The Beginning of Guidance with Ustadh Ubaydullah Evans | Session 2

The Beginning of Guidance — Session 2: Obedience and Etiquette with Allah

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Alhamdulillah. We praise Him, we ask for His help, we ask for His forgiveness, we ask for His guidance. And we seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and from the evil of our deeds. Whomsoever Allah guides, none can misguide him, and whomsoever He misguides, none can guide him. And I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.

We are in mercy, we are in mercy, we are in mercy. It is a great honor and a great privilege, as always, to be included in such an esteemed lineup of scholars, teachers, and presenters. And we are still covering Imam Ghazali's book, Bidayatul Hidayah — The Beginning of Guidance.

Last week, we talked a little bit about Imam Ghazali. We talked a little bit about the culture in which this work was developed. And we went into the first chapter of the book, where Imam Ghazali is talking to different categories of scholars — some of them sincere, some of them beginning insincere and becoming sincere, and some of them completely overwhelmed by shaytan — taking knowledge as a means to amassing wealth, taking knowledge as a means to enjoying status, privilege, exclusive access, etc. So that was the first chapter.

Chapter 2: Obedience to Allah

Today, we are going to enter Chapter 2. We're going to begin Chapter 2. And this chapter is titled Ta'at — In Obedience. How we should regard the obedience of Allah. Obeying Allah.

And the first thing he mentions is: the commands of God are either obligations or non-obligations. They are either obligations or supererogatory. They are either things you must do or things you have the option to do if you want to do them.

Divine Rights and Human Dignity

Speaking about Fara'id, we are a culture that is very comfortable with the notion of human rights. Human rights is a very powerful construct. In fact, we as Muslims actually have something in our text — in the Qur'an — that Allah says:

This idea that there is an inherent nobility that human beings possess — that they cannot forfeit, and that they must always be treated in accordance with, always be treated in view of, that inherent nobility. It's something that all of us possess as human beings.

However, we are not as comfortable — or we are not as conversant — in the discourse of divine rights. That simply by virtue of the fact that Allah is divine, by virtue of the fact that Allah is God, there are certain things that are due to Him. And this is very difficult for us to understand.

Usually when I'm teaching this, with an Aqeedah, we just talk about the name of Allah:

That if anybody other than God is referred to with this designation الْمُتَكَبِّرُ — this is an insult. It literally means arrogant, haughty. If I say about someone هو رجل متكبر — "He's an arrogant man" — that's an insult to him. But in the case of God, الْمُتَكَبِّرُ is one of His names, one of His أسماء, one of His صفات. Because Allah is rightfully مُتَكَبِّرُ. This is usually an example cited by the people of Kalam to say that everything about His essence is different than ours. Everything about His divinity is different than our humanity.

So when we talk about God, there are certain things that are inherently due to God. One of them is worship — that we must worship God and we must worship God alone. This is something inherently due to God, just by virtue of the fact that He is our Lord and Sustainer. And these things are Fara'id — these are obligations. These are the rights of God.

And when you think about giving God those rights — think about them practically speaking — these are the things that you must do to be a decent human being. Just to live in a way that justifies your existence, you have to do the Fara'id. If someone is doing less than the Fara'id — any person — if they are doing less than what God has made an obligation upon them, they are living in a way that does not justify their existence.

Now this does not mean that we treat them in any way that is not neighborly. The Prophet ﷺ encountered many people that were living in ways that did not justify their existence — and how did he treat them? With respect, with deference, with consideration. So don't take the syllogism too far. But know that the Fara'id — these are not things that we do because we are so inclined, or things that we do because we are feeling particularly spiritual. These are the things that we must do.

Ra's al-Mal and Ribh al-Mal: The Investment and the Profit

Imam Ghazali in this chapter says that the Fara'id — this is the ra's al-mal — this is your initial investment. These are the things that are due to God. The Nawafil — this is the ribh al-mal — this is the profit. These are the things that you do to get closer to Allah. The non-obligatory acts of worship — those voluntary acts of worship, those things that you do as an expression of devotion.

Now I want to say about the Fara'id: if someone only does the Fara'id, out of the immense mercy of Allah, they will still insha'Allah attain salvation. There was once a Bedouin man who came to the Prophet ﷺ and he asked the Prophet ﷺ: "Tell me if I embrace Islam — what? And don't add anything and don't subtract anything. If I embrace Islam, what is my obligation? What is my individual obligation?" And the Prophet ﷺ told him the Arkan al-Khamsah — the five pillars of Islam: to take the Shahada, to make the Salah, to fast in the month of Ramadan, to pay the Zakah, and to make Hajj once in your lifetime if financially able.

The man said, وَاللَّهِ — "I'm not going to do any more than you said, and I'm not going to do any less than you said." And the Prophet ﷺ said: "If this man is true in what he says, هو من أهل الجنة — he's from the people of paradise." And that is the mercy of our Lord — that simply by doing what we're obligated to do, we can attain salvation.

But this book — Imam Ghazali's book, the book that we're reading — this is for people who want something more. People that are not content with just doing enough. People of himmah 'aliyyah — people of high enthusiasm.

You know, some people — and we've all been in different scholastic or academic contexts — some people just want to pass the test. That is their goal. When the test scores are released, what they want to know is: did I get a passing grade or did I not? And this is what the Prophet ﷺ said:

(Sahih Muslim, Book 33, Hadith 6441)

"The strong believer is better than the weak believer, and in both of them there is good." So if somebody does those Fara'id and they limit their engagement with ta'at — the acts of obedience, the acts of devotion — to those Fara'id, they are not to be disparaged. They are not to be discouraged. They are not to be talked down upon. وَفِي كُلٍّ خَيْرٌ — there is good in that person. There is something exemplary about that person. That person is doing what their Lord has commanded of them, and we should respect them for that.

But this is a book for people who want something more — people that are not content just to pass the test, but people who want to show the teacher how hard they have studied, how diligently they have worked, and who want to earn some special commendation, recommendation, and favor from their teacher, from their instructor.

The Hadith Qudsi: Drawing Near Through Obligations Then Nawafil

Imam Ghazali continues: know that the ra's al-mal — this initial investment — you don't draw near to Allah with anything more beloved to Him than those obligations. And in the Hadith Qudsi, Allah says:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6502)

"Those who draw near to me don't draw near to me with anything more beloved to me than those things I have made an obligation upon him or her. And then after completing those obligations, they continue to draw near to me by doing non-obligatory acts — حَتَّى أُحِبَّهُ — until I love him. Until I love her."

The Seven Things Allah Loves

I want to say something about the love of God. This was a perspective that I learned from a good friend of mine, Sidi Bilal, and I believe he learned it from Sheikh Foday Durameh — that if you look at the Qur'an and you look at it with what we call bil-istiqra' — looking at the Qur'an in its entirety, looking at it like a compendium — you will find that every place that Allah says إِنَّ اللَّهَ يُحِبُّ — "Verily Allah loves" — the direct object of that love is always a human being, or a description of human beings defined by certain characteristics. Allah does not mention that He loves the angels. Allah does not mention that He loves the Haram. Allah does not mention that He loves the Ka'bah. There are only seven things that Allah mentions that He loves.

The first of them — Taqwa:

The second — Tahara:

Allah loves those who purify themselves. The third — Tawba — Allah loves those who repent to Him. So you have Taqwa, Tahara, Tawba. Then Tawakkul — Allah loves those who depend on Him, those who rely upon Him. Then Sabr — Allah loves patience. Then Ihsan — the people of spiritual excellence, those striving to realize spiritual excellence. And then Allah loves Qist — Allah loves people that are just.

Those are the things loved by Allah. And if you can practice any one of those seven virtues with any degree of Sidq — with any degree of truthfulness — this is what becoming a friend of God means. This is what it means to become a wali of Allah — practicing just one of those seven virtues with Sidq. And the reason the Prophet ﷺ is the most beloved to God is because he is the perfect embodiment of all seven of those virtues. And this is why he is Habibullah — the most beloved, the most endeared servant of God to Allah.

But here, Allah is saying in the Hadith Qudsi that first you do what is obligated, then you continue doing acts of obedience until God loves you. And he continues:

(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 6502)

"When I love him, I become the hearing with which he hears, and the sight with which he sees or she sees, and the tongue with which he or she speaks, and the hand with which they grasp, and the foot with which they walk."

Why is this significant to us in the month of Ramadan? Because as we think about spiritual ambition — as we think about those verities of faith, those high stations of faith — know that we will not become those people by only staying up at night and praying Tahajjud. We will not become those people by only fasting on Mondays and Thursdays. We will not become those people by only committing ourselves to developing good character. We have to do all of those things after establishing our Fara'id. Doing the Fara'id opens us to the yawning gulf that is the love of Allah. But it starts with what we're doing right now in the month of Ramadan — what Allah asks us to do. Then we can do the Nawafil with some tanwi', with some variation. We have some choice with regard to the Nawafil. But we must do what we're obligated to do first.

From Rules to Etiquette: The Path to the Love of God

And then the Imam says: if you want to get to this place of love — you want to get to this place of the love of God — it's best to understand your relationship with Him not through rules and regulations, but through adab — etiquette.

You know, anyone that has ever been in a meaningful relationship — a friendship, a parent-child relationship on either side, a romantic relationship — you know that the relationship is at its weakest if we're talking about rights. If we're talking about huquq — the rights that are due to me, the rights that you have over me. The relationship is at its weakest if we're just talking about rules and regulations — "you have to do this and I have to do that." People that want relationships based on love — they only talk about etiquette. They don't talk about rights.

You know, one sister joked: "If my husband says something else about rights, I'm going to give him some lefts to go with those rights!" They don't talk about rights. Imam Ghazali says: don't think about your relationship with Allah in terms of obligations and rights — that's only the beginning, that's only where you start. If you want love, you have to think about your relationship with Allah in terms of etiquette. And you have to think about disobedience as breaking a covenant of love. You have to think about disobedience as a contravention of etiquette — not about rights. If you want love.

So in the following sections, Ghazali is taking us through the parts of our day — but he's taking us through them focusing on the etiquettes, not just the obligations. This is how you should wake up. This is how you should enter the bathroom. This is how you should prepare for Salatul Subh, prepare for Fajr. This is how you should progress throughout your day. This is how you should pray Salatul Duha. This is how you should take a nap. These are etiquettes — etiquettes.

A Lesson in Adab from an Elder

I remember when I first embraced Islam, I went to the home of an older Muslim. He wasn't a scholar — he didn't have a formal background in Islamic studies — but he was just an older Muslim. He had converted to Islam in like the early 1960s. He had lots of experience. He was a former jazz musician, so his home was filled with artifacts and keepsakes from his travels, and rare books, and he was just a cool person.

And the first time that I was invited to his house, I went in and he had so much cool stuff that I just lost my mind. Something just short-circuited. And I forgot all of the adab that I had learned from my parents and family members. I just started picking up things off his shelf. I started pulling his books out of the library and putting them back in places where he didn't store them. And I just lost it. He even had a chair that he used to sit in, and I didn't know that only he was allowed to sit in that chair. His family knew, people that would attend his majlis regularly they knew — but I didn't know. I just came and sat down in the chair.

And so when he finally came out to speak to us, someone said, "Sheikh Dawood, we have a new convert with us — can you give him some advice?" And I will never forget this for as long as I live. He said: "Advice for a new convert? Well, you know, you begin by doing the things that Allah told you to do. But after that, your Islam is all about your adab. It's all about your etiquette."

He said: we have etiquette with Allah. He said: look at the hadith — when the Prophet ﷺ entered a cemetery and he said, "We will be joining you, insha'Allah — we will be joining you, oh people of the graves, God willing." And he said: death is something that will occur absolutely. One does not technically have to say "if I die" — insha'Allah. Every soul shall taste death. However, the Prophet ﷺ is teaching us that even when talking about something certain like death, he still says insha'Allah. That's adab with Allah.

Then he said: we have adab with the Prophet ﷺ, so that when his name is mentioned, we say ﷺ. The Prophet ﷺ said:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 3545)

"Shall I show you the person who is the stingiest of people — the real miser? The one who hears my name and fails to say ﷺ." We have adab with the Prophet ﷺ.

Then he said: we have adab with our spouses, so that yes — there are certain rights that we have over each other — but we still say "thank you." There's no thanks required for an obligation — if a man is taking care of his family, that's his wajib. But his family should still thank him. If a woman is taking care of her family — and this might or might not be her wajib, depending on the household duties and chores, which are not technically the wajib of a woman — so you really should be saying thank you. But even if she does her wajib, he should still say: "I appreciate you, thank you, I don't know what my life would be without you."

Then he said: I, as a host, have certain adab that I have to adhere to with regard to how I'm treating you:

"Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day — let them honor their guest." And then he looked at me and he said: "And you have certain adab as a guest that you have to adhere to." And even though he did not hold his glance on me, his look and his words — they just felt piercing. Just felt piercing. And I never forgot that until this day.

And here one of the greatest scholars in the history of Islam — Imam Ghazali — is saying the exact same thing. سُبْحَانَ اللَّهِ. There is brilliance in our community. Think about your relationship with Allah in terms of adab — etiquette.

The Etiquettes of the Day

Adab al-Istiyqaz min al-Nawm: The Etiquette of Waking Up

So the first thing he mentions is آدَابُ الِاسْتِيقَاظِ مِنَ النَّوْمِ — what are the proper etiquettes of waking up in the morning? How should we wake up?

Now many of us know the du'a of the Prophet ﷺ:

"We have risen and the dominion has risen — belonging to God, the Lord of everything that exists." If you don't make that du'a, try to let the first things that roll off of your tongue be something of praise.

And it's very difficult — speaking personally — it's difficult to remember these things at times. To let the first thing you say — and also the last thing you say — be something of glorification or praise for Allah. You know the Prophet ﷺ said, in an authentic hadith, that when we wake in the morning, all of the members of our bodies tremble. Of course, this is in the metaphysical realm. In the ghayb — all of the members of our body tremble, and all of them are worried about what the tongue is going to do. If the tongue is safe, we will all be safe. And if the tongue is corrupt, we will all be corrupt.

So when you use the tongue — the first thing you use it for — is the glorification and praise of Allah:

All of the members of the body settle. All of the members of the body become calm. Because in the metaphysical realm, they recognize that we are off to the right start.

The Prophet ﷺ would always rise praising Allah. Imam Ghazali mentions: when you wake up from your sleep, تَجْتَهِدْ — struggle, strive — because it's difficult. A lot of times we're waking up disoriented. So Imam Ghazali, I think you see the great sensitivity in the word تَجْتَهِدْ — strive. Strive to wake up before the time of Fajr — قَبْلَ طُلُوعِ الْفَجْرِ — before the time of Fajr.

You know, one of the things that the month of Ramadan always displays is how — if we had to — almost all of us are capable of getting up before Fajr. Because of course we do so in order to eat our Suhoor before the time of Imsak, before the time of fasting. Throughout the year, why is it difficult to wake up 10, 15 minutes earlier? You know:

"The most beloved deeds to God are those that are performed with the most consistency, even if they're small." If one of us committed to just making Witr before Fajr, or just making two raka'at of Tahajjud or Qiyam al-Layl — do you know the kind of spiritual elevation that we could get out of that? And it would only mean giving up 10, in some cases 20 or 30 minutes of our sleep.

Trying to wake up before the time of Fajr — and this is difficult, especially in the winter. You would rather sit underneath the warmth of your blanket on a cold winter morning. Getting out of the bed for Fajr — sometimes those blankets feel like you're bench-pressing 405. That's how difficult it is. But we should be striving to get up before the time of Fajr.

And he said: try to make sure the first thing that passes — look at the diqqah and the tafsilah, look at how detail-oriented the Imam is in his writing — first he says: let the first thing that passes your heart — لِيَكُنْ أَوَّلُ مَا يَجْرِي عَلَى قَلْبِكَ وَلِسَانِكَ — let the first thing that passes your heart and then your tongue be the praise of Allah. And you should say:

"Praise be to God that resurrected us after having given us death, and unto Him is the resurrection."

You know, it's very common in the English language to hear people say "sleep is the cousin of death." That's actually true — sleep is the cousin of death. Allah takes the soul in death, and Allah takes the soul in sleep. But when we wake up, our soul is restored to our body. And there's a great parable in sleeping. Ghazali writes about this in the Ihya — that in the same way that a person wakes up from a dream, no matter how extensive the dream was, how involved the dream — once they get a sense of reality as they know it, the dream seems ephemeral. The dream seems like: "Wow, it was just a dream." Ghazali says: when Allah wakes us up — removes us from our graves — all of this life will seem like a dream. Because looking at eternity, being there in the Akhira, it will make life seem like a day or part of a day — just something that was fleeting.

I suppose this is one of the reasons why we should make this du'a:

And this is a reminder for me more often than not — I probably wake up just trying to figure out how to stop my phone alarm from ringing. But waking up and remembering — this is why he said pass it by your heart — waking up and remembering that there will be another sleep. There will be another sleep that I wake up from that is more significant than this. And that awakening will be more significant than this. But this is a preview. This is a precursor to that.

The Etiquette of Getting Dressed

And then he mentions: as you are getting dressed, make your intention — obedience to Allah. His order to cover your awra. So he is saying: look, life is made up of the mundane and the things that are explicitly acts of worship. And then you have the worldly transactions — things that are not something explicitly devotional, not ta'abbudi, just practical. Ghazali is showing that if you are in a present state of mind spiritually, you can make your mundane actions acts of devotion — with the strength of your intention.

So don't just put your clothes on. Put your clothes on while intending to comply with the awami r of Allah — to cover the awra. That even something as simple as this is an act of obedience, is an act of devotion — if you choose to make it one. And we have to remember that.

Imam Ghazali says: make sure that your intention in putting on your clothes is not to show off for the people. Because if you do that, you lose.

The Prophet ﷺ — one of the most interesting things about his etiquette when dressing — is that he would always seek refuge in Allah from the evil eye, especially when wearing new clothes. You know, clothes — whether we like it or not — are signifiers of social status. We know the status of an individual usually by looking at what they wear, what they drive, where they live. And nothing incites envy like those things. And the evil eye is true — the Prophet ﷺ said: "The evil eye is true." The evil eye is a metaphysical reality — some people, just by how they look at you, if they look at one with envy or jealousy, they might be able to harm you in some way.

So not intending to incite the evil eye with your clothing or your appearance. Now:

(Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 2819)

"Allah loves to see the traces of His blessing on His servant." So we're not saying that one has to be intentionally slovenly or intentionally ill-dressed. But as you are dressing, make sure that you seek refuge in Allah from the evil eye, and don't intend to show off. Don't intend to incite or attract envy or jealousy. Because if you do that, the Imam mentions — you lose.

And thinking about the evil eye — and how we get dressed in the morning, how we start our cars in the morning — we have to remember that part of the mission of the Prophet ﷺ was to remove the basis for rootless superstition — superstitions that have no basis. The Prophet ﷺ was against superstitions that have no basis. So when he affirms the evil eye, it's only because it is absolutely true. It is an absolute reality and it's something we have to take into account.

The Prophet ﷺ said:

"The one in possession of a blessing is envied." So use some discretion with regard to how you display the blessings that Allah has given you.

Adab Dukhu l-Khala': The Etiquette of Entering the Bathroom

The Imam then moves to آدَابُ دُخُولِ الْخَلَاءِ — the etiquette of entering the bathroom. Because of course most of us wake and enter the bathroom. And he says: as you enter the bathroom, make your intention — "I'm entering the bathroom so that I can purify myself, so that I can pray to Allah as Allah has commanded me to pray."

And remember — the Prophet ﷺ did not like entering the bathroom with his head uncovered or unshod without shoes. And these are things that are very difficult for us to remember, because the places that we bathe and the places that we relieve ourselves are connected — and they're so comfortable. With very thick cushioned carpets, with nice central heating — sometimes it's difficult to remember that this is one of the places that the shayatin — the demons — congregate. And we know about this because the Prophet ﷺ taught us about this. And he said: remember to say the du'a:

"In the name of Allah — I seek refuge in Allah from demonic influence, from demonic presence." And making that du'a before going into the bathroom might be difficult for us to remember, because our bathrooms again seem so comfortable.

Takeaways for Today

And wudu is a much lengthier chapter — I want to cover it fully insha'Allah — we wouldn't have time in two or three minutes. So takeaways for today:

We begin with obligation. We move to etiquette. The relationship with Allah is not expressed solely in obligations — in Fara'id and Wajibat. That's only the beginning. After that we move into adab — having adab with Allah. And we want to make sure that our day, at every point throughout the day, is characterized by adab with Allah, etiquette with Allah.

Today we went over the etiquette of waking up: trying to wake up before Fajr, trying to make the first thing that passes over the heart and passes over the tongue words of remembrance to Allah, remembering when you wake up that this is a kind of resurrection that is the precursor to a greater resurrection. When you're dressing — remembering to intend, even in something simple and mundane like putting clothes on, the obedience of Allah. These are some of the things that we've gone over today. And next week insha'Allah, we will start with wudu.

Questions and Comments

The Difference Between Publicizing Blessings and Inviting the Evil Eye

Someone asks: what is the difference between:

— the last verse of Surat al-Duha — and hiding our blessings?

Hiding — in Arabic, إِخْفَاء — it's not necessarily hiding your blessings. It's being careful with regard to them. So I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about.

I was in Morocco — I was in Rabat in Morocco. And in the homes there, most homes are of a style called riads. And usually you have a very unadorned, very simple, very nondescript exterior of the home. And then after you enter the home, there are courtyards and gardens and all of this tile work and all of this marble. And one person, commenting on the style of home, said: "Well, it's because for people viewing our home from the outside, we like it to look very simple — because we don't want to elicit any envy, any jealousy. We don't want to elicit the evil eye."