Hurdles with Shaykh Mikaeel Smith (Class 2)

Class notes:

‎بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ

Hurdle 2- Tawbah

Once you’ve gained some knowledge and you know what God wants from you. You have this desire to do ibadaah and be busy with it.
Then you look in the mirror and you see that you have so many sins.
This is where shaytaan gets us: He lets us focus on the sins to a point where it stops us from having the desire to move forward.
He makes us think ‘This journey is for the elite, who are we’

* You have to be dedicated to moving forward
You cannot be come complacent.
This Deen isn’t about complacency when it comes to your spiritual progress *

Firstly: I have to do Tawbah so God can forgive my sins and I can move forward and God can rid me from the evil effects of these sins and I can purify myself from the dirt of these sins so I can be ready for khidmat (service/duty)

*Which is better? *

Salawaat Nabi or Istighfaar
Istighfaar is your soap
Salawaat Nabi is your ittar (perfume)

*Tawbah means to go back.
When you come back to Allah. *

Humility:
You cannot do Tawbah until your humble.
So many of us it’s been about us for so long about
Building ourselves
Building our identity
Be you
Speak your truth

Tawbah is about:
‘I’m not where I need to be and there’s a standard outside of me that I’m striving to reach to’.
The essence of Tawbah is that humble moment of when you’re slipping up and you know you can be better.

The Story of the man and his Camel:

This is the story of a man who lost his camel in the desert and was certain that he was going to die. He fell asleep and when he woke up he found the camel next to his head. As he was very pleased, he had a slip of the tongue and addressed Allah saying, “You are my worshipper and I am your lord.” Our Messenger (ﷺ) explained that Allah was more pleased with the repentance of the man than this man was with the return of his camel.

Abu Sa’id al-Khudri reported: The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “Whoever humbles himself by a degree for Allah, glory be to Him, Allah will raise him by a degree. Whoever is arrogant to Allah by a degree, Allah will lower him by a degree until he is made ‘the lowest of the low.’” (95:5)
Source: Sunan Ibn Mājah 4176

The hurdle of Tawbah can be hard. Because all our life we’ve been told that we are not enough.
But Allah loves you as you are.

If you’re struggling with just the Fardh, never stop moving forward, don’t become complacent.
Never justify because once you justify, you’re never going to say sorry.

By Him in whose hand is my soul, if you did not sin, Allah would replace you with people who would sin and they would seek forgiveness from Allah and He would forgive them.
Source: Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2749, Grade: Sahih

Theres an objective in the sin you committed.
However don’t justify and purposely commit that sin but no, after that sin has happened and you do sincere Tawbah, you can’t beat yourself up over it.
Why? Because there was something that Allah was teaching you.

‘Sometimes good deeds destroy you and sometimes bad deeds bring you to the gates of jannah’
Sometimes the righteous deed makes you proud. For example praying tahajjud and you come across someone who says they missed fajr and you begin to scoff at them. You might aswell have not prayed tahajjud/fajr as you missed the purpose of it.

You have to pass the hurdle of Tawbah, not the hurdle of sins as sins never stop.
But we never stop coming back.
The way shaytaan makes it his job for you to trip up, you make it your job to go back home.

Do not judge anyone for thier sins, you don’t know how you are going to end up.

Practice solution: iqaamah (prayer)
The same way you establish prayer, establish Tawbah استغفر الله "I seek forgiveness in God"
Fall asleep with that on your tongue.

Once you’re gotten true Tawbah and you’re ready to worship.
You realise you are surrounded by hindrances.
Each one of them is enough to stop you but you can overcome them.

1. Dunya. ‘less is more’. You can have it, but don’t let it have you. You own it, it doesn’t own you. The problem is that we have the dunya is our heart and not in our hearts.
2. People
3. Shaytaan
4. Nafs (the inner child that doesn’t care about the consequences so long that it feels good and it’s good to have right now) this is the hardest as the nafs is you. These desires that God put in you, it keeps us alive. For exmaple if a baby was hungry and it didn’t cry, it would die

You have to get over these or they won’t let you do ibaadah.

Now you’ve passed these hidrances, and now you want to worship.
Then you’ll find the hurdle of constantly staying busy. Because you need free time to worship.

There are 4:

1. Rizq (sustenance, anything that you get in life) don’t let the preoccupation take precedence over the true occupation which is to stay on the path. Dont make wealth the objective of your life.
2. Thoughts and Worries Does worrying about it more change reality? No it doesn’t you just wasted time. This empowers you as you look as what you CAN do instead of what you CANNOT do. The word ‘What if’ is how shaytaan opens the door
3. Hardships and calamaties
4. Destiny and fate.

To get over each of these problems you need to have:

1. Tawakkul (Complete trust)
2. Let go, Let God. You do what you can and leave it to Allah.
3. Have patience (Sabr)
4. Contenment (Rida)

Then you get hit with being lazy. You don’t have the vigour to do it. You don’t feel push to do good line you should, but you always wanna chill and do nothing. Sometimes we can get in this ‘Spiritual Rut’, the moemnt that hits, get up and move don’t let that stay on you.
At first that chilling can be nothing, then it eventually leads to evil, to further sin.
You need something that’s gonna push you and invigorate you away from evil and to get busy.

You need two things:

You need to build your Hope and/or Fear.
‘You’ve got to Hope in the reward that God has promised you, and you’ve got to remind yourself with Fear about the punishment which God has told you about’

Thanks

May Allah bless you and everyone involved with putting this together in this life & the next amen.

THERE IS NO COMPLANCANCY IN SPIRITUAL PROGRESSION!!!! ALHAMDULILAH!!!!❤❤❤

Thank you so much! I hope you can make videos about what to look for in a spouse in marriage in Islam and topics about how to balance fear and hope in Allah or stay steadfast upon the Deen when your family members or relatives aren’t practicing and how to not let it influence you.

Allahuma Ameen

we should all make a document where we write notes for this class so we dont forget, id be glad to contribute and would love for others to also add notes

Jazzakallahou hayran for this class very interesting

I am loving this book. Alhamdulillah

What masjid is this filmed

Asslamualikum,JazakAllahukairan

Can you put up a link to the same book the Shaykh is using please.

too good bro.

JazakhAllah Khair