Transcription
You must know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, what you know and what you don’t know. Knowing yourself, brothers and sisters, is knowing what you have that you can give, what you have that you can use, what you have that is useful, and what you don’t have that makes you useless. Try to build those skills as much as you can.
Once he was giving out some charities, and one man from the Anar said hurtful words. He said, “Well, he didn’t do justice about the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam.” So another companion said, “Well, I will tell the messenger of what you said about it.” He went to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and said to him, “Allah, this person said this to you in secret.”
Brothers and sisters, I’ve listed—there are many qualities that build your character as a Believer. I’ve listed at least, or minimum, that everyone should have. I’ve listed 10. Some of them you’ll know already, but I’m just going to go over them and explain them briefly, each inshallah. All of these 10 are from the Quran and Sunnah. Even the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, if you study his life, you’ll see these are his qualities as well, and each one has an example of it in his s—in his biography.
So the first thing, brothers and sisters, all these 10 qualities is about loving yourself. You know that statement, “Love yourself.” Unfortunately, the modern human today, the—the modern person has twisted and missed the point of what loving yourself means. The modern person today thinks that loving yourself means that you don’t care about anyone except yourself. What do you mean you don’t care? There’s no care, there’s no kindness anymore, just yourself. I don’t care what happens to everyone else, so long as I’m good. Loving yourself these days is about superficial outside appearance. These days, what you drive, indulging in your luxuries, indulging in my desires, so long as I like it and I’m enjoying it. I don’t care if it’s Halal or Haram. I don’t care who it harms. I don’t care what it’s doing to me, if I like it and I love it, I’m loving myself. Loving yourself does not mean indulging, making yourself spoiled. Spoil yourself? You won’t do that to your child. A child that’s spoiled grows up entitled; they’re the rudest, they’re the most obnoxious people; don’t want to be around them. So when you spoil yourself, you’re not loving yourself; you’re destroying yourself. Yourself needs discipline; yourself needs to grow by giving it what makes it better. Loving yourself means building yourself, my dear brothers and sisters, and sometimes in building yourself there’s going to be a bit of pain, there’s going to be a bit of struggle, but the result is you’re a better person. Serve yourself and build yourself; that’s how you love yourself.
So number one, the first condition of building yourself is knowing yourself. You must know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, what you know and what you don’t know. Knowing yourself, brothers and sisters, is knowing what you have that you can give, what you have that you can use, what you have that is useful, and what you don’t have that makes you useless. Try to build those skills as much as you can. Humble yourself. So once you know yourself and you know your reality, don’t appear to people exactly in your reality; appear to people a little bit less than your reality. That’s called humbleness, and that is what the prophet Sall Allahu Alaihi Wasallam said: “Whoever humbles themselves for the sake of Allah, Allah will lift them.” Make yourself a little bit less than your reality. If you make yourself better than you—look like you’re more than what you really are, then you’re going into areas of arrogance and fakeness and hypocrisy, and that is going to come back to haunt you. You’re going to have low self-esteem after that because you’ll fail. You know when you see some young people, they see that others are looking at them, and then they tense their muscles and they want to fight and prove how strong they are, and let’s say they haven’t got training in fighting, but they feel overconfident, but they know they don’t have the ability, so they’re appearing more than what their reality is, or to go into an area that you know is not within your ability. The prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said, “Do not—he said, ‘Ask Allah not to make you devalue yourself.’ They said, ‘How do you devalue yourself, Allah?’ And he said, ‘By entering into an endeavor or into a task that you know you cannot do.’” So know yourself and don’t burden yourself with something you cannot do. Work within your capacity. Know yourself and know your strengths and weaknesses and stay humble.
So this is the first thing, brothers and sisters. Have you ever been on the airplane before? Of course, most of us have. And before we fly, the flight attendants, they say, “In the event of an unlikely emergency, oxygen masks will fall from above,” don’t they say that? They say, “Uh, put it on yourself before attending to others, even if your own child is struggling for breath.” Why do you put the oxygen mask on yourself? So you can help them. If you don’t breathe, you can’t help them to breathe. But if you put it on them and then you—and then you die out of loss of breath, there goes your child as well. Isn’t that correct? So brothers and sisters, you need to strengthen yourself. So in Islam, building yourself is the first…
Number two, brothers and sisters, is called self-esteem. Self-esteem, self-esteem is your opinion of yourself. What do you think of yourself? The way you think of yourself is how you have decided—where you have decided to put yourself, where your ranking is. And I want to give you a little hint from the—of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam how to be—so you can lift your self-esteem. Every one of you has been chosen to be born into this world. Allah is the one who decided and chose you, and He honored you. Allah says, “We have honored the children of Adam.” So you are already special and you are already important, but what you think of yourself makes the world of a difference. And here is a little advice: when you meet people, you put people on a certain pedestal, either up or you put them lower. This is natural; we look at people in different… The majority, the modern person today bases the esteem of another person and their status on materialistic things: what car they drive, what job they have, what position in the job, how much money they have, whether they’re popular or famous or not, whether they look good on the outside, whether they’ve got more views on social media and likes—all these things, the materialistic, superficial things the modern person looks at. And I’ll give you one example: you all know in Big W they had a terrible children’s book. I don’t know if you heard about it, a children’s book which talks too much inappropriate adult material with pictures and everything, recommended for children between 7 and 10, I think, or 10 years old. Big W, if you looked at it, you’ll say, “Where is the—the last hour is coming,” because of the amount of people that protested against it. They took it off the shelf. Why? Because it’s going to hurt the pocket, the business, the industry. We live in a world where materialism is big. All right, a Muslim is taught another way. Your self-esteem is not based on outside appearances or materialistic things. You—when you amplify a person in front of you, you make him big, then you automatically reduce yourself. And when you amplify yourself, then you reduce others, and both of them are toxic; both of them will kill you. One of them is arrogance, and it will destroy you, and the other one is putting yourself down and not giving yourself the importance it needs. What is the answer? Wasallam said, “To put everyone in their place,” meaning consider them where they belong. And where does everyone belong? What am I? What are you? We are humans. That director of that company is a human. That boss of yours is a human. That husband and wife is a human. Your parents, a human. Your children are human. Your friends who’ve got this or that is a human. The person who’s driving that expensive car, has a lot of that money, is a human. At the end of the day, we’re all humans. Number two, we have all been created by Allah for the same purpose. We are all in the same exam. If they’ve got one skill, you have another. Maybe that person who is—who looks like is above you has problems with their family. You might have a good relationship with your family. Embrace that, alhamdulillah. That person may have some health problems. Alhamdulillah, you got good health. That person may have—doesn’t have a hobby outside of what they have or other skills which they enjoy. Maybe you have a hobby and things that you enjoy and skills. Everybody, Allah has given them favors. So don’t amplify yourself and don’t reduce yourself by amplifying them. Think of them as humans. Yes, we respect certain people and give them more attention than others if they are beneficial and if they deserve it, such as Scholars and Imams, or someone who is truly beneficial to others and has earned that privilege, you give them that respect, but never think that they are better than you or that you are better than them. They can rise and fall; you can rise and fall. And don’t be arrogant, so to say, “Oh, who—who are they?” This is the thing; sometimes I hear young people, they go too far; they say, “Who are they? Who are you, bro? You’re nothing.” That’s called arrogance. Remember what we said: don’t amplify yourself by reducing others, and don’t reduce yourself by amplifying others. Be balanced. And that’s why Allah says—and this is how we have made you—a balanced, not too much, not too little. Be balanced. That’s what—said. Allah loves—He loves the balance in all matters. So work towards that balance.
So brothers and sisters, for your self-esteem, look at that… Number three is confidence, or overconfidence, or underconfidence, and there is the mature side. So it’s got to do with confidence. What is confidence? In order for you to know yourself that you are confident, that’s part of building yourself. You need two things: you need to feel that you can do that thing, and number two, you need to know that you have the ability to do that thing. Ability and feeling—that is confidence. The second type is called mature. To be mature means that you know you do not have the ability to do it, and you feel that you can’t do it. And for example, if—if I’m going to fight with someone and I know that this person has training, I don’t have the training that person has, and I know that I don’t have the ability and I feel that I can’t—I choose my fights. So a mature person chooses their battles, doesn’t go into everything and anything. “Yeah, I can do and be a hero.” That’s called ego, and you’re going to fall flat on your face. A mature person and a Believer chooses what they can and what they can’t and goes—walks away. It’s okay, it’s fine. The third type is called overconfidence. Overconfidence, brothers and sisters, is when you know you don’t have the ability, but you feel you can do it. Don’t—don’t do that; you’ll destroy yourself. And the last one is called underconfidence. Underconfidence is when you know you have the ability, and when it comes the time to implement it, you don’t feel you have the ability. This is what—said: “Rely on Allah and go forward. Be brave. Be brave as much as you can. The first step you take—inah, the next time you’ll have the next step.” And that is a quality of the Believer.
Once, as you know in the biography of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, in the Battle of—do you remember the Battle of Uhud? In the Battle of Uhud, the enemies of Islam were coming to attack the Muslims in Medina, and they had gathered the largest army yet. The Muslims were going to be annihilated if you look at just numbers and the allegiances against them. The story is long, and the Battle of… The Muslims started to motivate the prophet Sall Allahu Alaihi Wasallam and insist on going out. Sall Allahu Alaihi Wasallam had seen a dream, and he came out to them and said, “I saw in my dream from—and you know the—what dream of the prophets is from Allah—he said, ‘I was wearing a solid armor,’ and said, ‘I was wearing a solid armor,’ and I saw cattle that was slaughtered in front of me.” They said, “What do you think, Allah?” He said, “I think we should stay in Medina. It’s an armor, and if we go out it’s going to be a catastrophe.” Now they said, “Is this your interpretation about war?” He said, “Yes.” They said, “We think, Allah, that you may have made a mistake.” Now Sall Allahu Alaihi Wasallam didn’t give it in a—in a form of command; he gave—he said, “Look, this can happen or that can happen.” They said, “We think we should go out.” Among them was—said, “Go out. I will not meet them except—there—these people are like this and like that.” Then they got too confident. Now the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam went back inside, and he wore his normal armor. He wore two armors that day, and a heavier moment when he came out. The Muslims felt guilty and they said, “Allah, we felt guilty. We weren’t thinking. We’ll take what you said.” Listen to what he said. He says, “No prophet wears an armor and then takes it back off.” What does it mean? He says, “Now that we have made a decision, we move with it. We do not take a step backwards.” And this is the way to build your character. Once you’ve planned, you’ve got an advice, you’ve all agreed, and you’ve made a decision, and you’ve moved away—keep going with that decision until a catastrophe happens, like something really is obvious. So nothing was obvious yet, just ideas. He said, “We don’t—we move forward, and we do not hesitate anymore.” As Allah says, once you are determined, rely on Allah and move forward. That’s how all the prophets were. When they move forward to the Battle of—they almost won the battle, but we all know the archers on the hill, their love for the spoils of war got to them, and you all know they were still all new Muslims, so they’re still used to battles and taking the spoils. They forgot the teachings of the Prophet Sall Allahu Alaihi Wasallam. He told them, “Don’t go off the hill.” Then they said, “The spoils of war! Go and get your stuff!” And most of them came off the hill. When they came off the hill, who was a disel at that time? He was the horseman who led the horses, and he found a way to come in like a hook, and they surrounded the Muslims because now they were disorganized, and there was no one on the hill to stop them from coming in, and the Muslims, many were massacred, just—just like the dream of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam, and the prophet himself was injured in that battle, and he almost died. And—once got killed, and Hamza, the one who said, “Let’s go out,” he got murdered in that battle too. Allah says in this—about this battle—he said, “In a long—obviously, inba and others—that what had happened to you—I’m just translating—what had happened to you, you may assume that it was bad for you, it is good for you. Allah knows and you do not know. Whatever happened to you of MBA, think of it as good. Allah is guiding us to tell us that even when you fail, be optimistic. Even in failure, it’s hard, but we have the Quran telling us, because you can overturn a failure into success. So what do you do with a failure? You learn from it. I always repeat this same analogy: a baby, how does a baby learn how to walk? Just learn from the baby. The baby gets up and falls, gets up and falls in different ways. The baby is subconsciously learning—say he—say it fell 100 times, it’s learning 100 ways of how not to fall by falling 100 times. The only way to learn 100 ways of how not to fall is by falling 100 times. So Allah tells them, “It was not bad for you; it is good,” no matter how it appears. And truly it was—after that they learned a big lesson.
We move on to the fourth one: self-management. Brothers and sisters, now this is something that I see a lot of people neglect: self-management and discipline. To have good self-management and discipline, Islam teaches us: get your—your priorities right. Get your priorities right. You can’t take everything; you have to say one, two, three priorities. Number two, have time management. Make a time for everything; don’t do—don’t just use your time and—and waste it on everything. No. And number three, know that in life you’re going to have three types of interactions with people. Don’t be one without the other. You ready for it? In managing your interactions with people and yourself, so we said prioritize, we said time management, and number three, you need—you need to use people, and they use you. So here’s what it is: number one, ASB and other Scholars, I think IM—no, said this—Allah, I may have made a mistake, but they said something wise. They said, “You might be a prisoner in life, or equal to others, or a commander.” To be a prisoner is when somebody does a favor for you, now you owe them; you’re kind of like a prisoner, metaphorically speaking. It’s not a bad thing; they just say a means you do owe them. When you see them, “I—I owe them.” Or equal—equal means when you don’t need others and they don’t need you. So you have skills to look after yourself; that’s a beautiful place to be. You don’t owe anyone anything; they don’t owe you. You are equal to them. And number three, a commander is when you do good for others; they owe you. Now you can’t be a commander always because you’ll be exhausted, always leading other people. You cannot be the ass—the prisoner always because then you’re a loser, and you cannot be equal with everyone else because life—the natural way of life is that you need people and people need you. So don’t get an ego about it. Sall Allahu Alaihi Wasallam needed people; sometimes they would need him, and other times he would be equal with them. Materialistically—materialistically, I’ll give you an example of him being equal: is a prophet, a messenger of God, he brings us Dean, but there are things about life which he doesn’t know more than others, such as crops and farming and all that stuff. Even in battles and war and location, he used to ask them, “What do you think?” And sometimes I’ve said, “We don’t agree with what you said because it’s not a religious matter; it’s a normal worldly matter.” So you do also need to be equal with others, and that’s how life goes.
Number five: a person who builds himself or herself must be okay with constructive criticism. You will not learn unless you accept what people say. Sometimes they’re rude; sometimes they’re polite. What you got to do—a strong person is able to sift through the emotions and take what benefits you. That’s the—ith of prop—be diligent on what benefits you. Sometimes you may receive—if you’re on social media, someone puts something that’s terribly arrogant and rude. If you can take something from it, good, and go and apply it; if it’s all rude and no benefit, ignore it. That’s a strong person, because that person does not make you—and if you let them affect you, that means they got control over you.
Number six: to be a strong person and build yourself, you need to be able to accept your mistakes and be okay with them. You need to accept your mistakes and be okay with them, completely okay with them, and you need to own your mistakes. That way nobody has control over you; you don’t let your mistakes define you. Either someone says, “You made a mistake,” say, “Oh, thank you.” Someone acknowledges something, you say, “I actually acknowledge it.” I once had a conversation on the airplane with an elderly man, and he was quite intelligent, and a whole trip for two hours we were talking back and forth. Sometimes you’d make a good point after I had made a point, and I would say, “I see, well, that’s a good point.” I would acknowledge, but I said, “But I have a different angle as well. What do you think if this happened or that happened?” So that’s a good point; what about this one? So we were bouncing off each other. Sometimes I would beat him; sometimes he’d beat me. In the end, alhamdulillah, I—I beat him, but we—we—we were—we’re going through—it’s a whole big talk. After we finished, there was a man sitting behind us; he gets up and he puts in—he goes, “Please allow me to shake the hands of these two gentlemen. Your convers—he said, ‘I haven’t seen a conversation between two people like gentlemen in a very long time.’ Why? Because a gentleman and—and a strong person…” I’m not praising myself; I do make mistakes, and sometimes I do fail. We all fail, but the strong person is one who is able to accept that they made a mistake. So what? Watch the stress go off; you watch how much you’ll develop, and watch how people will respect you even more. So own your mistakes, acknowledge them, and have no problem with it. Everybody makes mistakes, and this will lead you to forgive yourself as well. Some people have problems forgiving themselves; they can never forgive themselves. Except that if you have done right by Allah, ask Him to forgive you, and know that Allah wipes everything away, and you are only human; you make mistakes and you develop and learn.
Number seven: very important, brothers and sisters, a strong person to build themselves—take this advice; I’ve—we’ve tried it, and it works tremendously. Very simple yet very hard to implement. Said, “A person to improve their Islam is to leave that which does not concern them.” Don’t go into areas that are not your business. Don’t ask about things that are not your concern. Don’t pry into things that don’t concern you. Anything in life, things that don’t benefit you are not of your concern. People’s problems and people’s secrets—don’t pry into them. You’re not invited; don’t ask. Uh, a person didn’t call you; you called a person twice, three times, they didn’t reply—that’s it. Don’t keep asking. You knocked on a person’s door; they didn’t answer; you knew they’re inside; they didn’t answer—walk away with your dignity and don’t talk about it. This is their right, not yours, and accept that. Allah says in—in the Quran, meaning, “If you go to visit someone or—and they tell you, ‘Go back,’ Allah says, ‘Go back.’ The right is not yours.” Don’t sit there talking about and say, “I know they’re in there, and they’re this and they’re that.” This is not your business. Allah—what is—what is within there? And that’s a high-value person. Don’t get involved in businesses that are not yours, and watch how less stressed your life is, how more—how healthier you’ll be, how you’ll sleep better, how you’ll be happier in life, brothers and sisters. Subhan Allah.
Number eight: easy to say, a bit hard to implement for some people: avoid as much as you can jealousy, envy, and comparing yourself to and competing with others in the wrong way, for the wrong reason. Competing with others for the wrong reason—competition is good, but not for the wrong reasons. Jealousy, envy, and competing with others for the wrong reason will destroy you, my brothers and sisters. It will destroy you. And—and number nine goes without saying; the modern person knows all this: your diet, your exercise, and your sleep. Three things. All of these are in the Sunnah, and maybe one day we’ll talk about this in detail. Your diet can make a difference in your energy levels, your esteem, how you feel, your moods, and your health. Your exercise—Sall Allahu Alaihi Wasallam used to exercise every day; he used to run, he used to jog, he used to train. One time he even encouraged his wife; he says, “Let’s race!” He beat her. She didn’t forget it. She says, “After a few years, I put on a little bit of weight…” Sorry. The first time, Sall Allahu Alaihi Wasallam told her, “Let’s race!” And she beat him. She said, “A few years later, I put on a little bit of weight, and he said, ‘Let’s race!’ This time he beat me.” Obviously, the first time Sall Allahu Alaihi Wasallam let her beat him, anyway, but he’s engaging in a nice relationship and also doing exercise together. And she said, “Ah, it’s not fair; I was a little bit lighter that time.” And he was laughing, saying, “Now we’re equal. Now you beat me last time; now me, one for one; we’re equal. Now we’re equal.” But that’s how Sall Allahu Alaihi Wasallam was. And once he tapped one person on his stomach in the Sal—he was moving, making the line straight, and he just tapped one person—his stomach was a little bit protruding—he was joking with him. And when Alaihi Wasallam was…
On his deathbed, he came out and said, "Anybody who has anything that I owe them, that I've wronged them in, come and take your right now." And this man said, "Yol Allah, one time you hurt me; you tapped me on my stomach." The Prophet (saws) lifted his shirt up, of course, over his belly button, and he said, "Take your revenge." So the man kissed his belly, the Prophet's (saws) stomach, and he said, "Allah, I wanted to get the Baraka, the blessing of you, and this is the Baraka and the blessing of the prophets is established in the Quran and Sunnah."
For diet, health told us, "If you can have a third of your stomach for water, a third for air, and a third for food, if you can." So, and the way we sleep, monitor your sleep. Some people they stay up all night and then they sleep late. Even if you get your 10 hours, it's not enough; you need to sleep early and look after your body. And if you can do a Cula in the daytime, a little siesta, that will also help.
Brothers and sisters, moving to the last one: sticking to your rights and your boundaries. How do you know you have a healthy, strong personality? It's when you know your rights, you know other people's rights, you know your boundaries, and you let people know your boundaries, and you know other people's boundaries, and you don't transgress the boundaries. And in this are relationships that become either sick relationships, toxic relationships, lively relationships, or dead relationships. How it's got to do with rights and boundaries: A lively relationship is when it's filled with justice, kindness, mercy, giving, forgiving, pardoning, talking, discussing; that's called a lively relationship—husband and wife, friends, brothers, sisters, all of you.
The sickening relationship is when you only do things because you don't want the person to be upset. "A, I better go, man, but I just don't want to upset them," but you got priorities. I know, but just, I don't want to get them upset. That's low self-esteem. There's a polite way of saying, "Sorry, I can't," and saying no. Don't be a total yes person. The toxic relationship is when people expect you, or you expect them, to do something that is not their obligation, and you don't give them anything in return. Someone expects you to do an obligation for them, and they don't give you anything in return, and if you don't do it, they will guilt trip you as if it's an obligation. An example: If you have two friends and you decided to invite one friend to coffee, the other friend finds out, and let's say the other friend is a toxic type, he'll come and guilt trip you and blame you and put you down and say, "Why didn't you invite me? You're not a loyal friend. You, you know, I know, and then you probably talked about me," and then guilt-tripping you like as if it was an obligation. No, it wasn't an obligation. Same with relative lives, same with parents, same with children. If there are rights and obligations, of course. Let me repeat that: When it comes to people you have no choice of having a relationship with, like your parents and your siblings, your cousins, you don't work with them on rights and obligations. Rights and obligations between your relatives are only used when things go wrong, when things, a dispute happens, you go back to whose right is what. But family should be based on kindness, empathy, goodness, sacrifice, and giving up some of your rights, not all of them, but some of them. Same with the husband and wife; you can't deal with rights, just your right and my right; that's like, that's like roommates.
It's which leads me to something called a dead relationship. A dead relationship is where everyone is indifferent: "I don't care if you do it, don't do it. I don't care if you have an obligation or not. I don't care if you love me or not. If you're here, I don't care. I don't realize you're here. If you're gone, I don't ask about you." These are the type of relationships you have to end.
So brothers and sisters, as you can see, there are lots of qualities. These are the 10 qualities, alhamdulillah, and I end it with this: Some people will hurt you with words and actions; it's up to you what you want to do and be. You can let those words hurt you and change you, or you can acknowledge and feel sorry for that person and do what the Prophet (saws) did. Once he was giving out some charities, and one man from the Ansar said hurtful words. He said, "Wall," he didn't do justice about the Prophet (saws). So another companion said, "W," I will tell the messenger of Allah what you said about it. He went to the Prophet (saws) and said to him, "Allah, this person said this to you in secret." And the Prophet (saws) said, he got angry. Why did he get angry? He got angry because he's talking about the messenger of God that he is unjust; that's got to do with religion and IM. But then he calmed down and said, "Look, Moses was harmed even greater than that by his people, but he remained persevering and patient." So choose your battles and keep your character good.
Finally, brothers and sisters, smile. A person with good, strong character is able to smile. A friend said to me, they were at Uni and they had a presentation in front of the class, and one day a friend got up and was giving the presentation, they were nervous, everybody staring at them with a blunt face, and this person who I know was smiling to the presenter and saying, and just nodding their head and smiling, encouraging them. After they finished, that person never forgot that favor that the friend did for them, smiling and encouraging them. Everybody loves when people motivates and encourages, and smiling goes a huge way. Wasam used to always smile, used to always be cheerful, and it releases beautiful neurotransmitters in your brain and your body, such as dopamine and endorphins and serotonin and all these different names, which dstress you. Some of them are anti-depressants, some of them give you satisfaction and happiness, and some of them they build your immune system. Anger, however, one minute of anger makes your immune system go down by 4 hours. One moment of happiness and a bit of laughter and smiles build your immune system for 24 hours. So brothers and sisters, this is a strong person. I'm sorry I took long.