TikTok: Scrolling Your Modesty Away? - Mufti Azeemuddin Ahmed

TikTok: Scrolling Your Modesty Away?

As-salamu alaykum everyone. My name is Salim Khan. Today's topic, as you may all know, is TikTok — scrolling your haya away.

I'm sure many of us in the crowd have, or at some point have had, TikTok in the past. And hopefully if someone falls into the "has had" category, then alhamdulillah you may be off the hook, but that doesn't mean that you don't have Instagram. You have Instagram Reels, you have YouTube Shorts, and who knows what else. Today's topic is not just about specifically TikTok — it's about anything that you're just scrolling away mindlessly and getting lost in social media. So I just wanted to mention it's not specifically about that; we're going to talk about social media as a whole.

So I want to start off by getting a little into what exactly social media is. Social media started off as something that was supposed to be a public platform to help people connect and stay updated on each other's lives — and that's kind of what Facebook still is. But now, obviously, when we think social media, the first thing that comes to our mind is maybe Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok — and the reason for that is because it's evolved into something totally different. It's basically something that's used as marketing space, entertainment, and obviously we all know our data is being sold.

I wanted to start off, Mufti Azeem, just talking about the reasons why social media has taken this turn — starting off as something to just build a community and connect people, but now they're targeting people specifically. Obviously there's all these algorithms and everything, and it's a totally different environment than what it used to be. Now it's all based off entertainment and dopamine.

The Blessed Nights of Ramadan and the Need to Address Real Issues

Beloved listeners, dear brothers and sisters, alhamdulillah, once again, Allah has blessed us to be on this 23rd night of Ramadan in His house — here in person or listening online. These are very blessed nights, and in order to make the most of these nights, we have to address a lot of issues that a person may not think is necessary to address. Because what is the use of ibadah all night if a person doesn't get rid of the various issues, sins, and toxic things from their life? All-night tahajjud is not the primary concern — rather, what is necessary is to remove the toxins from our life.

Continuous ibadah — over-exerting yourself — is not as necessary as it is important to remove sin from our life. So each night we're having various conversations about not just sin, but how we ensure that our mission and vision in life is clear, how our mind is decluttered, our heart is decluttered, and we have a renewed focus by the end of Ramadan on our life and what we need to do to prepare for the hereafter. And this, I think, is one of the most powerful and best ways to make the most use of these nights — along with our individual dhikr and du'a — to address issues that we know we are faced with, remove the veil from them, bring them out front and center, bring the white elephant out and talk about it.

So tonight is one of those really important topics that a good chunk of the Muslim community is faced with — and of course the non-Muslim community as well — and these are things that we need to address and hopefully find solutions for. So all who are listening now, whether you're at home or here or on the road or wherever you are, I want you to take a moment — as I mention in every talk — and ask Allah that: Ya Allah, may He allow this talk to become a means of addressing the issues that I'm dealing with, the issues that I'm aware of, and the issues that I'm not even aware of but need to be dealt with. Be as sincere as you can in this du'a, and insha'Allah, by the end of this talk, every single person listening will find that they are walking away having benefited greatly, and hopefully it will be a life-changing session for myself and all.

But this requires sincerity from our part. Allah is the Master of everyone and everything, and He is the one who has solutions to our problems. He is the only one who can answer our questions. So we need to be as honest and sincere with Him.

Communication: A Sacred Trust

Having said that, let's move on to the discussion about social media. Understand that social media interaction is, at the end of the day, a method of communication. And communication is something which is sacred to a certain extent. What I mean by that is that Allah is communicating with us through the Qur'an. Allah is communicating to us via revelation. And so, Allah says:

So bayan — speaking, communicating — this is something Allah says He has taught the human being. This is what makes the human being stand out from all other creation: he is a creation of Allah, حَيَوَانٌ نَاطِق — a speaking being. That differentiates a human being. Although other animals of course communicate, the level of intricacy in our communication is not found anywhere else in the animal kingdom.

This is something that makes us stand out. And hence our communication is regulated by Allah. It is so regulated that Allah says in Surah Qaf:

There is not a single utterance — not full sentences, not paragraphs — no, anything that you are simply making as a sound from your mouth, even a grunt, that is also being recorded. That is also being watched by angels that Allah has deputed. This tongue that communicates is something under strong watch. That is why there are so many different hadith and prophetic narrations that speak about the importance of guarding the tongue, which is the means of communication.

And it's not just the tongue. In our social media context — what is our keyboard? What are we typing away? That's your tongue. Communication. All those hadith that speak about guarding the tongue — apply them to your fingertips. Apply them to your text messages. Apply them to your social media posts. One hundred percent. But not only that, we have to amplify the concern. Because if I'm speaking in front of one person and I say something inappropriate, that's one thing. But I'm speaking on the mic, and if I said something inappropriate, Allah forbid, that would have a higher ramification. And if I'm speaking on the mic and that is being broadcast across the globe, that has much more ramification.

So when someone posts something on social media, it's not in a small room. It is in this universe — the entire universe is one room. And it can get amplified to a degree that we can never imagine. Sometimes a post reaches 30 million, 40 million. There are YouTube videos that have reached 1 billion, 2 billion. It's unbelievable. Never has communication been of this sort — that a person could be sitting in a small place, saying something in front of nobody besides the camera, or nobody besides the mic, and that voice is being amplified millions of times. This is a world we haven't seen before.

So all of the hadith about guarding the tongue need to be studied and implemented within our social media interactions. The Prophet ﷺ said:

Whoever stays silent, he will gain salvation. (Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2501)

When someone says, "Ya Rasulullah, give me some quick good advice," he said:

Just control your tongue, you're good to go. (Musnad Ahmad, Hadith 22478)

The whole concept — that this piece of flesh is so dangerous that Allah has placed 32 teeth to protect it. Because it's so dangerous. The teeth cannot harm as much as the tongue can. One bite is not going to harm a person as horribly as one tongue that slashes out against people. It destroys communities, families, it can start wars. What can the tongue not do?

When a person understands that we are not animals in the jungle — we are human beings who have Islam, which regulates and controls every movement of ours, including our communication — then this is the Islam we came to learn in Ramadan. Islam is not an Islam of just fasting and a huge iftar and then a huge suhoor. No. The Islam of Ramadan and the iman of Ramadan is that which will force us to focus on how we take lessons from this fast and qiyamul layl and apply them to self-control and discipline.

Fasting and Self-Control

What is fasting teaching us? It is supposed to teach us that you have all sorts of food and drink available the entire day, and you're walking by a bakery, you're walking by burger place after burger place, you're walking by an aisle full of juices and drinks — but not once do you look at it and say, "Oh, I wish I could taste that." No way. Everyone in your office is having lunch, everyone in school is eating their lunch. You're not perturbed by that. Because you have developed this level of self-control through fasting that it doesn't make a difference what anyone else is doing.

That self-control has to move away from just food and drink for 12 hours, and go to our tongue for 24 hours. Go to our fingertips and keyboards and phones for 24 hours — outside of Ramadan as well. If a person has not developed that self-control, then we can say that unfortunately he has not benefited from fasting or qiyamul layl the way he ought to. So it's a question we must ask ourselves as we approach this 23rd fast: What have we benefited from here? How much did we benefit? This is the question.

So social media is an extension of the communication of the tongue, with which it has increased the stakes. The amount of khayr and good you can do to amplify your voice is beautiful. But the amount of shar and evil that can come through it is also very harmful and scary.

A Double-Edged Sword: The Lesson from Mawlana Ilyas

It reminds me of Mawlana Ilyas — when I heard this being attributed to him — the one whom Allah used to revive the effort of Dawah and Tabligh. He said that this effort, which is galvanizing millions of people across the world — going door to door, masjid to masjid, country to country — he said: if this is going to be run according to the proper method, according to Shari'ah, according to the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ, then the benefit that was supposed to come in one year, you will have in one month. And the benefit that you could have seen in one month, you will see in one week. And the benefit that you could have seen in one week, you'll see it in a day. Because it will literally spread deen at levels that you haven't seen before for many years, for many centuries.

But if this same effort is done without proper etiquette, without proper Sunnah, and it gets into the hands of wrong people — meaning wrong people start doing it in an improper manner — then whatever evil was supposed to spread in one year will spread within a month. And whatever evil was supposed to spread in one month will spread in a week. And whatever evil was supposed to spread in a week will spread in a day.

Now you take that, and then you take social media, and you can multiply it by ten. Social media can bring khayr that would take maybe years to come, in one day. But also — what we're talking about tonight — the evil and harm that was supposed to take a decade will happen within days.

As Muslims, Islam is the only religion, the only way of life that can bring some sense to this whole conversation. It is Islamic principles of Qur'an and Sunnah that can give us direction on how to deal with social media and the like. And if we don't speak about this, and if we don't implement it, then unfortunately we have not only oppressed ourselves, but we have oppressed the world. Because they honestly don't have any direction. The ethics, morals, and values out there are completely gone.

The Industry Behind Social Media

Talking about this whole industry — I remember about three or four years ago I read an article, you can still search it online, a New York Times article that went into the entire industry. I spent hours reading. I read one article, then another, then another — about how this was all working and who's behind it. I was shocked to find out that, at that time, it was essentially three companies, or three individuals, who own 95% of all these websites. And believe it or not, they were said to be from the Middle East. I'm not certain — I think possibly Syria. I could be wrong.

But the idea was: how can three people cause so much damage in this dunya? I don't even know what to compare it with. What could have devastated homes, devastated youth, devastated men, women, and societies the way this industry has?

What was said in those articles — when you talk about the lack of morals, ethics, and values — was that everyone has their own independence, everyone has their own freedom. No matter how old you are, no matter what your gender is, it's a free place. The online world — like dark space — there are no laws, there is no regulation. That's why we're seeing lawsuits now. You probably heard recently in Texas there was a lawsuit; they were trying to create a minimum age limit below which you won't have access to certain platforms. And we have to go to the Supreme Court for stuff like this. Alhamdulillah, they won it. And some of these websites said: we're no longer going to be doing business in this state. The evil mentality of the people behind these businesses — nothing, I don't have words for it.

What happens when you don't have Islam and deen to regulate? Allah says:

They are like livestock — nay, they are more astray. And that's exactly what we see here. People who are more astray, more lost, than any other creation of Allah — more monstrous than anything else out there — who, for the sake of profits, will not care what happens. How steep a drop a human being can have in his life. As Allah says:

Then We sent him back to the lowest of the low. That's exactly what we're seeing. So Islam is the only last man standing when it comes to all moral and ethical issues. Islam has a solution. And if we as Muslims begin to implement this in our lives, not only will we help millions of Muslims, but insha'Allah we'll also help millions of non-Muslims.

The TikTok Algorithm and the Rabbit Hole

It was actually interesting that you mentioned the fact about how social media has the ability to spread harm or spread falsehood so much faster now — the moment it's uploaded, it's all over the world. A lot of us may be aware of the lawsuit that TikTok is going through right now. Basically what the state is saying is that TikTok has the ability to promote harmful content, and the deeper you go into their algorithm, the more your "For You" page recommends stuff you would never even imagine seeing. But then you slowly get desensitized to it, you get used to it, and then you're just in this constant rabbit hole getting into worse and worse stuff. So it's really eerie — that's exactly what was being said earlier — they have this ability to promote harm and the wrong things, but a lot of us may not even realize it's happening until it could be too late.

The Physical Harms of Social Media

So with that, I want to get into some of the harms of social media. We're going to start off with some of the physical harms that are now becoming apparent. A lot of people are only just now realizing all the effects it's having. One of the biggest ones is that it significantly affects a person's attention span. A lot of us may be hearing about how there are people who, even watching a 10-minute informational YouTube video, are not able to finish it — because they're just so used to these one-minute, 30-second quick videos on TikTok or Reels. They're just not able to focus long enough.

A lot of us may have seen posts where someone's just talking in the background, but just to keep your attention, they have a gameplay going on the screen — so you're watching that while also listening to what the post is about. They're just trying to keep you captivated.

You know, routinely, wherever I go, most places, people say, "Brother, we have a program, we have a talk, and attention span is very short. So please, let's just have fun and play for three hours and we'll have a short four-minute talk." This is the normal thing, because people don't have attention span. But when it comes to scrolling — endless, mindless scrolling on TikTok and YouTube Shorts — three hours, two hours, Netflix, five, ten hours — nothing.

I remember in one talk I heard from a friend, he said that the CEO of Netflix was interviewed and was asked: "Who is your main competitor? Hulu? Disney?" The Netflix CEO said, "No, no, none of these guys are our competitors. We're way ahead of the game." So they asked: "Do you have any competitor?" And what he said was super scary. He said, "We only have one competitor, and that is sleep." That eventually a time comes where biologically a man can no longer stay awake — his body crashes and he's forced to fall asleep. That is our only competitor. Besides that, if that factor was not there, we have control over people to such an extent that they can continue watching non-stop, 24 hours, 36 hours, 48 hours. The only thing that stops them is not the bathroom or food — because you can do those while watching — it's the fact that people have to sleep.

This is not something that just happened as a byproduct or accident. If the CEO is articulating this in an interview, what must be happening in the think tanks of those companies? What must be happening at 3 AM when the insiders are sitting there thinking: how do we make our company more profitable, how do we outpace the market? Just imagine how sinister those discussions must be. What they feel comfortable to say to the world — they have no shame in saying what I just shared with you — that they are intentionally making this addictive.

And the sad part is that very few people are willing to accept that social media — or Netflix or these YouTube videos — is addictive. People don't like to acknowledge their weakness. And so this is how far we have reached: we are getting beaten up over the head, we are being butchered, and at the same time we are loving our enemy. Kissing, hugging, and saying, "Can we have some more? I love you. Thank you for continuing to feed me."

The Story of the Cat and the Knife

It reminds me of a story my hifz ustad shared with me. He said there was a cat that saw a piece of fat left on a knife. Cats like fat. So the cat started licking it and said, "Oh, this tastes so good." And subhanAllah, it kept on licking. It wouldn't stop. It said, "This is so juicy, so filled with nice fat and blood." It kept on licking — until eventually it died. Because it was actually not licking the blood of the fat that was on the knife, but it had actually cut itself. And it was licking its own blood — not realizing that the blood was its own and not from what was on that blade.

That's our example right here. We are literally killing ourselves, destroying ourselves through our addictions. And if someone were to tell the cat, "Stop it," it would say, "No, no, why are you taking away this juicy, nice, fresh blood that I'm enjoying?" And someone would say, "Brother, this is not from the meat — it's from yourself. You're killing yourself." So today the addiction to these things has come to a point of voluntary suicide. We are voluntarily killing ourselves — in every sense, spiritually and otherwise.

The Full List of Harms

We can talk about all the major harms of social media. We have: loss of attention span, desensitization, a false notion of what success means, continuous comparison to other people, isolation and loneliness, mental health problems including depression and anxiety, a lack of drive, lack of self-motivation, lack of self-discipline, falling behind in your responsibilities — and from there also leading to addictions not just to posts but to something much worse and more sinister than that. This is just to get started.

All of these things are things that have been learned. You're not born with these addictions. You're not born with these problems. These are things that a person voluntarily chooses to bring into his or her life by continuous exposure. So when people say, "We don't have attention span, make it short," — every single Darussalam student is a testimony that that's wrong. And every single one of you who sit for any of our programs is a testimony that this is wrong. Our programs are long, our talks are long, and alhamdulillah you see the people sit — and they're not scrolling away. Whether it's one hour or two hours, people are glued. People listen. People are taking notes.

Our retreats start at 10 AM, 11 AM — go all the way till 11 PM — back-to-back speeches. And that same ummah, that same group of people who people say have a seven-minute attention span — they've attended seven lectures and taken notes and they're so excited: "Man, why does it end? Can we have a late night session?" What does that tell you? That these addictions can be unlearned. These handicaps can be unlearned. We have created this handicap within ourselves — that we say we need short content, we can only handle 30 seconds. Brother, get off the crutches and start walking.

A big problem is that we want deen compressed into seven seconds. How are we going to learn deen, my friends, in seven seconds or seven minutes? Every single thing we have learned, we can unlearn. Every addiction we have taken on, we can get rid of — as long as you recognize that this is an addiction, this is a flaw, this is a social ill, this is a spiritual disease, and I need to cure myself from it. That's the good news. Alhamdulillah, there is hope.

Isolation and the Loss of Authentic Connection

Obviously, once a person is stuck to their phone the entire time, they don't have the desire to go out and actually talk to people or hang out with friends. And even when they are physically present, they're not fully stimulated enough to want to be there. We are definitely moving towards a more isolationist type of society where people are holed up in their rooms. You go to homes and most of the kids don't want to come out. Before, you'd go to someone's house and the kids would want to come running out. Today the kids don't want to come out. There are guests over and they say: "No, no, I can't, I don't want to meet."

People are scared of coming out of their shells to meet people because they've been so accustomed to being behind the screen. Because being behind the screen allows you to be whoever you want. You can choose the avatar, whatever face you want to show the world, you can. But when you have a one-on-one conversation, you have to be authentic. And so people have forgotten how to be authentic. They don't know how to be authentic.

You should be proud of who you are. No one is perfect. And there is so much perfection in your imperfection. That is why you need to be proud of what Allah has made you. Allah says:

Allah has created you in the very best form. Feel proud about it and just work on your own qualities and attributes and move on.

So what social media is doing to us — along with online games — is actually harming even our most intimate relationships. For example, marriage: many men and women, after getting married, have a major problem speaking to their spouse. I remember someone who studied ilm was telling me that when they walk in the mall with their wife, they just text each other. I'm like: "What do you mean? You and your wife are walking together — enjoy that time together." But they were texting.

We have people who say they sit in class together next to each other the entire day and won't talk — they'll text. Brother, we have lost ourselves. You're sitting next to someone for six, eight hours a day and you text? And when asked why, the answer was that they feel awkward and shy to speak in person. If this is not a sign of some serious disease that we've brought upon ourselves, I don't know what else is. The fact that you cannot use your tongue to speak and you have to text to the person sitting next to you — what's going to happen when you move on with life, get married, and become a mother or a father?

The Post-COVID Reality and the Rise of Mental Illness

COVID was one of the many huge trials of this century. It forced people to stay isolated in their rooms and homes, and forced them onto social media. Within the first week of the COVID lockdown, they had to upgrade the undersea cables because of the sheer amount of online traffic — driven by exactly what you can imagine. Those websites brought in so much traffic that the infrastructure was not set up for it. SubhanAllah.

So this post-COVID generation now also starts applying to study ilm. We had to add a component of an in-person interview to our admissions process — even if applicants were from another state, 1,000 miles or 2,000 miles away. Because we started seeing applicants who were very damaged, or who were not ready to be in this environment. And the numbers of people applying who were clinically depressed, who had mental problems, who had extreme social anxiety, who had emotional issues — it was just too much. We are not equipped to deal with that. This is an academic institution. We do not have on-staff psychiatrists or behavioral therapists.

A couple of years ago, I started asking my class about suicide. I didn't think suicide was a major topic to discuss in class before. But a couple years ago I started seeing it happening a lot more — a lot more janazahs of young people: 19, 20, 21 years old. I asked my first-year students: "How many of you know someone who has taken his life, or attempted to take his life?" And I was shocked. Approximately one third of the class — across all three sections of the one-year program — had already witnessed someone who had taken their life or attempted to take their life. I literally put my head down and said: "I can't believe this. One third of you boys sitting in front of me have seen someone — a friend, a relative, someone in your school — who's already killed himself or attempted to kill himself."

And remember, this is not an inner-city school I'm teaching at. This is a seminary where some of the most motivated students who want to come and learn the deen are coming. It's a very high threshold. But this is the exposure they are getting. What do you think of the average person out there who has no exposure to deen? What must he be faced with? Where is this huge push coming from? Why is there this big spike in suicide?

The only thing we can think of, among the many factors, is that online social media usage has just skyrocketed. And that is a very big reason why these mental illnesses are increasing within the Muslim community and beyond.

Turkey: A Case Study in Social Media's Cultural Impact

This summer I was in Turkey with my ustad, spending some time there. And I was so shocked to see the level of shamelessness in dressing — and I was in the most conservative part of Istanbul, the Fatih district, staying near one of the beautiful masajid, alhamdulillah. I spent ten days in my ustad's company. But I was just shocked to see the level of shamelessness in clothing.

I was speaking to a colleague of mine who also went to Turkey to do a presentation at a university. He said the Turkish people — the seniors, the university professors — told him: "This is not the Turkey of three years ago." This is a completely new phenomenon. This happened post-COVID. When the Turkish population went online and started watching TikTok and other social media platforms — all the content from the Western world and other parts of the world — they wanted to emulate that type of dressing and that type of culture. And it literally took over the Turkish population like a storm, like a tsunami.

The Islamic-leaning government, which obviously realizes this is horrible for the country and for its future, feels that its hands are tied — that it cannot even speak up on this topic or bring about any type of regulation, because the response from the young population will be very strong: huge protests and anger. The entire country's population's clothing has changed because of social media. So this addiction to watching and emulating things is what we're talking about.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

A man follows the religion of his friend, so let each one of you look at whom he befriends. (Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith 4833; Sunan al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2378)

A man follows the religion of his friend — not the religion of his dad, not the religion of his mom, not the religion of his teacher — the religion of his friend. So be careful who you befriend. The problem is, the real friends today are not the people your child sits with in Islamic school. Those are not their real friends. The people in the class just happen to be sitting next to them — like you sit next to someone on a bus or a long flight. The real influence is coming from the people they follow online. The influencers. The people whose every move they listen to. Those are the people who control the world.

Why is it that musicians and artists have the highest following on any of these social media platforms — 50 million, 100 million, 200 million, 300 million? No head of state, no president who you think wields real power, has that much following. And with every gesture of theirs, they literally make the world dance. And you see it — as soon as one of them releases a song, hundreds of millions of downloads happen. The lyrics become like the new verses of the Qur'an in terms of how people recite them and quote them constantly.

The Principle of Harm Outweighing Benefit

I know there are many of you sitting here saying, "But I listen to Islamic lectures. But I get a daily Islamic reminder." Guess what? Allah says:

They ask you about wine and gambling. Allah says: Tell them there is great sin in these things — however, there are also benefits for people. But the harm far outweighs the benefit. That is a golden principle. Red wine has its benefits. Gambling, horrible for the gambler but very beneficial for the company running it and for tax revenue. Yes, it has some benefit. But it has so many horrible effects. So don't look at the 2% or 5% benefit you're getting. Look at the harms that come with it.

Alhamdulillah — why don't you go sit and benefit from your local scholar in your masjid? Why don't you go sit in the dars after Isha, after Fajr in your masjid? Why don't you build a personal relationship? That social media scholar — whoever that is with 300,000 views — how are you going to build a personal relationship with him? He's just giving talks.

Like right now I'm giving a talk to all of us here. But if you don't reach out to me or to any of the ulama who are sitting here in this i'tikaf in the next ten days, your benefit is going to be limited. Your benefit doesn't come by just listening to talks. Your benefit comes from going and checking in with someone. Saying: "I heard your talk. This is how I'm trying to apply it, but these are my issues. What's the answer?" There's no way every single talk is going to be tailored to your specific problems.

The real benefit is when you have a mentor. The real benefit is when you have a murabbi. The real benefit is when you're honest with that murabbi — when you're honest with that shaykh — and you say: "These are my issues, these are my problems, I heard your talks, how do I apply this?" You're not going to get that from a social media scholar. You can get basic benefit — but that's it.

It's like someone who's trying to fix their car by watching YouTube videos. Or trying to fix a GI issue by watching a YouTube video. If you can't fix a gut issue or a kidney issue or a liver issue by watching YouTube videos, how do you expect to fix your spiritual and ruhani issues by just listening to talks? That is just to get you initiated, to get you started. But you have to have a mechanic, you have to have a surgeon, you have to have a nutritionist — similarly you have to have a scholar working on you. All of us do. I need one, you need one, we all need one.

We are not discrediting the benefit you get from online content. We are saying: benefit from it only for the sake of the benefit. A knife is very beneficial. A gun is also very beneficial. But if you have a person who is mentally not stable, who is suicidal, would you ever allow him to be roaming around in a kitchen with knives lying around? Of course not. Similarly, someone who is a phone addict — who just sits there and scrolls away, watching not only the good but the bad and the worst — who has no control over himself and always has to have the phone in hand: even while waiting for a burger, even while eating, even while driving — that is an addict.

For an addicted person to say, "I benefit a little bit from it" — right now we have to go back to normal levels of usage. And in order to get back to normal levels, and to stay away from harmful usage, you have to go cold turkey. You have to cut it out completely, to the point where you no longer desire it anymore. Every addiction that we have taken on, we can get rid of. The good news is that alhamdulillah, there is hope.

Disconnecting from Technology: A Personal Encounter

I remember a young 23-year-old engineer I met on a flight. I was going to Chicago, he was going to Denver. Somehow the conversation came to our no-tech retreat — a 24-hour retreat where we stay away from phones, do i'tikaf, and fast. He said, "Oh, that's very interesting — but I don't really have that issue. I'm not on my phone." And he said, "From childhood, we just spent our time outdoors. Most of the places we go there's no reception, so my entire friend circle — we're always outdoors. We go hiking every single weekend, seeing nature, disconnected from social media, so we have no interest in it."

I was so surprised listening to this non-Muslim person speak like this. It was so refreshing. And that's exactly why we say it's so important to disconnect. What has social media done to us? We love to watch clips of someone else's hike to the top of a mountain. We love to watch someone else's fishing expedition. But how about we just go watch the butterflies in our own backyard? Now we can't do that because we're inside watching someone else's experience.

We're watching reels upon reels of nature without literally going and looking at the nature in our own backyard or front yard. When was the last time we sat outside after Fajr? I remember from childhood — simple, beautiful things. After Fajr in the summer with the windows open, hearing the chirping of the birds. Taking a walk in the front yard with dew on my feet, without slippers, without socks, walking on fresh wet grass. Going outside after Maghrib with my siblings and trying to catch fireflies. Riding bikes around the neighborhood. Playing basketball with the neighbors. The neighbor's mom bringing things over. Genuinely connecting with the people around us.

That was a pre-social media, pre-smartphone environment. Such genuine, beautiful experiences with people — Muslims and non-Muslims, neighbors — as well as with nature. And so if we want to get back to being normal, there's no way we're going to do this if we're stuck and glued to our phones.

The Coming Metaverse and the Dajjalic Reality

You know, where this metaverse is going — where Google and other companies are coming up with eyeglasses and virtual goggles — one brother from our community said he bought one. He had some relatives coming over to his house, so he wanted to come up with some activities. He said he had it for one night, wore it for a couple hours, and the next day he went and returned it. He said, "It felt so evil. Literally when you wear that, you're in an entire different world." And right now, he said, they've made it so comfortable to wear that you can wear it for hours. But within the next few years, it's going to become a chip. It'll be like contacts. And that's it.

There's no doubt about what I'm saying is going to happen. There will come a point where you cannot differentiate. The majority of the world will probably live a life in which they cannot think of a life without this. Just like if someone said to me 15-20 years ago: "You're going to have something called a smartphone in your pocket, and you'll forget where your wife is, forget where your kids are, but you'll never forget where your phone is." I wouldn't have believed it. But that's our life today.

If you were told 30 years ago that before you eat there will be one other very important sunnah — to take a picture of what you're eating and send it somewhere — you wouldn't have believed it. When you go for Umrah and Hajj, besides ihram and niyyah, one of the things people feel they must do as they're entering the Haram is have their camera open. You can see it — you know who's new, they come out of the car like this, phone out, camera rolling. This is the craze.

I was in India a couple of years ago and stopped with a taxi driver to pick up some food and pray Maghrib. We ate at a small dhaba on the street. After we finished, a bus came — one of those old, painted buses — and out came all these people, poor people, taking this very humble form of public transportation. They came out of the bus. And lo and behold, two young girls, maybe 13-14 years old, came out with their parents and pulled out their smartphones and were taking a picture, checking into this little rest area. And that's when I said: it's game over. It's not that America is under the wraps of these social media giants. No — the whole world is. The small 14-year-old coming from a village in India is controlled. That if you have a smartphone and social media, you use it. The beggar will also say, "I'll take Zelle." He'll give you his phone. "Venmo, no problem." Everyone's got a smartphone.

The control that's happening across the globe is shocking. And the future is going to be where these goggles will create what you call an augmented reality — and it will not be something of your choice. Mark my words. That a person will take this augmented, fake, dajjalic reality and plaster it over his face to such an extent that he can no longer differentiate between what is real and what is augmented. That is the goal. That is the goal.

When you're in that reality, wearing those goggles, you're not listening to the bayan. You're not listening to the tilawah of the Qur'an. You are filtering everything through those lenses. And you can see a version of this already — in most talks and most khutbahs, look at how many people are on their phones. In fact, about six months ago, one of our volunteers told me that during the Jumu'ah khutbah, one 30-plus-year-old man was on his phone in the lobby playing a shooting game. I couldn't take it. I went up to him, tapped him on the shoulder, and introduced myself. I said, "I'm the imam of the masjid here. Brother, I think you should put that away." He said, "No, no, I know, I know." I said, "What do you know? Do you hear the khutbah? He is speaking about you and your phone right now." And he grudgingly shut his phone and put it in his pocket. But by that time, the talk was in its last minute.

So when you're on your phone, you're not listening to the talk, you have no idea what's happening. And it's going to get much, much worse when these goggles come in and eventually become implants — where now you only listen and hear and watch and feel what these evil forces want you to sense. And you'll only think in the manner they want you to think. How hard will it be at that time to remove that implant?

SubhanAllah — what's going to happen at that time? When the orchestra master will be Shaytan and his cronies, like Dajjal. They're going to be the ones running the orchestra. And everyone is going to be hypnotized without even recognizing it. So it starts from now. How does this hypnosis start? If we're already addicted to social media to the point that we cannot eat without posting, cannot go to the beach without taking pictures of others swimming instead of swimming ourselves — that's what we have become.

My beloved brothers, I'm not exaggerating, I'm not joking. The ummah is very, very sick. And the ones who will warn people from Dajjal will sound even crazier to people. He's not here yet — he's coming, whenever Allah wills. But this is that road.

Artificial Intelligence: The Tip of the Iceberg

What we're going to talk about — artificial intelligence — will completely change the entire world. Already, when you have a clip of a scholar, we have the technology: once you have even a few seconds of someone's voice, you can completely create not only the voice saying anything you want, but also the movements and gestures. There was recently a video circulating on WhatsApp and YouTube — it was an audio message in someone else's voice, but with the picture of Mufti Taqi Usmani on the clip, giving some strange instruction about what to read to get married. And Mufti Taqi himself had to release a statement saying, "This is absolutely not me. I don't give these types of words." That is the tip of the iceberg of what we're going to see.

I mentioned the other night that with these goggles — already one-year-old commercial technology — there have been cases where people who've lost loved ones wear the goggles and communicate with their deceased relatives. Basically: you give your video footage of your grandmother to the company, they process it, and now you wear the goggle and you see your grandma in her favorite outfit, in her familiar place. You've given them enough voice data that artificial intelligence can recreate your grandmother — where now you can speak to her: "How are you doing, Nani Jaan?" And that is AI speaking back to you, using the same voice, same gestures, same lips, continuing a conversation.

There are already AI-generated girlfriends and boyfriends available. It's crazy. The word dajjal is just so amazing — how the Prophet ﷺ taught us this word. The name of the game is deception. It's all fake. Fake, fake, fake. That's what artificial intelligence is going to be about: presenting something that's different than what it really is.

If we focus only on online resources — if we depend upon seeking knowledge exclusively from online sources, watching videos and listening to lectures exclusively without having an actual person that we can communicate with, touch their hand, and say, "As-salamu alaykum" — our deen is completely in jeopardy. So this is what I am encouraging you to do: build real relationships with ulama. Build real relationships with scholars.

Why do I always speak about my teachers? Did they tell me to speak about them? Did they know I was going to speak about them? No. But I truly love my ustads. I have built extremely strong relationships with them, and everything I have is because of my parents and my teachers. Those are the things I want all of you to have — real, meaningful relationships with scholars who will develop you, whom you can call and ask, whom you can visit. If we focus only on online resources, we will harm ourselves.

Scrolling Your Haya Away: The Spiritual Harms of Social Media

Listening to all of those harms may make us think that's the end of it — but that's just the beginning. These are only the physical harms. Now, if we try to get into the spiritual harms of social media, that's like a whole new Pandora's box.

We can backtrack to that conversation about Turkey, where all of a sudden everyone's dressing differently. That can be attributed to the desensitization that comes from seeing the other gender so much on screen. A lot of us may not even realize that a woman's hair is 'awrah — because it's so normalized, at least in this country, that we don't even recognize that we're looking at something haram. And the stuff on social media is beyond that — and the more we see it, the more we get used to it.

From that I want to go into just general lack of haya. Obviously we have one side — the users consuming content that makes them more desensitized. But on the other hand we have creators — a lot of times Muslim creators — who are basically exposing their sins for everyone else to see. We know that if a Muslim has committed a sin, we should conceal it because Allah conceals our sins. But these people may be scared of doing things online that could get them in trouble with the government, yet they're not worried about blasting their sins that Allah will hold them accountable for.

The Moral Compass Has Changed

One of the things that a person, as you pointed out, is that our perspective of what is right and what is wrong has changed. This is really scary. The moral compass of what's acceptable and what's not has changed — because of the exposure online.

For example, the previous generation: when a father would walk into a house, people would come to greet him. You could not be in your room when your dad walked in from work — everyone would come to say salam, ask how he was doing, and take care of the needs of the parents. When a father walks into your bedroom you would stand up immediately. There was natural adab and respect. Mom calls out, a person says "ji" and is present, responding politely. That type of respect has eroded. Where now people treat their parents in a very horrible manner. And the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ is coming true — that a slave girl will give birth to her master, meaning people will treat their parents as though the child owns them, and a parent will be scared of their child as though they are the slave and the child is the master. I think that era has already begun in many homes. May Allah protect us.

We have seen horrible things — parents literally telling me they've been physically beaten by their own children. They showed me the bruises. And they were scared. They eventually had to call the police. Astaghfirullah al-'azim. That's where we're headed. And these are stories from people who are connected to the deen, connected to masajid and institutions. When I tell you a story, this is not about the average person out there — this is about people like you and me, people who come to the masjid.

Haya and Modesty: Everything Is a Filter

One of the things we have really lost from all of this is our haya. How to speak to a parent, how to speak to elders, how to act in front of one another — people have completely lost it because of social media. Social media creates a filter — everything is fake. The fruit doesn't actually look like that. The food doesn't actually look like that. The model's face is actually not like that. It's all filters. And even though we all know about these filters, every single day we still fall for it.

This has created a whole different dynamic of what is acceptable and what's not morally. And now people are pushing the limits of how much you can expose. This whole genre of having a very short clip that disappears after someone sees it — what has that done? It has made people brazen. It has made people lose any type of inhibition. The thrill of putting yourself out there. And who has fallen into this trap? Muslims have fallen into it big time.

Redefining What Is Haram

As you brought up — what does the word "haram content" mean for a Muslim? Anything beyond the satr, if you're seeing the 'awrah, that's haram. That's it. Our explanation and definition of what is forbidden — if we're seeing someone's hair, is that halal? Someone's neck, someone's nape, someone's back, someone's legs — we cannot say, "Oh, that's okay, that's not problematic." For a Muslim, that is all haram.

I remember sitting with our honorable teacher one day. He said that people talk about, "Oh, one glance is forgiven." Especially when you have video, when you have a picture that can last endlessly. He said: one glance is forgiven when it's accidental — when your eyes happened to fall upon someone's face or hand. But he said, as for the 'awrah — the chest, the back, the hair — how can you say even one is forgiven? None of that is forgiven. It's all haram.

And then he got up in his family room and showed us: "Let me teach you how to walk." He said, this is how you're supposed to walk — straight ahead, eyes down. That's exactly how he walks. Our honorable ustad, rahimahullah, may Allah elevate his status — that's how he used to walk. He said: try this for 40 days, six weeks. Walk looking down and see how the world of your heart will change. You'll become a different person. Because of continuously watching — not just on the phone, but even outside — so much that is haram, so much 'awrah, we have naturally all become desensitized.

And I want to tell you something very important: just because you've become desensitized does not mean you're not getting harmed. There are different levels of how much a person can handle a drug or a substance. Someone who is accustomed to it won't feel the effect from a smaller dose — but that does not mean it's not harming them. Similarly: just because someone has seen so much 'awrah that now he goes outside and sees it everywhere and doesn't feel anything — that does not mean he is not spiritually destroying himself. Just because you don't feel anything does not mean you don't actually spiritually harm yourself. This is a very important point.

In fact, someone who has seen so much haram that now he needs a higher dosage to feel it — that just means that he has unfortunately really corrupted himself. Think about someone in the so-called haram industry. All day filming and posting these types of things. I bet you if you were to talk to that person, he would tell you, "Oh, it's just a job, I don't feel anything." Because he has been so exposed to it that he's become desensitized. And now men and women start thinking that if they don't get triggered by something, that means it's halal. Allahu Akbar. Game over. Our desire cannot be the arbiter of what is halal and haram.

The Objectification of Women in Islamic Spaces

What social media has also done is completely legitimize the usage of the opposite gender — not just for promoting cars at an auto show or toothpaste or shampoo — but now connecting that with something spiritual and Islamic. You want to listen to a beautiful talk? What's going to be the thumbnail? A young attractive girl. You want to listen to a nasheed, a hamd, a naat sharif of Rasulullah ﷺ — who's going to be the thumbnail? An attractive girl. You want to sign up for an Arabic class? You'll see a picture of a young attractive girl taking notes. You want to attend a conference? You'll have a picture front and center of a young attractive female giving a talk — decked out with makeup, giving a talk on the seerah of the Prophet ﷺ, which is presented as "so heart touching." What is touching? You're not getting touched by the bayan — you're getting touched by something else.

Stop fooling yourself. Stop lying to yourself. If you keep on deceiving yourself, one day it's going to be too late. The smallest level of insincerity — Allah does not accept. Imagine if the intention is not just insincerity but is actually haram. That I want to go check someone out. The proof is in the pudding. One person who had a joint space where young men and women came to attend a class together — when someone suggested putting up a partition between men and women in the same space, with the same scholar speaking — the attendance dropped from 80 people per week down to about 25. And those who remained were mostly girls. All the guys stopped coming. Proof is in the pudding.

And I am being very reserved in what I share here. I'm being careful because I'm not here to cause a ruckus. But — الْعَاقِلُ تَكْفِيهِ الْإِشَارَة — the one who is intelligent will understand. وَالْغَبِيُّ لَا تَكْفِيهِ الصَّرَاحَة — and the one who is a fool, even if you explicitly tell him, he won't understand.

The idea is: social media has completely reversed the meaning of haya and modesty. For example — "hijabi model." This is an oxymoron. What does it mean: hijabi fashion model? A hijabi magazine? A tutorial with 2-3 million Instagram followers on "hijab fashion"? Is this hijab, dear brothers and sisters? If you didn't wear a scarf and walked around with your hair open, you probably would fall into less sin than this version of so-called hijab.

I remember my mother telling me: in medical school and undergrad in India in the 60s and 70s, even the Hindu girls knew they didn't hang out with guys openly. There was a general environment of haya in Hyderabad — even among non-Muslims — that they did not hang out with the opposite gender, at least openly. And although Muslim women may not have worn scarves the way they do now, there was a sense of haya that is absolutely not found today.

How many times am I traveling and I encounter a hijabi sister who is wearing so much cologne that I have to take steps back? And they just keep on coming. SubhanAllah. It should be the other way around. That was the behavior of Maryam, alayha salam — radiyallahu anha — when she saw Jibreel alayhi salam, she backed away saying:

She said, "I seek refuge in the Most Merciful from you, if you have any taqwa." She backed away from him. What's happening now is the opposite — where men sometimes have to back away at MSA events and other events from sisters wearing hijab. What does that tell you? That the meaning of haya is completely gone, and now hijab is a fashion statement.

This whole movement of making hijab and jilbab "attractive" — go to Saudi Arabia or the Middle East and try to buy a modest jilbab for your mother, your daughter, your wife. You'll have such a hard time finding something that is actually modest and not flashy. Because if Tommy Hilfiger is making a jilbab, obviously it's going to be flashy. That's the whole purpose. And now remember the hadith of the Prophet ﷺ:

There will be at the end of my ummah, women who are clothed yet naked. (Sahih Muslim, Hadith 2128)

There are many different meanings of that — of course the scantily clothed, that's one thing. But it's also about the hijab and the jilbab: if a person's hair was all open and they were wearing their own normal clothing, it may not have been that attractive. But by adding all that allure and embellishment — by adding all that lachak and attraction — this person has now become even more attractive. We're being fooled.

Understand that influencers have so much influence — especially on girls — that if a hijabi influencer for some odd reason decides to take off her hijab, literally in one night, thousands of girls take off their hijab. They have gotten that much power. If you watch any influencer — any of you boys or girls — this is your suicide. Why are you submitting yourself to someone else besides Allah and His Rasul ﷺ? Stop it. Unfollow all these people. There's no reason for us to follow where they eat, how they eat, what they do. Allah has given you your own intellect. You are disrespecting your own iman. You are disrespecting your own deen, your parents, your identity — by saying, "I am a little puppy that will wag its tail and just follow anyone who throws something at me."

The Celebrity Culture in Islamic Spaces

What social media has also done is push the limits of what's acceptable and what's not — and has now completely reversed the meaning of haya and modesty. Social media has also completely destroyed the culture of Islamic scholarship and replaced it with a celebrity culture.

Recently, a president of a masjid called me very frustrated. He said he had a fundraiser coming to the masjid who wanted to charge $7,500 for a 45-minute fundraiser. They agreed. Then, a week before the event, the fundraiser called back and said: "I have another organization willing to pay me $15,000 for that night. Unless you match $15,000, I'm going there." And this is something you should know — there are some speakers out there for whom part of the contract is a nine-page document stating: "I will not be meeting any administration or any member of the masjid before or after the event. Anything that needs to be done needs to be done within that one hour or 45 minutes. No extra announcements, no extra salah — anything added will be charged separately. If the event is canceled, there is still a 50% payment." To the extent that the type of water bottle and type of pillow in the hotel room is specified.

I was told about one speaker who intentionally booked two spots simultaneously to be able to get 50% from one place and the full fee from another. Nine-page contract. For a 45-minute talk. Subhanallah.

And what happened during COVID is that Zoom talks started. And they had the audacity to start charging the same amount for Zoom talks. He said, "Brother, I'm still giving the talk, I'm still raising the money." And then after COVID ended: "If I was getting paid $5,000 for a Zoom talk, how can I come fly out to your community now for $5,000? Now that's got to be at least $10,000." And the community doesn't know any of this — they just show up excited because someone famous is coming to the bayan.

If one of those famous guys were sitting here tonight, we would have a crowd all the way upstairs, downstairs, in every side prayer hall. And all of you would have your phones out right after the talk trying to get a selfie in front of the minbar. Don't lie — that's what most people would be doing. Because it's not about the content. It's about the fame. The fact that you got a chance to see a celebrity is what drives people.

Now, how can our lives change when it's not Allah, Rasulullah ﷺ, or the talk of deen that's driving us to the masjid — but literally the fame of that person? One city I visited — the imam there told me that a famous YouTuber came from the UK to give a talk, and they had 10,000 youth show up. He said it was the biggest, worst mistake they'd ever made. People were wearing shoes inside the masjid because they just wanted to get in. It was all about checking in on Facebook. It was a stampede — the police had to be called. And no one cared what the person was saying.

So this is something we have to make tawbah from: Stop judging scholarship based on social media clout. Stop judging ilm based on viewership online. Stop judging piety and taqwa based on social media presence. Otherwise, you've destroyed your deen. It is possible for a person to be very well-known and to be a great scholar. But we cannot make social media following the litmus test. All of these great ulama that we read about — the grand mufti of this place who passed away, the grand scholar of that place who passed away, the reviver of Islam of this area who passed away — they were not on social media. But that's what this social media generation has done: it has amplified certain voices and completely removed other voices.

So next time you're taking a class, or next time you're invited towards ilm — please build your connection with your local scholar. If your masjid has an imam who is a graduate of a reputable institution, get to know him. If he offers classes, please sit in those classes. Build that relationship. And do not think your ilm will only come from social media giants.

Social Media Is Not a Free Space: The Palestinian Example

One more thing. What the Palestinian issue has shown us is that social media is not a free place. It is absolutely regulated. Any voice that is pro certain groups or parties that those running it don't like — they will completely censor you. They will silence you. How many ulema and activists have told me: "Every single post of mine gets good engagement, but I posted about Palestine two days ago and there are like two likes. This is impossible." There is an entire study done by an independent non-profit — you can find it online — on how social media has been 100% biased against the Palestinian cause and has intentionally silenced those voices.

I want you to understand that the days of social media — Facebook, Twitter — for Muslims to be present on these platforms are numbered, more than likely. Only those people who have a very clear alignment with a certain agenda will be allowed to remain, and all other voices will be shut down. This is from the words of one of the most famous Islamic personalities online, who told me this himself in Medina. He said, "Our days on Facebook are numbered. It's like we're going to someone else's coffee shop, someone else's real estate, and giving a bayan there. We're at the mercy of the people who own that place. And they will say, 'We don't like your bayans anymore — you're done.'"

So if you want ilm and deen, you have to be willing to travel the road less traveled. You'll have to make an effort to go and get it. What will be readily available in front of you, unfortunately, will be things that are tainted, that have been pushed by certain groups, that have a very clear agenda.

A Call to Return to Real Scholarship and Real Relationships

We're going to have an entire retreat on artificial intelligence — that's going to be an eye-opening weekend, insha'Allah, for many of you. But what I've spoken about so far — wallahi — is the tip of the iceberg of what I even know. And what I don't know is the tip of the iceberg of that. It's a crazy world out there. But when augmented reality and artificial intelligence comes in full-blown, what's going to happen is that you can never trust anything. The word Dajjal is just so amazing — how Rasulullah ﷺ taught us this word. The name of the game is deception. It's all fake.

So it goes back to this: if you want ilm, learn how to start getting it in person. Learn how to connect with people. Build real relationships with ulama. Build real relationships with scholars. Why do I always speak about my teachers? Did they tell me to? Did they know I would? No. But I truly love my ustads. I have built extremely strong relationships with them, and everything I have is because of my parents and my teachers. Those are the things I want all of you to have — real, meaningful relationships with scholars who will develop you, whom you can call and ask, whom you can sit with and who you will, when needed, catch a flight to go visit.

Programs and Opportunities

I want to encourage all the brothers and sisters listening — whether online or here in person — to look into the programs we have at Darussalam.

One of the programs is the Tanweer Intensive Program — the one-year immersion program — which begins insha'Allah on August 12. Every single host of every night of this i'tikaf series is a graduate of the one-year program, and they're doing great things out in the dunya — but they've got this one-year program under their belt keeping them, insha'Allah, safe and sound.

The next program is the Tamheed Summer Intensive. We have two options this summer: the Deen Intensive for four weeks from June 19 to July 12, and the Essential Arabic Course from July 22 to August 9. These courses are taught not by a bot, not by an AI-generated scholar, but by actual human beings with flesh and blood. And the most beautiful thing about all the courses is that you get a chance to build an actual relationship with a scholar. You'll have exposure to the ulama in these courses, and you'll be able to build meaningful, lasting relationships.

A more accessible program to start with is our Tafim Program — Saturday mornings and Sunday mornings, 10 AM till Dhuhr. A three-hour Islamic studies class for college students, working adults, and professionals. No Arabic required.

I encourage all of you: make niyyah that you will take out time — one year. Don't you think this was an eye-awakening talk? This was one hour. Imagine getting 11 months of this. I want you to be able to completely go back to your fitrah. Because our minds and hearts have unfortunately departed from the fitrah because of all the exposure we have every day on social media. It's going to take a lot of time to detox our hearts and minds, to unlearn the things we have learned, and to learn the things we haven't learned yet — whether it's Arabic, aqeedah, seerah, fiqh, tajweed, tazkiyah, good working habits, good etiquette, good study habits. Those things take time to learn.

Those fathers and mothers who are listening — please make it part of your son and daughter's goal to take time out and study the deen, insha'Allah ta'ala.

Also, every single Tuesday night after Ramadan — alhamdulillah — we have tafsir here, between Maghrib and Isha, followed by tea. I encourage all of you locals to come every Tuesday night with your group of friends. And our Khatmul Qur'an is Monday night, alhamdulillah — so I encourage you, if you can take time off, please come. If you're already off from school or work, bring your bedding, register, and spend the remaining days and nights here. Away from your phone. And insha'Allah ta'ala you will have a very beautiful, powerful impact on your life.

Closing Advice: How to Help Others

A question was asked: How do you help family and friends who are very addicted to social media?

One of the best things is this: through this i'tikaf, if we ourselves cut down our usage, then we actually have much more meaningful conversations with our parents, much more meaningful conversations with our siblings. Everyone around us will start seeing the benefit of the fact that we ourselves have benefited by cutting down our social media usage. So we ourselves can become a motivation to our siblings and relatives when they see the benefit within us.

If you tell them, "Hey, put that phone away," it's not going to help. They're addicted. They have to come into an environment like this and passively listen to something beneficial. You can also send them a link to what we just spoke about. But the real impact comes from bringing them into an environment of spirituality where they will themselves realize what they're doing is wrong — instead of you telling them, because they won't like that. Bring them into the environment. That is my simple answer to everything.

Du'a

One of the things that makes Shaytan run away from a masjid, from a home, from wherever, is adhan — adhan has La ilaha illallah, which really hits the Shaytan. When we do dhikr of La ilaha illallah, we should imagine the demons within us — that make us addicted to things, that make us sin, that make us do things we know we shouldn't be doing — being pushed out of our system as we repeat the dhikr of La ilaha illallah.

O Allah, O Most Merciful Allah, on this blessed 23rd night of Ramadan, we ask You, Allah, to grant all of us forgiveness. O Allah, these hours that we sat together in Your house — O Allah, we hope it was only for You. O Allah, we hope this humble, simple action of simply staying awake on these blessed nights, sitting in the masjid after performing Isha with jama'a, and praying insha'Allah Fajr with jama'a — O Allah, grant us the reward of qiyamul layl of the entire night. Grant us the reward of dhikr of the entire night. Grant us the reward of du'a of the entire night. Grant us the reward of tawbah the entire night.

O Allah, please do not allow our sins to haunt us. We seek refuge in You from the evil effects of our sins, the evil effect of our nafs, the evil effect of Shaytan, the evil effect of bad company. Ya Allah, whatever mistakes were made by eyes, by ears, by hands, by feet, by the mind, by the tongue, by the lips, by every single portion of our body — we ask Your forgiveness for that. O Allah, purify our eyes, purify our ears, purify our hands and feet, purify our tongues, purify our lips, purify our hearts, purify every limb of our body.

O Allah, we seek refuge in You from Your anger, we seek refuge in You from Your punishment, we seek refuge in You from suffering in this world or the next. O Allah, we ask You to turn the direction of our heart towards You — away from Your creation, towards the akhira, away from this world, towards good deeds, away from a life of materialism. Ya Allah, grant us conviction in du'a, grant us conviction in the promises of Your Prophet, grant us conviction in the promises, the warnings, and the glad tidings of the Qur'an. O Allah, make our hearts convinced that everything You have said and everything Your Prophet ﷺ has spoken is true.

O Allah, allow us to have a proper understanding of right and wrong. O Allah, we seek refuge in You from having an adulterated understanding of what is right and what is wrong. O Allah, we seek refuge in You from losing our modesty, from losing our sense of shame. O Allah, protect us and our generation from losing the sense of shame. O Allah, make every one of us filled with haya and bashfulness. Make every single one of us, Ya Allah, filled with modesty. O Allah, make us all — men and women — people of modesty. O Allah, we are a nation known for modesty. O Allah, once again allow this ummah to be known for its modesty.

O Allah, we ask You, Ya Allah, to remove the veils from our eyes that do not allow us to see right from wrong and wrong from right. O Allah, remove the veils from our hearts that don't allow our hearts to recognize what's right and what's wrong. O Allah, whatever Your Prophet ﷺ has declared haram — allow us to declare it haram. Whatever he has declared permissible — allow us to declare it permissible.

O Allah, the barakah of Ramadan — as its days and nights are numbered — O Allah, do not allow us to leave this month and this month to leave us except in a state where our souls have been enlightened, our souls have been energized, and we have truly repented from our major and minor sins. Ya Allah, allow our life after Ramadan and after i'tikaf to be vastly different and vastly improved from the life before Ramadan and before i'tikaf.

O Allah, we ask You, Ya Allah, to make us such whose hearts are connected with You, whose tongues are always moist in Your remembrance. O Allah, make us amongst those who are conscious of Your presence. O Allah, make us amongst those who think twice before we say anything or do anything. O Allah, make us amongst those who desire to keep You happy every moment of our life — and who become worthy of earning Your pleasure and eventually earning Your paradise.

O Allah, make us amongst those who have barakah in whatever we put our hands to. O Allah, put barakah in our sustenance, put barakah in our earnings, put barakah in our education. O Allah, put barakah in the lives of our parents, our spouses, our children and our siblings and every member of our household. O Allah, grant us protection of our iman, protection of our health, protection of our wealth, protection of our homes. Ya Allah, protection of all of our masajid, all of our madadis, all of our deeni institutions. Ya Allah, protection of our most valuable real estate — our hearts.

O Allah, protect our hearts from the continuous attacks of Shaytan, from the continuous attacks of our nafs, from the continuous attacks of toxic elements within society, from the continuous attacks and misuse of social media and online content. Ya Allah, allow us to use our phones, social media, and the internet only for the most beneficial of things. Ya Allah, we seek refuge in You from all the evil that lurks on it. We seek refuge in You from all the evil that is available on it. O Allah, protect our young minds, our young children and youth, Ya Allah, from falling prey to all of this sin, from falling prey to all of these harmful traps.

O Allah, grant us all the foresight to be able to see the fitna that is coming. Ya Allah, grant us the nur of iman in our hearts, and the firasa by virtue of which we can distinguish what's right and what's wrong — by which we can distinguish those who are inviting towards paradise from those who are inviting towards hell. O Allah, do not allow our desires to blind us. O Allah, save us from making our own desires the benchmark of what's right and what's wrong. O Allah, save us from becoming desensitized to sin. O Allah, all the sin that we have committed that has created desensitization within us — O Allah, please once again return us back to our fitrah. Return us back to our innate nature.

Ya Allah, we ask You to make every one of us from amongst the revivers of Islam. Make our spouses and our children, our future spouses and future children, the revivers of Islam. O Allah, allow us to become a true embodiment of the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ. O Allah, make us from amongst those who see the fitnahs miles and miles away. O Allah, allow us to plan to protect ourselves and our communities from those fitnahs. O Allah, do not allow us to become the victims of the latest fitnah.

O Allah, we ask You to allow us to become a means of protection of our siblings, our parents, and our communities. O Allah, protect us from the evil plots of the shayateen — from humans and jinn. O Allah, protect us from the evil effects of hasad, from sihr, from the evil eye, and from all other horrible things that lurk out there that we are aware of and not aware of — both physical and metaphysical.

O Allah, we ask You to grant all of us a strong spiritual relationship with You. O Allah, allow every single member of i'tikaf to have a personal, private, uninterrupted relationship with You, Ya Allah. O Allah, allow us to be able to share our emotions with You, allow us to share our stories with You, and allow us to enjoy Your response. Allow us to feel Your presence, Ya Allah. Allow us to have the firm conviction that You are the only one who actually listens properly, and the only one who can actually help us.

O Allah, allow us to increase the time we spend in du'a. O Allah, we seek refuge in You from all the evil that we have done in the past and the evil we are doing now. O Allah, we ask You to guide the ummah — guide the ummah, guide the ummah — wherever they may be across the globe. O Allah, revive Islam within the ummah. Allow the sleeping ummah to wake up. O Allah, allow the crying and beseeching of the people of Gaza to become a means of awakening the sleeping ummah. O Allah, bring a revival of haya within the ummah, revival of taqwa within the ummah, revival of love of the masjid within the ummah, revival of love for knowledge within the ummah.

O Allah, I am sure the cries of the people of Gaza are not falling anywhere but clearly upon You, Ya Allah. You hear and see everything. O Allah, it is out of Your own wisdom — which we do not know the depth or the extent of — that Your immediate nusrah and help hasn't come yet. O Allah, we seek forgiveness if it is because of our own sins. We beg You, Ya Allah, to forgive us if it is because of our own sins that they have not been assisted yet. O Allah, allow us to reflect about what's happening across the globe and repent.

O Allah, grant Your special hidden assistance to all those who are oppressed across the globe. O Allah, whatever part of the world they may be in — please assist them, Ya Allah. O Allah, whoever has whatever spiritual, emotional, physical, mental, or financial need — Ya Allah, fulfill all of their needs. O Allah, those who are not married, make it easy for them to find the very best of spouses. Those who are married, make it easy for them to have righteous, pious, God-fearing children. O Allah, make it easy for every parent to raise their children appropriately.

O Allah, we ask You to open up the doors of marriage and close the doors of haram — close the doors of zina, and open up the doors of halal, Ya Allah. O Allah, we ask You to accept all our volunteers and all the mu'takefeen and all the attendees who come here every night and every day. Ya Allah, reward them all — our well-wishers, our donors. O Allah, we ask You to accept every single one of them, our students past and present, our staff members. We ask You to make every single one of them accepted in Your court, Ya Allah.

Ameen.

Insha'Allah, Fajr salah is around 5:15. We have less than an hour and a half of very valuable time. I encourage you brothers to please go downstairs, have your suhoor, and then come back and do individual du'a, tahajjud, and qiyamul layl insha'Allah until Fajr. We have very little time — let's not try to waste this at all.

As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.