"The Best of Sinners Are Those Who Repent"

Well, you know, over praising someone, over praising anyone isn't something that we're really supposed to do in Islam. It's not just about the pitfalls of over idealizing someone, you know, for the person who's doing it, for the person who's doing the praising. I mean, that's obviously a recipe for disappointment, a recipe for disillusionment. But it's also dangerous for the person who's being praised, you know, for a lot of reasons, not just the obvious ones, like giving them a big ego, making them conceited, you know, making them proud and vain and all of that. That's obvious.

But of course, the the reality is that no one is really as good as you might imagine they are. You know, they obviously do things that they shouldn't, just like anybody else. And it's not really fair to sort of trap them in this impossibly pristine image that you might have of them, you may you've created of them. People have to be allowed to have their flaws and make their mistakes, you know. And if someone's been cast in this sort of perfect ideal with unrealistic standards and so on, then any mistakes that they make are gonna be exaggerated and amplified and so forth, if any mistakes that they make get publicized.

And and and fear of those things being publicized is gonna make them do all kind of things to try to hide their flaws, just so that they won't get ruined in the public eye, you know. We're not supposed to be like that with each other. We know that everyone does wrong sometimes. You should never be able to blackmail a Muslim, because Muslims all understand that everyone is flawed, everyone is weak in one way or another. So no one should be shocked when you when you find out something bad about somebody.

We've always been more gracious than that. You know, even in the hadiths about the Sahaba, who maybe did some wrong things or committed a sin, their name is hardly ever mentioned. They'll just say, you know, this man or that woman was accused of such and such. They didn't shame them by naming them. They'll never name them.

Of course, they knew who they were, but they never say their names. So you actually do wrong to the person that you admire when you put them on a pedestal. You can only safely admire the dead. People who have successfully completed their test in the dunya. And you know, I think one of the signs has to be one of the signs of the people who are destined for the hellfire has to be that they do bad and they succeed.

You know, they do wrong, they do evil, and somehow everything works out for them. Because when Allah when God wants you to be good, when it matters to God that you be good, that you do good, well, he'll never let you be good at being bad. In other words, you'll do wrong, you'll do evil, and it will ruin your life. That's Allah telling you, no, that's not what I want for you. That's not how I want you to be.

Those aren't the deeds that I want you to do. And that's the case for most people. For most people, when you act wickedly, it capsizes your life. And that's a mercy. If you're astute enough to understand, to to to recognize what's going on when that happens.

To be punished for what you're doing wrong is a mercy. It's a correction. You know? If you haven't made any repentance for it, and you just keep going on that same wrong path, then it's a it's a mercy to be corrected. See, a lot of good people only became good people because they failed miserably as villains.

They might have gone down all sorts of dark paths in their life, over the course of their life. They might have done awful, immoral things. They might have lived an evil, evil lifestyle. Because when I say that Allah won't let you be good at being bad, I don't mean that he won't make you capable of being bad. You might be very capable at it.

You might be disturbingly capable capable at it. You might be as bad as they come. But your life also turns into a horrific mess as a result of that, Which means you're not cut out for that life. You're not cut out for that lifestyle. And that's a good thing.

See, maybe young people will see will look at people my age or older. People who seem to you to be, you know, upright, straight laced, righteous, what have you, older people who seem to have themselves together. And you think that they're innocent and pure and good hearted old senior citizens who never even got so much as a traffic violation in their life. But no, most likely you're seeing them once they have reached that point after potentially a whole lifetime of wrongdoing. Of wrongdoing and chaos, you understand?

You think that they're pure and innocent, but they probably have memories of having done things that you're too young and too innocent to even imagine doing. You know, it's like if you see someone laying on the beach, and you think they're just lounging around without a care in the world, they're on vacation or something. They're rich having a having a holiday. But, in reality, just moments before you got there, they actually just dragged themselves onto the shore after, swimming across the ocean and almost drowning. You don't know what you're looking at.

You don't know who you're looking at. Listen, when older people warn you about something, you should take it as a given that they're speaking from experience and you ought to pay attention. Because most of us are nothing but rehabilitated villains and that's the truth. We didn't necessarily reform ourselves because we, you know, saw the light. No.

We didn't see the light, we saw the darkness. And it's not as cool and as satisfying as they make it look in the movies, you know? You know how the bad guys in the movies are always cooler interesting and more compelling than the heroes? More compelling and interesting than the good guys in all the movies and TV shows out of Hollywood? Well, that's the epitome of false advertising.

Because there's nothing unique about doing wrong. There's nothing unique or special about it. It's not rebellious, it's not liberating, it's not brave. It's mediocre and stupid. And if you go into that sort of lifestyle, the best thing that can happen to you, actually, is for your whole world to fall apart around you.

That's the best thing that can happen. The worst thing that can happen is if your life goes smoothly while you're living an evil lifestyle because that means that Allah has discarded you and you don't even matter anymore. You know, for men I I don't know about women. I can't speak about women. But for most men, the truth is most men are bewildered.

Life for them is like racing through a maze in the dark, bumping into dead ends, doubling back, trying to find their way, frantic, under pressure, racing against time, you know, all while necessarily acting like they know exactly what they're doing. Necessarily acting confident, necessarily acting assertive and certain and so forth. Even when they haven't got a clue what they're doing. They haven't got a clue where they're going. Or even knowing genuinely what they want to do and where they want to go, like sharks, you know.

They just keep moving to survive. Or anyway, that's what they think they have to do to survive. They think that's what survival requires. And this is actually one of the ways, in my opinion, how and why men become doers of evil. You know?

It's almost like they think every opportunity must be taken, every open door must be accessed. And anything that seems like an accomplishment must be an accomplishment, even if it's bad. You know? It's like someone trying to build a a a structure, and whatever he finds, he keeps using it as materials. And if he keeps finding materials, keeps using it, thinking that he's doing something, he's accomplishing something.

Even if all the materials are faulty and rotten and flimsy. All he knows is I'm supposed to be building something, so I must be succeeding. I must be doing what I must be fulfilling the assignment. So he just takes whatever he can find. He takes whatever he's given.

You know, he takes whatever whatever comes to him with no discernment, no discretion, no discrimination because he can't discern. He can't discriminate because he doesn't even have a clear understanding what he's supposed to be building. You understand? So even if haram opportunities come to him, he takes them. Even if haram relationships comes to him, he takes them.

You know? He does something wrong and if he gets away with it, then he does it again. Then he does it again. Then he does worse than that, moving like a blind shark. Hustle hustle hustle, you know?

Get money, get women, get fame, get attention, get this, get that, no matter how you do it. Lie, cheat, steal, con, it doesn't matter. And you know that this is all Shaitan. This is all from Shaitan, and he becomes like Shaitan. You know how the Jinn are made of fire.

Shaitan is a Jinn. Well, they're they're they're made of fire. And then the man starts acting like fire. He has the same qualities. Volatile, impulsive, wild, out of control.

These aren't the qualities of a man. Nabi Adam was from the earth. He was created from the earth, from the clay. Well, clay is solid. It's still.

It's stable. It's not volatile. It's adaptable, but it's not volatile. Fire burns and clay cools. It's sturdy.

A man should be solid. He should be as solid as the earth itself, but he can't be solid if he doesn't know where he stands. Once he knows where he stands, well, he can't be moved. Well, you'd have a better chance of trying to move a mountain than trying to move a man who knows his place in the world, who has a place to stand. You can't move that man.

But if you do see a man who knows where he stands, who knows his place in the world, then you ought to assume that he went through a whole process to get to that point. I mean, you'll hardly ever see a man, an older man anyway, who's upright, except that he has he he's someone who has survived his own sins and the consequences of his sins. When you see that old uncle at the front row of the masjid who's always there for the salah, at the at the front suf, well, probably knows more about the devil than you know about your own self. Every old righteous man is a combat veteran. I mean, like almost any man my age.

Me myself, I've been all sorts of bad in my life and I've been good too. Depending on who you are and when you knew me, you might love me or you might hate me and you'd both be justified because I've been all sorts of things. But now more than anything else, what I am is experienced. And for me personally, I just wanna avoid the stupidity of evil as much as possible except to point it out when I see it. You know, I get compliments in my comment section.

I get praise in my comment section. And I also get a lot of criticism and I get a lot of insults. But I'm impervious to any of those, to to both things. Because I know who I am. I know that I'm not as good as anyone thinks I am.

And I know that I'm not as bad as anyone thinks I am. But after a decent amount of life experience, you collect a lot of information about both good and evil. And with that information, the least you can do is become a snitch on the devil. You know, just like those mafia guys who cooperate with the feds, who cooperate with the authorities and give them all the inside information about how the mob operates. We understand evil and we came by that knowledge through experience.

See, once you realize the disaster of being evil, not the glamour of it, not the soup the the the superficial momentary perks, not the rush, but the actual spiritual catastrophe that it is and what it does to your life, well then you begin to grasp and to appreciate what it means to be good. Not because you became a saint, but because you saw hell peek through your life, the cracks in your life, and you didn't wanna fall all the way in. Being good isn't always about noble intentions and having a pure heart. That's the truth. Sometimes being good is just about pure survival.

It's about not wanting your life to be a disaster. It's about being sick of the pain that you've caused others and the pain that you've carried within yourself. You don't necessarily always turn to goodness, because you think that you're better than others. You turn to goodness because you know you're not better than others. Because you remember all too well what it's like to be at your worst.

It's not even really about being upright. It's about being mature. It's about being intelligent. It's about self respect. And yes, it makes you wanna snitch on Iblis.

Makes you wanna expose his whole operation, you know, with that insider knowledge to call out Shaitan on all of his strategies and all of his tactics. You know, upright Muslims aren't out here trying to act like they're pious. They're not standing on a a a pedestal. Most of us are standing on wreckage. We didn't get good.

We just got tired. We didn't become saints. We just got smart. We understand that rebellion isn't freedom, indulgence isn't power, defiance isn't dignity. It's not.

It's slavery. You're not taking charge of your life when you do wrong. You're forfeiting charge of your life. You're forfeiting control of your life. Like I said, it doesn't make you special.

It's a cliche. There's nothing there there's no mediocrity that's more predictable than evil, you know. When you're when you're in that, you think you're a big bad wolf, but you're really a sheep. And your shepherd is Iblis and he's leading you to the wolves. That's why life experience allows you to speak bluntly.

Because you've already divorced this dunya, you know, and it was a bad marriage the whole time. And you're glad to be rid of it. And, you know, when people get older, you know, I mean, like, really older, when death starts moving closer, and it's not a concept but an appointment that you have. It's not abstract anymore. It's an event that you're packing your bags for, you know.

You start letting go of stuff. You know how old people are always giving their stuff away? The older they get, they're giving their stuff away. It's not because they're so spiritually elevated, it's because you realize you're not taking it with you. Right?

The same thing happens or should happen with the worldly desires. With all of your worldly desires and your ambitions and so forth. Including your concern about approval and your desire for admiration or your concern over disapproval and what have you. Just like an old man who begins giving away his possessions, his belongings and he writes his will, you understand he's not being generous, he's just getting ready to leave. Well, that's how you have to start treating your attachments in this life.

Give them away. Write your will. Get your soul in order. Get your affairs in order. Because you can't be free until all the temptations of this dunya become dull and bland and boring to you, unappealing.

So the shaitan has to be able to look at you and not see any buttons he can push. Then you can't be bribed, can't be blackmailed, you can't be threatened, you can't be coerced, you can't be paid off because the dunya has nothing that you want. You don't need approval and you don't fear disapproval. This will solidify you. This will make you, still and settled and you'll have your place to stand.

So, you know, if you have done wrong in your life or if you're doing wrong, if you've been making the your friend group, okay, then be disloyal. I'm saying, be a traitor, be a mafia snitch, turn on him, be a whistleblower, be a a security breach in his system of evil. Teach your brothers and sisters about his manipulation and how it works so that they won't fall for it. Maybe this is how you can turn your evil deeds into good deeds. Literally by taking the knowledge that you acquired only by doing the the the evil deeds and then using that to teach others what a disaster it is.

And then maybe, if you're fortunate, maybe, when the judgment day comes, you'll break even. And that's as good as a win.