Imam Ghazali's analysis of the nafs: God Won, Satan 0̷ - Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

last week we were looking at some of the things that imam mara kazadi said about basically opposing the self and and these appetites that we have and i mentioned at the end of that podcast that i'd like to talk next week and here we are about how we can really fight these things and how we overcome them and the first thing i want to say is that this there was a debate amongst the ancients about nature and nurture is is are we just um victims of our nature and can we actually nurture ourselves or be nurtured out of these these basic tendencies that we have and the the answer to that in our tradition is that even a dog can be taught to to hunt for you and a falcon can be taught to hunt for you that we can actually train animals and change their nature so that they become in fact the the the the with knowledge the dogs even though normally you would not eat from a dog but if a dog is if it's taught and that's the actual word that the quran uses if it's taught if it has then it's elevated to a higher status and and what it hunts is halal and so knowledge is the way that we overcome these things but here and this is where it gets really really important the most important and single truth that we all have to understand if we want to actually change ourselves and overcome ourselves is that we can't do it by ourselves that is the most fundamental truth if you think that you can change then not only do you have pride but you will never be able to conquer yourself you will never be able to overcome your appetites you'll never be able to overcome whatever tribulation you have the only way that you can do that is is through supernatural power and that supernatural power is from allah and that and that's the um dead that allah gives us allah is the one that can enable us to do that without allah you cannot do it and so people try and try again and again and again i keep failing i tried so many times exactly you tried because you did not rely on allah but if you rely on allah subhanahu wa then you can overcome it and one of the things that secularists hate is that the single most successful addiction treatment program is the 12-step program and the reason why it's successful is because they begin by admitting their powerlessness to overcome their addiction they have to acknowledge a power greater than them and that's the only way that they can do it and that's why it's successful it's it's that's that is the single reason that it's successful and they use a prayer the prayer that they use is the prayer of nebor reinhold nibar who is a probably one of the most famous protestant theologians of the 20th century at least in the western hemisphere but he wrote a book called moral man in uh an immor in an immoral society in which he argued that a lot of sinfulness is because everybody's doing it that that when you have a society that is moral people tend to be more moral but when you when you when you have a society that's immoral people slip into sin much easier and that's why it's a challenge for righteous people to be moral in an immoral society because they're going against the grain but how do they do that how do we become moral beings in a culture that is constantly assaulting us with gluttony with lust with envy i mean it's amazing how they use envy to sell products and and to make you envious of what other people have lifestyles of the rich and famous all of these uh tools that they have in their toolbox become powerless when you acknowledge there is no power there is no power to do obedience there's no way to avoid obedience and there's no power to enable me to do to avoid disobedience there's no there's no ability to avoid disobedience and there's no power to be obedient except with god except through god that's one of the meanings of that and so even says something amazing he says whoever deems it strange or does does not think that god can save him from his appetites and remove him from the the state of his heedlessness he has deemed divine power to be powerless to be incapacitated so that that is you know he deems it unlikely that god can save him from his own appetites that it's it's it's a so once you acknowledge that allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is the one only that can do that then you have the capacity to do it without it you can't do it and that's why it's really important to be to remember that allah is capable of doing all things in fact ohio the state motto of aha i think they tried to change it but it says with god all things are possible and and that is a metaphysical truth that is acknowledged even in a state motto well so if you're suffering right now from some kind of addiction if you're suffering from if you're going on a pornographic site if you're find yourself doing these things over and over again and you don't think god can take you out of that state then you have incapacitated the power of god and and so what you have to do the first thing you have to do is acknowledge i am powerless but god is all-powerful and through god i can remove these things allah will enable me the divine is this is what imam is talks about the two types of capacity the divine capacity the divine enablement and then the the the human enablement of means and things when those two come together that's when reality happens so you have to acknowledge that with allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and if you do that you will be able to to to overcome but then and this is where ibra is is one of our truly great spiritual geniuses sometimes these dark things that you fall into are a means by which god causes you to realize the blessings of being in a state of obedience i got a letter a few days ago from a man who told me that he had been in such an incredible state and then suddenly after years of really struggling he became really successful and he started making a lot of money and he said his dean went out the window and he was he was like asking me for help about this like how do i get my dean back and he said i'm really struggling with this well the prophet saw he said a mention about wealth that causes you to transgress and he these are one of the five things that he warned about sorry seven things that he warned about one of them was like a wealth that will cause you to grant christ there was a man taliba who used to come to the prophet and begged him to make dua for wealth he would say ya rasulullah and he was always in the front of the prayer line always he was always the first one in the in the prayer line and he begged the prophet and he kept doing it and the prophet saw he said wouldn't make that dua for him but he kept asking and he was unrelenting and finally the prophesies have made a dua for him and and he got some wealth he got some animals and then those animals had animals and then suddenly he had he had more and more wealth and he he began because he had to take his animals out and graze them he got further and further away from the masjid and then he started not showing up uh for the prayer and then when uh he was the prophet isaiah sent his zakat collectors when zakat came down he said what are we like christians now and so when when the prophet isaiah was told that he refused to accept zakat from him and then the the the later ones wouldn't accept zakat from him and finally uthman uh relented but the point is is that that's a man who didn't know that that wasn't the right thing for him and that's why you never ask specifically you always do this let allah choose for you what's good for you you might be struggling in your business it might be the best thing for you but no we want it our way and this is where you know one of the things imam al-ghazali says and it's one of the most powerful things i've i've ever heard him say and he said many many powerful things he said that when you get angry about things not going your way you are basically angry because because matters were in accordance to god's will as opposed to your will and what what what you know thy will be done not my will be done and that's where you have pride and that's why pride is the underlying human crisis pride thinking you can do it yourself thinking that you're doing some gift to god don't tell me how much you've done for islam i mean you can say like that famous speech you know ask not what islam can do for you but ask what you can do for islam you know i mean what you what you think that you're doing some favor to god everything's from al-manan he's the only one that can do that like he can remind us of all the blessings he's given us he can do that when we attempt to remind like look how much i've done for you what did you do for me what have you done everything you did for me and i'm i am obliged to thank people for helping me but i have to see that there are means by which god has helped me because if i don't it's it's shirk but i do we thank the azbab and we honor the azbab that's true but we have to also recognize that's what they are their means they're not ends that allah is the end well you know everything ends with god and so that's a very different approach to this so he's saying sometimes he'll do this in order for you to know his blessings so that's really important you know that sometimes your appetites happen to show you the blessing of being able to contain yourself to restrain yourself from those appetites so it's it's what they call in alcoholics anonymous falling off the wagon you know that that will happen in in your struggle and that's why the nafsa that those are the good people you're not at muthma yet but you're fighting it so if you fall you just get back on if you fall you get back on if you fall you get back on that's the path and i was once in a i was in kuwait with shah abdullah and we were in the airport and there was a soccer team that came from one of the arab countries and they were all young men athletes they looked very you know really in good shape and everything and mashallah he has that beautiful aspect and he just has the heba of the scholars and we were sitting and this athlete came up to him and he was wearing his these um athletic clothes with the team name on it and he came up and he and he kneeled down before shut up and he told him he said i struggle constantly with sinfulness you know i stuff with a lie i do things and then i make toba and i go back i do things that make tawba and i just i i i just feel disgusted with myself and shall i look down and he said you know like keep going keep struggling that's it like you you know there's a there's a hadith that the prophet said sallallahu alaihi wasallam said that shipon swore an oath to god i will lead all of your servants astray and i will o mendee him like i will put in them desire for sin and they will sin and and allah said to shephan and as long as they turn back to me i will continue to forgive them so it's like that is that's it that's the path it's like you fall you get back up but you don't let ship on win and the way you don't let ship on win is you keep making that toba with an azima to to conquer your appetite and you will do it it it can take ibm who's one of the great scholars of islam he's really considered one of the greatest of the tabernin he was amazing man in madinah he was imam maddox teacher and imam anna said we used to go to ebenmun and we would feel contempt for ourselves for weeks after sitting with him because he was so amazing like his spiritual state was so exalted i mean this is a man who manifest was in awe of he said i fought myself for 50 years before it finally surrendered so that's the path it's just it's that struggle and and if you don't know the blessings of of obedience and practice and you're not grateful for them they'll be taken away from you and and that's why his next is that whoever does not know the the the weight of the blessings when he has them his punishment is to know them once he's lost them and so our basic state when we're children is innocence and we enter into adulthood and we begin to sin and then that that darkens our souls but you polish the soul with toba and with good deeds and with good actions and with knowledge and all these things and and that's the struggle you it's a it's a haropside it's a war of attrition us versus ship on and if you're a believer you will win in the end even if it does even if it takes a long time so the single most important thing for you to overcome yourself is not to rely on yourself but to rely on allah subhanahu wa ta'ala on their lord they rely that's toka and this is why imam razali in his genius he put in his the chapter on taheed is called because it's through seeing the unity of god and seeing god behind everything that you're able to trust in god because you're aware that he is omnipresent with his knowledge he's he's with us always and he will never abandon us as long as we call on him he is a generous lord he will never abandon us as long as we call on him and whatever sin you might be in you have to know all you have to do is turn to allah subhanahu wa ta'ala with he is a tawab and and and that's who our lord is he's the oft returning as long as you return to him he will return to you you know if you come back to me i'll come back to you that's what he said to benny is the jews can turn to god anytime they want their they they were his chosen people he he elevated them he privileged them above humanity he gave them so many gifts and he reminded them you know remember the blessings that i gave upon you they were given all those prophets all those things but if if they're in sinfulness if they're in disobedience we should want good for them we should want guidance for them because their children are prophets who wouldn't want good for children of prophets and so that's that's our tradition is to struggle with the self until the self submits to allah but it's recalculating and that's that's the nature of the soul it will fight and we have to we have to fight better more intelligent more strategic and inshallah allah will give us toffee alhamdulillah i want to talk next week about the particularly the sin of the eye because the eye of all things is the quickest to corrupt the heart so whatever you're watching just know that those images that you're allowing into your heart if they're corrosive they will destroy the spirituality of your heart and it said that the inner eye is far more delicate than the outer eye and look how a little speck when it gets into your eye there's nothing you can do until you get that speck out of your eye it's just amazing a tiny little speck and the inner eye is far more sensitive than that outer eye so you have to really protect your eyes it says say to the believers to lower their gaze and then guard their private parts is there a direct relationship direct relationship and then it says that is is pure for them so inshallah that's what i'd like to talk about the the crisis of pornography in our community and in the general community and also globally it's become such a horrific problem and it's also it's it's just involved the people that are producing it are some of the most evil people on this planet there's sexual trafficking there's just the things that they do to these poor women that are involved in these things is horrific so i want to talk about that because i think it's a serious problem and it's one of the major things that we need to overcome is is the sins of the eye inshallah until next week inshaallah

Channel: Ihya Archive

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Length: 21min 25sec (1285 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 09 2021