Training Your Nafs in Sha'ban | Lecture by Dr. Omar Suleiman

And again, by praising Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, by bearing witness that none has the right to be worshipped or unconditionally obeyed except for him. And we bear witness that Muhammad ﷺ is his final messenger. We ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon him. The prophets and messengers that came before him, his family and companions that served alongside him. And those that follow in his blessed path until the day of judgement, and we ask Allah to make us amongst them. Allah may I mean. Dear brothers and sisters, when we talk about the concept of being at war with the shaytan, or being at war with the devil, or the idea of growth, I wanted us to spend a little bit of time, especially in light of the fact that we are only one month or so away from the blessed month of Ramadan. Allah (swt) may Allah (swt) allow us to live to see it and be accepted in it. I wanted us to spend time with this concept that is so unique to our deem. And I say that very intentionally because there is no parallel in the moderation and proportion and understanding of this concept in any other deem. And that is Mujahadah to Nafz. Jihad to Nafz. This idea of waging war on yourself, of going to battle with yourself. But in a very specific way. It's kind of Allah, I was recalling an incident with Sayyidina Omar, Allah (swt) where Allah (swt) narrated that he once called the people to the masjid from the menvah. As if he was going to give a hutba about some sort of policy address or something of importance to the Ummah as a whole. And so he called the people together and he stands up on the menvah. And this may Allah (swt) is in time of war. No, he says my name is Omar. I used to be Omeer. I used to be known as little Omar or Omeer. I used to raise the sheikh in the valleys of Makkah and take a humble wage as a result of that. And then he comes down from the menvah and he goes back to his room. And I read all the Allah (swt) says, 'Ya Mehmet al-Muhmani Muhammad al-Ahaada.' O commander of the believers, what caused you to do that? I mean, you gathered everyone together to basically denigrate yourself and listen to what he said. He said, 'Had Deshattani Nafsi.' My Nafs spoke to me, not shayfan. My Nafs. Remember the Prophet (ﷺ) said that Omar (swt) had such control over his shayfan that if shayfan saw Omar take a road, he took the other road. I've got no in with this man. He would just go the other route. 'Had Deshattani Nafsi,' but that doesn't mean that Omar (swt) doesn't have an impulse, a lower impulse, because every human being does. My Nafs spoke to me, 'Ya Mehmet al-Muhmani.' Telling me that, look at you, you're the commander of the believers. Mashallah, conquering Palestine, bringing Jerusalem with glory, spreading Islam throughout the world, establishing global reform. You are the legend of the world and you're living to see the fruit of your effort in such rapid pace to where the legend is not one that exists after you have passed away. I mean, it's very rare to see someone like Omar (swt) in act and live to see the fruits of his action so quickly, and as enough says to him, 'Look at you, you're Amir al-Muhmaniin, you're the commander of the believers,' Qalif al-Aratu al-Addibahah, so that I wanted to put my Nafs back in its place. I wanted to train my Nafs, put it back in its place, and remind myself who I am. You know, there's this concept within the literature of Tessqiya, as it's narrated that I read all the aloud. I was sad that it's a week, I thought, but it has a beautiful meaning to it, that I had a friend, Kanna Ida, Bada'u Amran, O Ida Bada'u Amran, when he had two affairs put in front of him, two choices put in front of him. What was his filter? What was his decision-making process when he had the opportunity to do one of two things? Yondu Ayyuhuma, akhrabu Ida Hawahu, Fa'u al-Hallif. He looked to see which one of them was closer to his desire, was closer to his lower naps, and he did the opposite of that. He was constantly in this idea of preferring something else to what his lower self wanted, and this is a powerful notion, and I want you to think about how Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala frames this in the Qur'an with two surahs that you recite in Jaz-Ahmam when you are reading in surah to shams, wa nafsi wa ma'asawaha fa'al-hamaha fujuraha wa taqwaaha, Qad'af-lahamanzakah wa qadqahba man dasahah, Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala talks about the nafs and how he proportioned the self, this thing that is our self, this thing that makes us who we are as human beings, this thing that represents the mixture of a soul that aspires for Allah and a body that was created from the earth and tends to prefer material things in order to satisfy its cravings, wa nafsi wa ma'asawaha, this perfectly proportions being that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala gave to us, fa'al-hamaha fujuraha wa taqwaaha, and Allah taught it. It's restrained, and it's craving, it's explosion, it's coming out of its lane, Allah Azza wa Jalla gave it its guidelines, he gave it the propensity to go either this way or that way, Qad'af-lahamanzakah wa qadqahba man dasah, Allah praises the one who purifies it, and Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala debases the one who gives into it or corrupts it, corrupts what Allah has given us, then suddenly Allah turns the subject to Qad'abbathamu dobi taqwaaha, Allah talks about a group of people that lost themselves collectively, because of their collective failure to purify their souls, pride overtook them as a group of people, and because you have a bunch of individuals that fail to purify their lower selves, that fail to expel the lower callings and the lower intuitions, then as a group of people they were destroyed, it's very interesting, when you think about that, because when you look and suit the Naziaat, when Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala mentions, that verily the one who goes astray and prefers the life of this world, then verily Hellfire is where they're going to end up, and as for the one who feared the standing before their Lord and prevented their lower selves from its desires, they prevented the enoughs from following its desires, for inna janna ta'il-matua, paradise is the place where they find rest, look at this connection, SubhanAllah, between what Allah is saying here of the question of preference, this isn't a question of iman and qufur, belief and disbelief, this is what do you prefer more, do you prefer the life of this world more, or do you prefer the hereafter more, and will your preference for this life of this world, you love the life of this world, because that's how you are, but will your preference for this life of this world cause you to do something, to reduce yourself? Allah, as I talked about, ather al-hayat dunya, the collective choosing the life of this world, when the Prophet salallahu alayhi mentions that the nations will gather against you and feast upon you, cause you are, kerotha, is saved, like phone, in the sea, in terms of your numbers, you don't have substance, ya Rasulullah, is it because we don't have numbers, no, you have plenty of numbers, what is the condition though, the dunya al-waal, help the dunya wa-karahi atul-mat, you love the world too much and you hate death, the condition that puts you in a state of cowardice as a whole, a state of being people of no substance that makes you susceptible to your enemies, is a nafsi condition, it's a self-condition that you love the world too much, you're preferring the world to yourself that allows you to be pulled into a lower direction is what messes you up as an individual and messes up as an ummah as well, as a community as well. On an individual level, on a collective level, it's the preference of this world, the preference of the comfort of this world, to where you don't do the things that the soul actually aspires for, but you do the things instead that the lower self pulls you towards. Why is this relevant particularly today? The word 'mujahada' to nafs, to strive against the self, realize is not 'mujahada' to shaypaan, striving against the shaypaan, even though we do strive against the shaypaan. When the Prophet ﷺ says, in its authentic narration, it's part of a longer narration while 'mujahidu', 'man jahada' nafsahu fithaatillah, the 'mujahid' is the one who does jihad in the worship of Allah subhanahu wa ta'amah, and it's not a hadith about, you know, the greater jihad being the jihad against the self, but there are sayings, there's a saying for goodin al jazeel ahimullah ta'amah that says that, almost the exact same thing, there's a saying for an Imam al-Azad ahimullah ta'amah, that's very close in meaning to that. Their in-amat we're not reducing jihad to jihad nafs, that's an improper interpretation, reducing the concept of striving and battle to the strive against the self. What they were saying is that, if you conquer this battlefield of the self, everything else, everything else is unable to conquer you. From Shay'altina and inswil jinn, from the devils of man and the devils of jinn, because if your enemy cannot find in you the weakness to exploit, cowardice, as the Prophet ﷺ says, comes from, hope the dunya wa-karahi wa-ta'amah. Loving this world too much. Fear. What do you fear? You fear people more than you fear Allah subhanahu wa-ta'ala. What do you love? You love something. Qahumullah, like you should love Allah subhanahu wa-ta'ala. Your enemy at a collective level and at an individual level is able to penetrate a weakness in the fortress of the nafs or the nufus as a whole, a fortress within the self, that you have it built yourself, trained yourself to prefer something higher to something lower. Some of you are wondering, like, where is the practical side of this? What does this mean? And so I want you to take a few things home in shawla-ta'ala and think deeply about this. When Allah Azza wa Jalla talks about the shaypaan, hamazah to shaypaan, waswas, whispers, he tries to attack here or there. Think of shaypaan as a pest that's constantly looking for openings within your soul. And in Ramadan, you're sealing those all off because shaypaan at the end of the day is an external enemy. He gets put away, chained away, but shaypaan as a constant pest, looking for an entrance. You repel the shaypaan. Vikulullah, remembering Allah subhanahu wa-ta'ala, put it on. You repel him when he tries to find an opening. But your brothers and sisters listen very closely. You don't train the shaypaan. You train your nefs. You train yourself. You train your nefs. You train your nefs. You build your nefs to a point that the shaypaan's whispers no longer land. They don't find openings anymore because you fill it with something that shaypaan can't find avoid. And so you keep on shrinking his openings. You keep on shrinking his ways. So he's trying to find a way and he's not finding a matsal. He's not finding an entrance into the soul to poison the soul anymore because you've trained your nefs up. You've built your nefs up to a point that shaypaan no longer has that entry. Know what that looks like? If there is one word, and there are multiple words, when they're in a mas-e-mujahal-e-tu-nafs, aim-u-halaf-e-tu-nafs, to deny the self when it calls you to a lower craving, to a lower desire. What that looks like? Khalif-nafs-a-katastakhim. Refuse your lower self when it pulls you to something and you will find guidance. Refuse your lower self when it pulls you down and you will find firmness and steadfastness. Make yourself uncomfortable for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The key words of mujahal-e-tu-nafs. The key practices of mujahal-e-tu-nafs all revolve around this idea of making yourself intentionally uncomfortable for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Embracing discomfort for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, when two things are put before you on a daily basis. Do you prefer sleep or do you prefer waking up? Your body tells you stay sleeping. Your soul tells you get up. Mujahal-e-tu-nafs is I'm tired. I want to sleep these extra twenty minutes. I'm going to force myself up. Mujahal-e-tu-nafs means that when you're getting into a heated argument, either arata antatakendam fasquit, or either arata antasquit fatakendam. When you want to be quiet, say something. That means speaking a word of truth in the face of falsehood. When you want to be quiet, when your lower self says be quiet, you say no, I'm going to speak the truth because my nefsah is telling me be quiet, but Allah is telling me speak up. I'm going to speak the truth. When you want to say something because your ego is being bruised or you're on the midst of an argument at that point, fast put, prefer silence. Mujahal-e-tu-nafs. Mujahal-e-tu-nafs is everything telling me, don't call that person and reconcile. Don't forgive that person, because if you forgive them, then they're going to take advantage of you and they're going to think that it's okay to do this and do that. You're going to put yourself down. Don't reconcile. It's okay, keep it going. You can find all these aayat and ahadi to justify your position of strength to not reconcile with someone. Don't forgive someone. When you don't want to forgive, forgive. When you don't want to make the call, you call. When you don't want to send the text message, you send the text message. This is your daily Mujahal-e-tu-nafs. Mujahal-e-tu-nafs is not simply not drinking alcohol, not committing sinner. Mujahal-e-tu-nafs to oppose the self is to think in every single daily situation, what is the lower self called me to? What is the higher aspiration of the soul? How do I prefer the higher aspiration of the soul to the lower self? No way, Shaytan has no Mujahal with you. He has no entrance with you. How is he going to penetrate a person that's thinking at that level? This is a person that's trying to grow, not just trying to survive, that's trying to spiritually condition themselves for the sake of a loss of 100 times to be the best version of themselves. The second thing I want you to think about here, dear brothers and sisters, is that when you think of the dunya, the love of this world, how the dunya is not just loving money. How the dunya is loving anything that is worldly that gets in the way of where you want to be in the hereafter? How the dunya could be your ego? How the dunya could be your friends? How the dunya could be your attachment? The love of this world could be anything that holds you down, that ways you down from a worldly perspective, from becoming the best version of yourself. How the dunya could be loving sleep? How the dunya is anything? The love of this world is anything that gets in the way of you aspiring to your higher self. Wajahadatunafs, wuhalafatunafs, spiritually conditioning. When you condition your body, you tear your muscles and then you let them rest. You tear your muscles and then you let them rest. You have to tear your soul and then let it rest. tear yourself and then let it rest. Tear yourself and then let it rest until it keeps on growing in the sight of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. You think the Prophet ﷺ learned overnight how to pray until his feet would swell up? No. There was a process even for the Prophet ﷺ to get to that point of capacity and there is no doubt that Allah increased his capacity. There's a process of wuhalafatunafs of choosing discomfort for the sake of growth every single day. Restrain your tongue. Restrain your desires. Restrain your eyes. Restrain your ego. Do what's uncomfortable every single day. Now here's what I want to leave you with in conclusion as we're getting into the month of Shabban in particularly. I often hear and I might have even used this example in the past. Ramadan is training camp, boot camp for the souls, training camp for the soul. I'm going to retract that statement. Ramadan is not training camp but Ramadan is the match itself. Ramadan is the arena. Ramadan is when you've entered into the game. Shabban is training camp. Shabban is the warm up. Shabban is the spiritual conditioning. I'm using that word very intentionally. The spiritual conditioning of the Nafs before Ramadan. The Prophet ﷺ would fast Shabban. The Prophet ﷺ would do things in Shabban in anticipation of the month of Ramadan. You don't just show up to the match, not stretch, not warmed up, not condition and then get where you need to get. It doesn't work that way. Every, I'm going to challenge you with this. Every single good habit that you cultivate in Shabban will have an impact in Ramadan and every single bad habit that you leave under Ramadan in Shabban will impact your Ramadan negative. There is no doubt about it. Everything you do in this month will affect something about Ramadan. Your sleep schedule, your fasting or lack of fasting, whether you started reading the Quran or not, all of these things are going to have an impact on the quality of your Ramadan. So every single day, you're assigned that for the month of Shabban. Is what am I doing today? That is Mughalafah to Nafs. It's against my Nafs. How am I making myself uncomfortable for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala today? As the Qur'an that mentioned, subhanAllah, "women yukam shuhanafsihi." Allah talks about the greed of the soul. As Shabban, promises you poverty. The meeting is that the soul is greedy, and Shabban is probably poverty. How do I make my soul less greedy? So that when Shabban promises poverty, it has no impact. You're speaking into an empty vacuum. You have no entrance here. Build and condition your soul. Build and condition yourself by asking yourself every day, how did I make myself more uncomfortable today for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala? What's the mic? What's the tear in my Nafs today that I grew myself? Is that when Ramadan comes but in the night of Allah, you're going. You're going because you've already warmed up. You've already spiritually conditioned it. And if you're listening to this Qur'an, it's not Shabban. The whole point of it's Shabban or it's Ramadan is to get to the point of I'm Muslim. It's Islam. This is my daily life, and this is how I'm supposed to be. This is the path that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala called me to. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to choose him over ourselves. So that anything that the Shabban plows on of an insecurity or comfort becomes absolutely irrelevant and falls upon deaf ears. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to choose the achaida over the dunya so that the sins which tempt with the poison of worldly promise are drowned out by the comfort and the tranquility of the promises of the hereafter. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow our greatest joy to be found in what he prescribes of the menacing of the Qur'an and the soon of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala purify ourselves to the best version of themselves. And may Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to go through this month of shabban in preparation of Ramadan and have an accepted Ramadan and have an accepted life and make every day of our lives a day that is pleasing to him and make the best day of our lives the last day that we live on this earth Allah ma'amīn wa fūlu qawlihādā wa s-tafūlal yawla qawlihāli wa l-akum wa l-isāli wa s-min fa s-tafūru wa l-inna wa l-afūrū'-ahim. Inhamdulillah s-salātu wa s-salām wa ala Rasūla Llāhu 'alayhi wa s-sohbihi wa manwana. The brothers and sisters I always would say in the last two years, do your Ramadan ki anna kabirasa as if you're in raza. I'm going to say right now do your shabban ki anna kabirasa as if you're in raza. And I subhanAllah I was looking at one of the messages from one of the brothers in raza and he was talking about how a group of young people just finished their set of they finished reading the Quran all in one sitting because they're preparing themselves for the month of Ramadan. It's not even shabbani. Live your shabban ki anna kabirasa as if you're in raza. You talk about a people that conquered hubbidunya wa karahiyah to the note loving this world too much and hating death they conquered that already. Live your shabban as if you are in the tense of raza preparing yourself for once again a season of steadfastness because every single day of your life is preferring a higher call and preferring a higher mission. May Allah subhanahu alayhi give victory to our brothers and sisters in raza. In Sudan, in Yemen, in every single place of the world where our ummah struggles, may Allah Azawajal allow us to struggle against our lower selves as they struggle against the shayalteen of this world. We love you and we love you and we love you and we love you and we love you and we love you. We love you and we love you and we love you.