The Struggle No One Sees | Greater Jihad Ep. 4 | Ramadan Tarbiyyah

One of the things that I've never been able to do in my life, one of the skills that I've never had, and it's probably not helpful for someone who's on social media to not have this skill and to not have this ability. It might even seem paradoxical given what I do, given that, you know, that I do analysis and so on. I try to perceive meaning and try to extrapolate ramifications sometimes from minimal pieces of information and so forth. It might seem paradoxical that I don't have this skill, but one of the things that I've never been able to do in my life was to ever have any sort of a an idea about how I am personally perceived as a person. I have no idea whatsoever how I come across.

I have no idea whatsoever, what impression people might have of me. I've never been able to do this. My whole life, I've never had that ability to know how I'm perceived. But given the nature of my content and my, you know, sort of critique of the West and so on, as well as the old Awamoon series and now this Ramadan Tarbiya series and what have you, I suppose it's possible to speculate that I might give the impression of being someone who's kind of upright. I might give the impression of someone who's sort of a moralizing, maybe even self righteous person.

Someone who's maybe deeply rooted in Islam in principle and in practice, you know, a religious man and whatnot. Now in Islam, we're not supposed to really expose our own flaws and our own wrongdoing and our mistakes from the past. But I can tell you that I was an absolute villain in my life. Yes, I was. There was a time, I assure you, there was a time when, you would have been hard pressed to find anyone who was worse than me.

And I'm not exaggerating. I'm not exaggerating, and I'm not bragging about it in any way whatsoever. I was diabolical. I was a diabolical man objectively. I was diabolical.

It's true. Now, okay, that didn't extend to, you know, criminal activity or drugs or anything like that, violence and so forth. I never got involved in those types of things when I was a young man. But morally, in terms of character, oh, yes. I was an objectively horrible person.

Yes. I was. I didn't start out like that, but I became like that. I let myself become like that. So I don't know how I come across.

But one thing that I know about myself, I know that I'm an intelligent man, And I know that I know that I know how to read people and how to read situations. And at one time, I used all that intelligence and I used all those skills in ways that were, as I say, objectively nefarious. Yes. I did. Manipulative, coercive, exploitative, Machiavellian, selfish.

You can say sociopathic even. That's fair. I was an agent of ruin. I was. I don't think there was anyone in my life at that time.

I don't think there was anyone in my life at that time that I did not hurt, that I did not betray or deceive or use ruthlessly, cold hearted, absolutely cold hearted. I was a cold hearted man. I'm telling you this for a reason. This is part of the Tarbiya series, Ramadan Tarbiya series for a reason, because I was like that while being a Muslim. I don't get to say, you know, oh, I used to do horrible things before, but Islam saved me.

No. In fact, the truth of the matter is that I was never even as bad as I was, or as bad as I became. I was never that bad when I was a non Muslim. I didn't drink or do drugs or go to clubs or anything like that when I was a non Muslim. You know?

I was committed to social work when I was young before I became a Muslim. But I became one of those people who used the religion as a pretext. I used the religion as a cover. I used it as a camouflage. I wish I could say.

I wish I could say that I took my Shahada and I stayed on the straight and narrow ever since. I truly wish I could say that, but it's not the case. It's not the case at all. But there are two things that I want you to understand. And I'm telling you this as a as a cautionary tale as a cautionary tale.

I don't talk about morality, and I don't talk about Tarbiyyah, and I don't talk about having good character as someone who is unacquainted with the opposite. You understand me? I was the embodiment of the opposite. That's the truth. But there are two things that you need to understand.

The first is that as long as I was living that way, the truth of the matter is I was miserable. I was stressed. I was volatile. I had a hair trigger temper, And nothing scared me at that time. Nothing scared me more than facing the truth.

Nothing scared me more than accountability. And I knew, of course, I'm a Muslim. I was a Muslim. So I knew, of course, that accountability is inevitable. So you live in a state of constant fear.

You live in a state of constant fear, constant tension, constant dread. And you're constantly trying, you know, to to keep a dozen plates spinning at the same time, trying to manage all of the people that you're manipulating, the people that you're lying to, trying to hold off the inevitable crashing down of the Ponzi scheme of your deception. The deception, the game that you're running. Because as long as that game is running, you think as long as that game is running, no one gets hurt. And see, this is the second thing.

This is the second thing that you need to understand because it's actually horrific and horrifying. And that second thing is that, you can be like this. You can act like this. You can be as bad as this. All while believing that you have good intentions.

This is how people can lie to themselves. This is how you can deceive yourself. You know? You hide things. You lie about things.

You're evasive and secretive and so forth. You know? Things that you know that no one would ever understand or approve of. You're doing things that people would never understand or approve of, but you have convinced yourself that you have the right to do it. You've justified them.

You've justified these actions to yourself, but you know perfectly well that no one outside of yourself you know that your justification would never make any sense to anyone else. No one else would ever accept your justification. But you think that you're you can just carry on like this. You think that you can just carry on. And as long as no one ever knows, and you think that if if anyone finds out, then that would be the thing that hurt them.

Them finding out would be the that hurt them. Not the thing that you're doing, but them finding out the things that you're doing. That's what would hurt them. So you're actually being considerate. Right?

You're being considerate. You're being responsible by keeping it all a secret. This is how it works. This is how people can lie to themselves. Like I say, this is how you can deceive yourself.

This is a real world example of how Shaytan can make the evil seem good to you and convince you that the wrong thing that you're doing is actually fine. So, yes, there was a period in my life when I was truly truly an abominable human being, and I got utterly curb stomped. I got utterly curb stomped for that figuratively, metaphorically. You know what curb stomping is? That's when they when you get your mouth, opened on the side of a curb and then someone stomps the back of your head.

So that's what happened to me. That's what happened to my life. That's what happened to my life. My whole life got curb stomped. My whole life got curb stomped because that's what I deserved.

That's what I earned. And everybody that I was doing wrong to, I lost. I lost, but from their perspective, they were relieved of me. You understand me? My losing them was them being saved from the person that I had allowed myself to become.

I don't normally talk about myself. I don't normally talk about my personal history at all. But I'm telling you this, from the standpoint of Tarbiya. I'm telling you this from the standpoint of Tarbiya. Because no matter how low you might think you are, no matter how low you might actually be in terms of your character or in terms of your morals, I was lower than that.

Trust me. I guarantee you. I was lower than that. However low you think you are, I was lower than that. And I got completely crushed for that.

I was completely crushed for that. And when I tell you that I deserved it, when I deserved to be crushed for that, when I tell you that I earned that, no, I'm not being humble. You might think that that sounds like I'm being humble. I'm not. Not at all.

I'm saying that I deserved, to be stopped from being bad. I told you I wasn't always like that. I wasn't always like that. I let myself become like that. But just like anybody else, my fitra is good.

Alhamdulillah. My fitra is good. And being the way that I was was against my nature. Being that way was a self betrayal, and it's the same for anyone else. And I was so far gone down that path that it was very unlikely that I was ever gonna reverse my trajectory, my own self voluntarily.

So Allah snatched me by the neck and slammed me face first into the consequences of my own actions, the consequences of my behavior. And that wasn't a punishment. I didn't even see it at that time as a punishment. I knew what it was. It was an intervention.

You understand? It was an intervention. And since then, I have clawed my way out of the pit that I dug for my own self. I clawed my way back little by little, year after year, setback after setback, dragged myself forward, tried to clean myself up, tried to stand myself up, and tried to reclaim some semblance of alignment with my natural fitra. And I can tell you that there is no way to do that.

There is no way to do that whatsoever. There is no way to do that except by understanding that you are good, you are decent, you are honorable, and that you have betrayed yourself by ever being otherwise. Wallahi, there is no greater disrespect to your own self than doing wrong. There's no greater disrespect than that. And you have to understand that strictly strictly adhering to a moral code, ruling yourself, policing yourself, keeping yourself in check, this is an absolute requirement.

It's absolutely necessary. It's absolutely necessary. And it's the only way it's the only way that you can ever truly respect yourself as you deserve to be respected. And that's the self reproaching nafs, the nafs al awama. This is the part of your psyche that blames you.

This is the part of the psyche that indicts you. The part of your psyche that doesn't let you get away with it. Doesn't let you get away with that self deception. Doesn't let you get away with those excuses and those justifications and so forth. You know what I mean.

You know exactly what part of the psyche I'm talking about because it's that part of your psyche that the West tries to silence as much as possible. Even if you go to a therapist, they'll try to make you silence it. They'll try to make you ignore it. The West tries to make you ignore it because guilt is unhealthy. Shame is negative.

Self criticism is harmful. Don't be so hard on yourself, brother. Take it easy. It's not that deep. You know?

Stop beating yourself up. No. No. Anyone who's trying to tell you to stop beating yourself up when you deserve to be beaten up, they're just leading you to the slaughter. Understand this.

Because believe me, you would much rather Wallahi, you would much rather beat yourself up and be hard on yourself in order to correct your behavior. You would rather that than for those consequences to come along and massacre your whole life because you didn't do that, because you failed to do that, because you refused to do that, because you were easy on yourself. No. I need you to understand how important this is. This is extremely important.

I need you to understand how important it is and how urgent it is and how much is at stake. You have to understand how much is at stake because, again, in the Western so called civilization, all of these issues are dismissed. They're dismissed and they're minimized. But the things that you do, listen to me, the things that you do are either gonna comfort you and strengthen you as you move through life, or they will haunt you and they will torment you for the rest of your life. Listen, you can't be a man my age and talk about nostalgia or talk about reminiscing or what have you.

Unless, okay, unless you are either so blessed and so fortunate that you have somehow miraculously been on the straight and narrow your whole life. That's the only way or else you're someone who has never truly repented for the things that you've done. You've never repented, you've never learned, and you've never changed. Because listen, nostalgia and reminiscing are privileges that are reserved exclusively for those people who have lived their lives well. For the rest of us, our memories are more like specters.

Specters behind us that are so disturbing you you can't look back. You don't wanna look around. You don't wanna turn around, and it forces you to move forward. You understand? We wanna create as much distance as possible between, those old days and our lives right now.

We wanna create as much distance as possible, and you will never forget what you've done. You will never forget what you've done, whether it's good or bad, like I said, whether it's good or bad, you'll never forget. And that's either gonna be a lifelong source of solace for you or it's gonna be a lifelong source of shame for you. And you are deciding right now, Right now, every day, you are deciding what you are gonna be remembering in your later years. What you're gonna be remembering and what others are gonna remember about you.

These are the decisions that you're making right now every day. And listen. I don't mean to sound morbid. You know? I don't I don't mean to sound sad or morbid or what have you when I talk about, you know, having been in such and such a kind of way in my past or about how haunted you can be by your own wrongdoing, how haunted you are after you have clawed your way out of that type of behavior, hopefully.

Because, yes, it is painful. It is painful to remember having been a much worse version of yourself. But it is also an accomplishment to have improved. You understand me? It's an accomplishment to have struggled and to have made your way back closer to your fitra, to have reclaimed a better version of yourself, reclaimed.

And you can be proud of that if you have done it or if you are even engaged in the struggle to do it, you can be proud of that. If you are fighting that battle against your nefs, you can be proud of that and you should be because it is a battle. It is a battle and you will have scars and you will have wounds. You will have injuries and so forth. And the further that you have moved yourself away from the worst version, the worst version of your yourself, and the worst that version of you is or was compared to who you hopefully are now.

You know, you may have fought through miles upon miles of a war zone to get to where you are. And inshallah, you have emerged, however battered, not unscathed, but you have emerged a better man or a better woman. So even while your memories may disturb you and probably should disturb you, they also illustrate how far you have come, Insha'Allah. They have they they show you how far you've come. And this is very important to talk about.

You know how some people say that that that a person cannot change? You know, if someone's bad, then they'll always be bad. If they did such and such, then they'll always be that person, the person who did such and such and whatnot. You know, judging someone by the worst things that they've done in their life. This is what a lot of people do, But this is what I want you to understand.

It's extremely important for you to understand. I want you to understand this very well. It's not true. We know that people can change because the bad version of a person, when a person is steeped in wrongdoing, that is them already having changed. Do you understand me?

They changed into that person because nobody is born like that. Because we know about what your fitra is like. Please understand me. This is why it's very important to understand. It's very important to know that your fitra is good, that your fitra is sound, that your fitra is clean.

So when you see someone or if you are someone who is currently far away from that, then you know that that's a person who has already been changed. They have already changed to become like that. And what they need to do now is to reverse those unnatural changes to who they are and get themselves back to their original state. So there's not a question about whether or not people can change. Islam gives you the way to do it.

Islam gives you the way to do it. But like I said before, I was a Muslim. I was a Muslim when I was at my lowest point. When I was at my lowest point morally, when I was at my lowest point in terms of my character. I was a Muslim.

When I deviated so far away from my that it seemed like it was just impossible to ever get back to it. So I'm saying this because it's not just being Muslim that's gonna restore you. It's not just being a Muslim. Know, Islam comes from the Arabic word for submission, for surrender. And a Muslim is supposed to be the one who submits.

A Muslim is the one who surrenders. So you have to treat this in your mind as a verb. You understand me? Instead of a noun. I mean, it is a noun.

Grammatically, it is a noun, but I'm saying that the act of submitting, the act of surrendering, this has to be active. You know, I know for non Muslims, especially for Westerners, they will recoil at the word slave. They recoil from thinking of themselves as slaves even of God, slaves of Allah. Like to think of themselves and they use the term children of God, but no, you're a slave. You're a slave of Allah.

You're a slave of God. You are a servant. That's all you ever are and that's all you ever can be and you need to very vividly try to understand yourself as such. And when a slave is told to do something, he does it. When a slave is told to do something, he does it.

And if he's told to not do something, then that slave will refrain from it, and that's a good slave. And a good slave knows that his master is watching. A good slave knows that his master is watching, and he acts like he knows his master is watching. And like I said, don't get offended by this. Don't get offended by this because we're not talking about a human master.

We're not talking about a human master. In fact, we're talking about the only master that you can serve that isn't a human master. Do you understand me? Because the truth is if you are not serving Allah if you're not serving God, then you are definitely serving some other slave pretending to be a master. You're serving some other slave who's right alongside you and telling you that they are the master when they're no kind of master.

They're no kind of master whatsoever. They're just slay a slave just like you. You're either serving them or you're serving your own self. And either way, that's a humiliating situation for you. It's a humiliating and misguided situation.

No. You're serving the highest master. You're serving the best master. You're serving the master whom it is an honor to serve. And in doing that, you are rejecting every other claimant, every other person, every other so called authority, every other individual, or every other institution, including your own self, that tries to make you a slave.

I am a slave to one and only master, one and only master, and everyone other than him everyone other than him is nothing but a slave just like me. And I prove that this is my one and only master. How? By obedience. By obedience to him and him alone.

It means not to your own self, not to anyone else. It means if disobeying my own self is required in my obedience to him, then I will disobey myself. I will disobey my own self. And when you obey him in disobedience to your own self, that is when you know. That's when you will know without a doubt who is the master and who is the slave.

Because whatever he tells you to do, whatever his orders are, whatever his commands are, whatever his instructions are, it's always gonna be better for you than whatever you might tell yourself, whatever you might command yourself, whatever you might instruct yourself to do. So you see, was disobedience to your master and obedience to yourself or obedience to other than him that led you into the humiliation and into the self betrayal of wrongdoing in the first place. And the only way out of that, the only way back from that is obedience. That's the only way. It's the the the firm resolute determination that you will dutifully, diligently, vigilantly, and to the best of your ability, follow and try to implement what he told you to do and avoid as best as you can what he told you to avoid.

Because listen, you already have experience in following yourself. I have experience in following myself, and we already know, both of us. You and I both know what you get from following yourself or from following other people. You get mixed up. You get far away from where you wanna be.

You get far away from what you wanna be. You get far away from who you wanna be. It changes you for the worse. It changes you for the worse. But the one who made you can also restore you.

And I'm telling you, don't worry about your heart. Don't worry about your heart. This is what I'm telling you. Your heart is fine. This is what I want you to understand.

Your heart is fine. Your heart is good. Your soul is pure. It was your heart that you have betrayed by your actions. That's what your problem has been.

Your problem has been your actions, not your heart. Your actions have betrayed your good heart. You understand me? And now what needs to happen is for you to start making your actions align with the goodness of your heart, align with the purity of your soul. Because your whole problem is that is you've been doing the opposite.

You need to align with the soundness of your fitra because you're out of whack. You understand? You're out of whack. You're out of sync. You're doing things that your purity would never do.

You're doing things that your honesty would never allow you to do. You're doing things that your morality would never approve of. Means you're letting yourself down. That's self betrayal. It's self betrayal.

And you need to do the things that not only if you do them, you don't mind if people find out about them, but you also are doing things that you can remember with contentment in the future instead of with regret. And listen, I'm not gonna mislead you about this. I'm not gonna mislead you. This is a lonely path. It's a lonely struggle.

No one's gonna understand or very few people will understand. Very few people will understand when you're trying to make your way back to your, back to your innate goodness, back to your natural pure self. No one will understand or very few people will understand what you're grappling with, what you have to do, and how potentially difficult it can be to make every inch of progress. It can be very difficult. I mean, I saw a Muslim sister the other day online talking about how awkward a particular imam was when she went up to talk to him.

She said he was very awkward. He turned his eyes down. You know? He was very abrupt. He made it weird, she was saying.

You know? She was saying, why do Muslim men have to act like this? Why can't they just be normal? Why do they have to overdo it like that? Why do they have to be so awkward about talking to a woman?

It's allowed for a man to talk to a woman in public spaces. So what's the problem? And I'm saying that man knows himself. He did what he had to do. That man was doing what he had to do.

He knows himself. He's trying to guard himself, not from you. There's no reason for you to take offense. He's not guarding himself from you. He's guarding himself from his own nefs.

Don't assume that he's making it awkward for no reason. Don't assume that he's trying to look pious and whatnot, that he's just performing. No. That man knows himself. And he was trying to protect himself.

And in fact, he was trying to check he was trying to protect both of you from himself. You understand? This is what I mean. Even when you're trying even when you're trying to get yourself back to your fitra, when you're trying to get yourself back to your true nature, people won't understand. They might assume the worst.

You know? They might think that you're overdoing it. They might think that you're performing piety, that you're just pretending, you're play acting, or what have you. But never mind. Never mind.

You know? It's like those recovering alcoholics. There are certain places that they can't go. They just can't go. There are people that they just can't be around anymore.

There are certain gatherings that they, you know, they just can't attend. They have to demure because they're struggling to try to claw their way back to stable sobriety. Because listen, there's no finish line. There's no finish line in this struggle. There is no point at which if you reached it or if you crossed it, you know, now your your nefs is no longer an issue.

No. You are in this lonely struggle right up until you take your last breath. That's the way it is. You won't get credit for what you're doing. You won't get credit for what you have done.

You won't get credit for the progress that you've made. You won't get credit for how much you've changed. People will not necessarily even update their opinions about you. They might always see you the way that they saw you in the past. You know?

I've seen drug dealers. I've seen thieves, smugglers, addicts, all sorts of people weeping in tahajid, making long sujood in salah, fasting extra fast, making. And behind their backs, the people that they used to run with are talking about, yeah, now you found religion. Right? Now you wanna act like a pious Muslim.

You weren't like that in the street. Well, how do you want them to be? This is what I'm saying. How do you want them to be? Are they supposed to just stay misguided just because they were misguided at a certain point in their life?

Just because they were misguided before, they have to just commit to misguidance? If they did wrong before, are they just supposed to never try to do anything but wrong? No. Like I said, they were like that. They acted like that because they had changed to become like that, and now they're trying to get back to to the natural self that Allah created them to be.

And they're doing it through actions, and that's the only way you can do it. And those right actions have the ability to uncover and to sweep away and to clean off all the filth and all the muck that their wrong actions piled up on top of their hearts. They're excavating. They're excavating what they themselves buried, and you can't blame them for that. Sometimes you think if you see someone who's doing now, they're doing the opposite of what you're what you're used to seeing them do.

You think that they're being fake. Like I say, you think they're pretending. You think that they're performing. That is all a show. No.

They're trying to undo the damage that they've done to themselves. And there isn't another way to do that except by actions. But here's the thing about this. This cynicism on the part of other people is actually a a part of how you improve or, ensure the sincerity of your intentions because, you're not gonna get praised for it. But if you did get praised for it or if you did get credit for it or you did get acknowledgement for it, if people acknowledged or recognized your efforts and appreciated your struggle, if that happened, if people praised you for it, then you might actually start performing.

You understand me? You might actually start doing things just to get that praise and just to get that acknowledgment. So, no, the loneliness, as hard as it is, the loneliness of the struggle is in fact exactly part of how you keep it genuine. It's how you keep it sincere. It's how you keep it authentic.

You understand me? It's how you ensure that you are truly doing it for the right reasons. Because if you do not do it for the right reasons, if you're not sincere, if you're not genuine, then you're never gonna actually succeed in restoring your true nature. You're you're just continuing to do wrong actually, even if it looks right. You're not gonna ever restore your pure fitra.

So this is how you ensure that you are truly obeying your master and not just seeking the praise of some other slave. You understand me? So again, I don't know how I come across. I have no idea, but I do know myself. I know my life.

I know my mistakes. I know my wrongs. And I know immorality, and I know bad character extremely well because I have memories. Because I have memories. So when I talk about these things, like I said in an earlier talk, when I talk about these things, I'm not talking as a preacher.

I'm more like a whistleblower. I can tell you how all this works because I was deeply embedded in it. You understand me? I'm telling you I'm not an expert in being good. I'm not an expert in being moral.

I'm not an expert in having good character. I'm an expert in the opposite, and I'm an expert in the struggle to not be that way.