Love for Allāh (9th Jan ’16) || Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed db

> Who are the allathīna āmanū? Allāh swt has mentioned one quality in the Qur’ān - ashaddu hubbal-lillāh (those people who are extremely intense and intensely extreme in their love for Allāh swt)!

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> We are involved in other loves - we don’t intensely love Allāh swt, nor Nabī ﷺ, nor the believers. Allāh swt here is not describing the awliyāUllāh - He swt is describing the quality of general believers! It will become very easy to leave sin and very easy to worship when you have this intense love.
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> Ad-dīnu yusrun - dīn is easy. Dīn has such qualities which if it came into someone, then for that person dīn will become very easy. For e.g. the one who loves money etc, the one who loves his friends, they will find it easy to stay awake for these purposes. The one who loves Allāh swt, it is very easy for them to wake up in the last part of the night! This is a system for the lovers. The foundation to everything for them is love. Of course, we all have general love for Allāh swt, but here we are talking about ashadd (extreme) love! This is a reality! In the tabi’ tābi’īn, there was a man who was a lover of someone. This love wasn’t permissible, but he had this ashadd love! He is known as majnūn (mad), because of his intense love for Layla! He would do everything Layla asked him! Our love is not like this. The sahāba kirām were true lovers. Every āyat that come down, they would follow it even whilst it was coming down. They would do ‘sami’nā wa ata’nā’ for everything. They wouldn’t think about whether it was possible for them to do it, they would just listen and act! Nothing is just made in this world without effort; if you want to be a jannatī person, then you need to mould yourself to become this person. Allāh swt has given us this project. Goal = to become a jannatī. He has given us Qur’ān and Sunnah to help us, but we don’t undertake this task, because we don’t have true love.
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> Let’s analyse our dunyā. We live in a time where we use the term ‘quality control’. We always want the highest level of quality; we always want to pursue excellence…in everything we do! We want to enrol in the best of universities, and gain the best degree and get taught by the best of professors. We want the best job, with the best employer, with the best wage - and even when we have this, we want the best promotion. We want the best wife though we do not want to be the best husbands. We are living in the age of the upgrade. Even when we have the best, we want an upgrade. When we have the best phone, we want the best upgrade. We even want to upgrade our car, even if its just because of a new shape. We always push the horizon. There is no issue with this if done within the boundaries of Islām. KatabAllāhu ihsāna 'alā kulli shay - Allāh swt has mandated excellence in everything. Yes, we have this in dunyā, but what about our dīn? Do we ever feel today I will pray the best salāh; today, I want to do the best sajdah; today, I want to pray the best Fajr; today, I want to have the best hayā I could have etc!
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> The parents who aren’t quality conscious in terms of dīn also force this attitude on their children. They say, ‘do not become amolvi’ - mawlawiyyun means Allāh wālā like Baghādiyyun means the one from Baghdad! So its like you’re saying to your children, do not become an Allāh wālā. They want to adopt materialism in dunyā, but when it comes to dīn, they just want to get by.
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> Our real beloved should ONLY be Allāh swt. Majnūn didn’t have moderate love for Layla. It was intense, extremely intense.Wallathīna āmanū ashaddu hubbal-lillāh - those who people who believe, they are extremely intense and intensely extreme in their love for Allāh swt. Allāh swt has given us a heart which has the capacity to have this love! I can do anything for my beloved - this is love. Arabs have a saying, ‘al-muhibbu liman ahabba mutī’un - the lover is obedient to his beloved. That is what you call a lover! Wallathīna āmanū ashaddu hubbal-lillāh! It’s that person who wants to learn Qur’ān; that person who just wants to do ‘amal on more things. They just want to know more, so they can act upon more.
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> Love is that area where there is always room for improvement. Why? Because the lover always wants to be more beloved to their beloved! There is no limit to love. Give love, take love. Whoever wants to me more beloved, they love more. What is Laylā and Majnūn?! The real love story is between Allāh swt and His servant! The word ‘ishq is from hadīth. ‘Ishq means EXTREME love! You can only use this term when describing your love for Allāh and Rasūlullāh ﷺ. You can ONLY be an ‘āshiq of Allāh and Rasūlullāh ﷺ. ‘Ishq is that intense extreme love. The believers should be like this.
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> What is success? When the lover becomes a beloved of their beloved. When the lover becomes the beloved - that is the success of love! The more you love, the more you worship, the more you do khidmah, the more you improve your character, the more you do! This love doesn’t ever plateau; it is always increasing! It increases forever - this is nafs mutmainnah. It is making your love so intense that it is always increasing. This is when Allāh swt says, yā ayyatuhan-nafsul mutmainna, irj’ī ilā rabbiki rādiyatam-mardiyya - O’ nafs mutmainnah, return back to Your Rabb, well pleased and pleasing unto Him! The love has increased so much that now Allāh swt says, come to Me! You are happy with Your Rabb, and I am happy with You! Now you will live forever in Jannah - here you will love Allāh forever, and Allāh will love you forever. If Allāh created us so we can love Him and He can love us forever, then why not spend these 50-60 years just loving Him? The pleasure of love is in loving only Allāh. If you share your heart with other idols, you will never find pleasure loving Allāh. The pleasure of love is in tawhīd. When your beloved is only ONE! Tawhīd doesn’t mean just believing in one Allāh; it means to use your one heart in this one dunyā only for the One and Only Allāh!
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> The biggest obstruction to gaining this love is when you love someone else. This is when the love of Allāh swt will be removed from your heart. When you have another impermissible love, this will be a major obstruction for you. The love for Allāh swtdoes not accept roommates in your heart.
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> What is impermissible love?
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> 1. Loving ghayr-mahram!  Loving that creation which Allāh forbade upon you to love. This illness has become so general now. I have spent almost 22 years in this and I can tell you that the number one cause for spiritual heart failure is this love. Before, it was a problem within the youth. Now, it is a problem amongst our elders too. Once I was travelling and there was a man in his 70s, and he told me with a lot of pain that he wanted to talk. I gave him some time and he told me that he is in love with some ghayr-mahram like a 19 year old boy would tell me. I was shivering inside and I was seeking protection for myself and making du’ā for him too. He beard was white - he was talking to me like he was a 20 year old university boy. When a youth talks to me, I reply to them instantly, but i was dumbfounded at this point. I couldn’t speak. He didn’t say I’ve fallen in love with a woman; he was falling in love with women! You cannot have intense extreme love for Allāh swt whilst loving ghayr mahram!
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> Our hayā has decreased now and we don’t find it bad. Wearing hijāb and wearing short sleeve has become normal - you may not even have bad intentions, but we’ve been subject to so much of the western life that we find it normal! The love for Allāh swt is finished when we love ghayr mahram. They say they even remember the ghayr mahram in their salāh - we should cry about this! Despite trying to forget, they still remember. They are praying about the greatness of Allāh swt, and still remember someone else. One thing is to forget Allāh swt in salāh, but to think about ghayr mahram in salāh - how bad is this!? Never think loving ghayr mahram is permissible. Don’t ever think it is okay to unlawfully love someone just because Allāh swt will forgive me. If you don’t have an intention to LEAVE this love, what makes you think Allāh swt will forgive you? Leave this love for ghayr mahram! You choose either Allāh swt or ghayr-mahram; we can’t love both. It’s not possible. Your own heart will tell you whether you have this love.
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> 2. Love for wealth - hubbub-dunyā ra’su kullu katī’ah (the love for the dunyā is the root to all sins). People have broken family relationships due to greed for dunyā. Some people say they don’t have this love; I will give you a take-home test to test on yourself (not on others). If someone brought a new car, or someone brought a new property and they made lots of profit on it, and they said they brought it for a cheap price 5 years ago - you would be so sad that they didn't bother to tell you to buy too. You would be so upset, you would tell your family. They would say that you should have invested like this too - you would get even more upset. If someone was to tell you that I was in some big trouble, and I supplicated to Allāh swt and He swt accepted it. I now know the secret to du’ās - 5 years ago, I went to a bayān and I heard Allāh swt announces ‘hal min sā’il, ūtiyalahu; hal min mustaghfir?| that is there anyone who asks so I can give to them, is there anyone seeking forgiveness so that I can forgive them so for 5 years, I have been making du’ā at this time. Now you will not have that same sadness that you had when you missed out on investing 5 years ago!
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> Nabī ﷺ has said that paradise will be a place of happiness, except the believers will only have one regret. What is that? It is that time in the dunyā they spent in ghaflat! They would wish that they prayed one extra subhānAllāh, one extra istighfār. They would regret the extra sleep they had. Jannah is a place of no regret, except just this! You can make du’ā now that all the time Ispent in the dunyā in ghaflat, yā Allāh, change it into dhikr. In the Qur’ān, Allāh has said He can change our bad deeds to good deeds through real repentance, so He swt can also change our ghaflat to dhikr!
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> When a father spends so much on his son for his education, and even then he achieves low, he would be so upset and would have so much regret. We are low achievers in dīn! We should also have this regret! When we don’t realise our potential in dīn, we will be low achievers forever in the hereafter too. Let me give you an example - there was a waliUllāh (in different narrations, different names are mentioned), and in one narration it was mentioned it was Shaykh Abdul Qādir Jilani. One day he was sat when he got the news that his ship with all his trade goods had sunk. He looked down, said alhamdulillāh and smiled. A few days later, he got the news that it wasn’t his ship that sunk, but it was someone else’s. He again looked down, analysed his heart, said alhamdulillāh and smiled, so one of his students asked why his reaction was the same to which he said both times, I looked at and analysed my heart to see if it was affected by the dunyā - and as I wasn’t affected in the slightest, I praised Allāh! This is what you call zuhd. Zuhd just means to not love the dunyā - it means you can live in thedunyā, accomplish in the dunyā, strive in the dunyā, gain excellence in the dunyā but NEVER to love the dunyā!
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> 3. Loving yourself - vanity and conceit! To think of yourself as something. To forget to thank and praise Allāh swt. 'Ujub is loving yourself more, kibr is thinking you're better than people and takabbur is acting upon this! Iblīs was arrogant, he had pride. He was a great ‘ābid, ‘ālim and ‘ārif, but he thought of himself as better than Ādam (as), hence didnt prostrate. The more you have, the more you’re in danger of ‘ujub. In higher educated people, they have a higher risk of ‘ujub, Higher income people = higher risk of ‘ujub. The highest risk of ‘ujub is in them people who are the highest in education, income etc.
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> Some people have all these three types of love! Imagine I took you to visit an ill person, and on the way you ask me what illness they have. I tell you on the way they have TB, jaundice, hepatitis A,B and C; they have liver cancer, lung cancer, leukaemia, they are also handicapped and paralysed and they have had a stroke - you will feel so much sadness and will feel so much sympathy for that person. Now, what if I told you, let’s go meet a spiritually ill person - they get angry a lot, they have jealousy, love for dunyā, hatred, they have pride. They have done so much tawbah (imagine, a heart bypass ten times), yet they still aren’t cured! They are so ill. Imām Ghazāli rah said that the spiritually ill don’t even think they are ill.
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> When you don’t safeguard your gaze - what do you get? You only get a 1 sec glance - you can’t even speak to them etc and even then we cannot protect our gaze. We have very light love for Allāh swt. We need to bring extreme love for Allāh swt in our heart.
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> It is very easy for a person to love Allāh swt because it is a NATURAL thing. We all have the capacity to love. Allāh swt gathered all the souls and asked them ‘alastu birabbikum - am i not Your Rabb?’ - every soul (both believers and disbelievers) said ‘balā - yes’ - then Allāh swt planted the seed of love into all of us.
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> InnaAllāha jamīlun, yuhibbul jamāl - Allāh swt is Beautiful and loves beauty! Can you imagine the beauty of that Being who created beauty itself? So why would you love someone else? When you meet someone who says I have become your guardian and I will do everything for you - if a powerful person said this to you, we would become so happy. Imagine...Allāh swt has said in Qur’ān ‘Allāhu walliyullathīna āmanū - Allāh swt is guardian/friend of the believers’ - when will we adopt thishappiness? Allāhu walliyullathīna āmanū, yukhrijuhum minaz-zulumāti ilan-nūr – Allāh swt dropped the second condition of doing good deeds! He will take any ordinary believer out of their darkness. This should make you happy and joyful.
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> Woh muhabbat nahi jis ka izhār nahi; woh muhabbat nahi jis ka shiddat nahi- that love is not a love which is not expressed; that love is a not a love which doesn’t have intensity.
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> Allāh swt is so loyal to us, yet we are such disloyal servants. We have such a sincere religion, yet we are such insincere servants. We have such a good Nabī, yet we are such bad servants.
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> How can we attain this love? One way was to rid yourself of other loves. Allāh swt has said yuhhibuhum wa yuhhibūnahu - He loves them and they love him. He expressed His love first! First you become a lover, then you become a beloved. This is the easiest way to love! We should accept this love from Allāh swt. We should be grateful for every blessing. Allāh swt has done so much for us, yet we don’t feel we are His beloveds. Every day you should feel grateful for something new! This is how you will develop a feeling of shukr. You should feel Allāh swt is the muhsin haqīqī. Another way to increase love is to leave sin and to adopt good deeds. This hypocrisy we have makes it hard to love. We can’t be disobedient to someone and claim to love them at the same time.
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> Another way to increase love is to remember Allāh swt - the more you remember Allāh swt outside salāh, the more you remember Him inside salāh. The more you remember Him, the more you will love Him - dhikr and love are proportional to each other. There are those who remember Allāh swt abundantly - they are mentioned in Qur’ān as dhākirīn, and the ones who are not from this category are given the command to remember Allāh swt abundantly. We need to learn dhikr from those who are already dhākir! This is called suhbat - yā ayyuhallathīna āmanū, ittaqullĀha wa kunū ma’as sādiqīn - O’ people who believer, fear Allāh and be with those who are true- be WITH them, be like them. Allāh swt says ‘kun, fayakūn - be and it becomes’ - similarly, be with them. Who are the sādiqīn? Those who truly love Allāh swt more than me. For Mawlāna Rumī, sādiqīn would be Shams Tabrezi. For general believers like us, it is those who have more love, dhikr and sunnah than us.
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> Nabī ﷺ made a beautiful du’ā to teach us the importance of being with those who are truer than us. Allāhumma innī as'alukahubbaka, wa hubba man yuhibbuka, wal-'amalalladhī yuballighunī hubbak - O’ Allāh swt,  I ask You for Your Love, AND the love of those who love You, and those deeds which will cause me to attain Your Love.
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> Tawbah and irādah - one is general tawbah, and one is a special tawbah for them sins that I didn’t even think of sin as before. What sin is this? That I didnt love Allāh swt as much as I should have. We should have talab, a true desire and yearning that Allāh swt, I also become your lover. When you do tawbah as a group, even if one person does true tawbah, the barakah from that one person can mean everyone will be forgiven! This is the barakah of a gathering. We should all make an intention to be that one person. 

Purification of the heart

(Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed)

Adab for Allah swt

The one who succeeds is the one who brings to Allah a sound heart. (Quran)

Succeeded is he who has purified it, failed is he who has not. (Quran)

Purification of the heart is absolutely farz. The method you use is optional, but the actual purification is mandatory.

You should leave all the sins that you do outwardly and internally. (Quran)

Zahir and batin.

As haram it is to have one morsel of pork, as haram it is to have a feeling of envy, unlawful desire, unlawful anger, etc. Batin sins are crippling.

It is imperative that we leave all the sins that we do.

To adorn your heart with the siffaat of the mumineen. Zikr tawakkul sabr shukr khauf rijaa muhabba khashiya.

Text written by medieval Muslim scholar, poetry: Imam Mawlud.

There are many entry points, there is no one way to begin the process of purification. One person may begin with love for Allah, other with fear for Allah.

The Imam says that the highest and noblest of beginnings is to have adab with Allah swt. To be courteous with Allah swt, the high and the majestic.

What does adab with Allah swt mean?

By practising modesty (haya) and humility (ijz). One aspect of haya is that you will not do something that is vulgar in front of a person you respect. For example, someone won’t smoke cigarettes in front of their father.

Haya is a branch of iman. It is a gift from Allah, it is part of our fitrah.

It is very unfortunate that West teaches us that haya is something wrong.

The first time you did a sin there is hesitation, that was your haya calling out to you.

If you don’t give in to your haya you end up subduing it.

There comes a stage when your qalb is screaming to you to feel remorse, but you suppress it.

What a person does is that they literally shut off their haya.

If you can turn off your haya, you can also turn it on or increase it.

The more you think about Allah, the more your haya will come back.

Humility: to realise that Allah is the Malik and we are the abd. I am aajiz: I will do with my day what you want me to do. O Allah I want to do that, but it is my ijz that I will hold myself back.

In exchange for that Allah grants a person barakah in their married life, wealth, life in general.

Our desires and wishes become tempered (iffat: ability of self control) by haya and ijz.

You shouldn’t have greed for others. How does this relate to adab? Allah is the bestower of nemat. When we are envious of people, we are criticising Allah’s takseem. To think that somebody shouldn’t have something, to have covetousness, to want someone to be deprived of something and to have it yourself, or just wanting for him or her to be deprived, that is going against the ikhtiyaar of Allah.

By hastening to fulfill His command. When you respect your parents, you immediately get them a glass of water, immediately respond to their call. The purpose of haste is not speed, the purpose of haste is showing that we are happy, we are happily being a servant.

By being wary of the subtle encroachment of bad manners. Bad adab doesn’t come glaring in the face, it can encroach upon a person. Part of humility is to watch yourself against being arrogant. Part of adab is to watch yourself against being disrespectful. Mostly this disrespect is in hope of Allah’s Mercy. We go back to sleep after waking up at fajr time without praying fajr, thinking that Allah is Merciful, we can pray later. They negate His siffat of being Malik by focusing on Him being Raheem.

Allah is the eternally besought. There is no being who has been as sought as Him. We have to make ourselves seekers of Allah. Muneeb: to have inabat, yearning.

As much as Allah is intrinsically Rahman, Rahim, Malik, insan is designed for ibadat. When you become the servant of Allah you actually become a proper human being.

The names and attributes of Allah swt. “You should adorn yourself with the attributes of Allah”. Allah is Raheem, Kareem, we should also be merciful and generous. The scale on which Allah is merciful and generous cannot be matched by us, but we say I am going to be merciful to someone, as Abdur Raheem it befits me that I should be merciful, so You may be merciful to me.

If we subdue our lower attributes we will be given such noble attributes that they are the attributes which Allah has given to himself.

Arabic word: fakar. O Humanity you are fukarah, you are needy you are mohtaj, you are fakeer. A lot of us think we are independent of Allah. Anyone who says that I don’t need worship, I don’t need halal haram, is saying that I don’t need Allah.

The Abd-Rab relationship is the asal.

Part of adab is to realise your role in the relationship.

You will gain dignity and wealth from Allah.

There is no salvation like the heart’s salvation, there is no freedom like the heart’s freedom.

The qalb is the control room.

If you have love of dunya in your heart, it will steer your nafs and your aqal. In our heart we have started to fall in love with the material world.

A person will always be thinking, plotting, scheming how to get more in this world, gets locked in this vicious cycle. The purification of the heart enables you to break out of this vicious cycle. Everything else will fall into place.

Mastering the heart’s infirmities is the second stage of purification of the heart. If we try to tackle the illness of the heart directly it becomes difficult. Adab should be established first.

What exactly are the illnesses of the heart?

What causes them and what can remove them?

This knowledge is farz on everyone.

Allah has revealed to Prophet s.a.w that nobody will enter Jannah who will have an atom’s weight of takabbur in their heart. Therefore it becomes incumbent on us to free ourselves from takabbur.

If you’re in danger of getting the illness, of being exposed to it, then this knowledge is wajib.

Is human being inherently pure or inherently a mixture of good and evil? Is human being inherently humble? Ijz is his asal? Even if you don’t have takabbur, you have the potential to have takabbur, then you must learn how to protect yourself against takabbur (Al Ghazali).

Either way me and you have to learn this.

Inner sins incinerate our inner self. Our life becomes empty of barakah, itmenaan and sukoon. We have allowed our heart to become sick.

Bukhl (stinginess/miserliness)

Why is it the very first thing being talked about after adab is miserliness? The word “Zakat” is related to “tazkiyah” and means purification. One way that halal rizq becomes tayyab (pure) is by giving zakat. The system of zakat can bring about poverty eradication.

Supporting dependents means supporting them in the lifestyle they are used to.

Rights due to others: raising wages of domestic staff with increase in inflation.

Relieving the distressed: khairat. Voluntary charity. Maybe there is an earthquake, person is not eligible for zakat, but needs financial relief.

Rights of neighbours: not just financial stinginess, can be generosity in other ways as well.

When hosting guests: being generous. Shouldn’t get worried if someone comes over to visit.

Bukhl in purchasing a burial shroud or sacrificial animal. Tipping the gravedigger.

Purchasing something to give to the needy.

“I want to have money for the sake of money, I want to have money for the sake of enjoying life to the maximum.”

Inability to spend, love for wealth, are two illnesses of the heart.

Batr: wantonness. Being lackadaisacal, carefree approach to life. Irresponsible. Excessive mirth, exuberance. Treat it with hunger and the remembrance of the akhirah. Allah does not love the excessively joyful (those who have batr).

Hatred (bughuz)

Hatred for someone for other than the sake of Allah. Its cure is to pray for the one who is despised.

The only person who seeks a cure is one who recognises that they are sick.

The first step is to stop justifying one’s anger.

Harming a fellow creature without right.

Getting clothing or car should not be the basis of your happiness and sadness.

The rat race.

Consumerism: people want to live beyond their ability. It is caused by desiring other than Allah.

Hasd: you want the other person to lose their ni’mah.

One thing is not to act on envy, other thing is not to feel the envy in the first place. The cure is to act contrary to one’s desire.

When you find fault in someone, you should seek out their virtues and praise them to other people.

Envy never benefits the envier nor does it ever succeed.

Blameworthy Modesty

Blameworthy modesty is that which stops a person from stopping what is condemnable.

Ghazab (anger)

Be humble.

To adorn ourselves with the attributes of Allah. Allah is Al Haleem. I am justifiably angry. I remember Allah’s Hilm (ability to do something but hold myself back out of hikmat), and become Haleem.

Relying on other than Allah (Tawakkul)

Fear of and desire for other than Allah is against tawkkul. (fear=khawf and hope=rijaa).

The only Being Whose Love you fear losing is Allah’s.

Hope: absolute yakeen: the only hope you have is from Allah.

Reliance of ghair Allah that leads to leaving something that is mustahab is makruh.

True Love in Islam

(Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed)

True love in Islam

Allah sent down Quran, deen of Islam, Muhammad s.a.w, to teach us how to feel, and where we should direct these feelings. Allah has given everyone the feeling of love. Any and every form of misguidance trying to counter the guidance of Allah, every one of them also followed the same path, that rather than us learning from Allah, Quran, deen and Nabi s.a.w, the misguided force wants to teach us how to feel and what to feel and who to feel it for. You can call it fashion, media or society, but all of it is trying to be a rival to Allah in deen. The strongest feeling is love, and they also know that. In our deen Allah ultimately wants to teach us how, when, what, who to love, they also want to teach us. It's a direct opposite to deen. This is what we simply call, there is true love and there is false love. The problem is if it was so easy, if we could finish the discussion there, that all Muslims are on true love and others are on false love. But it's not like that. So many believers have so many kinds of false love in their heart. This is not just for youth. We have cases in front of us in their teens, twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and one case came to me even in his seventies. Caught up in false, haram love. There's one thing in common in all of them: every single one of them, as soon as they made the decision to go for false love, they immediately lost the sweetness of true love. It doesn't matter whether they were in this country or that country, or how old they were, they lost the sweetness of their faith (iman).  

This is a topic we need to understand. Let me tell you something from my heart, truly. There are people sitting in this masjid who are guilty of this disease and others who are not guilty. I want to make you scared. You should feel that I am not guilty "yet". When people tell me stories, I thank Allah that I have been saved from this and supplicate that I be protected from it. We should know if we have any dignity, honour and grace, it is because Allah kept us in His protection. This is a day when so many people in this world are calling people towards false love. It's a rival love to true love with Allah. We should also repent on this day, from false love.  

What is false love?

Qalb, heart is where you feel true love. What are the objects of that love?

Fake love: two things, either creation (non mahram), or wealth and this world. Everything out there is trying to pull everyone in here in that direction. Sometimes people don't even realise how they are affected by it.

It's happening on all levels, in all types of institutions, in every community, no matter how many Muslims live in that community.

This is what Allah did with the hypocrites: He hid their hypocrisy so well that the companions didn't know who they were. This meant that Allah will punish them most intensely. We should be scared that if Allah has hidden any sin of mine as perfectly as Allah has hidden the hypocrisy of the hypocrites. If they had hypocrisy in faith, we have hypocrisy in deeds.

This is the sin that we have to make the strongest repentance from.

Women and Gender in Islam

Women and Gender in Islam

(Alimah Sobia Hasan)

Are men and women equal in Islam?

Men and women are not equal to each other. Men are not superior to women, women are not inferior to men.

Women and men are mutually superior to each other.

They have the same spiritual potential and same opportunity to gain knowledge of deen and dunya in Islam. Men and women both can become scholars of all the sciences of deen, and become close to Allah (wali of Allah).

The purpose of life is to worship Allah.

Allah has placed a division of labour in dunya. This does not mean that Allah wishes to deprive women.

Are men guardians over women?

Men are caretakers of women 4:34

Qawwamoon=caretaker, guardian

There will always be more barakah in following the advice of the husband and the father.

Inheritance: do women get half as much as men?

Three types of cases:

1. Woman gets half as much as a man
2. Equal shares
3. Woman gets twice as much as a man

verse 4:11

A woman is supported by her father or husband. Even if you are a neurosurgeon you have the right to stay home and do nothing the whole day and have your husband provide for you.

A woman’s money in shariah is 100% her own money.

The woman gets mahr when she gets married.

1. Son/daughter: son gets double compared to daughter because he has to support his parents, wife and children. He has to give mahr. He has to earn.
2. When deceased leaves behind children and parents, both parents receive equal share (one third).
3. When a son dies, mother gets ⅓ and father ⅙. If there are only parents left and no children. Because women usually live longer than men, and men earn.

Parents can give children equal amounts by gifting them equal amounts in their lifetime. (You can’t do it on your deathbed.)

You can make a will for up to ⅓ of your wealth, the rest is distributed Islamically.

Testimony of a woman

2:282

The greatest testimony a person can give in our deen (after the shahada) is to say that I heard a saying from the Prophet s.a.w.

Testifying in court to a crime or a financial transaction.

To prevent a woman from going to a court of law alone. And to cut unnecessary intergender interaction if there were one man and one woman only as witnesses. The two women can mutually support each other.

Four types of cases:

1. A woman’s testimony is half (in court, crimes, financial transactions).
2. A woman’s testimony is equal (for a hadith, for testifying to a will.)
3. A man’s testimony doesn’t count (childbirth, number of menstruation cycles after divorce, wet nursing).
4. Only a man can testify

Hijab

Deen of fitrah

7:22

Zeenat (beautification)

Khimar (head cover)

Jilbab (outer garment)

Hijab (literally means barrier)

Lowering the gaze 24:30-31

The cosmetic industry focuses on the face. Concealer, primer, base, dark circle remover, blush-on, contouring brush, different brushes, eye shades, eye liner, eye pencil, eye gel, mascara and neverending!

We have to be honest with ourselves as to what is considered beautiful, when we understand the command to cover our zeenat.

Dress simply, wear sombre colours (of abaya).

Don’t fall for the belief that nobody falls for a girl in hijab or abaya. See what happens in MSAs.

The burial shroud of a man and a woman is different; women’s shroud is more covered.

Khimar: hair cover, chest cover.

Jilbab: Wrapped from head to feet, face and nose covered.

Covering the hands is mustahab, not farz.

State of Ihram

The cloth can’t touch your face in ihram, but you are still supposed to cover your face such that the cloth does not touch your face.

Intergender Interaction

The Prophet s.a.w used to address women on Wednesdays.

It is appropriate to sit in a car with a driver because the windows are see-through and you can exit the car any time (fatwa).

33:32

When the purest of women are told to guard themselves against the purest of men, then who are we to say that we do not need to follow these guidelines.

The precautions are necessary for the purity of the hearts.

Do we think we are purer than Amma Ayesha r.a?

Are men allowed to beat their wives?

4:34

If men fear “nushuz” from their wives, i.e. disobedience to Allah and to the husband. For example, adultery. “Faizuhunna”, counsel her, admonish her. Then separate your bed from her. Another step not mentioned in the ayah is to call people to reconcile the couple. Finally, hit her. Does this mean husbands are allowed to beat their wives?

The maximum limit is to hit with a miswak, three times.

The Quran is best understood through the example of the Prophet s.a.w.

Impermissible to beat wife out of anger. It is haram.

Physical and spiritual health

Physical and spiritual health

(Shaykh Kamaluddin Ahmed)

Allah has made human (insan) in a very incredible way. Physicians are well versed with the incredible nature of human creation. There are different aspects of health: physical, mental and spiritual. A truly healthy person is healthy on all three counts.

Spiritual health is something in the heart, is has to do with the qalb and nafs of a person. Inside the person is a ruh, and the heart of the ruh, called the qalb. The spiritual heart is the most critical part of a person’s ruh. If someone has spiritual heart disease, it’s a serious matter.

If I showed up to you with a blood test, and all the levels of blood substances are beyond the normal range, you would think it was a very serious matter. Same with spiritual health.

Suhbah: The Prophet s.a.w did the tazkiyah of the Companions through Suhbah.

Ashab us suffah.

The Companions asked questions from the Prophet s.a.w.

Itiba. Following the Prophet s.a.w

If you don’t know, ask the people of zikr. (Quran)

First things first. Fix your salah! Salah is the daily check. Prayer is when the lover is talking to the Beloved. Can a lover say that when I am alone with my Beloved, and talking with my Beloved, I feel no love at all?

If someone says they can’t taste sweet flavour, no matter how much sweet you give them, that means that they are ill.

Why don’t we pray a goal oriented prayer? The goal of salah is to love, remember Allah. Salah is a test of our spiritual health.

We have to get busy. It would be so tragic if someone is so talented in dunya but has no talent in deen.

Not everyone of you will be able to reach the height of your profession in dunya. However, every single one of you has the potential to be the wali of Allah.

You can be a Jannati Sahabi.

You can take one shukr candy a day. Open your fridge, do shukr to Allah.

Find an opportunity to have sabr towards Allah. The only thing that happens when you are not patient, is that you lose out on Allah. It’s about changing your heart.

If you give a fellow believer an unexpected happiness, Allah’s Mercy will come on you and you will be forgiven by Allah.

Ramadan is not the month to change your schedule. Ramadan is the month to change your heart.