, this might be the hardest part of Ashura is here for Lady Zaynab. They say the night before, Aba Abdillah, after he gathered everyone in the tents, everyone they reiterated their loyalty to Aba Abdillah, he said, okay go back to your tents now, go back to your tents. They went back to their tents wa lahum dawiyun ka dhawiyun nahl. These greats, These shuhada that were that were to teach history forever, a lesson, in ma'arifa, in loyalty, they go back to their tents the hadith, the accounts say that they had, there was a humming sound coming from their tents.

They sat, one is reciting Qur'an "bayna raqi'an wa sajidan", beautiful, beautiful. They have had the Taqwa here. Now they are adding to it. Every second of that night, they are adding and growing in their Iman, because they made the right decision. Some were not, some were not so lucky. Imam Khomein,i rahmatu Allah 'ilayhi says: some of these shuhada, of the Iran-Iraq War, they traversed the path of one hundred years in one night, one hundred years in one night. Subhana Allah, Subhana Allah.

Why? Because their Taqwa was harder than our Taqwa. He put his life on the line for Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala. Allah says: I will give you more. The stories that they relayed from some of shuhada, he is walking in the minefield, he is walking, bullets are flying everywhere, they say get ... Duck, duck! Bullets are flying! He says no, the bullet that is to pierce this heart of mine has not been fired yet. Allah give them ma'arifa, because their Taqwa is something else.

The Taqwa of the shuhada of Karbala, is something that all shuhada will envy. "Lahum dawiyun ka dawiyaan nahla", like the humming of bees, you hear their Qur'an. Some are doing ruku, some are doing sujud, but what is Aba Abdillah doing? They say outside of the tents, he is using his sword to move away the thorns, some say, from the ground, brushing the thorns to the side. He knows what is going to happen tomorrow when the children are running away.

Lady Zaynab, she for a second doubts, because she knows that the companions of her father betrayed her, betrayed him. She knows that the companions of her brother Hassan, have betrayed him. So she doubts. InshaAllah, you will hear about that.

Let us move on to the next day. Aba Abdillah, before that, he orders that they dig trenches around the camp, because he does not want anyone attacking from behind, and this enemy is a coward enough of an enemy, to have thirty thousand twenty to thirty thousand come to fight less than one hundred. So they are going to, they will probably attack from the back, especially when know that Abbas is there. So he orders that they dig a trench around the camp, only leave one opening.

And then they also, he also orders to put twigs and thorns in those trenches so that they can light it on fire the next day. 'Ya Aba Abdillah!', when you do that, ya Aba Abdillah!- Of course he has to. But this this fire, when you light it up in the day of Ashura, Aliyun al-Asghar, his mouth will go dry quicker. The children will become more thirsty. But Aba Abdillah has no choice. The fire is blazing on Ashura. These children are thirsty. The thirst is taking over. Abbas is gone. Everyone is gone. Qasim is gone, Akbar has been shredded to pieces.

Now it is Husayn's turn. Husayn has one by one sent these shuhada, turned them to go, Aba Abdillah, it is time for you to go now. This is the hard part. He goes back to the tents, Zaynab, Umm Kulthum, Sukayna, my sisters, my children, aleykunna minni as-salam. Husayn is going too. Everyone runs around him. They surround him, please stay do not go. They cling on to him. They will not let him go. He sits down, puts them in there in his lap, strokes their heads, I have to go. They say, the enemy says, Ah, Husayn, you are seeking refuge with the women, you are hiding behind the women?!

They start shooting arrows. He says that the children will die through that with the arrows, go back to the tents! Lady Zaynab, take the rest to the tent. The tragedy is here. The night of Ashura. Zaynab knows it is going to be over. Husayn is always busy doing something. She does not have time to really sit with him and just look at him. 'On the day of Ashura maybe I will get a chance to see Aba Abdillah a little bit'. No, she has to take care of the children, the women, take them back inside. They drop the tents, the tent's curtains, the tents, they drop them. They do not know what is going on anymore. Aba Abdillah has to ride out the. La illaha illa Allah.

Aba Abdillah wants to ride out, they say he stands, he mounts the horse, he wants to go, the horse is not going. Dhul'Jana' is not your ordinary horse. Abu Abdullah they say he looks down, he sees a three year old is holding the four legs of the horse, his three year old. He comes back down from the horse. 'Habibati, do not cry now you will have much time to cry'. Go back to the tents. He gets back on the horse after he sends her there, when he is going they say he hears a voice.

Malan mala ya Abna az-Zahra'. From the night before, Zaynab had not had a chance to talk to her brother the way she wanted. Her mother, Fatimah had told her about this day. Oh brother, wait, do not go. Let me kiss your neck for the final time, my mother has told me to kiss your neck.

But on Ashura, after Ashura, after it was all over, Zaynab has to come and see the body of Husayn, the same place she had kissed, the swords have kissed. La howla wa la quwwata illa bi-Llah, al-'Aliyun, Al-'Adheem. Wa sayalamoon alladheena dhalamun, wa min dhalameen, yan dhalimun.