The Book of Assistance with Imam Khalid Latif | Session 2

Opening & Introduction

بِسْمِ اللهِ وَالْحَمْدُ لِلهِ، وَالصَّلَاةُ وَالسَّلَامُ عَلَى رَسُولِ اللهِ، وَعَلَى آلِهِ وَصَحْبِهِ وَمَنْ وَالَاهُ

All praise is due to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We thank Him, we praise Him, we glorify Him, we beseech Him to send His choicest salutations upon His most beloved ﷺ and upon all those who choose to tread in his path until the last day.

I hope you all are keeping well, alhamdulillah, and that your Ramadan has been meaningful and blessed thus far. I appreciate you all joining us again tonight as we're continuing with the Book of Assistance — a book on spirituality written by a great spiritual master in our tradition, Imam al-Haddad, rahimahullah. Last week, we did an overview of just some of what it is that we're talking about before we were going to get into the text this week, speaking to what we understand the purpose of spirituality to be, what its yield is supposed to be for us, how religion and spirituality is not distinct within the Islamic framework, and how we are able to draw meaning and a sense of purpose as a definition of what spirituality is — that the world around us, essentially, with spiritual increase, we're able to synthesize information that we get from the world around us in pursuit of trying to draw deeper meaning and purpose.

And so we wanted to pick up from where we had left off, and we're going to start looking at the text. If you want to get the text for yourself, the PDF is available in the chat box. It's a text that you can easily access as well. If that link doesn't work for you for whatever reason, if you just Google "Book of Assistance Imam al-Haddad PDF," you'll find a bunch of different versions of it.

Chapter One: Yaqeen — Certainty

So we're looking at the text from Imam al-Haddad, the Book of Assistance, and the first chapter that we're looking at today is on yaqeen — certainty.

Within the framework of certainty, we want to revisit the idea that we had interjected last time: that what Imam al-Haddad is giving to us is a roadmap on how to move forward in our own spiritual growth and in our relationship with our Creator. And so these are not chapters that are meant to be understood separate from one another, but we want to see them as linked to each other — how topics engage one another, how there's overlap. And in general, with our knowledge, this is what we want to actually do.

You don't want to just store knowledge in your head, but you want to be able to access it. For example, Imam Abu Hanifa, rahimahullah, is sitting with a group of people, and there's a man who is posing different information in a dars, and then somebody comes and asks a question of the entire group, and nobody's able to answer it. And then Imam Abu Hanifa answers the question, and the person who is leading the majlis says to him: how did you know the answer to this question? And Imam Abu Hanifa is able to say to that man that he used the information that was just being taught to them — that the accessibility of it is not meant to just be about rote memorization, but to know how to apply it in a given circumstance.

And so what Imam al-Haddad is giving to us here is a roadmap, and we want to be able to understand it as an actual roadmap and to see where and how we relate to it. If you remember last time when we were talking, we were talking about yaqeen as being the destination — the endpoint here. Imam al-Haddad starts from here because what he is doing is creating an opportunity for there to be a starting point, and yaqeen becomes the destination.

So where we are at the base of the starting point, we want to know where we are going in relation to it because all of us have different fundamental starting points. And this becomes embedded within our religion's foundations.

The Language of Pathways: Sharia, Seerah, Tariqah, Suluk

We have words like sharia, we have words like seerah, we have words like tariqah, we have words like suluk. And you want to see that there's overlap between these. In the most literal definition, the word sharia is translated as "a path to water" — the path to the watering well, the watering hole. In contextualizing this in Meccan Arabia, to understand the purpose and the metaphor that's there, it illustrates a lot of deep beauty on what sharia is actually leading us to.

For example, when the Prophet Ibrahim, peace be upon him, is commanded to take Hajar, peace be upon her, and Ismail, peace be upon him, into the desert. And Hajar, peace be upon her, is asking Ibrahim, peace be upon him, the entire way: what is the purpose of this? Why are we going? Until she asks him:

And when he says yes, she says: then go — Allah is sufficient for me. No other questions. She has yaqeen, that is certitude. And we're going to talk about that in a little bit.

When they run out of the dates and water that they had with them, many of us likely know the story that Hajar starts to run between the hills of Safa and Marwa, ascending to the summits, as the infant Ismail is kicking at the desert. And she has this act embodied by all of us in our Umrah and Hajj pilgrimage. Where Ismail, peace be upon him, is kicking at the desert, the angel comes and strikes there and the well of Zamzam comes forward. And water goes everywhere. Hajar, peace be upon her, seeks to contain the water.

And the Prophet ﷺ says in a hadith that may Allah's mercy be upon Hajar — that had she not sought to contain the water, it would have flowed over everything in the world. Now what happens after the water starts to come forward is that birds start to flock into the middle of the desert. And there's a tribe called the Jurhum tribe. They see these birds coming into the desert and they wonder: why are birds going where there's nothing? And so they send some emissaries. They see something, but they try to draw meaning from it — they see the birds and they let their mind go, saying that it's not normal that these birds would fly into the middle of nothing. And so they send a couple of their people to go see what's happening. And to their astonishment, not only do they find this elderly woman, this young boy, and this large body of water — and so they engage her in conversation and they say: can we live here? And Hajar, peace be upon her, says: yes, you can. But the well is ours — it is under my control, the water. And so the Jurhum come and they start to settle around the water, and the place grows and has infrastructure. But this is where the city of Mecca comes from.

And in the analogy that we're making here, the water is attracting life to it. And Sharia as a path to water is meant to give you vibrancy, vitality. It's meant to be expansive and not restrictive. And where it enables one to feel invigorated, it is in a mode of practical application that makes sense. But where it becomes something that becomes restrictive, there's a good chance that it's not being applied in the right way.

The word seerah itself becomes also rooted in this idea of a path. The prophetic biography is what we call and refer the seerah to be. But seerah is also rooted in this idea of a path. Tariqah — spiritual pathways that individuals might align themselves towards. And I'm not advocating for or against; that's not the purpose. I want you to think about this objectively. In the spiritual tradition, there are numerous spiritual pathways identified as tariqah. If you've ever gone for Umrah or Hajj, and you have the guys who are pushing people on the wheelchairs — all they're saying when you get in their way is: Hajji, hajji, hajji, tariq, tariq, tariq — meaning get out of the way. But the tariqah as a spiritual path is where the sheikh is engaging the student in a way where the student yields to the guidance of the sheikh, and they're moving forward both academically and introspectively in the framework of spirituality to get to a place. But it's a pathway. There's movement. Suluk — same thing, spiritual pathway. And the salik is the one that traverses the suluk. They're going on a pathway.

So it's about movement. It's about mobility. It's about going in some direction. What it's definitely not about is staying still. And this book gives you the opportunity to say: how do I move? How do I go? How do I not stay stuck?

So you don't get riled up — you can have emotions; no one's saying you shouldn't be emotional. But if Ramadan is different, then it's different. You can't pray the taraweeh prayer in jama'ah — your world doesn't suddenly collapse. There's a distinction. You had a ton of people who said "how will it be?" and you had some people who said "it will be fine." And then you had some people who said: wow, here's another way for us to now act upon a distinct sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, who prayed it in congregation and then after a few days went and prayed it in his house. So maybe we're going to start to pray some of it in our house.

Growth is attached to movement, and all of these words have movement embedded in them. Does this make sense? And we have to understand this conceptually in order to be able to yield from a text like this. Because you won't take from it and act upon it if you don't acknowledge that movement is part of our religion.

These words that we have — Islam, Iman, Ihsan — they exist within a verbal noun form, what we call a gerund. It's a doing word. It's not just "I am this" in the sense that it is me as a noun, but "I am this" in the sense that I am being it. I do it. I act upon it. There's movement. And if there's not change in the practice you have — if there's not increase, not mobility, or not a willingness to be malleable — then spirituality is not necessarily going to be an easy thing to increase. Not because guidance is not there, but because you're not willing to be molded. You can't be molded and at the same time be unmalleable. In order to be molded, you have to be willing to be shaped.

And the shaping of it doesn't always come from what we choose. But we put in the framework of certitude that we're being led to something at the end of it. We're able to draw meaning and draw purpose. It doesn't mean that there's not hardness or difficulty — that's not what we're saying at all. The idea is to not see that you are emotionless, but to recognize and understand that at the end of it, the opportunity is to still have enhancement.

And all of these things are attached to walkways that are meant to be traversed — that you're supposed to move. This is what Allah tells us in Surah al-Mulk:

That He is the one who has made the earth dhalool for you. A beast of burden that submits to you because you put your belongings on it is called dhalool. That's the kind of submissiveness that Allah is saying in this verse — the earth is submitting to you. And then it says: walk upon its shoulders. Such beautiful imagery. Because what kind of animal is going to let you stand and walk on its shoulders other than one that recognizes that it plays a certain role in relation to you? But it's also just talking about walking, moving.

Show us the path that is straight. But it's a path — the Sirat. That's what we're trying to not just talk about, but conceptualize so that we can move forward in a certain way.

Defining Certitude Through the Companions

When we talk about certitude, its acquisition necessitates having a definition. And to illustrate definitions, we want to be able to look at some of the individuals who had it. We're going to talk about certitude in relationship to doubt in a minute, but I want to show you a beautiful hadith of Abu al-Darda, radiyallahu anhu.

(Related in Sunan Abi Dawud and other collections; authenticated by various scholars of hadith)

Abu al-Darda, radiyallahu anhu, says that a man came running to him saying: "O Abu al-Darda, your house has burned down!" He said: "No, it cannot be burned." The man insisted that a fire had engulfed the whole neighborhood and his house was one of the ones that had burned. Abu al-Darda, radiyallahu anhu, responded with full certainty — full yaqeen — that Allah will never allow this to happen because of the words that he heard from the Prophet ﷺ: "Whoever says these words in the beginning of a day will not be afflicted by a misfortune until the end of the day. And whoever says these words in the evening will not be afflicted until the morning." He told him the words that he had recited that day, which he had learned from the Prophet ﷺ. When they both went to inspect the neighborhood, it turned out that most of the houses had burned down except the house of Abu al-Darda, radiyallahu anhu.

Now in here, there is a definition of certitude that we can draw — that he believes in God and believes in God's Messenger ﷺ, but he also believes them. That's not meant to be cute or clever, but that's what it comes down to: the certitude is there in recognizing that what they are saying is true. There is validity to it.

So when Allah tells you:

With hardship, there is ease. With hardship, there is ease. That is divine promise. The certitude in this had the companions engage in a form of worship said to be most virtuous — that was the waiting for the ease when hardship came. They endured the hardship, but the anticipation of the ease was because they knew that Allah said ease will come with it.

And your Lord says: call upon Me, I will reply to you. That is divine promise. Allah is telling you: make du'a to Me and I respond to the du'a. The certitude part to it is what we seek to build.

The Example of Abu Bakr and the Isra and Mi'raj

When the Prophet ﷺ goes on this majestic journey called the Isra and Mi'raj — he goes from his home to the city of Jerusalem, may Allah bring ease to the people of Palestine and end the occupation that is taking place there, and then he goes from Jerusalem into the very heavens — most majestic, beautiful narration that you want to really build a relationship with. And if you have the means and opportunity, inshallah ta'ala, to make a pilgrimage to this place and to learn about the Palestinian experience, you should.

I was blessed to take a group from our Islamic Center there in January, and the Palestinian people are more hospitable than any people I've ever met. And it's incredible — if you've ever been to Medina, you know the beauty of the winds of Medina are such that there is just gentleness and serenity. And when you are standing at Al-Aqsa, the winds are just as gentle. This juxtaposition of real beauty from the people of Palestine who don't have so much and they still want to just keep giving to you — and it's not even an exaggeration. Every single Palestinian we met in Palestine embodied the hadith of loving for your brother what you love for yourself. May Allah increase them and end the injustice that's taking place there. And you saw this immense beauty juxtaposed to oppression, injustice, and inequity — really disgusting. And you walk in these places where all these prophets walked, you go to where they're buried — it's amazing to just see who's there and who was there.

When he goes on that journey and then he comes back, he's got to tell people about it. And the people of Mecca are not his biggest fans already. Now he's trying to tell them what's going on, and there are people who start to mock and ridicule him. And there are others who — as they hear what the Prophet ﷺ is saying — the Meccans start to say to them: do you know what your Prophet wants us to believe? He wants us to believe that he went not only from here to Jerusalem in a night and came back in a night — a journey that takes us so long — but he also went into the heavens and came back, all in the same night.

And people start to question and wonder. They fluctuate internally and doubt starts to arise. And then they go to Abu Bakr, radiyallahu anhu, and when they say to him: do you know what your friend wants us to believe? He wants us to believe that he went to Jerusalem, into the heavens, came back here, all in one night — when they say it to Abu Bakr, radiyallahu anhu, his response is: if my friend has said it, then it must be true.

And then he goes and sits where the Prophet ﷺ is telling them about this experience, this journey. And every so often, Abu Bakr, radiyallahu anhu, just says sadaq, sadaq, sadaq — he has spoken the truth, he has spoken the truth, he has spoken the truth.

That is certainty. That is certitude. That is yaqeen. That's the end goal — the destination for your inward to have that kind of understanding.

When the man comes and unsheathes his sword and is going to strike the Prophet ﷺ by surprise and says: "Ya Muhammad, who will protect you now?" — without hesitation, he says: Allah. Khadijah, radiyallahu ta'ala anha — no doubts, certitude. Ali, radiyallahu anhu — no doubts, certitude. Without hesitation, they move in.

How Yaqeen Increases and Decreases

To get to that point is not just a simple matter of flipping a switch on and off, nor is it that you simply talk about it — it requires doing. And so when we have a baseline understanding of what certitude is, we start to think about: how do you get to that place?

When we have virtues and values like this, we have an understanding that iman is something that can go up and down. In the hadith, it's defined as something that swings like a pendulum back and forth. Some days you feel on top of the world, some days you feel like the world is crushing you — may Allah make it easy for us. There's not a consistency; it fluctuates. Taqwa has the ability to increase and decrease. The same way you can fill a glass with water and it goes up and down as you drink it, so too you can have ups and downs in this. And there are moments where things like yaqeen can increase and decrease.

The idea is to be ever present in acquiring a mode of increase within them. And so where and how we increase — we increase through a mode of recognizing that the way you go up in a value is through the value itself. The vehicle by which one can increase a virtue is the virtue. You want to be more patient, then you have to be patient. You want to be more compassionate, then you have to be compassionate. And here now, the opportunity to yield certitude so that difficulty, tribulation, hardship, success, achievement does not in and of itself rock our world — but we're able to have stability and balance that only something like yaqeen can offer to us.

(Related by al-Bayhaqi in Shu'ab al-Iman; also cited by Imam al-Ghazali in the Ihya' 'Ulum al-Din)

There is a hadith where the Prophet ﷺ has said that sabr is half of iman — it's nifs al-iman, he says. And in the same hadith, he says yaqeen — certitude — that's just what it is in its entirety. That's what this religion is about: certitude. And so it's an important thing.

We don't have a deen where you just raise your hand to the skies and faith pours into you. You have to go through the acts at times that then yield to you consequently what can only be yielded at the conclusion of an action.

The Story of Abu Hurairah and the Milk

For example, Abu Hurairah, radiyallahu anhu, is in a space where he is feeling hungry. And he's with the Messenger of God ﷺ and a gift of milk comes to them. And Abu Hurairah wants to drink the milk — he's hungry. And the Prophet ﷺ has other companions that are there, the ashab al-suffah, the people who used to live outside of the Messenger of God's house. And so he tells Abu Hurairah to let them pass the milk around to these other people.

And Abu Hurairah internally starts to feel doubt that he doesn't think he's going to get anything to drink. But he does what he's told because it is the Messenger of God ﷺ who has told him to do it. And so he starts to take the milk from companion to companion. And now when everybody has drunk it, he gets to the Prophet. The Prophet ﷺ says to him: you drink first. And to his astonishment, not only is he able to take a sip, but he takes a gulp and even more than one — and then there's still enough for the Prophet ﷺ to drink. There is unique barakah that comes in instances with food with the Messenger of God ﷺ, amongst the many demonstrations of barakah that he has ﷺ.

But here the Prophet ﷺ, as the teacher, is diminishing the doubt that Abu Hurairah, radiyallahu anhu, has — by going to a space where he is guiding him through recognizing it actively. He breaks the doubt through the active mode of exercising that increase in certitude. So that Abu Hurairah knows at the end of it: there is always enough food for everybody to share.

(Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2059)

Food for one is enough for two. Food for two is enough for four. Says the best of creation ﷺ.

Reading the Text: Imam al-Haddad on Certainty

And so we want to have these formulating thoughts as we start to think about: what is this thing of yaqeen? And how do we start to shape it and understand it for ourselves? It is something that can increase and decrease. And if it goes down, that's fine — you want to have a net gain that is one of growth. So even if you take steps back, you're going to make mistakes. Be gentle with yourself.

So where we start looking at the text on yaqeen and we start to understand it in a little bit more depth, we said that yaqeen is what it is that we're trying to get to at the end of this. That the path is such that we're getting it as a destination and we're moving to it. And all of us are moving to it in different ways — we might not have the same mode not because where we want to end is different, but our starting points are different.

So Imam al-Haddad begins by saying:

"You must, beloved brother, strengthen and improve your certainty. For when certainty prevails in the heart and establishes itself therein, the unseen becomes as if seen. And the man, aided by providence, says — as Ali, radiyallahu anhu, karamallahu wajh, may Allah ennoble his face, said — 'With the cover removed, I would not increase in certitude' — meaning that Ali's yaqeen was so solid that he did not need for the veils to be lifted, for even there, he already had a sound belief in his Creator, in his Lord."

Here we have an understanding that the seat of yaqeen is the heart. So it necessitates a relationship, first and foremost, with the heart. We want to start to build certain things.

One — yaqeen is in the heart. So if you're not taking care of your heart, then you're not taking care of your heart. And you have to understand that the heart as a vessel will have different things in it. So at times what makes certitude harder to be contained in the heart is not because certitude cannot be harnessed by it, but there's no room in it because there are other things going in there.

"Certainty is power, firmness and stability of faith so great that it becomes as a towering mountain which no doubts can shake and no illusions rock. Rather, doubts and illusions disappear completely and when they come from outside are neither listened to by the ear nor heeded by the heart. The devil cannot approach the possessor of such certainty. He flees from him, fears his very shadow and is content to keep at a safe distance. As the Messenger of God ﷺ has said: Satan is afraid of the shadow of Umar, and Umar never takes a road but that Satan takes another."

The Relationship Between Doubt and Certitude

Here there are key points that we want to start to embellish upon — to recognize what becomes the relationship of doubt and certitude, certainty. And it's not that we want to say that these two things are suddenly so separate from one another that we have to feign not having doubt. Because the idea is to remove doubt, but also to understand how doubt in and of itself can be the means through which certitude is made concrete and strengthened.

For example, when the Messenger of God ﷺ has doubt at the first revelation — "I am not able to read, I am not a reciter" — the angel Jibreel comes and, if you think deeply about it: he's on top of a mountain in a cave. Some of you have been there. And the hadith says, wherever he looks in the skies, all he sees is the angel. You want to think about the strength and magnitude of the fortitude of the Messenger of God ﷺ. I've seen people walk around in New York City and they jump at cockroaches, they jump at rats. The Prophet ﷺ saw a creature so massive that he had never seen a creature like that before, and his strength and fortitude is so remarkable that he was actually able to respond in conversation to this creature. He doesn't know it's an angel, and he was all by himself, and suddenly he's not only not by himself anymore but everywhere is this large being. And then it tells him to do something that he cannot do.

And when he says "I am not able to read, I am not a reciter," they are going back and forth in this way. And he is left atop that mountain to make critical sense of what has transpired on his own. He goes down the mountain, through the deserts, in such a state of internal shock that literally when he gets into his home, he is shivering out of shock. "Cover me, cover me, cloak me, cloak me," he says to his wife Khadijah, radiyallahu ta'ala anha. And when he starts to let it all out — this is the most important day in this man's life, arguably the day that he has been made ready for every day prior to it — and he thinks he has been possessed by demons and jinn. And as he lets it out, she just absorbs and listens. She doesn't interject or interrupt. No room for doubt from her end. When he is finished, she says: you are a good man. You honor the rights of guests, you treat orphans with dignity and respect. God would not test you in this way.

Her certitude elevates his. It's not that this is a comparison — he just experienced what he experienced; she experienced it through him. But who she is brings benefit: that he feeds off of her certitude to reignite his certitude and knows that whatever is going to come, he's going to be able to take it on. But the doubt becomes the entry point to the certitude.

Ibrahim, peace be upon him, literally looks to the stars, the moon, the sun before he knows who Allah is. And the Quran does not chastise him for being in a place where, in his exploration, he is looking to the creations of God. If anything, it defines him as being one who is searching in that period of exploration. And when he lands on an understanding that the Divine is the one who made all of these things, he still has moments where doubt comes — "Slaughter your son." He is told to sacrifice his son Ismail. And it's not that the vision comes and then it's fine and dandy, but he has the vision over time, and Ismail, peace be upon him, has to say to him: "What is going on?" When he finds out, Ismail says: "Do what Allah has told you to do." But the doubt becomes the deepening measure for certitude.

And so we don't want to hesitate from doubt in and of itself in its entirety, because questions become a necessary component for our understanding. And if you are not asking questions, if you are in a place where there is not curiosity — curiosity becomes the basis of spiritual growth, intertwined with intellectual growth. You want to ask questions. You don't want to just sit down and say that I'm 20, 30, 40 years old and I'm just content with what I gained in terms of rote memorization. Certain things necessitate on a human level being able to explore where you land given the realities of life.

And so when we look at this, we want to think about it in this way: doubt is not necessarily in a place where it is versus certainty, but doubt is in a place where it has an intrinsic relationship to certainty. Ideally, you move through doubt toward certitude.

How to Overcome Doubt: The Role of Community

Imam al-Haddad is deepening for us: doubts and illusions disappear completely, and when they come from outside are neither listened to by the ear nor heeded by the heart. The devil cannot approach the possessor of such certitude. He flees from him, fears his very shadow, and is content to keep it at a safe distance. This gives us an understanding that doubt is something that can come to us from Shaytan — may Allah protect us from his whispers.

So if we look even simply at the two stories of prophets of God who experienced doubt in their life, and we start to understand their experiences of doubt — what is happening to help them get out of it? One: they are not taking it on alone. When the Prophet ﷺ tells us that all of you are shepherds and all of you are responsible for your sheep, each one of us plays a dual role of being a shepherd and being a sheep.

As a sheep relating to the shepherd: a sheep has very limited vision. It can't see beyond its most immediate surroundings. It relies on the shepherd to have foresight. But the sheep is also most vulnerable to prey when it's by itself, not when it's in a flock. And if a predator has to decide what sheep to go after — the forty that are all together or the one that's just running around on its own — it's going to go attack the one that's by itself. And where now the predator is going to attack you, you situate yourself in strong community. You don't have individualism or arrogance that separates you.

Nor do you want to be in a space where you become the cause of someone else having to be by themselves — especially right now in these periods of social distancing. There are so many people who would already be alone in Muslim community experience because they're not the right culture or race of the given community. There's a good chance that if your parents didn't let you marry that person because of their skin color, they probably aren't celebrating Ramadan with a ton of people. That same mindset is keeping them ostracized and alienated.

You have individuals who move forward in a way where their strength comes from being part of the communal experience. And it's harder for Shaytan to come at you when you are strengthened. The Prophet ﷺ has Khadijah, radiyallahu ta'ala anha. In the instance of the Isra and Mi'raj where the people are doubting him, he has Abu Bakr to reinforce him. Where Ibrahim, peace be upon him, has Ismail, peace be upon him, there with him. Where Hajar says to him as they're being left in the desert — "Has Allah commanded you with this?" — as much as it's for Hajar to be reinforced in her tawakkul and yaqeen, Ibrahim, peace be upon him, undoubtedly is going to gain from her demonstrating that to him as well. What do you think is going on in his head? He's leaving his child and his child's mother in the desert.

The means to it is to understand that vulnerability is greater when we're alone. And in the common era where we have such high levels of anxiety and depression — that a gross majority of people are either themselves wrestling with it or know someone who is — feelings of loneliness are hard. And so with really big hearts you want to think about people in their moment of need and how you relate to them in helping them overcome some of these difficulties.

Understanding the Role of Shaytan

Shaytan also is creating an opportunity for us to understand the role that he plays in our life. There's not anybody who can tell you that they're somehow beyond the waswasa — the whispers of Shaytan — may Allah protect us from it. And so to understand how that dynamic functions: we're taught that he doesn't get you in the big things, but he's going to get you in the small things. And the small things start to become the obstacles in pursuit of the bigger good things.

And so we're taught of different techniques to protect ourselves from his whispers — the recitation of Ayat al-Kursi, the last verses of Surah al-Baqarah, the quls. There is also a hadith where the Prophet ﷺ says that Shaytan runs through the being — the body of the children of Adam — the way that blood runs through the body. And the solution that he poses to cutting that off is hunger.

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 2038; Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2175)

And for any who are fasting in Ramadan, you know that you're categorically different in Ramadan than when you are outside of it. May Allah make us amongst those who benefit from the wisdoms and blessings of Ramadan.

Imam al-Haddad is saying that doubt comes from a place, and your ability to yield something from it is to recognize: what are the mechanisms that you can build to protect yourself from the kind of doubt that is from the waswasa of Shaytan, versus the kind of doubt that can become an inroad to spiritual growth and increase?

Have good companions around you, but also be a good companion to people. Now is not the time to look for flaws. It is indicative of our hearts if we only see people based off of what they're lacking in or what we perceive them to be lacking in.

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2260)

The hadith tells us that with the end of times, holding on to even one sunnah is going to be like holding a flaming coal in your hand — may Allah make it easy for us. So you want to have good companions and you want to be a good companion also.

You want to recognize how Shaytan's strategies work and what he will get you to be. Shaytan's acts that cast him out of Jannah are that he is arrogant — "I am a fire, he is made of earth, why would I bow down to him?" He exerts flawed logic. He thinks he knows but he does not know. Most importantly, he's racist. Iblis is the first racist. He believes that by virtue of where he's from, it makes him superior to someone who is from someplace else. And Allah is most just, may we be protected.

Because if Iblis on the Day of Judgment says: "Ya Allah, you cast me out of Jannah because of my racist arrogance — why are you letting these people in? Who do not eat with people who come from different cultures as their own. Who don't hesitate in speaking in languages that they know that some people around them cannot speak. Who deprive family and friends from being in a place where they are able to connect to others simply by virtue of their skin color being different."

So where and how we start to pull practical things: reflection on companions; reflection on how we understand Shaytan as a being and where he can get us; a recognition of where we are most vulnerable ourselves — may Allah protect us from it; and the adoption of spiritual practices to protect us from that kind of doubt and waswasa. But first we must admit that we are capable of succumbing to it and that Shaytan is real — may Allah protect us from his whispers. And where and how we become habitually inclined: the existence of Shaytan does not become a means through which we deny our own accountability and say "we did this because the devil made me do it" — but we think about it in the framework of reality.

Three Means of Acquiring Certainty

Imam al-Haddad says:

"Certainty derives its power and excellence from many things. The first, most essential and pivotal of these is that the servant listens attentively with his heart as well as his ears to verses and hadiths relating to God, His Majesty, Perfection, Magnitude and Grandeur, His uniqueness in creating and deciding, ruling and compelling. Likewise to the truthfulness and perfection of the messengers, the miracles they were aided with, and the sundry chastisements which befell those who opposed them. That these are sufficient to bring about certainty is indicated by His word, Azzawajal:"

"Is it not enough for them that We have sent down upon you the Book which is recited to them?"

So one: you want to get deeper in your certitude? You don't just keep the books on your shelves. You read the Qur'an. You read the hadith. You draw meaning from it. It's not just about memorization of it in and of itself. There were so many companions who did not memorize the whole Qur'an. There were so many companions who only memorized very little of the Qur'an. But they drew meaning and inspiration from it. And they saw Islam not as a religion within the common connotation, but they saw Islam as a way of life — a philosophy on life, a means through which they could inform their decisions and choices and come back to the Qur'an and the hadith. This was not a book that was brought out only at particular occasions — not there for ceremonies, not only read in the nights of Ramadan by somebody leading them in prayer. But it was a guidebook to draw meaning from, to take lessons from, morals from, ethics from, and an understanding of how to live from. So you gotta read the book.

And there are some of you who read it but are not present in the reading. There are some of you who read it and you're super present. But most importantly there are a lot of us who don't read it at all. And that might come from fear, intimidation — whatever it is. Pick up the Qur'an. It was sent for you as much as it was sent for anyone. You have as much entitlement to access it and benefit from it and draw strength through it and gain an understanding of God through it, as opposed to the person who's on the minbar giving you a depiction of hellfire and brimstone that makes God a very angry old man in the sky looking for a reason to push you down. And then you do the same thing with the hadith — you engage it, you seek to understand from it, and you move forward from it.

"The second is to learn from looking at the kingdom of the heavens and the earth and the wondrous and astounding creatures that Allah made teeming therein. That this brings about certainty is indicated by His saying:"

"We shall show them Our signs on the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that this is the truth." That you go and spend time in nature and reflect upon everything that's around you — just gazing at the sunrise, the sunset. I've never met a person who has said that the sunrise or the sunset looks bad. They always say it looks beautiful. But I've also never met a person who purposefully goes to look at the sunrise every day to draw a sense of inward beauty and meaning and purpose from it. I see a lot of people who don't even look up at the sky — they're stuck looking at distractions.

Imam al-Haddad is saying: look at the Qur'an, look at the hadith, understand who God is — and then set for yourself a process through which you understand what God has created.

"The third is to behave according to what one believes, outwardly and inwardly, zealously and to the limits of one's resources. That this brings about certainty is indicated by His saying:"

"Those who strive in Us, We shall surely guide them to Our ways." That you want to just go at your best and you push yourself — and when you facilitate for yourself a pushing, Allah will continue to open doors for you. But this is the idea: you move forward in certitude, and certitude is what you will be given. You strive in certitude and certitude is what you will be given.

The Fruits of Yaqeen

"Proper certainty results in, amongst many other things, acquiescence in God's promise — meaning you believe in Allah's promise — confidence in what He has guaranteed, turning to God with pure longing, abandoning all things which distract from Him, continuously returning to Him in all circumstances, and spending all one's energy in seeking His good pleasure. In sum, certainty is the essential thing; all other noble ranks, praiseworthy traits of character, and good works are its branches and results. Virtues and actions are strong or weak, sound or unsound, according to the strength or otherwise of certainty. Luqman, peace be upon him, said: action is possible only in the presence of certainty. A servant acts in obedience only to the extent that he has certainty, and a man becomes neglectful in his action only when his certainty diminishes."

Meaning: you leave it behind because you don't believe that it is what it says it is. And where you start to see that you're not on top of your prayer anymore, not on top of certain acts that you used to do — what blends inside your being can be a lot of obstacles. But you start to move when certitude is there. This is why the Messenger of God ﷺ said that certainty is the whole of faith.

The Three Degrees of Certainty

"Believers have three degrees of certainty. The first is that of the people of the right hand — this is firm belief but with the possibility of becoming doubtful or shaky under certain circumstances. This is called faith. The second is that of the ones brought nigh, which is the possession of the heart by faith, and its establishing itself therein so firmly that its opposite becomes no longer possible or even imaginable. In this degree, the unseen becomes as the seen — this is called yaqeen, certitude. The third is that of the prophets and the true saints — the Siddiqeen, who are their perfect heirs. Here the unseen becomes seen, which thing is called unveiling and contemplation — so kashf and mushahada. There are grades within each degree; all are good but some are better than others."

Those last points we will start off with next time. But to understand the practical implementation of what is being asked here — between this week and next week, you draw from it in terms of these things: how do I overcome doubts, how do I overcome uncertainty? Well, look at the companions you have. Look at what kind of companion you are. Try to learn and understand a little bit about who Shaytan is and recognize it.

There's a book written by a Christian man — his name is C.S. Lewis — called The Screwtape Letters, and it's about an older Shaytan speaking to his nephew who is a younger Shaytan to teach him how to be a Shaytan. Within the framework of it there are some language elements around Christian theology, but fundamentally for those who can only speak or understand English, you can draw a lot of insight into what Iblis's tactics are from that book.

And then you take what Imam al-Haddad is suggesting — not just as discourse but acting upon it — and say: I am going to go and start to build a relationship with the Qur'an, its words, its teachings, even if I go in with no assumptions, objectively, to see if I believe in what it is that it's calling me towards. And then from there, I will look at the hadith. And then I have started to formulate a sense of who God is, and who is the one who has sent me this text, and who is this messenger that is giving me these teachings. And then I start to look at creation around me, within the awesomeness of who Allah is, and try to reflect in a meaningful way. And then I try to implement and I move forward and I try my best and I strive. The goal is not Ihsan in the sense of perfection — that is ridiculous, because none of us is ever going to be perfect — and our beauty is what Ihsan is about: recognizing our imperfectness and our ability to make mistakes.

And once you adopt that, you strive in the third way that Imam al-Haddad is saying — you go with certitude in a belief in God and His promise and His mercy and His love and everything that He has told you that He will give to you when you're simply trying your best. Where you see others, you be a source of upliftment for them, because we all have different starting points. So not everybody is going to be able to do what you do with ease, nor is everybody going to have the same difficulties and struggles and obstacles that you do.

May Allah grant us tawfiq and ease in all of our efforts.

Closing

Inshallah ta'ala, we're going to pick up from there. I apologize again that there's an abrupt end to the session, but I hope that it was beneficial. I have another program that I have to run to, so please forgive me for ending here. But I'm looking forward to seeing you all next week. I do know that some of you had sent me some emails that I still have to respond to — just a hectic week — but I hope inshallah to have caught up by tonight or tomorrow, so forgive me for that. Please do continue to send me emails if it might be helpful. My email address is kl442@nyu.edu.

May Allah bless you and accept from all of us this month of Ramadan.

And one last thing — I mentioned this last week also, but please make sure that you are contributing to the Miftah Institute. The team there is doing really amazing work. They're trying to get to a thousand sponsors and they have 80 sponsors as monthly contributors. You can be a monthly contributor, but also simply make a donation to what they're doing. Most of us are doing this at no cost — you didn't have to pay for this class. But where you can make a contribution, they do good work. They are also doing a lot of other things to help a lot of people with food and social services. These are good people, it's a good investment of your sadaqah, so give what you can and we will be able to be a means of support for them.