The Prophet’s ﷺ Wisdom on Overcoming Distraction -- Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

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Summary

In a captivating lecture by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, the topic of mindfulness, particularly its connection to Islamic teachings, is explored deeply. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf discusses the concept of mindfulness as it rose in popularity and traces its linguistic and philosophical roots back to Buddhism and its remarkable parallels in Islamic tradition, specifically focusing on the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. He emphasizes how distraction in modern times leads to a state of mental distress, highlighting how the Prophet’s teachings encourage focus and remembrance (vikar) to overcome distractions. Through a blend of traditional Islamic teachings and insights from diverse historical contexts, he urges the audience to apply these lessons in daily life to maintain spiritual awareness and a connection to the divine.

Highlights

Mindfulness and distraction: Shaykh Hamza Yusuf discusses the modern surge in mindfulness and the distractions of today's age. 🌐
Insights into Buddhism and Islam: Exploring the historical connections and shared themes in mindfulness practices. 🕉️
The linguistic journey of 'mindfulness' and its original meaning tied to sacred remembrance in Buddhism. 📜
Distraction as a mental state and its impacts on contemporary life. 🤯
The importance of focusing attention on the divine as advised by the Prophet ﷺ. 🙏
The societal shift from eternity to the dictatorship of the clock and its effects on spiritual consciousness. ⏰
Gaining wisdom from pre-modern perspectives on time and death, contrasting with modern avoidance of mortality. 💀
Spiritual practices and prayer build a mindful, connected life, as demonstrated by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. 🕌

Key Takeaways

Mindfulness has deep roots in tradition, linking Buddhism and Islam through the concept of vikar. 🌿
Modern society's distractions can lead to mental distress, highlighting the need for spiritual focus. 📱
Giving your attention to God shapes a more meaningful reality, in line with the Prophet's teachings. 🌟
Reviving traditional practices like regular dua and Quran recitation fosters mindfulness. 📚
Recognizing the temporality of life emphasizes the preciousness of time and prepares one for the hereafter. ⏳

Overview

In this enlightening talk, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf delves into the fascinating topic of mindfulness, weaving through historical and religious narratives to emphasize its significance in overcoming the distractions of contemporary life. He begins by tracing the modern popularity of mindfulness back to its original connections with Buddhist practices and highlights its parallels with Islamic vikar—remembrance of the divine.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf elaborates on how today's hectic and distraction-filled lifestyle has led to an era of mental distress comparable to no other in history. Drawing from traditional Islamic teachings, he underscores the power of devoting one's attention to God, which in turn shapes a more meaningful and focused reality. By reconnecting with these core spiritual practices, individuals can transcend the distractions of the modern world.

The talk also examines how the shift from the pre-modern consideration of eternity to the modern focus on material time has altered spiritual awareness. Shaykh Hamza urges embracing the wisdom of acknowledging life's temporality, fostering mindfulness through consistent prayer and reflection, and preparing oneself for the afterlife. This journey towards mindfulness, as per the Prophet’s ﷺ instructions, enriches both the spirit and the mind.

Chapters

00:00 - 03:00: Introduction to Mindfulness The introduction chapter explores the concept of mindfulness, highlighting its popularity and relatively recent linguistic origins. Although the term 'mindfulness' can be traced back to the 16th century, it was largely ignored until around 1965. Since then, the use of the term has significantly increased, marked by a steep rise, as observed in the online usage trends. This sets the stage for understanding the modern prominence of mindfulness practices.
03:00 - 09:00: Mindfulness and Its History The chapter discusses the growing awareness and popularity of mindfulness in America, particularly since the 1960s. By 2019, the concept has become widespread, with numerous resources and experiences available online. Particularly in places like California, mindfulness has permeated various aspects of culture, including corporate environments where professionals are hired to teach mindfulness practices. The chapter raises an intriguing question: What truly fills your mind when you practice mindfulness?
09:00 - 18:00: Distractions and Their Impact The chapter explores the modern concept of mindfulness, particularly how it is reminiscent of 'vikons,' or 'remembrance of oneself.' It discusses the origins of the term 'mindfulness,' tracing it back to Buddhism. The chapter also mentions the author's personal engagement with the subject through writing an article on Buddhism.
18:00 - 27:00: The Islamic Perspective on Distraction The chapter explores the historical and religious transformation of Afghanistan from being a major Buddhist center to adopting Islam. It highlights the role of the Barcads, a clan known as the Barmak, who were in charge of the Buddhist shrines. This transformation to Islam was notably swift, showcasing a significant religious and cultural shift in the region.
27:00 - 39:00: The Prophet’s Teachings on Mindfulness The chapter discusses the influence of the Baramika, who were originally Buddhists that converted to Islam. Their conversion and subsequent contributions brought significant administrative knowledge into the Abbasid Empire. The chapter also touches on the prevalence of Buddhists converting to Islam during this period. A notable mention is made of an esteemed heresyologist and Ashari scholar, highlighting the interconnection between different religious thoughts and the assimilation of Buddhist teachings into Islamic practices. This reflects the broader theme of mindfulness emphasized in the Prophet's teachings.
39:00 - 48:20: Mindfulness Practices in Islam In this chapter, the author explores the connections and parallels between mindfulness practices in Islam and Buddhism. The discussion begins with a mention of Buddhist teachings and how these teachings are categorized within different religious sects. It is noted that if the Buddhist accounts are accurate, there are remarkable similarities with Islamic teachings, specifically about a figure named Al. The author sees these parallels as significant, leading to further study and research into Islamic perspectives on Al and the teachings of Buddha. This chapter sets the stage for a deeper examination of how these two spiritual traditions intersect, particularly in their practices of mindfulness and meditation.
48:20 - 53:00: Closing Remarks and Invitation In this chapter titled 'Closing Remarks and Invitation', the author discusses an article they've written called 'Buddha in the Quran'. The article, which was translated into Arabic by the Ministry of Alkaf in Morocco, explores the idea of a prince from their tradition who embarks on a journey in search of knowledge, eventually achieving a form of enlightenment rather than receiving a divine revelation.

The Prophet’s ﷺ Wisdom on Overcoming Distraction -- Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 mindfulness is a very interesting uh term it's become very popular as Dr aisha um said one of the things about mindfulness is it's actually a relatively recent word it goes back to the 16th century but it was almost entirely neglected until about uh 1965 and from then on you see this rise so if you look online you can see usage and you see this line it just goes nothing and then suddenly around the
00:30 - 01:00 1960s it starts to creep up and by 2019 it's it's gone way up and and there's so many things about mindfulness online everybody uh now has had some experience if you live in America especially in California with this idea of mindfulness so you have now they have corporations that have mindfulness uh so they they have people come and they tell you how to be more mindful um but what's really unusual to me is what is your mind full
01:00 - 01:30 of because one of the most interesting things about the modern concept of mindfulness it's actually what we would call vikons like you're doing remembrance of yourself so where does this term come from i got interested in just where did this all come from well it came from Buddhism because uh the Buddha who I actually wrote an article uh in a book on Buddhism and
01:30 - 02:00 Islam a lot of people don't know this but the Afghanis were actually great Buddhists and Afghanistan was one of the major Buddhist centers in the uh the premodern world and they became Muslim very quickly uh in fact the great shrinekeepers uh who are known as the Barcads Barmak was not a family it was actually a clan that kept the Buddhist shrine in
02:00 - 02:30 Afghanistan so the Baramika were actually Buddhists that converted to Islam and then they actually helped bring all of their administrative knowledge into uh the Abbasid Empire so I I I think it's very interesting that so many Buddhists became Muslim and I was struck by the fact that one of the great um heresyologists and uh Ashari scholars in a book I was reading
02:30 - 03:00 he actually had the Buddhists as a a section in sex what they call mil and uh which is uh religions and sex so he had the section on Buddha and he said if what the Buddhists say is true about this man he must be al which really struck me and so then I started researching all of what Muslims have said about Al and the parallels between Al and Buddhist Buddha are
03:00 - 03:30 amazing so I wrote this uh article called Buddha in the Quran and uh it was actually translated into Arabic by the ministry of Alkaf in Morocco because the minister was uh very uh struck by uh the argument because alder according to our tradition was actually a prince who escapes from the palace and goes on this journey in search of knowledge and then has not revelation it's a type of enlightenment
03:30 - 04:00 uh that happens so the Buddha talked about uh mindfulness and he actually has a very famous uh in the it's it's called Sati Pathana which is a lecture that he gave on mindfulness so then I wanted to know well what was the word that they translated from mindfulness and it's a pali word which is the original language of Buddha and in fact Dr clearary argues that in the
04:00 - 04:30 earliest Buddhist manuscript which is called the dhamapada that the Buddha actually predicted the coming of the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam so it's very interesting that the word is called sati so I looked up sati pali what what did it originally mean and I want to know what it meant and it meant remembrance of the sacred scriptures so it actually literally means remembrance so it's vikar so mindfulness that's been
04:30 - 05:00 translated into English from sati is really so then it becomes what are you doing vikar of that's the question now we live in an age of immense distractions arguably this is the most distracted age in human history now what does distraction mean well according to the dictionary it means a state of being distracted this is what drove people
05:00 - 05:30 like Derry dot crazy but the second meaning is mental distress or derangement mental distress or derangement thank you that helps mental distress or derangement now isn't it interesting that we're living in one of the most mentally deranged times in human history where people no longer even know what they are they've forgotten God they think
05:30 - 06:00 that this is all meaningless and they're completely distracted so what are they distracted from and who's distracting them one of the problems with distraction is if you're looking for it there's plenty of people that will help you find it and so there are all these merchants out there that are trying to advert turn your attention toward that's what advert
06:00 - 06:30 means to turn towards so an advertisement is to entice you and to get your attention now social media was designed to keep you on it they don't call it surfing the web for nothing first of all a web what do you do with a web a spider knows what you do with a web you capture flies you liquidate their inards and then you suck the life out of them and then there's just a shell lying there on the web right what's a net like internet
06:30 - 07:00 what's a net for a net's for catching things right so now as somebody who actually surfed in my younger days one of the really interesting things about surfing is you're just trying to stay on the wave has you you're not controlling the wave the wave is controlling you you're just trying to stay afloat and so surfing the web you're
07:00 - 07:30 just moving and it's taking you so distraction creates mental distress the third meaning in the dictionary is that which divides attention the word in in uh English decide to decide something is comes from a word which means to cut off decidere why would decide mean to cut off because what you decide cuts off
07:30 - 08:00 everything else once you've made your decision you're cutting off other things and you've made your decision and so people have to make decisions like where do you spend your time what do you give your time to now the word in Arabic for distraction is ilha which means to pull somebody into
08:00 - 08:30 leu to bring them into entertainment which in the dictionary is the pleasurable occupation of the mind so who's who's occupying your mind now what you give your attention to will determine your reality what you give your attention to will determine your reality what does that mean it means
08:30 - 09:00 that if you're always watching news about crime you're going to think that crime is far more prevalent than it actually is and you will be scared you'll be walking around thinking like Chicken Little that the sky is falling so what you give your attention to is going to determine your reality and what God is asking us is to
09:00 - 09:30 give our attention to God now what is the in Arabic intent what is the attention well in English it has a lot of really interesting meanings one of them is courtesy like you say he was very attentive to me attentions are what a lover gives their beloved attention is also a word for devotion so your attention is your devotion it's what you're attending to
09:30 - 10:00 it's what you're giving your time to so in Arabic one of the words for it is it's what you're concerned with it's your hum it's what preoccupies your mind it's what your mind is full of and so the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam said whoever makes his concerns in other words gives his attention to one thing
10:00 - 10:30 Allah will take care of all of his other concerns what's that it's so we're living in a time where people's concerns are completely fragmented and so there's all this mental derangement because people are so distracted now im Ali said and it's often attributed to the prophet sallallaihi wasallam and it may
10:30 - 11:00 very well may be because it is often said with He didn't say if they die they wake up no they come to attention is it isab is somebody who's who's smart intelligent because he's focused he's giving his attention to what's important and so in is what
11:00 - 11:30 happens when people die the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam said in one iteration die before you die in other words come to attention before you're brought to attention and in consider yourselves already dead it has the same meaning in other words wake up now and this is what mindfulness is really about it's it's coming to one of the words for attention in Arabic is
11:30 - 12:00 also it's to be awake and aware you're attentive you're aware your mind is present so already by the 1880s Nietze noted one thinks with one's watch in one's hand he complained even as one eats one's midday meal while reading the latest news of the stock market this is distraction everything is done with the
12:00 - 12:30 clock one of the most interesting things about time and one of my favorite writers Lewis Mumford said that when the modern mindset came to dominate this is what he wrote eternity ceased gradually to serve as the measure and focus of human actions in its place came the dictatorship of
12:30 - 13:00 the clock i mean isn't that interesting people used to think about eternity their lives were actually determined by their understanding of eternity and one of the most common things about preodern peoples is they mention death a lot and one of the most notable qualities of modern people and post-modern people is they never talk about
13:00 - 13:30 death why did the preodern people talk about death when I was in the throne room of the former Queen Elizabeth now the throne room of King Charles uh I was taken there by Baroness she's a Muslim in the house of Lord so they took me into the throne room i was getting a tour of uh the parliament and they have so they have this throne room and there was this massive clock given by the French king to the
13:30 - 14:00 the British monarch that had the grim reaper on top of it that's what the clock had it had the grim reaper in other words the angel of death was on top of it with his scythe that that takes the souls in all of if you look and Dr ysef knows this because he's been working with sundials in all of the preodern sund dials it will say things like carpedium and many Latin phrases things like in one of these hours you will be
14:00 - 14:30 seized people saw time as a reminder of their fi finitude as the reminder that they were finite beings in temporality modern people think they're going to live forever they don't think about death and one of the main reasons for this desire for distractability is because it preoccupies people from thinking about what is inevitable that
14:30 - 15:00 they will die the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said "Do much remembrance of the destroyer of delights death." Not in a morbid sense this is being unto death this is embracing our mortality being aware of it every night did death meditation he would recite poems about death
15:00 - 15:30 alhabib in his D1 you know be prepared for death and it's coming and they used to sing this on a on a on a regular basis to think about death the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was completely aware of the presence of death the Quran death permeates the Quran there's not a page that doesn't have the perfume of death scented on it in the Quran and
15:30 - 16:00 this is not morbidity this is not some kind of morbid or morbidness it's not morbidness it's actually to make you aware of the preciousness of the time that you have been given this is the preciousness of life itself it's a great gift from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and we waste it away with all of this insignificant
16:00 - 16:30 concern there's one of the interesting things about the ancient Greeks is they were actually very concerned about distraction but what they saw was that it was an inner failure to use one's time on what one claimed to value the most their reason for treating distraction so seriously was straightforward and it's the reason we ought to do so too what you pay attention will define you it will define you what you pay
16:30 - 17:00 attention to will define you senica wrote a famous uh short book called the shortness of life he was a he was a great Roman philosopher and and and one of the notables from Rome and he talks about you know his fellow Romans pursuing political careers
17:00 - 17:30 they didn't really care about holding elaborate banquetss they didn't really enjoy baking their bodies in the sun i mean it literally says that sunbathing something Europeans tend to do other peoples don't need to and to be honest I suspect he probably was right but the crucial point isn't that it's wrong to choose to spend your time relaxing whether at the beach or on BuzzFeed it's that the distracted person isn't really choosing at all i mean that's the key you're not choosing
17:30 - 18:00 it's quite the opposite the word in Arabic is one of my favorite Arabic words it literally means if you look at it it comes from soar is is a form in Arabic which is it's to internalize something so you're choosing the good that's what is but it's either a real or an apparent good that's the difference and so distracted people are not choosing they're not
18:00 - 18:30 choosing a real or even an apparent good they're surfing everything will pull their attention it's called the noonday devil in in in the old scholastic tradition sloth spiritual laziness people that don't want to uh to think about the inevitable one of the uh amazing things and this is what I wanted to uh to really talk about
18:30 - 19:00 is one of our most important books and it really is it had an immense impact on Imam Gazali is a book known as the risalah of Imam Kusheri this was a foundational book in tasaw and tasaw is part and parcel with the religion of Islam you cannot take tasaw out of the religion of Islam without
19:00 - 19:30 dassinating it without uprooting it there are many different types of Sufis there are many Sufis that went astray just like there's fukah that went astray there's mutalimon that went astray every science has its problems but the idea somehow that tas like that mentioned in the of imeri wasn't from Islam nobody would have accepted that including and abdahab
19:30 - 20:00 so in the of imi he has a chapter called time and he says that time for the people who have
20:00 - 20:30 had realization these are the verifiers the people that have penetrated the the reality of this religion and they have confirmed that it is true and that if you practice it you will get the results in other words it's falsifiable this is poppers argument for a true science is that it can be replicated so the makon are the people that replicate again and again the truths that we're told in our tradition they falsify the religion they show you
20:30 - 21:00 that over and over again we do these things and we get the same results therefore it is a science it's not wah it's not an illusion so he says that with the people of it is something that is not something tangible it's something like illusory time but it's associated with something that is actually substantial what he means by that is that for us we don't
21:00 - 21:30 know if we're going to have the next minute so I can make my plans for tomorrow tomorrow will come for a lot of people but it's not going to come for everybody that's the quality that it's and this is why was asked when will the human being finally be still and he says [Music]
21:30 - 22:00 He will never be still until he knows that the only time he has is the moment that he is in and this is why Allah says about the in other words they have no fear of the future and they don't grieve they have no grief about the past because they are They're here they're present they're mindful they're fully aware this is the
22:00 - 22:30 difference between them and everybody else they are present so that is what he's telling us so he says a man will say I'll come at the beginning of next month he doesn't really know that he only hopes he'll he'll see him but the the the the the beginning of
22:30 - 23:00 that next month will come it will come but you might not come with it and that is the nature of time and then he says I heard one of the great say
23:00 - 23:30 That's exactly what I was saying earlier what you give your attention to is your reality this is exactly what said the time the moment because can be moment it can be time you know like it it can you this is Arabic language time is what you are in if you are in the dunya your time is the dunya
23:30 - 24:00 if you are in the afterlife your time is the afterlife if you are in joy your time is joy and if you're in grief your time is grief and then he says he means by this that time is essentially what overwhelms the human being it's your experience that's what time is it's human experience and this is what the clock has taken away from us the clock is qu this quantifiable thing time is not quantifiable in reality time allah
24:00 - 24:30 is time allah is the the scholastics and I think they took it from us the scholastics called it nstans god is the eternal now if you look at inji says it is the eternal now it's the now that stands still god is time do not curse time because I am time
24:30 - 25:00 i am time some of the interpret it as it's the it's what the zaman is to the outward time is to the inward anyway he goes on it's a stunning um thing he he talks about you know Imam Sheffi he said "I learned two things from the Sufis time is a sword if you don't cut with it in other words if you're not
25:00 - 25:30 attentive it will cut you down we don't kill time time kills us." Whenever you hear somebody say "I'm going to go kill some time." That is a person in complete whenever you hear somebody you know he said the fool gets up in the morning and says "What am I going to do today?" And the wise man gets up and says "What is God going to do with me today?" So he said and then he
25:30 - 26:00 said your ego is such that if you do not preoccupy it focus it on the good it will focus you on the on on the harmful on the evil on the bad allah again
26:00 - 26:30 said "Time is a file it just wears you down doesn't obliterate you it wears you down till there's nothing left." And this is why time is so important he ends this by saying Every day passes it takes a part of me and it
26:30 - 27:00 it's it gives remorse to my heart in other words for the time I wasted and then it continues on it continues on and then he says it's like the people of the fire whose skin is reborn and this is from the Quran it says every time the skin gets burnt Allah recreates it i mean
27:00 - 27:30 this is we know about these propriioceptors now recept all the skin has these receptors that's why burn people that get burnt really deeply they they don't feel it once they've gone through the skin so the skin according to the Quran is recreated it's recreated so that the the uh the receptors experience it and then he says the dead one is not the one who uh
27:30 - 28:00 dies and then finds repose rather the dead is the dead among the living the intelligent one is the one who's mindful of his time he's giving the time its due so he's either in the or in the depending on what time it is so the
28:00 - 28:30 these are very high meanings and immediat uh he says people they should be looked at according to their station so what is asked of the the the the people who are content with being common people we should all aspire to to rise up to be higher than our position and common people is not
28:30 - 29:00 the street sweeper the street sweeper might be a a knower of God so common people in the western understanding are people that don't have degrees and haven't gone to college and haven't uh gotten PhDs and things like that very often those are the most common people they're the most common people so uh the the uh I wanted to uh now just talk a little bit about why we celebrate
29:00 - 29:30 uh really we should celebrate every day uh the birth of our prophet sallallaihi wasallam the fact that he came into the world we should be joyful and one of the things about Muslims is that wherever you go it's a hallmark of the Muslims that they loved our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam this is a quality that you find all over the world even people bad Muslims often
29:30 - 30:00 love the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and I'll give you one example when I was in England there was a Kuwaiti man i shouldn't have said Kuwaiti but anyway uh I said it so uh may God veil us all um anyway there was a man from the Gulf who who was uh he was in a bar and he was drinking and uh and then the man asked him where he was from he said "Cuade." He said "Oh that's Muslim isn't it?" He said "Yeah." He said "Uh." And then he said something about the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam well this Kuwaiti man broke his
30:00 - 30:30 bottle and jabbed this man right and obviously you shouldn't do that and and really I mean but but the impulse is real the impulse is real there's people in you know somebody said to me "Oh Muslims are always killing people over religion." I said "Well I was in England at the time." I said "You guys kill people over football matches." You know I mean and in fact there used to be a billboard that said
30:30 - 31:00 "If your religion's football worship was Skype." Sky it was like a football channel because there are people that that's their religion that's their attention is given to that they watch all the games they know all the names they have all the the stats they know who can bend it like Beckham right i mean it's very interesting this is people giving their time and that's all we have is our time this is what God has given us this is a
31:00 - 31:30 great gift that he's given us participation in being so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam he he was the most mindful of human beings and that's really what I after you know thinking about mindfulness and thinking about just how how so many people in the west are are looking at these religions like Buddhism and they've
31:30 - 32:00 never considered Islam it's just fascinates me because our our prophet sallall alaihi wasallam is so extraordinary and one of the most extraordinary things about our prophet sallall alaihi wasallam is his name because all over the world right now right now here we are in California we right now there's people all over the world
32:00 - 32:30 doingham all over the world they're praising our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and his name is Muhammad that's not a name he got later his mother named him Muhammad and it was an unknown name to the Arabs but she was commanded to name him Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam so just in his name is a proof of who he is because He is the most praised human being on
32:30 - 33:00 the planet and the second I I arguably is Mary i mean Mary people all over the millions hundreds of millions of people all over the world praise Mary but I've never met any Christians that sit there saying you know oh God praise Jesus you know bless Jesus do I I've never seen that and I've actually the in Genesis it says God will bless the nation that blesses Abraham i asked
33:00 - 33:30 an evangelical friend of mine "Have you ever blessed Abraham?" And he said 'I can't think that I have.' And I said "We bless him every day at least five times a day." And so by your own book it says we're a blessed nation because we bless Abraham and of all people the prophet in a sahi hadith said that he was he was shown all all of these prophets and he said who they look like he actually told them which tribe they look like benish shinua Moses
33:30 - 34:00 looked like the people from Ben Shinua uh Gibriel look like he he said what the what they look like and then he said the one that looked most like Abraham is your companion what a beautiful not your teacher not your not your your companion just our prophet was the most humble of
34:00 - 34:30 human beings he loved people he cared about people he was he was moderate in every single thing that it's amazing this is another proof of the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam his moderation he said my way is the middle way meaning the moderate way we made you a moderate nation a people in the middle even geographically the bulk of Muslims are in the middle of the earth they're not at the extremes
34:30 - 35:00 they're in the middle of the earth everything about him is moderation the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam they said about him said he he was of middle stature he was neither too tall nor was he short but nobody ever appeared taller than him but he wasn't tall or short he was middle he
35:00 - 35:30 said he was of a moderate color inclining toward a reddish light brown he wasn't he was neither dark nor was he a pasty white amhak like uh the Europeans you know the northern Europeans the Italians are closer to that color it's the most beautiful of colors ahar alone i once asked Hajj when they described the prophet like the full
35:30 - 36:00 moon did they mean the harvest moon on the horizon with that uh that beautiful coloring that it has or the the real brilliant white and and he turned to the he turned to some of the students he said like look at the questions of the Romans he said for him Rome was benel benar you know so he said it was like the moon on the
36:00 - 36:30 horizon and that's somebody who is an eyewitness and then he said he he had wavy hair it was neither straight nor was it kinky it was middle everything about him was middle sallallahu alaihi wasallam the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam the other uh aspect about him
36:30 - 37:00 and I want to because we were um we were talking about uh there's a uh from the the uh the Buddhist tradition there's a book on Chan
37:00 - 37:30 Buddhism with very interesting stories from the the masters and uh one of the the the students asked the teacher "Do inanimate things teach?" And he said "In inanimate things teach?" He said "Why can't I hear it?" He said "Because you can't hear." And then he said "Who hears it?" And he said "The saints hear it." And then he said ' Do you hear it he said 'No if I heard it
37:30 - 38:00 you wouldn't hear my teaching and then he said "Can the common people ever hear?" And he said "If they could they wouldn't be common anymore." And so an inanimate things how is it that all the Sahabah mutawat hadith heard the tree trunk moan because they were all saints if they hadn't been saints they
38:00 - 38:30 couldn't have heard it when the palm when the pebbles in his palm praised Allah not everybody heard it but Abu Bakr and Omar heard it these are mams so he sallallahu alaihi wasallam heard things he heard trees greet him he heard mountains greet him he said is a mountain that loves me and I love him the dowists say sages love
38:30 - 39:00 mountains and mountains love sages these these are teachings that are throughout because these these truths have been given to all people but we are the last inheritors and this is the gift of our prophet sallall alaihi wasallam to us that we are from the last ummah of mindfulness in an age of utter distraction this is his gift to us a path to becoming awakened not woke it's
39:00 - 39:30 bad grammar awakened the path to becoming awakened and grammar is in the Quran in Jenna you don't hear bad grammar that's one of the meanings of it it also means anything just empty you don't hear empty speech that's the primary meaning the ishara is no bad
39:30 - 40:00 grammar the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam loved beautiful language he he enjoyed hearing the poets come to him and they would say things and he would tell in fact when Hassan when he was he said he said your your your invective is harder on these these kufur than than our spears he said "Invest and may the
40:00 - 40:30 Holy Spirit give you aid in doing that." One of the Sahaba who was known for uh just his humor one day was making all of the Sahaba laugh and the prophet was there and he poked him in his side like it's enough and the prophet had a beautiful sense of humor but humor should be like salt it shouldn't be the whole
40:30 - 41:00 meal and so he poked him and he said "Oh that hurt." And the prophet said "Then take your take your vengeance." And he said "You have a shirt under and I don't." So the prophet lifted up his shirt and exposed his like the hip and he grabbed it and he kissed him he said "That's all I wanted." He was the most attentive to
41:00 - 41:30 his guest and this is a hallmark of all the every virtuous human that I've visited always the guest let him honor his guest if you believe in the Allah in the last day let him honor his guest so this is our prophet sallallahu alaihi
41:30 - 42:00 wasallam now how do we how do we become mindful this is the question and one of the the most important ways Allah says Allah subhana wa ta'ala says remind them in other words call their mind to attentiveness to attention remind them because reminders benefit
42:00 - 42:30 the believers in other words they will become mindful by being reminded by being brought back to reality and so the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam one of his names is the one who reminds who brings you back to your mindfulness to your remembrance of Allah subhana wa ta'ala so my I had a teacher he was a beautiful teacher he was a Sudanese Ahmed sheh Ahmed Badwi and I read with him the Mata he
42:30 - 43:00 was a student of Muhammad Habib may Aba so I had a direct connection to one of the greatest Muhamad of the 20th century he was a Muritanian brilliant Moritanian scholar who when he went to alar and uh he wanted to teach in the masid so all the aharis wanted to test him so when they came in they He said "Let's do." And so the first one said "I'm she so and so." He said "Ib he said so and so." He said "Ib he said so and so." He said "Iben." He said "So and so." He said "I said man."
43:00 - 43:30 He said "That's far as I go back." Each one gave their whole all their lineage and he began by giving his lineage so when he finished he said fanbam fanbam and he went through all of them and when it came to him he said mana and none of them could repeat his his lineage so they said you can teach hadith so he studied with him he was a he was he was a muti in the in the UAE
43:30 - 44:00 in the in the court when I was a student there but he wrote a little book which he designed it so that if you did these you would be from the ca and when I told she abdime that we had translated this book Dr assad and I that um he said his father used to say whoever does these the they're called theat the occasional uh
44:00 - 44:30 supplications he said "Whoever does them on a regular basis will be written from the." So this is a beautiful way to become mindful is to try to remember and to habituate ourselves to these things but also to do them with intention in other words not formulaic and not preuncter not in some way in which uh you you go on to automatic pilot where you actually stop
44:30 - 45:00 and you you supplicate Allah subhana wa ta'ala so said the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam said never left the house except he said this is a perfect prayer and I know of no other religion that has these prayers i I don't know any other religion that has these prayers it's to me one of the proofs of our prophet sallall alaihi wasallam is that all of these prayers are so stunningly
45:00 - 45:30 beautiful they're very difficult to translate because they're so comprehensive he said I was given the comprehensive words he he says so much with so few words so when he went out he said "Oh Allah I seek refuge that I should trip or be tripped that I should go astray or be led astray that I should oppress anyone or be oppressed or wrong anyone or be wronged that I should become angry or foolish or somebody should display their
45:30 - 46:00 anger or foolishness on me against me." That's a protective dua as you go out when he went into the when he went to relieve himself he said because these are foul things like emptying yourself even though nothing foul came from the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the earth swallowed up the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam when he came out he said you know your
46:00 - 46:30 forgiveness and then he said alhamdulillah what a perfect dua praise be to the one who provided me the delight of the food retained in me the the the the energy of the food and removed from me the harm of the food this these are perfect prayers perfect prayers so all of these things that the prophet sallallaihi wasallam when he went to bed in another which is he actually says
46:30 - 47:00 that I I have surrendered myself to you I have given my whole affair to you and put my back to you in other words for protection and then he says I believe in in in you i believe in your prophet and and and and and the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam said that whoever says these things and then dies has died
47:00 - 47:30 on this is the real human being this is the so he said go to sleep and not expect to get up in the morning sallallahu alaihi wasallam this is attentiveness to time people die in their sleep we don't know we're living in a place earthquakes happen the the house could
47:30 - 48:00 collapse when waking from sleep this I I slept in the tent of uh for uh the first few months that I was with him and then I actually asked because it it was it was very intense um he did all the time he did in his sleep and I have only seen a few people that do in their sleep there there was one man sidd Ali in uh in Mechnes who I was with him and and and he was sleeping and snoring and
48:00 - 48:30 doing prayer on the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and he was fast asleep so I mean I saw that with my own eyes but used to say the prophet said uh my eye sleeps but my heart doesn't sleep so there's people that do so much that they're even in their sleep they're doing in fact Sahabi used to have to put rocks when they went to the bathroom they would put rocks in their mouth to remind themselves not to say the name of
48:30 - 49:00 Allah so every time the the got up the very first thing he would do alhamdulillah but then he would recite from Ali Imran which is in the hadith he would recite the last uh from he would look up at the st the stars the prophet used and he would recite those
49:00 - 49:30 verses that's coming into consciousness when making wudoo woo is an act of ibada that many people are deprived of because they do it only for the prayer the prophet used to do wudoo as an act of ibada when you see
49:30 - 50:00 when we first saw uh the the people in the way they did wudoo did wudoo it was just amazing how how he did wudoo and uh and he would always uh when he completed this was the dua on the completion of
50:00 - 50:30 wudoo it was a beautiful dua and that's you're you know a man can be in a cell like Tobias Tubs could be in a cell and and and and he's he's in an expansive place another person could be in a mansion and he's in a cell because it's subjective it's all how you perceive reality this is one of my favorite duas
50:30 - 51:00 it's just such a beautiful dua and then when he got on a camel which is taken from the Quran also always the because time for for preodern people was always related to eternity this is why when you eat alhamdulillah the the the
51:00 - 51:30 the is always mentioned with the food is a uh a blessing that dissipates but submission to Allah is a blessing that goes on forever this is also when leaving the home this is now this is when you come into the house coming into the home when heading
51:30 - 52:00 to the masid one of my favorite also And he had no shadow says he had no shadow this is something that the said he was always shaded by clouds but he had no shadow
52:00 - 52:30 sallallahu alaihi wasallam one of the proofs of his hairs are if you cast a light on them they don't they don't show shadow make me light god placed light in my heart light on my tongue light in my hearing light in my sight place light behind me light before me place light above me light below me oh God make me light grant me light when entering the masid and then mindfulness he entered
52:30 - 53:00 with his right foot first and made this dua when leaving the masid left foot because the rah is in the masid the is in the world the bounty of the world when hearing the adan and then when when when you finish
53:00 - 53:30 [Music] it and we the prophet sallall alaihi wasallam is our say some most of these have without the say but it's been the the of the Muslims to to say our prophet just out of adab to him I There's a position and and this is a position that's a totally valid position that it's also the adab to uh
53:30 - 54:00 to to to do it just as it came down and there are people that do that so both are correct but I've always found it difficult not to say Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam allah says don't call him like you call other people you know one of the tragedies of the modern time is first name every everybody's on a firstname basis you know I hate these people they call you up hello Hamza i'm like it's Colonel Hamza to you yeah you know I mean what like why why why do people assume that they can just
54:00 - 54:30 call you by your first name people used to take a long time before you gave them your first name if you look at the old English like Jane Austin they called people by their last name like Willoughby that's not his name his name was John Willoughby but they called him Willoughby because he was called by his last name and if it was an elder then they would call them sir or mister we say Abu Yah you know Abu Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam you you givea that's how the Arabs do it one of the
54:30 - 55:00 things that I realized when because I went to a Catholic school in high school and they they always called you by your last name this was you know early '7s so it hadn't changed yet to the degree but they always called you by your last name so you know if you raise your hand they say Mr hansen that's how they called you and my father went to the same school and what I realized later is that the whole purpose of that is that you don't just represent yourself you represent a family you have a family name that you
55:00 - 55:30 shouldn't dishonor your family name so we're in a time when it's just everybody's an individual they no longer have any sense of being part of a family or a community so it's it's one of the tragedies I think of this all this familiarity and then forgive me you know this oh God now is the arrival of your night the
55:30 - 56:00 departure of your day and the sound of your caller so forgive me who went undress to go to the bath or or sleep you know in the name of Allah the prophet said if you're going to be intimate then this is something to say uh to protect uh the the
56:00 - 56:30 child very uh if you wake up from a fright you say this in sleep um there are many many of these I mean we have beautiful books I imani wrote a fantastic book I imam knowi's great book uh alatkar it's one it's one of the finest books in our tradition um there are many and many many scholars have written small books like this one that my teacher wrote um they want the baraka of teaching
56:30 - 57:00 these things to people so it's why people write books like I used to really bother me tajed books Like I see all these Taji books they're all the same they say the exact same thing they're all little books and they say the exact same thing and I would like why do people keep writing Taji books like aren't there enough Tajid book and then I realized it's actually a brilliant thing to do because anybody that learns how to read the Quran from that book the author of that book gets the reward of
57:00 - 57:30 all their recitation so it's this is why shu always made their own aad as I realized that because I went like why they keep making new aad because they want the reward of the people doing the that they put together it's one of the blessings of our religion so I totally have no problem anymore with I because I get it i want to do it like I'm going to write a book on inshallah
57:30 - 58:00 be oh Allah forgive my sin this is in prostration forgive my sins entirely the lesser and the greater the first and the last the revealed and the concealed he also said you know uh there are many many uh beautiful iteration one of the things of the afia uh one of the meanings of it according to Imi was to be focused on God in other
58:00 - 58:30 words not to be distracted which I thought was really interesting see you know this is between the the again between the uh and uh and these are the what are called the my recommendation to all of you do the this is one of the the most important things that you do after your
58:30 - 59:00 prayer is these are the things that you say after the prayer they're different iterations but they're they're they're very beautiful and they're extremely important uh there's a whole bunch of them so these are and we're we're actually going to this is going to be published this month and given to all the 12,000 strong people and then just made available there are good books like this there's a beautiful one that White Thread Press did uh the the the precious pearls reflections from the precious
59:00 - 59:30 pearls it's a beautiful book that uh a really fine sheh from England did so there are many good books and the Allah is uh without um limits this is a very important hadith given de dementia Alzheimer's all these things are so prevalent so oh Allah I seek refuge in you from timidity and stinginess so fear juben is
59:30 - 60:00 like fear is related to fear because you're afraid to give out your money and in one it's so the is the one who wants to do something but they can't the kaslan is the one who is able to do it but doesn't want to do it so he sought refuge from both these are really stunning in their meaning so these are and then the dua from
60:00 - 60:30 anxiety there's slight difference but essentially the same
60:30 - 61:00 meaning so again a beautiful comprehensive dua to make the Quran the of your heart and one of the best ways that you can honor your prophet sallall alaihi wasallam is to to read the Quran the prophet said "The best of my ummah is Quran in prayer and then Quran outside of prayer." This is the best ibada that you can do if you're if you're not doing a Jews of Quran a day then and you're doing other things I
61:00 - 61:30 would set aside those other things and focus on doing a Jews a day every Muslim should do a Quran every month i mean this is baseline um and if you if you it take about half an hour you could do 15 minutes in the morning 15 minutes in in the evening once you get accustomed to reading it at a relative pace it's what do you say yeah you how how fast can you do
61:30 - 62:00 with how Yeah about 20 huh yeah so if you do had you can do it in 20 minutes so 10 minutes in the morning 10 minutes in this is not a lot of your time it's you know and the book it's it's so neglected and the prophet complained of its neglect my people have have abandoned this Quran and one of the great
62:00 - 62:30 blessings of Morocco and one of the things I love about that country is every masid 250,000 katum every year every month in in that's what the ministry of alk has um determined based on all the the the the subhan allah so this is a beautiful dua and then is very important he used to teach for everything and this is something I'll tell you a true story she
62:30 - 63:00 abdo was in Jordan and they were on their way it was very late at night and they were on their way to the airport and the driver fell asleep and crashed into a telephone pole he died uh the sheh Abdullah broke his nose and there was blood everywhere and his son and this is a true story his son told me this he was in the car and he his son started screaming because he was worried his dad was seriously injured it was actually it wasn't that bad of an injury but there because there was so much
63:00 - 63:30 blood he thought it was really serious he screamed and he said his his father took his arm squeezed it and said don't worry I did before this trip that's that's the power of this that's the power of the prophetic teaching is that you you you you are in the hub up you're in that place where you're not perturbed by the world and
63:30 - 64:00 things are going to get very serious on this planet we're we're entering into a new phase and people need to have strong ean and they need to be connected to Allah subhana wa ta'ala they need to be connected i mean one of the things about Edith Stein that was so amazing she actually when when she fled to uh when she fled to uh after Crystal when they were persecuting the Jews she fled to uh they took her to
64:00 - 64:30 Belgium and she was in a monastery there and uh she used to go out into the cold like she was preparing for something and this is eyewitness people that saw this she was taken to Awitz when the Nazis invaded and they took even the converts to Catholicism because she had converted out of Judaism to Catholicism but she took her to Awitz there were eyewitness accounts that she was comforting people in that situation and she only was there for one week they she was killed right
64:30 - 65:00 away but the point is is that people of Iman can deal with this when they people don't know this but in Turk in uh in in Korea when they captured the Americans they captured Turks with them so they were actually imprisoned together and when they studied the Americans all fell apart and they actually started doing uh uh recordings for the Kore for the Koreans like communist propaganda and they were very worried about this because they felt they were brainwashed
65:00 - 65:30 it was all from the interrogation but the Turks didn't they didn't succumb to the interrogation and they wanted to understand why and what they found out was two things that the Turks did one they laughed a lot because they saw the ridiculousness of what they were trying to do in the brainwashing so they just would watch these people telling them these things and they thought it was funny and I I know that that's from a type of iman
65:30 - 66:00 where you kind of recognize the hilarity of this dunya and the stupidity of human beings and I know it had to do with their upbringing as Muslims the other thing that they did they always appointed because they would take away the officers and the morale would break down with the Americans the Turks always appointed an Amir so they always even when if it was a private they would appoint somebody over them and he would keep them all together so these are really really important
66:00 - 66:30 things to remember we need to be connected to Allah subhana wa ta'ala so there's so many things we could talk about who are we to talk about the messenger of Allah one of my favorite um poems is from the great uh the great poet uh the great fak uh Ib Jalby who is to me one of the most extraordinary scholars that our um produced he wrote a beautiful tap of Quran he was one of those polymass that
66:30 - 67:00 just seemed to know everything um one of the beauties of his books and one of my teachers Muhammad Mkhtar Shiniti was the son of the great Mufasar he was the one that really um first introduced me to Iban Ju in Medina when I was very young but one of the things that really he said was why his books were so powerful is because he wrote them for his son he wrote them for his son so he wanted his son to learn from these books and this is one of the reasons why the
67:00 - 67:30 sunnah if if your parent dies the sunnah is for the son to pray over the parent not for the sheh or the imam why because nobody will pray with the fervor that a son will pray for his his parent so that's one of the secrets of uh our so uh he said I attempt to praise the chosen one but I'm
67:30 - 68:00 thwarted I can't get to that that station that exalted height of praising him the prophet and then he says who can measure the ocean and the ocean is vast and who can enumerate the the the stones and the stars
68:00 - 68:30 even if my whole body became tongues even then I wouldn't be able to give the praise that I desired if all of creation got together to praise the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam they would not
68:30 - 69:00 achieve that due they would not achieve that due so I have refrained out of awe and And out of fear and magnifying that exalted
69:00 - 69:30 station and sometimes silence is the best eloquence and sometimes speech gives faults for the faultfinders so having said that and knowing my own limitations I wrote a poem for the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam
69:30 - 70:00 the sun solemnly stated "How can my
70:00 - 70:30 light compared to his?" And the moon laughed "Be like me content to reveal another's light." The North Star declared "What guidance can I provide next to his?" And all the stars exclaimed "Be like us who revolve around you and show no envy." The sea shouted "What secrets can I contain when compared to his wonders?" The clouds pleaded "Be like us exalted in the sky
70:30 - 71:00 because we humbly draw our water from another and pour forth in gratitude and service." The rose rulefully remarked "What beauty do I have next to his?" The mirror said "Be like me who can only reflect on others beauty." Reason exclaimed "What wisdom can I reveal next to his revelation?" The tongue replied "Be still and let me quote him." Gold
71:00 - 71:30 complained "What worth do I have next to his?" Copper cried "What in gratitude your purity was his from the start be happy to be compared to him." The dog barked he mentioned me the cat meowed he petted me the donkey braided he rode on me the horse nighade he called me an ocean the camel grunted i took him to
71:30 - 72:00 safety the frog croked I was his favorite the spider stood tall on eight legs and stately stated "I protected him once." The cloud boasted "I shaded him." The tree declared "He called me and I bowed to him." The palm trunk said "Well he hugged me." The date gloated i was sweet for him milk exalted i nourished
72:00 - 72:30 him water crowed i quenched his thirst the Cabba shouted "He circled me." The Yemen corner replied "He touched me." The Blackstone laughed and said "He kissed me." The pebbles yelled "We praised God in his palm." The mountains of Mecca called out "He loved us." Medina deely whispered "He chose
72:30 - 73:00 me." And humanity cried "Nafsy me me." And God said "Be like Ahmed." And Ahmed said "Omati umi my community my community." And God replied "We will grant you until you are content." Alhamdulillah
73:00 - 73:30 alhamdulillah
73:30 - 74:00 you fulfilled
74:00 - 74:30 alhamdulillah
74:30 - 75:00 [Music]
75:00 - 75:30 [Music] and [Music]
75:30 - 76:00 more beady [Music] and heal [Music] [Laughter] [Music]
76:00 - 76:30 [Music]
76:30 - 77:00 fore he [Music]
77:00 - 77:30 for I [Music] What do
77:30 - 78:00 [Music] and more [Music]
78:00 - 78:30 [Music] all
78:30 - 79:00 Alhamdulillah so mashallah I think uh after especially after the poem which was a surprise for all of us I would say that right now our heart and our mind are full of love of the habib of Musta and inshallah may Allah always keep it to that that love to that intensity so I wanted to thank everyone for coming on behalf of Zetuna College
79:00 - 79:30 the faculty staff and students thank you so much for attending this program um alhamdulillah we're working hard and thanks to your support we're looking forward to continuing uh with the many exciting projects that were talked about today earlier on and uh inshallah we hope to see you soon we hope to make this uh this campus open to you with the programs such as this so we can come together in the remembrance of Allah subhana wa tala and his beloved sallallahu alaihi wasallam also the bookstore um right now we have some
79:30 - 80:00 amazing uh gift sets that have been designed and uh carefully selected and curated uh for our community so please uh stop by and take a visit uh most recently we have a poster uh prayers on the most praised one sallallahu alaihi wasallam and actually it's the select uh uh salawat that she hamza actually translated himself so that's available right now at the bookstore and the uh dua book that she hamza was showing earlier that will be made available soon
80:00 - 80:30 and uh it will be complimentary to all of our 12,000 strong supporters so thank you very much be safe be well inshallah until next time