as-Sadiq

Below is the seventh part of notes from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf’s lecture series entitled “The Poor Man’s Book of Assistance.” The lecture series is named after a book written by  ninth century Moroccan scholar Sidi Ahmed Zarruq. Shaykh Hamza translates and gives commentary on this book in this series of 16 CDs

We were talking about having a far-sighted goal without having microgoals, and he said that anyone who does that will usually not achieve his goal. So he said, for example, you’ll hear stories about people who repeated all of their prayers. They prayed 40 years in the masjid, and every day he was in the front line, and one day, the first day in 40 years he was late for the prayer and he was ashamed to go in because of what the people would think, and then he realized that he had the riyaa’ about his prayers so he repeated all 40 years of prayer. And that’s called salaat al-`umar, and there’s no daleel for that. So he said that some of the scholars told us that it’s mentioned in the kheerah of one of the great `usooli scholars of the Maliki madhhab that that’s actually not permissible to do that.

So then the third one, he’s talking about rights that you’ve trangressed – rights of Allah and rights of the creation of Allah. He was talking more about the huqooq al-badaniyya like prayer and `ibaadaat, hajj. Then he says the rights relating to those things that involve money are similar to the rights relating to those things that are rights of your body. Indeed they are even greater.

So the obligation of zakaat and also expiating that is not only an obligation, but to fervently seek that out is more important than being vigilant about those things that relate to your badaniyyaat, like prayer, etc. Why? Because zakaat not only affects you but it affects others. So not only have you deprived yourself but you’ve also deprived others. There’s mathaloomeen. So that’s why you should be more concerned with your zakaat because if you neglect it, there’s poor people that are entitled to it that you’ve oppressed. So that’s what he means.

They shouldn’t be put in a scale, but your concern for zakaat should not be light, it should actually be greater than for your badaniyyaat, but that doesn’t diminish the concern you have for your badaniyyaat. And the reason for this is that the nafs by its nature finds it easy to do the first but is more lazy about the second. And for that reason, the salaf were more scrupulous about matters concerning wealth, perhaps more than in wudu’. And that’s well known.

The Sahaba RA were more concerned about where they got their money than they were about night prayers, etc. because if your money’s haram, then the food you eat is haram, and if your food is haram, then you’re not going to be able to do anything with any continuity in your `ibaadah.

Then he says it’s not permissible that you free a slave when you have debt, so you can’t do things with your wealth when it has obligations on it. Allah doesn’t accept naafilah if there’s obligatory acts that are binding on you. So in a sense, you are wasting your time if you’re doing extra acts when there are other things you need to do that are binding on you. For that reason, the most important of your affairs are fulfilling those rights which are an obligation on you before going on to any extra acts. And for that reason, that anyone who deems a superagatory act more important than his obligatory acts, then he’s deceived, deluded, been tricked by Shaytan or his nafs and hawaa.

And it’s been said the destruction of human beings and creation is in 2 things: 1) by being preoccupied with extra acts to the neglect of your obligatory acts (like someone is doing night prayers but they don’t get up for fajr… if you do that, then your night prayers are a waste of time. It’s better you sleep the whole night and wake up for fajr, rather than stay awake for naafilah and then fall asleep right before fajr), and 2) the heart is not in sync with the limbs, so there’s no intention behind your actions, you’re just doing the outward action. So there’s people that pray, but it’s just the outward form, the heart’s not present, it’s just haaDir. So he’s saying those 2 things destroy people. And he said, in the hikam of ibn Ata’illah, that from the signs of following the hawaa’/caprice is to hasten to the extra acts of good and to be lazy about implementing the obligatory rights that are upon you. So that’s a sign of ibtibaa’ and hawaa.

And this is a disease that is impossible to remove, a very serious disease. For ex, there’s people that they pray every taraweeh prayer during Ramadan, but they didn’t pray any obligatory prayer outside of Ramadan. So they have faraa’id prayers that they should have been praying, but they go for the naafilah.

The fifth one is also that you know the number in terms of qadaa. When you’re redressing some haqq, some right of Allah swt or His creation, it’s an obligatory to know the number because the nature of the selfhas a natural inclination to things that come to an end.

For ex, if you’re working and there’s no end in sight, you get overwhelmed, whereas when you really can see that a job has an end in sight, it gives you himmah, it gives you more energy to do that thing. You have to know what you owe so you don’t just say or feel that you’ll never get this done. By making what you do, by doing it in only one way, it will lead to boredom. So he says here is that you should vary when you’re trying to fulfill something, for ex, you do the least amount necessary, then you increase it to a middle, then you increase to its highest number. And this is in order for the nafs to benefit from it, and it gets some repose from this, from these changes and increases, and also it gains a strength in being able to perfect and to embellish what it’s doing, in other words the devotional practices.

The sixth one is that if you have a weak incentive (ba’ith) – for ex, most people work because they get a paycheck, and the paycheck is their ba’ith, it’s what’s making them do something and if you want the forgiveness, that’s a powerful ba’ith, to seek the forgiveness of Allah. So he says that the weakness of the incentive will end up engendering in you a laziness in doing what you need to do, and also it will result in your relinquishing or diminishing the continuation or steadfastness in it.

If you find that and you don’t find any help in changing that, then remind the self and give wa`ad to the self. The Sahaba RA used to exhort themselves, Sayyidna Abu Bakr RA used to actually give wa`ad to his tongue.

One of the things that his teacher would do is that he would give wa`ad to himself with prayers and with poetry – he would actually say these things to himself like o nafs, wake up, have some fear, be fearful of sudden death, all the pleasures of dunya, don’t preoccupy yourself with them, especially the pleasure of sleep before dawn. You have to give wa`ad to your nafs, and then really rise up the way somebody angry gets up. If you’re angry, you get up and are like, I’m going to do something about this. So he’s saying to get angry at yourself, remind yourself, don’t let your life slip away, it’s too impotant, you don’t have much time left, so do something with it. Remind yourself and then get up.

If you do that, you’ll find that energy, that zealousness to do what you need to do. And if the matter is between giving up the qadaa or some extra acts, always leave the extra act. So for instance, if you have prayers to do, and people are praying taraweeh, make up your qadaa, make up the faraa’id that you owe.

BUT if the nafs calls to doing the naafilah or it will just end up leaving everything because maybe it’s tired or something like that, then his shaykh al-Qawari used to give fatwa that some evil is less than other evil, in other words it’s better that you do naafilah than you don’t do anything at all. So he’s saying, do that. Wallahu `alam.

The nafs can sometimes be overwhelmed and bewildered by how many huqooq there are – a saying says that the rights and the obligations are greater than the actual time we’ve been allotted in life. So because it feels the weakness that the self has, it gets overwhelmed. The nafs will get overwhelmed by all that it has to do, and so instead it will seek out laziness instead of doing things.

This is one of the things that people in management skills is that one thing that you have to do is that you have to delegate, because if you don’t delegate you get overwhelmed, and if you get overwhelmed you actually get depressed, you become lazy, you procrastinate because you’re overwhelmed by it. And that’s what he’s saying, he’s saying don’t let these things overwhelm you because it’s going to result in your self actually not doing anything. And then he says that the whole reason you’ve done this in the first place is because of your tawbah, and then you end up falling back to where you came from because the tawbah was to start over. You’re gonna go back to square one, so don’t get overwhelmed at that.

The cure for this, if there’s something that is going to lead to taraffuq (a gentleness and ease on the self) without resulting in a sin, and also you’re not changing the hukum/legal ruling, and this occurs with more than anything with expiation. For ex, a man came to the Prophet saws and told him that he had relations with his wife in Ramadan, and the Prophet saws told him to fast for 2 consecutive months, and he said he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t even fast Ramadan. And then the Prophet saws said so free a slave, but he couldn’t do that because he was poor. And then the Prophet saws said to feed 60 people. This is kaffara. So he’s making it easier on the man.

This is what he’s talking about – if you have a dispensation to make something easier, then take that dispensation if you can’t do the first one, if you’re going to get overwhelmed. So then the man asked, what do I give sadaqah with, I don’t have anything? So then the Prophet saws gave him some dates to feed the people. He asked who do I feed? No one is poorer than my tribe. So the Prophet saws said go feed your tribe. So that’s what he’s saying.

If you have to make something easy on yourself, without doing something wrong, without changing the hukum, and this occurs more often in expiation, and either it comes out of ignorance of what you’re supposed to do or some extreme in the ruling, so don’t be too constricting on yourself out of fear that the self takes advantage of it, but also don’t make it too easy out of fear that the soul will take command of you. So what he’s saying is that there’s a balance. Wa bilLahi at-tawfeeq (the success of doing this is from Allah swt).

The benefits of acting according to the aforementioned are three things, for the one who really reflects:

1. this will make your uprightness easier in the future, so if you do this, you’re not going to repeat the mistakes of the past, it’s going to get easier for you,
2. the second is that the heart itself is freed and emptied of being preoccupied with other than the truth, and
3. the third is that one is firmly stationed in the place of sincerity, and this is the place where the heart and the body become illuminated. So this is the place where the heart, the body is illuminated, your himmah/aspiration becomes high, your evil is prevented, and facilitation of affairs occurs. Wa Allahu `alam.

The results of neglecting this is:

1. the shortcomings of the heart in reaching perfection,
2. your body returns to the original condition – the neglect, the laziness, the overeating, and
3. you lose sincerity and the taste of the sweetness of actions that are obedient to Allah.

The keys to losing these and falling short in these are three:

1. the inclination to dispensations that are connected to these legal rulings, so if you neglect this, you’ll always be looking for the easiest way, and he’s meaning going to ta’wilaat, etc. and in normal situations, not in qadaa, the `azeema (self discipline) is better than the dispensations,
2. that it’s going to be very difficult for him to be steadfast in the best way, in other words in what he’s trying to prioritize and organize in his life, and
3. doing too much and doing it too hastily and that leads to laziness and nullifying your acts all together.

The way to do it is by taking those things that help you and keep you to getting to that place, which is like the second one (tashdeed), having resolution, being moderate, and also have steadfastness/firmness that you don’t allow loose interpretations to come in, so you don’t find excuses constantly, nor do you allow the other to occur which is that you get so overwhelmed that you get to this state of petrification and can’t move. And seeking the help of Allah swt, this is the greatest foundation, and this is the absolutely firm edifice. Wa Allahu `alam.

The third milestone is the milestone in returning those things that you have wronged to the slaves of Allah. So we have huqooq Allah wa huqooq al-`ibaad. This relates to the rights of others and how to get them back in the best way. So you have to return them. Oppression is multiplied darknesses on the Day of Judgement, so when you oppress someone, it becomes multiplied darknesses for you on the Day of Judgement. And the Prophet saws said whoever has some wrong in regards to a brother of his, let him rectify that before he has no dinars and dirhams. In other words, when you have the ability to rectify your wrongs when you have wealth, then do it while you have wealth before you lose it.

One of the saliheen said, there are 3 types of wrongs:

1. a wrong that Allah will never forgive and that is shirk,
2. a wrong that Allah will never leave and that is the oppressions done to other people, and
3. a wrong that Allah has no concern with and that is the rest of wrong actions.

That doesn’t mean that they don’t matter, but that just means that if you make a sincere tawbah, it’s very easy to make a sincere tawbah from wrongs that are between you and Allah swt, but wrongs that are between you and the creatures, Allah will not leave those until you rectify them with His creation. What that means, Allah will forgive whoever asks Him for forgiveness or anyone else in the mashee’ah.

People are three in your relation to your wrongs toward them and it’s incumbent upon you to return your wrongs to them, based upon your knowledge of that:

1. somebody who you have oppressed himself by killing or wounds. If you’ve done this, what you have to do is to fulfill the qisas, which means your life or the blood money if they’ll accept that. So if the soul is too precious, and by the nature it’s not a cheap thing, or if there’s a person that doesn’t have the blood money in his hand, then the storehouses of Allah’s generosity are great, and seek refuge with Allah swt by attempting to do your best to please Him in all of the aspects of one’s capability, especially by trying to gain those things that bring the love and also by exposing the soul to those things that will destroy it such as jihad,
2. oppression/wronging someone when dealing with money. There are about 9 different ways you can do this, and a few are mentioned here.

   a) One is ghasb. A ghaasib is one who usurps someone’s wealth. This is someone who, for example, may just see your purse or watch and will just grab it, he doesn’t have a weapon. A ghaasib has to give back what he took, but his hand is not cut off. He’s not like a thief, and worse than a thief is someone who takes things with a weapon.

   b) Stealing is when you take someone from someone’s place which is recognized to be private, like someone’s room, even if it was unlocked. That’s sarikah. If somebody left it out on the street, that’s not sarikah, but you’re not supposed to take it unless it was to take it to some authority.

   c) Then there’s khiyaana. For example, when someone leaves you money and you just use it for something else that they didn’t give you permission for, or someone gives you luggage and you don’t take care of it. When you trust someone, they’re supposed to be trustworthy. What you owe is to return them the likes of what you took and also returning to Allah, make tawbah. And if you don’t have the ability to return to them what you took, then make tawbah. And then that person, you should attempt to make them pleased by serving them, showing them respect. But if you’re not able to do that because they died or it wasn’t an obligation for you do that, like serve them or something, then you should give in sadaqah what you took from that person, in that person’s name. Just say you are giving that for this person. And being cautious about the amount is very important, and to take the more cautious position is better,

3. the third is a man you’ve oppressed in his honor by causing something that leads to detraction to him/his good name (`ird) or contempt, i.e. you show contempt to him.

So the thing that you did, that has emanated from you will be one of 3 things:

1. something that causes harm to come to him, like see`aayah/mukhabaraat, which is the intelligence. This is people that spy on others and then go tell on them.

   Namimah, a nammam is someone that disassembles, they’ll go and tell you that did you hear what so and so did, and all they want is that you hate this person, and this type of person will not enter Paradise, he won’t enter amongst the first people that enter Paradise cause this is kabeerah. And also, testifying against him in some foul way.

   So it becomes an obligation that you go to that person and tell him that I lied to you, it’s not true what I told you about that person, he didn’t say that about you, I lied. If you bore false testimony, you have to go and tell them that you bore false testimony. If it was indeed false testimony, then this is a kabeerah, it’s a lie because this shameful thing, this blameworthy quality, even if it’s true of him, it’s worse of you, and there’s no room for forgiveness for you for what has emanated from you, for what you did.

   There’s no place to say oh I forgive you because these are serious things, these affect societies. And this is also after you’ve asked for forgiveness from that person, and also that you have brought forth this display that you no longer believe in what you said or transmitted to anybody else,

2. in a person where you have fornicated with their wife, even if it was one time. This is a great tribulation, and really you should be making excuses to Allah swt, and your obligation is to rectify and free yourself completely from this act.

   If you tell people, then this is qaf in the one you fornicated with because you need 4 witnesses, etc. So you can’t tell anybody. And also it’s a faDiha (total dishonoring to the soul), and this is also exposing yourself to serious harm from this person if he was silent.

   You tell him, and he might not do anything, but he’s planning to get revenge, or he destroys you, he kills you if he becomes so jealous and enraged that he’s not able to hold himself back. And all of that is haram. And it will destroy society. Because there’s a khilaaf in zinah – is it a haqq of Allah or a haqq of the `ibaad? Does it relate to the rights of Allah or the rights of creation, because obviously there’s more than one person involved. So there’s a khilaaf amongst the `ulama, and that’s why it’s a real problem because you can’t go to the husband and ask him to forgive you because you fornicated with his wife.

   So you’ve oppressed a man by seducing his wife, and this is a serious problem. One way of dealing with this last one is to free a slave, even though there’s no kaffara for this, because there’s a hadith that says whoever frees a soul, Allah will free for him every member of his body from the fire, and

3. if there’s gheebah involved or you’ve mentioned something about him that detracts from him or doubtful matters, you have to free yourself from him, it’s an obligation, unless there’s something that will come from him that will necessitate otherwise.

   If there is, if you know that if you went to this person and told them and they’re going to get really angry, then instead of going to them and telling them, what you do is that you have to praise him, make thanaa’, and also al-istighfaar wal khidma (asking forgiveness for him and doing something of service to him). And some people have even said that to ask forgiveness from this person is actually not allowed because of the problems that will arise from it, but this is weak. And some said that it’s permissible to do it but not an obligation, if it necessitates that.

   If he mentioned it by transmitting it for bhu’taan… Think of gheebah as saying something behind their back, and bhu’taan is saying it to their face, where they’re shocked, and it’s also usually a lie. So bhu’taan can also be saying to their face and it’s a lie. But that is contingent upon you expressly mentioning that person’s name. If you didn’t mention the name but everyone is going to know who is it, like if you said the president of Libya, then there’s khilaafah about that. But if everyone is going to know it, then that’s gheebah. If, however, you said oh I was in Makkah and such-and-such happened, nobody is going to know who it is. And if you’re using it to teach a lesson, that’s not gheebah. Even if there’s no benefit in it, it’s still not gheebah, just kalaam.

   So renew your contact, make sound this resolution you have, start over again, do more istighfar, and guard yourself to the best of your ability. You should be making excuses to Allah because He’s more worthy of making excuses to than His creation, and He’s the one who can really fix and take care of everything.