Ethics and Etiquette of Servitude, part 4, Sheikh Dr Shomali, 16th July 2020

Summary

In this enlightening lecture, Sheikh Dr. Shomali delves into the ethics and etiquettes of servitude, highlighting the teachings of Imam Sadiq. Emphasizing the importance of aligning our priorities with Allah's will, Dr. Shomali provides nine practical pieces of advice for those on a spiritual journey. The discussion includes spiritual exercises related to self-discipline, the significance of forbearance, and the wisdom of balanced eating. The lecture also explores how one's manners should reflect the teachings of the Quran and Sunnah, urging listeners to adopt patience, forbearance, and a pursuit of knowledge in their daily lives.

Highlights

• Imam Sadiq emphasizes the importance of focusing on Allah’s desires and trusting Him with the bigger picture. 🌌
• Nine pieces of advice were shared for spiritual journeys, focusing on discipline, forbearance, and knowledge. 🌿
• The necessity of emptying oneself to make way for new learning was stressed. 🧠
• Forbearance is more demanding yet rewarding than many forms of worship. 🕊️
• Proper diet is crucial, balancing halal, healthy, and sufficient eating habits. 🍎

Key Takeaways

• Align your priorities with what Allah desires and entrust major plans to Him. 🌟
• Seek practical advice from knowledgeable and pious individuals who can provide tailored guidance. 🤝
• Remember the power of forbearance; reacting calmly can be more rewarding than extended hours of worship. 🧘‍♂️
• Organize knowledge into memorable categories for better understanding and application. 📚
• Healthy eating is essential for spiritual growth; balance is key! 🥗

Overview

In this session, Sheikh Dr. Shomali explores further insights into the ethics and etiquettes of servitude through the lens of sacred Islamic teachings. The lecture is a continuation, where the main focus is on the profound guidance of Imam Sadiq. By revisiting these teachings, Dr. Shomali unfolds a rich tapestry of advice that is as spiritually enlightening as it is practically applicable.

Listeners are encouraged to seek out knowledgeable individuals for advice tailored to their personal spiritual journey. Importantly, the session delves into the practice of ‘forbearance’ — an essential virtue in Islam, which Dr. Shomali describes as more beneficial than prolonged worship. He discusses how forbearance can reflect patience and wisdom, essential in dealing with everyday challenges.

A significant portion of the talk is devoted to the art of balanced living, especially concerning one's diet and the act of eating. Audience members are guided to choose halal and healthy food, stressing the importance of a mindset that seeks understanding and embraces knowledge. With this wealth of wisdom, Dr. Shomali encourages us to live lives that are more thoughtful, aligned, and spiritually fulfilling.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction Chapter Title: Introduction Summary: This chapter titled 'Introduction' does not contain specific content in its transcript and is marked only as 'foreign.' Therefore, no detailed summary can be generated from the transcript information provided. Please ensure the transcript contains comprehensible text for more accurate summaries.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Weekly Sessions on Ethics of Servitude The chapter focuses on the weekly sessions discussing the ethics of servitude. It specifically starts with a reference to a hadith from Imam Sadiq (al-hisalam), indicating an ongoing exploration of this religious and ethical topic. The session appears to delve into the moral philosophies underpinning servitude and possibly examines scriptural interpretations and applications within a historical and contemporary context.
• 01:00 - 05:00: Hadith of Imam Sadiq and Practical Advice This chapter covers a conversation with Imam Sadiq in which a follower seeks practical advice. Imam Sadiq emphasizes that the advice he has already provided is sufficient to significantly alter one's outlook on life. Such a transformation can shift personal priorities and influence future planning.
• 05:00 - 16:00: Discipline and Training of the Nafs through Riyadhah This chapter emphasizes the importance of being engaged in fulfilling what Allah wants from us, while leaving major planning to Allah's wisdom. It highlights that everything we possess, including our wealth, should be viewed as belonging to Allah. These instructions are seen as vital guidance in the life of a believer.
• 16:00 - 24:00: The Importance of Hal and Knowledge The chapter titled 'The Importance of Hal and Knowledge' delves into the significance of a 'state' (Hal) and knowledge. The transcript reveals a conversation where someone is seeking practical steps to achieve a certain state or understanding. It mentions adversity as a catalyst for change and includes a reference to an individual named Imam Sadil, suggesting a context of religious or spiritual guidance. The specific guidance or practical steps, however, are not fully detailed in the excerpt provided.
• 24:00 - 42:00: Guidelines on Consumption and Eating The chapter titled 'Guidelines on Consumption and Eating' revolves around seeking advice from knowledgeable and pious individuals regarding consumption practices. The narrative mentions a respectful interaction with an Imam, emphasizing the importance of consulting those who possess knowledge and taqwa. The chapter highlights the value of approaching individuals who not only have religious understanding but are familiar with the seeker's personal context, as this familiarity allows them to offer more tailored and effective guidance.
• 42:00 - 52:00: Forbearance and Managing Anger The chapter titled 'Forbearance and Managing Anger' discusses general advice that is beneficial to individuals. It emphasizes the significance of seeking both general and specific advice from knowledgeable persons. The importance of asking for advice is highlighted, along with the idea of seeking more guidance when necessary. In this context, nine practical pieces of advice are mentioned as part of managing forbearance and anger.
• 52:00 - 75:00: Seeking Knowledge and Humility in Learning In this chapter titled 'Seeking Knowledge and Humility in Learning,' the journey towards God is emphasized, particularly through the lens of acquiring knowledge coupled with maintaining humility. The chapter begins by setting a contemplative tone with music, and it offers advice to those yearning for a closer relationship with God. It underscores the importance of seeking knowledge as a vital part of this spiritual journey. Moreover, the chapter advises maintaining humility as one acquires knowledge, suggesting that knowledge and humility must go hand in hand in one's pursuit of spiritual growth.

Ethics and Etiquette of Servitude, part 4, Sheikh Dr Shomali, 16th July 2020 Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 foreign
• 00:30 - 01:00 our weekly sessions on ethics of servitude and as you remember we were talking about the hadith of imam sadiq al-hisalam and we reached the part in which he
• 01:00 - 01:30 asked imam alayhi salaam for some practical advice although what imam has already told him can be enough they can really change our outlook and after change of outlook all our priorities and all our you know planning everything can
• 01:30 - 02:00 change the fact that imam al-islam said that we should be fully busy and engaged with what allah wants from us and leave the planning the major the big plans to allah subhanahu wa and to see that whatever we have including our money all belong to allah subhan belongs to allah so these real important instructions
• 02:00 - 02:30 were enough to change but now perhaps on one adversity wants to know some practical steps towards achieving those three so he says oh imam sadil although he as i said before you know maybe he didn't
• 02:30 - 03:00 you know belong to the school of a little bit but he had respect for imam he says please advise me and this is a very good practice if we go to people who have knowledge who have taqwa and especially if they know us if they don't know us they cannot give
• 03:00 - 03:30 us general advice which is very good and if they know us they can give us a specific advice this is very important asking for advice asking for more weather knees i give you nine pieces of advice nine practical
• 03:30 - 04:00 tips [Music] and this is my advice for any person who is seeking a journey towards god who is yearning for god
• 04:00 - 04:30 those who are after the path towards allah this advice is for them so it's not only for on one it's for everyone
• 04:30 - 05:00 to give you tawfiq and success to put this into practice might be a
• 05:00 - 05:30 more accurate version because mom said wasi yati and ha and in any case it's just a grammatical point because you are talibas so i thought to mention this now the question is how
• 05:30 - 06:00 these nine can be more you know understandable imam al-islam in order to make it more understandable and perhaps memorable divided into three categories and three of them are about riyadh to navs three of them about and three of them about knowledge
• 06:00 - 06:30 so imam said salah something that would help you in training and disciplining and a kind of exercise for disciplining and training of your naps the concept of realta you are familiar riyadha means to train
• 06:30 - 07:00 amir al-munir salaam said [Music] this is my naps that i train it with taqwa i discipline it with tabla and today in arabic they use it for a sport so riyadh means to do certain things or not to do certain things but whether you do or you don't do the aim is to gain control over your naps and make your naps as you like
• 07:00 - 07:30 like taming a wild horse to make it a domestic horse so three of them about reality three of them are about hell and based also on wisdom
• 07:30 - 08:00 because you also can see this by your own experience knowledge and help very much should be together [Music] knowledge but also try to adorn yourself with forbearance
• 08:00 - 08:30 must be must be halim any person who wants to educate people must be hanging because you are not dealing with the people who are perfect or even close to perfect they need education they need formation and you have to be patient maybe they don't know what to do they
• 08:30 - 09:00 don't know even how to ask how to treat you maybe there are lots of problems and also you yourself are not perfect sometimes you become tired sometimes you know i don't know you are becoming a little bit hopeless you have to be careful not to let any of these things affect your job affect your service either i am an angry person or
• 09:00 - 09:30 people make me angry by doing bad things in both cases i have to be halim i have to be patient and i have to let these things go i have to forgive the fine doings of people help is normally when something is done to you which is bad is there's a kind of patience with respect to wrongdoing of others
• 09:30 - 10:00 and if we are not halleam we have to try man at least with love you know what one of the meanings of barbara tafar always taken at least we have to try and force ourselves to be hallim and inshallah little by little you become haleem so
• 10:00 - 10:30 and helm you know preserve these memorize or preserve this you know when you give advice to some people you yourself should show
• 10:30 - 11:00 your high regard for your import you know for the important message that you are giving and also make that person advert that is something important and they should try to keep it so keep these three things three in three it should become nine
• 11:00 - 11:30 you see again it's ha it's the pronoun for the female because it's vasilya and be careful not to underestimate this not to take this light take it seriously so he said i
• 11:30 - 12:00 made my heart empty for this very beautiful expression we have to empty ourselves in order to let something new comes with its integrity if you don't empty yourself either you don't let it come or you damage its integrity you break it you take part of it
• 12:00 - 12:30 we had a session with our some of our christian friends we have regular sessions in the uk and one session we talked about emptiness and how to empty ourselves you can find it if you put how to empty ourselves or emptiness and my name inshallah will come on youtube
• 12:30 - 13:00 this very important issue how to empty yourself when you read the quran how to empty yourself when you listen to that or someone who is giving you advice how to empty yourself when someone is talking to you especially when you have a difficult conversation not that we already have made up our mind and when we listen to someone we don't let that person really speak to us we maybe pretend that we are listening and
• 13:00 - 13:30 maybe we even are not ourselves conscious but we are not really listening we are just hearing but we are not listening so it's very important so he says i made my heart empty so that i can take it completely for real those three things which are about riyadh
• 13:30 - 14:00 about exercise a spiritual exercise and training all of them are actually here about eating because a very important aspect of our spirituality is about what to eat when to eat and how much to eat all this really important what to eat
• 14:00 - 14:30 not only it should be halal as far as ingredients are concerned it should be also halal in the sense of sense that it has been earned with pleasant tayyip legitimate money or work and we need to eat
• 14:30 - 15:00 not too much not in excess not foods which are not healthy and also we have to eat when we are hungry or we are supposed to be hungry sometimes maybe a person is so much busy with his study or her study or work etc maybe you
• 15:00 - 15:30 don't feel hungry but you have to look after your body as well one of the things that when i entered the hosa uh helped me a lot was advice that some people gave me that be careful about your health because some talaba are so much interested in learning and taking lesson and mobahasa that they don't look after their meals and food and at that time talaba
• 15:30 - 16:00 had to make their own food you know sometime now they are given food so we have to be careful about our health and it is amazing how allah has created our body body and soul that healthy body helps the soul but eating too much actually stops the soul from her progress but if you
• 16:00 - 16:30 keep your body strong healthy you do exercise you eat good food but not necessarily delicious food or you know luxurious food or too tasty food if it's not healthy something which is healthy if it is healthy and delicious okay but not just delicious so the food is very important although it's
• 16:30 - 17:00 not just food but imam al-salam didn't want to make it very complicated for him so gave him something that he can start with and see the difference and then remain entrusted you know it's a matter of wisdom that if someone asks you for advice either you have to give whole list it is making that person maybe despaired and he would not do know where to start or you give him something
• 17:00 - 17:30 simple something that he can try it and then see the difference and then keep interested but when you choose something simple you have to be very careful about the way you select and how you prioritize so imam mentioned these things about riyadh don't eat what you don't have
• 17:30 - 18:00 appetite for either because you don't like it or right now you don't have appetite of course this is a general advice sometimes people don't like good food for some reasons they have to change their habits you know you can change your taste you can get your taste used to something you have to train your taste many things
• 18:00 - 18:30 if you don't you know try maybe you don't like them and trying is not just once i remember when the first time i had mango so when the first time had mango was uh let me tell you it was yeah about 29 years ago
• 18:30 - 19:00 i had gone to uh sudan and for tableage and the first time i had mango i didn't like it the first time the taste was very weird and strange but i didn't give up because you know i in general i love fruits and when i eat fruits i feel you know more connected to nature and more
• 19:00 - 19:30 connected to allah so i tried after two three times trying then i started enjoying mango then i took some mangoes and took with me to home and you know for family for some relatives and friends maybe i don't remember but i i took lots of mangoes with me so if i had stopped after one attempt then forever i would have disliked
• 19:30 - 20:00 mangoes this is a simple example i remember you know that we had a relative that never you know had uh olives and then once in our family you know at home you know when i was a child you know had all living then he liked it and he kept eating so this can happen so never deprive yourself from a good healthy food
• 20:00 - 20:30 especially vegetables natural food because you are not used to the taste train your taste but if there is something that you really don't have appetite for because you have eaten already or smells very bad and it's not a delicious sorry it's not a healthy food it's not delicious but it's not also healthy then leave it but if it is healthy not delicious you have to train yourself and many times later you may find it
• 20:30 - 21:00 delicious uh the same is you know with hot food so some people you know don't love you know chili but if you get used to it then you would find it very interesting so but consider your health don't eat what you don't have appetite for who you are
• 21:00 - 21:30 if you eat when you don't have appetite or if you eat something that you don't have apartheid maybe mostly here is about you have already eaten you don't feel you know eating it if you force yourself to eat when you don't have appetite then it can lead to al himala to reduction of your understanding and intelligence it can you know
• 21:30 - 22:00 cause some kind of uh i don't i'm sorry to use this warrior some kind of you know maybe a stupidity if it is continued some kind of foolishness if it is continued if you force yourself to eat when you don't have appetite this is in a situation which is normal sometimes there are ill people that they need to eat even if they don't have appetite a little at least but generally speaking
• 22:00 - 22:30 when you don't have appetite means that your body doesn't need water in the and don't eat unless when there is hunger when you are hungry then it is and when you eat eat something which is khalal as i said ingredients are halal
• 22:30 - 23:00 earning is halal everything is halal [Music] vassamilla you should start at least with bismillah
• 23:00 - 23:30 if you don't make dua at the beginning at least mention bismillahi and make dua at the end but not to forget bismillah at the beginning this is the minimum [Music] and remember the saying of the prophet muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam in which he worried about eating too much
• 23:30 - 24:00 the hadith is this human beings have not filled any container worse than their stomach a stomach is the worst thing to feel a stomach should not be filled a stomach is made in the way that
• 24:00 - 24:30 must be kept half full not completely full half full half empty many of our disease and illnesses come because of eating especially eating too much or eating bad things in some hadith something like this digestion
• 24:30 - 25:00 and eating and you know a stomach all problems uh start here not i'm not saying hundred percent many many problems come from here so rasulullah said khan if someone has to eat and fill his stomach one third for food vasolison keep one third also for the
• 25:00 - 25:30 drink when is the right time for drinking and one third for air for breathing i remember in the early years you know someone mentioned this joke you know one of my roommates in the house they said that a person used to eat too much and leaving no room no space
• 25:30 - 26:00 so people told him you know leave some room for water or cj oxygen air he said i eat as much as there is a space and water can find its way in between these bites of food water can go and penetrate and air is not important whether it wants to
• 26:00 - 26:30 come or doesn't want to come i enjoy eating and drinking air is not important so it should not be like this we should stop eating when still we have appetite if still you have appetite it's a good time to stop and you know that our mind and body are you know
• 26:30 - 27:00 made in the way that you feel that you have had enough when the message is given through your nervous system to the brain but it takes some time to process it so this is why it is good that you eat as slowly
• 27:00 - 27:30 and maybe in two three courses so that your mind feels you had enough because sometimes your body had enough but mind still thinks that you are hungry or you didn't have enough it takes time this is why for one reason we should eat slowly in any case not to eat too much and eat halal and pleasant thai yep food it's very important
• 27:30 - 28:00 and if you are making food at home when you are making food make dua over the food that inshallah you your family everyone who is eating from this food would get energy would get strengths these are very important people who work in restaurants in bakeries they should try to be with wazoo
• 28:00 - 28:30 and to make prayer for people be very careful about cleanliness physical hygiene and also spiritual hygiene these are very important the way food is made is making big impact on those who eat of course there are other things that we have to observe other than eating for example about our sleeping you know speaking which is very important
• 28:30 - 29:00 and you know once i was giving a that was the very first time i gave some instructions from muslim perspective to a group of our christian monks because they asked me to talk about islam and i said i will talk about islam in general and then islamic spirituality and then i mention few instructions given by muslim mystics
• 29:00 - 29:30 this is the year 2000 2001 and that was the first time i spoke to monks and in that time 2000 2001 allah put in my mind to mention these five things which later i repeated and then it was published in self-development and that was not to eat too much not to drink too much not to sleep too much not to speak too much and try to be mindful of allah
• 29:30 - 30:00 i said this is the core summary of instructions if you manage to do these things this can have a great impact on your ibadah and your study on anything and control of anger so this is about real this much we mentioned here
• 30:00 - 30:30 but those three which are about forbearance i want to finish inshallah today this hadith so that we can move on to the other passages
• 30:30 - 31:00 this is really a struggle and it's much more powerful and of course much more demanding than doing hours of ebada when you do about that it's easy
• 31:00 - 31:30 but if someone is making you angry and you remain in control and you don't react as an angry person you react as a cool person as a calm person that's amazing imam says if someone tells you that if you say one thing i will answer 10 things i will give you right
• 31:30 - 32:00 away back 10 things you say one bad word to me i tell you ten words okay what should you say people who are angry and they some say if you say one thing i then tell you 100 things but imam says no tell him if you tell me 10 things you would not
• 32:00 - 32:30 hear even one thing from me i would not let you decide about my words and the speech it's very important maybe inshallah one time i will explain that but if you are interested you can follow the lectures about guidelines for muslims in the west that how we have to be careful
• 32:30 - 33:00 not to let anything and anyone especially our enemies to affect our behavior we should not that falsehood and the people of falsehood affect our behavior and make us like them if they tell lies we should not tell lies because then this means that we are accepting their victory
• 33:00 - 33:30 if they are unjust we should not be unjust if they are rude we should not be rude we learn our manners from quran and sunnah we learn our manners from albeit we don't learn manners from enemies and then we do just something in return we have to be very very careful many times we suffer the same problems that our enemies have because we wanted to react
• 33:30 - 34:00 so we have to be very careful so if someone says if you tell me one thing i will give you right away 10 bad things in return say if you tell me 10 bad things i would not even give you one bad thing
• 34:00 - 34:30 [Music] to say bad words to insult you to swear at you if someone uses such offensive language
• 34:30 - 35:00 for example someone says you are a liar someone says you are i do not you are cheating you are not honest you are a bad person you are an unwise person i don't know they can say different things if you are right and i have such problem i ask allah to forgive me
• 35:00 - 35:30 maybe i have this problem i ask a lot of working contact but if you are not truthful if you are lying if you are not correct follow us i ask allah to forgive you i ask a lot before god don't ask asking to destroy you to curse you no i ask a lot to forgive you
• 35:30 - 36:00 please remember and i will also try to remember if there are people that we suffer from them and we have difficulty with them believe me by cursing them they don't become better for you by cursing them they become even worse if your children i don't know your husband your wife your neighbors your in-laws you know your colleagues if they annoy you already and you curse
• 36:00 - 36:30 them you think you they become better their achala can improve or you just want them to suffer for example you the best thing is to pray for their guidance the best thing to pray for change initially they can become better especially for believers family members children sometimes maybe you get very upset with them but
• 36:30 - 37:00 pray for them not curse them yes ask allah not to let them carry on with the wrong doing that's good it's not cursed this is good but say you know oh allah take away from them they're all or do not take away from them you know they're understanding i don't know this and that it's not going to help pray for their guidance praying for makhara if they are
• 37:00 - 37:30 forgiven they become better people if someone is forgiven they become better you shouldn't think that if the burdens of the sins and darkness of the sins are there they will be better for you if they are forgiven it's better if there is another person who is annoying me and he is forgiven it means that there is some light now that can help him to become a better person so
• 37:30 - 38:00 so if you are right i ask allah to forgive me if you are wrong i ask allah to forgive you and if someone promises you to do some soul do you injustice to you you say i promise you to be wishing you good nasiha means you know to want good for people and of course advice is sometimes also used but the
• 38:00 - 38:30 main meaning of nationality not to wish good and what dua and i pray for you in a very respectful manner nothing you know offensive you know actually say i pray for you thank you very much and finish it with a nice manner don't let this affect you and don't let this make a bitter
• 38:30 - 39:00 experience between you forever and those things which are about knowledge three also practical tips about knowledge something very important to remember about knowledge number one ask what you don't know there are two sides here one is when you don't know you should ask don't feel embarrassed don't feel shy
• 39:00 - 39:30 this haya is not good that you don't know and you feel shy to ask but it also means ask when you don't know sometimes you know and you ask in order to prove that you know in order to show to other people that i know this in order to test that person
• 39:30 - 40:00 that is scholar that speaker don't ask them to annoy them or to test them and try them and experience them yes maybe sometimes we have to ask
• 40:00 - 40:30 because we are interviewing someone and we are offering a job or a position that needs that's different but sometimes people especially people who don't have themselves that much knowledge they learn something or they hear something and then they want to test all my with that or when there is a class you know nowadays sometimes this happens that you teach and people have you know their mobile their laptops you know they search they find something and then
• 40:30 - 41:00 they ask the teacher okay the teacher you know may not know all these things in his mind right now or even maybe he has not come across this but he has much more knowledge than the people who ask these questions so these people have to be careful not to damage in front of others the position of the teacher or scholar or even the confidence maybe if this person is a new person to this field he would lose his confidence or she would
• 41:00 - 41:30 lose his confidence so we have to be careful question should be for the sake of understanding if you don't know ask the people who know but if you know and you want to see whether this person knows or not or you know especially in front of other people you want to show that you know you know better that's not good or even if you want to test him in front of other people you have to be very careful
• 41:30 - 42:00 be very careful not to act upon your opinion every person can have opinion but every opinion is not important all the patients who go to doctors and physicians maybe they have opinions but the opinion of a patient is something that you cannot act upon it whether it's for yourself or for other people
• 42:00 - 42:30 we have to refer to the experts we have to refer to the qualified people so i cannot act upon my opinion even if i have studied many years in jose even if i have studied that sahara for many years i am not mooched ahead so why i should act upon my opinion infect or in any field unless i am a person who is a person who can have reliable opinion you know we say sahib nazar
• 42:30 - 43:00 is someone who has reliable opinion so imam says don't act upon your opinion either you know for sure or you do till you find the answer
• 43:00 - 43:30 from reliable sources as much as possible don't take risk with respect to your religion in the same way that you run away from a lion coming towards you run away from giving fatwa to people and this is why our scholars are very hesitant to undertake the position of margie to issue the resale fatwa they are very
• 43:30 - 44:00 hesitant but sometimes they have no choice because it's a responsibility upon the shoulder of an arm when people need to share their knowledge but it's not that you know this is something that they enjoy you know giving fatwa because huge responsibility huge responsible and we have to be very grateful to our marajas that out of their love for allah and out
• 44:00 - 44:30 of their love for us they help us with this this is a great blessing but we should not volunteer for that especially if you are not qualified but even if you are qualified and there are other people as much as possible you should run away from this position in the same way that you run away from lying you should run away from giving fatwa
• 44:30 - 45:00 don't make your neck a bridge for people you take everything on your neck and shoulder all the responsibility and people act upon your opinion they can go to heaven if of course they made investigation if they realize that you are qualified and they act upon your opinion they can go to heaven but you would be held responsible okay
• 45:00 - 45:30 what was the reason for this fact well what was the reason for that falfa there are thousands of fatwa you have given you have to answer so as a duty it's great as a privilege no it's not a privilege okay we stop here we thank allah subhanahu ta allah for all his blessings especially the blessing of guidance and maratha and the blessing of
• 45:30 - 46:00 putting us in this path of seeking knowledge and seeking tackler under the guidance of our true scholars alhamdulillah