WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:04.816 This is one of the longest and densest texts in the hadith collections. 2 00:00:04.816 --> 00:00:09.594 It's the set of counsels God gave the Prophet Muhammad on the night of the ascension. 3 00:00:09.594 --> 00:00:14.295 If you read it from top to bottom, you'll meet dozens of separate instructions. 4 00:00:14.295 --> 00:00:18.566 And if you read it that way, you'll remember maybe three of them a week later. 5 00:00:18.566 --> 00:00:22.003 So in this video, we are not going to memorise a list. 6 00:00:22.003 --> 00:00:23.461 We're going to build a map. 7 00:00:23.461 --> 00:00:27.055 A map where every line of the text has a place to live. 8 00:00:28.200 --> 00:00:29.282 Here's the problem. 9 00:00:29.282 --> 00:00:35.090 When you read line by line, every instruction comes in as its own isolated fact. 10 00:00:35.090 --> 00:00:36.118 Eat lightly. 11 00:00:36.118 --> 00:00:37.303 Stay silent. 12 00:00:37.303 --> 00:00:38.488 The ostrich. 13 00:00:38.488 --> 00:00:39.673 The oleander. 14 00:00:39.673 --> 00:00:40.910 Seven traits. 15 00:00:40.910 --> 00:00:41.991 Four traits. 16 00:00:41.991 --> 00:00:46.782 They all compete for space, they all look equally important, and they fade. 17 00:00:47.934 --> 00:00:50.904 Your brain doesn't store isolated facts well. 18 00:00:50.904 --> 00:00:52.701 It stores relationships. 19 00:00:52.701 --> 00:01:00.553 So if you know the big picture first, what the text is about and what its main parts are, then each detail has a slot to click into. 20 00:01:00.553 --> 00:01:02.259 That's the order we'll use. 21 00:01:02.259 --> 00:01:03.704 Big picture first. 22 00:01:03.704 --> 00:01:04.863 Then the parts. 23 00:01:04.863 --> 00:01:06.399 Then how the parts connect. 24 00:01:06.399 --> 00:01:07.766 Then the details. 25 00:01:08.902 --> 00:01:09.789 Layer one. 26 00:01:09.789 --> 00:01:11.325 What actually is this thing? 27 00:01:11.325 --> 00:01:12.510 It's a dialogue. 28 00:01:12.510 --> 00:01:20.401 On the night of the ascension, the Prophet asks his Lord questions, and God answers, often calling him, Yaa Ahmed. 29 00:01:20.401 --> 00:01:21.391 O Ahmad. 30 00:01:21.391 --> 00:01:26.104 It's narrated from Imam Ali, and it's recorded in Bee-haar al-Anwaar. 31 00:01:26.104 --> 00:01:28.891 Now notice the format, because it matters. 32 00:01:28.891 --> 00:01:32.068 Question, answer, question, answer. 33 00:01:32.068 --> 00:01:35.974 And the questions are exactly the questions any seeker would ask. 34 00:01:35.974 --> 00:01:37.615 What is the best thing to do? 35 00:01:37.615 --> 00:01:39.164 How do I actually do it? 36 00:01:39.164 --> 00:01:40.388 And what comes of it? 37 00:01:40.388 --> 00:01:45.596 If you track those three questions, the text stops feeling like a wall of advice. 38 00:01:46.742 --> 00:01:50.689 And the very first question gives us the thesis of the whole text. 39 00:01:50.689 --> 00:01:53.645 The Prophet asks: which deed is best? 40 00:01:53.645 --> 00:02:02.134 And the answer is: nothing is better to Me than tawakkul, relying on Me, and reeda, being content with what I have given you. 41 00:02:02.134 --> 00:02:03.358 Hold on to this. 42 00:02:03.358 --> 00:02:10.415 Because I'm going to argue that almost everything after this line is an explanation of how a human being actually gets there. 43 00:02:11.542 --> 00:02:12.546 Here's the thing. 44 00:02:12.546 --> 00:02:14.773 You can't just decide to be content. 45 00:02:14.773 --> 00:02:15.580 Try it. 46 00:02:15.580 --> 00:02:19.590 Next time you lose something you care about, just decide not to mind. 47 00:02:19.590 --> 00:02:20.723 It doesn't work. 48 00:02:20.723 --> 00:02:22.494 Contentment is an outcome. 49 00:02:22.494 --> 00:02:24.070 It's the result of something. 50 00:02:24.070 --> 00:02:28.275 So the real question the rest of the text answers is: what produces it? 51 00:02:28.275 --> 00:02:30.593 Keep that question in your head as we go. 52 00:02:31.718 --> 00:02:32.644 Layer two. 53 00:02:32.644 --> 00:02:33.673 The parts. 54 00:02:33.673 --> 00:02:43.256 When I go through the whole text and ask one question of every line, what job is this line doing, almost every line falls into one of six buckets. 55 00:02:43.256 --> 00:02:44.415 This is chunking. 56 00:02:44.415 --> 00:02:50.391 Instead of holding sixty things, you hold six, and each one carries its details with it. 57 00:02:51.518 --> 00:02:52.835 Bucket one, the goal. 58 00:02:52.835 --> 00:02:57.366 Reliance on God, contentment, and in the end, His love. 59 00:02:57.366 --> 00:02:59.619 We've already met this in the first answer. 60 00:03:00.726 --> 00:03:02.629 Bucket two, the obstacle. 61 00:03:02.629 --> 00:03:04.074 What stands in the way? 62 00:03:04.074 --> 00:03:09.998 The nafs, the self with its appetites, and the heart's attachment to the dunya, the world. 63 00:03:11.126 --> 00:03:13.211 Bucket three, the practices. 64 00:03:13.211 --> 00:03:14.799 The concrete things you do. 65 00:03:14.799 --> 00:03:21.427 Hunger, silence, seclusion, worship at night, and earning and eating only what's lawful. 66 00:03:22.542 --> 00:03:24.353 Bucket four, the guardrail. 67 00:03:24.353 --> 00:03:25.109 Wara. 68 00:03:25.109 --> 00:03:29.445 Careful restraint, holding back from the forbidden and the doubtful. 69 00:03:29.445 --> 00:03:32.166 As we'll see, it protects everything else. 70 00:03:33.286 --> 00:03:35.189 Bucket five, the fruits. 71 00:03:35.189 --> 00:03:37.441 What grows when the practices work. 72 00:03:37.441 --> 00:03:43.496 Wisdom, knowing God, certainty, and what the text calls the truly pleasant life. 73 00:03:44.620 --> 00:03:46.666 And bucket six, the mirror. 74 00:03:46.666 --> 00:03:53.840 Two long portraits, the people of the world and the people of the hereafter, which you can hold up against yourself. 75 00:03:54.956 --> 00:04:01.182 Let's go deeper into the buckets, starting with the obstacle, because it explains why the practices exist. 76 00:04:01.182 --> 00:04:04.124 The text gives a striking description of the nafs. 77 00:04:04.124 --> 00:04:06.741 When it's full, it becomes tyrannical. 78 00:04:06.741 --> 00:04:08.916 When it's hungry, it complains. 79 00:04:08.916 --> 00:04:10.921 When it's poor, it gets angry. 80 00:04:10.921 --> 00:04:13.226 When it's rich, it grows arrogant. 81 00:04:13.226 --> 00:04:15.335 When it ages, it forgets. 82 00:04:15.335 --> 00:04:18.109 When it feels safe, it grows heedless. 83 00:04:18.109 --> 00:04:19.294 Notice the pattern. 84 00:04:19.294 --> 00:04:22.640 Whatever condition you give it, it turns it into a problem. 85 00:04:22.640 --> 00:04:26.221 You can't fix the self by giving it the right circumstances. 86 00:04:27.356 --> 00:04:29.649 Then the text gives three images. 87 00:04:29.649 --> 00:04:31.160 Don't just memorise them. 88 00:04:31.160 --> 00:04:32.944 Ask why each one was chosen. 89 00:04:32.944 --> 00:04:37.957 The ostrich eats a great deal, but when a load is put on it, it can't fly. 90 00:04:37.957 --> 00:04:41.746 The oleander has a beautiful colour, and a bitter taste. 91 00:04:41.746 --> 00:04:47.878 And the child loves anything green or yellow, and is fooled by anything sweet or sour. 92 00:04:48.996 --> 00:04:50.508 So what do they have in common? 93 00:04:50.508 --> 00:04:54.401 The ostrich says: more intake does not give you more lift. 94 00:04:54.401 --> 00:05:00.013 The oleander and the child say: what looks good and what is good are not the same thing. 95 00:05:00.013 --> 00:05:03.776 And that's exactly the diagnosis that sets up the next bucket. 96 00:05:03.776 --> 00:05:09.271 If the problem is a self that keeps taking in, then the treatment is to reduce the intake. 97 00:05:10.396 --> 00:05:11.361 Bucket three. 98 00:05:11.361 --> 00:05:12.598 The practices. 99 00:05:12.598 --> 00:05:14.760 Here are some of the actual instructions. 100 00:05:14.760 --> 00:05:20.476 Take lightly from the world, food, drink and clothing, and don't hoard for tomorrow. 101 00:05:20.476 --> 00:05:23.106 Make your sleep prayer, and your food hunger. 102 00:05:23.106 --> 00:05:25.984 The first of worship is silence and fasting. 103 00:05:25.984 --> 00:05:30.372 Worship has ten parts, and nine of them are seeking what is lawful. 104 00:05:30.372 --> 00:05:37.911 And this one: whoever fasts but doesn't guard his tongue is like someone who stands in prayer and doesn't recite anything. 105 00:05:39.044 --> 00:05:41.051 Now, don't just collect these. 106 00:05:41.051 --> 00:05:42.197 Look for the pattern. 107 00:05:42.197 --> 00:05:46.064 Hunger and silence show up together again and again. 108 00:05:46.064 --> 00:05:47.132 Why those two? 109 00:05:47.132 --> 00:05:50.270 Think of them as the two main openings of the self. 110 00:05:50.270 --> 00:05:51.975 The stomach is what goes in. 111 00:05:51.975 --> 00:05:53.603 The tongue is what comes out. 112 00:05:53.603 --> 00:05:57.145 Control both, and you've narrowed the self's main channels. 113 00:05:57.145 --> 00:05:58.720 And there's a key word here. 114 00:05:58.720 --> 00:06:06.832 The text describes God's special servants as having imprisoned their tongues from excess speech, and their stomachs from excess food. 115 00:06:06.832 --> 00:06:07.822 Excess. 116 00:06:07.822 --> 00:06:09.033 Not all speech. 117 00:06:09.033 --> 00:06:10.178 Not all food. 118 00:06:10.178 --> 00:06:12.145 The target is the surplus. 119 00:06:13.284 --> 00:06:14.262 Bucket four. 120 00:06:14.262 --> 00:06:15.343 The guardrail. 121 00:06:15.343 --> 00:06:16.098 Wara. 122 00:06:16.098 --> 00:06:19.861 The text praises it more strongly than almost anything else. 123 00:06:19.861 --> 00:06:23.338 It's the head of the religion, its middle, and its end. 124 00:06:23.338 --> 00:06:27.973 It's like bread among foods, the thing that's present in every meal. 125 00:06:27.973 --> 00:06:29.210 And it's like a ship. 126 00:06:29.210 --> 00:06:36.228 At sea, only those on board are saved, and in the same way, the ascetics are only saved by wara. 127 00:06:37.384 --> 00:06:39.195 Now ask: why a ship? 128 00:06:39.195 --> 00:06:41.513 The people in that sentence are ascetics. 129 00:06:41.513 --> 00:06:43.492 They're already doing the practices. 130 00:06:43.492 --> 00:06:45.159 They're already putting in effort. 131 00:06:45.159 --> 00:06:48.518 And the text says that's still not enough to survive the sea. 132 00:06:48.518 --> 00:06:50.315 The practices are the sail. 133 00:06:50.315 --> 00:06:51.617 Wara is the hull. 134 00:06:51.617 --> 00:06:54.534 Without it, the effort has nothing to stand on. 135 00:06:54.534 --> 00:06:56.813 That's why it's head, middle and end. 136 00:06:56.813 --> 00:06:58.935 It isn't one step in the process. 137 00:06:58.935 --> 00:07:01.005 It wraps around the whole process. 138 00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:03.124 Bucket five. 139 00:07:03.124 --> 00:07:04.166 The fruits. 140 00:07:04.166 --> 00:07:09.062 And this is where the text gets really elegant, because it doesn't just list rewards. 141 00:07:09.062 --> 00:07:11.471 It gives you chains of cause and effect. 142 00:07:11.471 --> 00:07:14.543 The Prophet asks, what does fasting lead to? 143 00:07:14.543 --> 00:07:16.497 And the answer starts with fasting. 144 00:07:17.620 --> 00:07:19.418 Fasting produces wisdom. 145 00:07:20.554 --> 00:07:22.379 Wisdom produces maarifa. 146 00:07:22.379 --> 00:07:23.498 Knowing God. 147 00:07:24.626 --> 00:07:26.685 Knowing God produces yaqeen. 148 00:07:26.685 --> 00:07:27.648 Certainty. 149 00:07:28.770 --> 00:07:34.970 And once a servant has certainty, he doesn't mind whether he wakes up in ease or in hardship. 150 00:07:34.970 --> 00:07:37.170 And there's a parallel chain for hunger. 151 00:07:37.170 --> 00:07:50.113 Its inheritance is wisdom, a guarded heart, nearness to God, speaking the truth, being light on other people, and, again, not caring whether you live in ease or in hardship. 152 00:07:51.237 --> 00:07:53.465 Now pause and look at that last box. 153 00:07:53.465 --> 00:07:55.666 Not minding ease or hardship. 154 00:07:55.666 --> 00:07:56.603 What is that? 155 00:07:56.603 --> 00:07:57.567 That's reeda. 156 00:07:57.567 --> 00:07:58.856 That's contentment. 157 00:07:58.856 --> 00:08:01.291 That's the answer to the very first question. 158 00:08:01.291 --> 00:08:02.658 So the text loops. 159 00:08:02.658 --> 00:08:06.981 It opens by saying the best deed is reliance and contentment. 160 00:08:06.981 --> 00:08:11.239 Then it spends everything after that showing you the machine that produces them. 161 00:08:11.239 --> 00:08:15.119 This is the single most important connection in the whole text. 162 00:08:15.119 --> 00:08:18.009 If you remember one thing, remember this loop. 163 00:08:19.141 --> 00:08:20.158 Layer three. 164 00:08:20.158 --> 00:08:21.486 How the parts connect. 165 00:08:21.486 --> 00:08:23.687 Here's the whole text on one page. 166 00:08:23.687 --> 00:08:28.426 At the top is the goal: reliance, contentment, and God's love. 167 00:08:28.426 --> 00:08:33.752 In the middle is the obstacle, the self and love of the world, which blocks the goal. 168 00:08:33.752 --> 00:08:38.869 At the bottom left are the practices: hunger, silence, lawful living. 169 00:08:38.869 --> 00:08:40.445 They weaken the obstacle. 170 00:08:40.445 --> 00:08:45.601 Wrapped around them is the guardrail, wara, which keeps the effort from sinking. 171 00:08:45.601 --> 00:08:53.023 As the obstacle weakens, the practices produce the fruits: wisdom, then knowing, then certainty. 172 00:08:53.023 --> 00:08:54.794 And the fruits become the goal. 173 00:08:54.794 --> 00:08:55.796 That's the loop. 174 00:08:55.796 --> 00:09:00.835 And off to the side is the mirror, which tells you where you are on this map right now. 175 00:09:01.975 --> 00:09:03.044 Bucket six. 176 00:09:03.044 --> 00:09:03.982 The mirror. 177 00:09:03.982 --> 00:09:06.729 The text paints two detailed portraits. 178 00:09:06.729 --> 00:09:11.326 The people of the world eat, laugh, sleep and get angry a lot. 179 00:09:11.326 --> 00:09:12.940 They have little contentment. 180 00:09:12.940 --> 00:09:16.417 They won't apologise, and they won't accept an apology. 181 00:09:16.417 --> 00:09:19.503 They're lazy in obedience and bold in sin. 182 00:09:19.503 --> 00:09:22.510 Their hopes are long, and their death is near. 183 00:09:22.510 --> 00:09:26.833 The people of the hereafter have great modesty and little foolishness. 184 00:09:26.833 --> 00:09:31.104 People are at ease around them, while their own selves are tired out by them. 185 00:09:31.104 --> 00:09:32.784 Their speech is measured. 186 00:09:32.784 --> 00:09:35.349 Their eyes sleep, but their hearts don't. 187 00:09:35.349 --> 00:09:36.690 Look back at the map. 188 00:09:36.690 --> 00:09:40.115 The first portrait is the obstacle, running unchecked. 189 00:09:40.115 --> 00:09:43.747 The second is what the practices and the guardrail produce. 190 00:09:44.879 --> 00:09:46.105 But here's the trap. 191 00:09:46.105 --> 00:09:49.724 It's very tempting to read these lists and think of other people. 192 00:09:49.724 --> 00:09:52.120 The text actually warns against that. 193 00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:59.503 It says when someone gains wisdom, the first thing they see is their own faults, so they're too busy to look at anyone else's. 194 00:09:59.503 --> 00:10:01.860 So use the mirror the way it was designed. 195 00:10:01.860 --> 00:10:03.136 As a self-check. 196 00:10:03.136 --> 00:10:05.427 Which column am I closer to this week? 197 00:10:06.546 --> 00:10:11.469 Now, the very last counsel in the text is a stress test of our whole model. 198 00:10:11.469 --> 00:10:27.967 It says: even if a servant prayed the prayer of everyone in the heavens and the earth, and fasted their fast, but then kept in his heart even an atom of love of the world, its wealth, its status, its ornament, he will not be God's neighbour in His abode. 199 00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:30.006 Why end there? 200 00:10:30.006 --> 00:10:33.183 Because it stops you from mistaking the means for the goal. 201 00:10:33.183 --> 00:10:34.694 Remember the ostrich. 202 00:10:34.694 --> 00:10:40.071 More intake doesn't mean more lift, and more worship on its own isn't the point either. 203 00:10:40.071 --> 00:10:44.524 On our map, the practices only matter because they weaken the obstacle. 204 00:10:44.524 --> 00:10:49.342 If the attachment in the heart is still there, the machine hasn't done its job. 205 00:10:50.456 --> 00:10:54.624 Now let's test it, because you don't really know something until you can use it. 206 00:10:54.624 --> 00:11:01.721 Near the end, God tells the Prophet that a servant becomes a true worshipper when seven traits come together. 207 00:11:01.721 --> 00:11:04.156 Wara that holds him back from the forbidden. 208 00:11:04.156 --> 00:11:06.395 Silence from what doesn't concern him. 209 00:11:06.395 --> 00:11:08.335 Fear that grows every day. 210 00:11:08.335 --> 00:11:11.265 Modesty before God, even in private. 211 00:11:11.265 --> 00:11:13.114 Eating only what's necessary. 212 00:11:13.114 --> 00:11:15.978 Disliking the world because God dislikes it. 213 00:11:15.978 --> 00:11:18.544 And loving good people because God loves them. 214 00:11:18.544 --> 00:11:19.924 Pause the video now. 215 00:11:19.924 --> 00:11:23.882 Without looking back, put each trait into one of the six buckets. 216 00:11:23.882 --> 00:11:25.002 Then come back. 217 00:11:26.123 --> 00:11:26.841 Okay. 218 00:11:26.841 --> 00:11:28.455 Wara is the guardrail. 219 00:11:28.455 --> 00:11:34.198 Silence and eating only what's needed are the practices, the tongue and the stomach again. 220 00:11:34.198 --> 00:11:38.625 Fear and modesty are fruits, states of the heart that grow. 221 00:11:38.625 --> 00:11:42.153 Disliking the world is the obstacle being removed. 222 00:11:42.153 --> 00:11:46.229 And loving the good because God loves them is the goal, love. 223 00:11:46.229 --> 00:11:47.674 Notice what just happened. 224 00:11:47.674 --> 00:11:55.044 A list of seven traits that would normally be hard to remember became easy, because every item had a place on the map. 225 00:11:55.044 --> 00:11:57.179 That's the whole point of learning this way. 226 00:11:58.299 --> 00:12:00.683 So here's the whole text in one breath. 227 00:12:00.683 --> 00:12:03.392 Reliance and contentment are the goal. 228 00:12:03.392 --> 00:12:06.478 The self's appetite for the world is what blocks it. 229 00:12:06.478 --> 00:12:11.946 Hunger, silence and lawful living, guarded by wara, weaken that block. 230 00:12:11.946 --> 00:12:16.764 And what grows in its place is wisdom, then knowing, then certainty. 231 00:12:16.764 --> 00:12:18.978 And certainty is contentment. 232 00:12:20.107 --> 00:12:21.502 Here's what to do next. 233 00:12:21.502 --> 00:12:25.655 Go back and reread the full text, with this map beside you. 234 00:12:25.655 --> 00:12:30.525 For every line, ask: which bucket does this belong to, and why? 235 00:12:30.525 --> 00:12:32.231 Some lines won't fit neatly. 236 00:12:32.231 --> 00:12:33.455 Don't skip those. 237 00:12:33.455 --> 00:12:38.103 That's where the real learning happens, because they force you to refine the map. 238 00:12:38.103 --> 00:12:42.205 And finally, this text was never meant only to be understood. 239 00:12:42.205 --> 00:12:46.111 Pick one practice, and hold up the mirror to yourself this week. 240 00:12:46.111 --> 00:12:48.872 That's how the map turns into something you live.