Standards for Using Social Media

Occasion: A transcription of a lecture delivered during a gathering on social media on November 30, 2019Source: A transcription of a video lecture by Dr. Ahmed Abouseif — Watch the original video on YouTube

Praise be to Allah for His countless, uncountable blessings, and prayers and peace upon the seal of His prophets and messengers, our master and our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and upon his family and Companions, with abundant peace. To proceed: may Allah the Exalted welcome this noble gathering, and I ask Allah to place these steps toward this place in the scales of good deeds, complete and undiminished, by His leave, Mighty and Majestic, and to grant us attentive ears and sincere hearts that take in what is cast to them. Amen.

We are facing a deadly disease that has truly taken hold of people's minds and hearts, and has led to a great number of corruptions that cannot be denied in the reality of life, and which only the one without sight or insight overlooks. We ask Allah the Exalted for safety.

What is assigned to me on this occasion is to speak about the standards by which a Muslim must weigh his choices. That is, we are dealing with a person who, naturally, deals with the internet and social media. I am not at the stage of asking: should we engage or not? Though I do say that we must engage. But now we are speaking with a person who is already engaging, and we want to set down some standards to follow during this engagement. And I do not want to go beyond into the stage that my honorable brother will speak about after me.

The First Standard: The Lawful and the Unlawful

I want to begin by turning to the first point, which is the question of the lawful and the unlawful, and this is the first standard in our lives. The Lord of Glory, Glorified and Exalted, said: ﴿وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونِ﴾ (I did not create jinn and mankind except to worship Me)^[7]. This is the starting point from which we set out in all our deeds and our life. And the Prophet ﷺ spoke, framing the contours of this servitude, saying, upon him be peace and blessings: «إِنَّمَا الأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ، وَإِنَّمَا لِكُلِّ امْرِئٍ مَا نَوَى، فَمَنْ كَانَتْ هِجْرَتُهُ إِلَى اللهِ وَرَسُولِهِ فَهِجْرَتُهُ إِلَى اللهِ وَرَسُولِهِ، وَمَنْ كَانَتْ هِجْرَتُهُ إِلَى دُنْيَا يُصِيبُهَا أَوِ امْرَأَةٍ يَنْكِحُهَا فَهِجْرَتُهُ إِلَى مَا هَاجَرَ إِلَيْهِ» (Actions are but by intentions, and each person will have only what he intended. So whoever's emigration was to Allah and His Messenger, his emigration is to Allah and His Messenger; and whoever's emigration was for some worldly gain he would obtain or a woman he would marry, his emigration is to that for which he emigrated)^[1]. And we can add along this line: whoever's intention is toward Allah and His Messenger, his intention is toward Allah and His Messenger; and whoever's intention is toward Satan, or toward some desire through which he gains something, his intention is against himself in this world and the next. And this applies to everything you might add: WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger and the rest, all of these names in all their kinds and forms: actions are but by intentions.

And on the question of the lawful and the unlawful there is a ḥadīth that I hope everyone will place before their eyes and reflect on its significance and meaning, in which the Chosen One ﷺ says: «لا يُؤْمِنُ أَحَدُكُمْ حَتَّى يَكُونَ هَوَاهُ تَبَعًا لِمَا جِئْتُ بِهِ» (None of you truly believes until his desire is subordinate to what I have brought)^[2]. What does the word "desire" (hawā) signify? Desire is the thing wanted that is not originally needed, otherwise it would become a necessity rather than a desire. So desire itself must be subordinate to what the Prophet ﷺ brought. So to attain the level of faith, we have no choice but to be behind the Prophet ﷺ and in his footsteps, with everything that the phrase contains.

And we turn to the Noble Qur'an to see that the first command in the life of the world of creation as we have known it was ﴿اسْجُدُوا لِآدَمَ﴾ (prostrate to Adam). This was the first command of obligation, and it came before Adam was forbidden the tree. So what was the outcome of this command? It was one of two pictures. The first picture: "We heard and we obeyed," and the Lord of the worlds, Glorified and Exalted, spoke of its people, saying, Mighty and Majestic: ﴿لَّا يَعْصُونَ اللَّهَ مَا أَمَرَهُمْ وَيَفْعَلُونَ مَا يُؤْمَرُونَ﴾ (who do not disobey Allah in what He commands them, and do what they are commanded). Who are they? The angels. And the second picture, or the second outcome, was for the one who said: ﴿أَأَسْجُدُ لِمَنْ خَلَقْتَ طِينًا﴾ (Shall I prostrate to one You created from clay?), so how was the result? ﴿اخْرُجْ مِنْهَا مَذْءُومًا مَّدْحُورًا﴾ (Get out of it, disgraced and expelled). This divine command lies between obeying it and rejecting it, between the honor of the obedient and the abasement of the disobedient; so which of the two roads do we want to walk? ﴿لَا يَعْصُونَ اللَّهَ مَا أَمَرَهُمْ وَيَفْعَلُونَ مَا يُؤْمَرُونَ﴾ is a phrase that will keep being repeated on the tongues of creation until the Day of Resurrection, speaking of a model of pride in those angels who said: we heard and we obeyed.^[8]

And if we trace the verses in which the Lord of the worlds, Glorified and Exalted, speaks in the Noble Qur'an by way of command: ﴿أَطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَأَطِيعُوا الرَّسُولَ﴾ (Obey Allah and obey the Messenger)^[3], we would realize that the matter admits no discussion in our lives whatsoever. And if we trace that the one whom Allah the Exalted loves is only the one who obeyed the Messenger, followed his trail and walked in his footsteps^[4], we would know that we have no choice in obeying the command of the Lord of Glory, Glorified and Exalted.

And we can speak about the question of obedience and its absence in regard to those who will or will not turn to Islam; those are within the framework of ﴿لَا إِكْرَاهَ فِي الدِّينِ ۖ قَدْ تَّبَيَّنَ الرُّشْدُ مِنَ الْغَيِّ﴾ (There is no compulsion in religion; the right course has become clear from the wrong)^[9]. But those who responded to Islam and submitted to its command, and testified that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, these have no choice but to follow the command of the Lord of Glory, Glorified and Exalted, in everything He commands, and to stop at everything He forbids, Glorified, High above all. This is the first matter, the first standard: obedient or disobedient?

The Second Standard: The Roles Assigned to the Muslim

The second matter: the roles assigned to the Muslim during his life's journey. What is the role assigned to you? Have we reflected: why did Allah the Exalted create us in this period of time? Why did Allah the Exalted bring this one into being in California and that one in Dallas and another elsewhere? Why did Allah the Exalted bring us into being in particular places and times? Do you think that happened in vain, with no prior arrangement from the Lord of Glory, with no wisdom from Allah, Blessed and Exalted, with no purpose that ought to bear a righteous result in societies? Why did Allah create for you a daughter before a son? And why did He give you an obedient son who listens? Why? Every small and great thing in our lives needs reflection and contemplation.

And on that basis: why am I here now? Only to eat and drink? Is our life confined to a life like that of the cattle: you eat and drink and then reproduce, yielding repeated copies of creatures? Or shall we return once more to the question of awareness, which our Sheikh, may Allah the Exalted preserve him, graciously raised with us, and to the realization of our role? Why you? Why did you marry so-and-so and not his brother? Why are you in such-and-such a family and not in another? These are questions that call for alertness from us. So if Allah the Exalted created you an engineer, what is the purpose behind that? And if Allah the Exalted made you an imam, what is the result behind that? The roles assigned to you: what role do you occupy, and what position do you hold?

And in our first meeting two days ago we spoke about how our true role in life is that we are servants of Allah, Blessed and Exalted, and that our primary function in our lives is this servitude. It is as if I were an employee under the title of Divinity, an employee in a bureaucracy that is not the state's bureaucracy but the bureaucracy of religion; my task in this job is that I am a Muslim, but my particular duties come in succession to this job: that among my tasks is to do such and such and such. So are we performing our roles or not? We look and follow up.

No Excuse in the Environment

So that no one makes excuses, or pleads that the environment is stronger than us and we cannot resist: do you say that all the prophets and messengers whose names Allah the Exalted mentioned in the Noble Qur'an came out in Muslim environments and followed the religion of their fathers, mothers and grandfathers? No, by Allah, that did not happen. Rather, all the prophets and messengers grew up in disbelieving environments, and came to reform those environments and change the pattern of servitude, the traditions, the cultures, the behaviors and the ethics.^[10] They came to change the face of the whole world, to show people the sun that Allah brings out and not the sun they were accustomed to seeing, to make people walk on an earth the Lord of the worlds has prepared and not an earth they made with their own hands, and to make people acquainted with the landmarks of the universe and the etiquette of what we ought to follow so that we may come to know servitude.

Names of Sūrahs and Roles: Yūnus and Others

For example: why did Allah the Exalted give sūrahs names taken from particular messengers? Let us look at the first sūrah in the Noble Qur'an, in the Qur'anic order, that was named after a messenger; which sūrah is it? Yūnus. We would have expected the first sūrah bearing the name of a prophet to be named Muhammad ﷺ or Ibrāhīm, peace be upon him, one of those who achieved something mighty, but it is a sūrah named after a man of whom people remember that he left his mission and walked away from it. What comes to people's minds when they hear of Yūnus, peace be upon him? He went off in anger. This is what we remember about Yūnus, peace be upon him.^[11] It is as if the Lord of the worlds, Glorified and Exalted, when He presented to us a model of the prophets who would carry out the missions afterwards, presented before that a model who wanted to abandon the mission, but Allah the Exalted said to him: No, you have no choice in this.

And imagine that an imam one day gets fed up with the work of the imamate, and says: enough, I am sick of these people, I can no longer bear it. But Allah the Exalted says to him: Wait, what is this? Seek guidance from Allah; this is your mission, and you have no escape from completing the journey. And if this applies to the prophets, how much more to the imams? Pardon me, how much more to people in general? Ordinary Muslims, who have testified to Allah's oneness and to the messengership of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, you have no choice but religion. And if you chose religion and became convinced that you have a mission, then you must be influential in some way; otherwise, why am I here? It is as if you were saying to Allah: You created me in vain and I should not have been in this place, Allah forbid, Mighty and Majestic.

So look at Yūnus, peace be upon him: he went off in anger, but Allah, Blessed and Exalted, returned him to his people. And when He returned him to his people, how was the result? ﴿فَآمَنُوا فَمَتَّعْنَاهُمْ إِلَىٰ حِينٍ﴾ (and they believed, so We let them enjoy life for a time)^[12]. And proportionally, my master, the highest percentage of belief with any messenger is the percentage of belief of the people of Yūnus with him: they believed, and the percentage is roughly 100%. Even with our master the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, the percentage of belief that was with him was not 100%, was it? This is only to refresh the mind and reflection. So that prophet who wanted to depart from the very missions entrusted to him, Allah the Exalted returned him to them to tell us that we have no choice. Never think that you can abandon your responsibilities in life as a Muslim! Do not think this way; it is wrong thinking, not logical by any means; rather, you are a Muslim who must perform some role. In this role there is no such thing as resignation, and you cannot take leave from your mission as a Muslim.

Features of the Roles of the Prophets

On that basis, let us look at Hūd, upon our Prophet and upon him be prayers and peace: what was the mission Allah the Exalted wanted through his sending? He wanted to return people to the root of reflecting on the blessings that are at the foundation of life, and how we can use and invest these productive human capacities on earth, and the divine ones that the Lord of the worlds brought forth, so as to make people servants of the Lord of the worlds, Glorified and Exalted.

And Yūsuf, upon our Prophet and upon him be prayers and peace, what do you see? What was his mission? I see, and Allah the Exalted knows best, that the mission of Yūsuf, peace be upon him, was the matter of reform in the field of strategic planning. And the subject of economic reform is taking hold of the reins, but after the matter of strategic planning for the future. So who among us plans for the nation? Who among us plans for the world? Who among us plans for America and Europe and the countries of the Middle East and others? Who holds this forelock that Yūsuf, peace be upon him, once held? And did Allah the Exalted present these models to us in the Noble Qur'an as scattered dust, or did He present them to us so that we learn how to run our minds to work in the same field that the Lord of the worlds, Glorified and Exalted, wanted and established in the Qur'an?

And Ibrāhīm, upon our Prophet and upon him be prayers and peace: I see, and Allah the Exalted knows best, that his mission took place in the matter of intellectual reform, the management of minds. The matter of servitude to Allah is a matter shared among all the prophets, which we do not deny and neither add to it nor subtract from it; but in addition to that, Ibrāhīm, peace be upon him, used rational logic in managing these human minds so that they would turn once more to the Lord of the worlds, Glorified and Exalted.

And Mūsā, upon our Prophet and upon him be prayers and peace: the role he came to perform is a role representing political reform in the reality of life: ﴿أَرْسِلْ مَعَنَا بَنِي إِسْرَائِيلَ وَلَا تُعَذِّبْهُمْ ۖ قَدْ جِئْنَاكَ بِآيَةٍ مِّن رَّبِّكَ﴾ (Send with us the Children of Israel and do not torment them; we have come to you with a sign from your Lord). We came to bring the servants out of the worship of Pharaoh and others, from the worship of servants to the worship of the Lord of servants. And if you imagine, for example, the case of Shuʿayb, peace be upon him, and the economic reform in which: ﴿إِنْ أُرِيدُ إِلَّا الْإِصْلَاحَ مَا اسْتَطَعْتُ﴾ (I only intend reform as far as I am able)^[13], a slogan he launched, and it is what is practiced in our lives until the Day of Resurrection.

So we have spoken under number one about the lawful and the unlawful, and under number two about the reformist role.

The Third Standard: Looking at Consequences

And we are speaking about standards. Allah, Blessed and Exalted, said: ﴿وَلَا تُلْقُوا بِأَيْدِيكُمْ إِلَى التَّهْلُكَةِ ۛ وَأَحْسِنُوا ۛ إِنَّ اللَّهَ يُحِبُّ الْمُحْسِنِينَ﴾ (Do not throw yourselves with your own hands into destruction, and do good; indeed Allah loves the doers of good)^[14]. What is the meaning of "do not throw yourselves with your own hands into destruction"? You must look at the consequences that will follow from actions.

And our Sheikh, may Allah the Exalted preserve him, gave us an example of a woman who looked at the internet and went deep into the matter, and compared men, and chose seven of the lions of the internet, masha'Allah, so he spoke to her and she listened to him, then he saw her and she saw him, and she moved out of the bounds of the reasonable into the unreasonable in the eyes of sensible people, though for her it is entirely reasonable to abandon her children, her home and her husband and turn to another man, who looks at her only as prey and nothing more, and then after a while spits her out as he spat out those before her. For him the matter is settled: he hunts a prey, sits with her a little, and spends a couple of words with her. And I was surprised when the Sheikh said that he actually married her; for in most cases that does not happen, rather this is what happens with internet means.

By Allah, besides whom there is no god, whenever I enter the internet I say and repeat: ﴿سُبْحَانَ الَّذِي سَخَّرَ لَنَا هَٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لَهُ مُقْرِنِينَ﴾ (Glory be to Him who has subjected this to us, and we could never have subdued it ourselves).^[15] It is true, by Allah. Compare twenty years ago: people used to send letters from here to the home countries, so how long did a letter take to arrive, going and returning? And telephone calls cost how much? And people spent only to hear the voice of their mother or their father. And today it is voice and image, and before you lift your hand from the button, the message has arrived. And some applications, like "Imo" for example, while you are typing, the other party sees what you are typing; even if you erase it, he sees that you erased and how many letters you got wrong. ﴿سُبْحَانَ الَّذِي سَخَّرَ لَنَا هَٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لَهُ مُقْرِنِينَ﴾. These tools, from which we ought to benefit in every sense of benefit, are the very ones that throw us into destruction in the present living age. So: looking at the consequences, looking at the consequences.

And in the example that our master mentioned, and there are many examples of this and you know that perfectly well, by Allah, besides whom there is no god, the example our Sheikh mentioned is a recurring example, and we are exposed to it night and day. One of them asks: what do I do with my wife, who has exposed her body to a man through social media? What do you answer him? And we have children. And he closes his eyes out of shame at what he is saying, and does not want to leave the woman because he fears for his children and does not know what to do. And when you ask him, the crime turns out to be shared: he left her at home, and ordered her not to be with her family, and not to befriend any of her neighbors, male or female, pleading excuses such as: she comes to us and inspects things and I don't know what, so our man confined her at home between four walls, with no outlet to look outside the house except the internet, so she began to engage. And of course this is no justification for the woman to deviate, but the calamity is that she went outside the frame.

And that does not mean that we are speaking about women and not men, for cases keep coming to us: that he is in contact with other women, and I cannot bear this life, and I want a divorce, because I do not want a co-wife, even if with suspended execution, or even if she is alive in an electronic life; she refuses that entirely. So homes are ruined.

And if we look at social media sites and their effect on boys and girls, we are facing entirely different equations whose dimensions we cannot imagine; because the children are completely proficient in what they make through these means, and they make it with extreme craftsmanship. Never imagine that you will be able to grasp what your children do through social media; they have tricks and inventions you cannot imagine. And each one of us is required to be "IT" in order to understand what is happening around him. Even the older engineers who are of our age cannot reach the results that are now being produced; indeed, among the children are those who invent things and add them to the application, and you discover with him a power, I do not want to say the word "by chance," but it could be that the designer did not intend this benefit in this application, yet it came to exist like this through the interconnection of things with one another. ﴿وَسُبْحَانَ الَّذِي سَخَّرَ لَنَا هَٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لَهُ مُقْرِنِينَ﴾.

How Do We Get Out? Repentance

And what is assigned to me is to say: how to get out of the dangers of these applications if we fall into them. First: repentance. And repentance is divided in the Qur'an, or is alluded to in the Noble Qur'an, into two kinds: the repentance of individuals and the repentance of societies. This is how I see it, and Allah the Exalted knows best, and our sheikhs should correct me, may Allah bless them.

Allah the Exalted said: ﴿إِلَّا مَن تَابَ وَآمَنَ وَعَمِلَ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا فَأُولَٰئِكَ يُبَدِّلُ اللَّهُ سَيِّئَاتِهِمْ حَسَنَاتٍ ۗ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا﴾ (except for those who repent, believe and do righteous deeds; for those, Allah will replace their evil deeds with good, and Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful). And this is part of the verse above it, then He mentioned: ﴿وَمَن تَابَ وَعَمِلَ صَالِحًا فَإِنَّهُ يَتُوبُ إِلَى اللَّهِ مَتَابًا﴾ (and whoever repents and does righteousness, then indeed he turns to Allah with true repentance).^[16] So we want to say: he repented, believed, did a righteous deed, so those, Allah will replace their evil deeds with good, and Allah is ever Forgiving, Merciful. I have three points here: what is the meaning of repentance? And why did faith come after it? And why did righteous action come after that?

Repentance means first of all recognizing the error; for no one repents while imagining himself to be right. Repent from what? I am right! Even those who practice sin: one of them says, Allah honored me in my work yesterday and I was dazzling, may Allah accept. And the sister draws near to Allah the Exalted through this self-made work by which she earns her money, and spends on the poor and the orphans and so on, and goes and performs Ḥajj and ʿUmrah. She imagines that what she does is 100% correct. So when you say to her: repent, she says to you: I seek Allah's forgiveness, repent from what? O Allah, make us among the repentant, O Lord of the worlds. This is her understanding of the matter. So when we say "repentance," it means recognizing an error; I must be convinced that I am practicing something or doing something wrong in order to repent from it.

So repentance comes in stages: first, recognition, then looking toward the next stage, which is giving up, then choosing this new path on which I will walk. So individual repentance comes out of this concept: repentance, that is, recognition, then reflection and orientation, then settling. And that is why the word faith comes after the word repentance, to suggest real steadfastness on the new path, which is a move from disobedience to good, or from shirk to kufr,^[17] or from falsehood to truth, or whatever it may be. Then after that righteous action; look at it, and Allah the Exalted knows best, as the suitable alternative to what was in my hands yesterday.

So the people who used to go on the internet to see women, or look at men, or practice sin, or "just" for entertainment, he says to you: Sheikh, by Allah I do nothing wrong, by Almighty Allah, Sheikh you don't know, "my heart is like white muslin," I am very nice, I am only amusing myself! You can hear this talk with utmost simplicity: I'm only amusing myself, by Allah Sheikh there is nothing wrong, by Allah I do nothing. You feel as though an angel descended from heaven is speaking to you, brand new, still bearing the stamp of heaven! But the truth is that we must fill these voids, we must fill this.

And our master Professor Maḥmūd ʿUmārah, may Allah the Exalted have mercy on him, used to say: "the art of alternatives"; before you bring a sin out of a human being, you must provide him with the alternative. Then he mentioned: "Say: shall I inform you of something better than that…"^[5] So there must be an alternative. So what is the alternative? My son is busy with the internet night and day, so what is the alternative?

And look at a beautiful Muslim family, and I do not absolve myself, by Allah I do not absolve myself: I am replying to people's messages and so on, then I turn around at some moment and find my wife with a phone, praise be to Allah, and my children each with a phone, praise be to Allah, and the world is quiet, drop a needle and it rings. Why? Each one is in his own world.

And I remember a sentence one of our teachers said to me long ago, speaking about talk from years back, he says: in the old days when we used to sit around the low round table (ṭablīyah), and the father would sit in the midst of his children and talk; he would say: get up, boy, bring me that thing, and the boy would say to him: No, I won't get up, let her get up, and the father would say to him: Get up and bring it, instead of my saying to you: what did you do today? The important thing is that conversations kept going in this fashion, until they finished eating, drinking and everything. And after that we entered our room and closed the door of the house, and a conversation took place between the spouses about the boy and the girl and their upbringing^[6]. So the page of the ṭablīyah ended, and the radio came out for us, and people, sitting at the same table, began listening to the radio, so people stopped talking but kept looking at one another, and time progressed and the television came out for us: when the television came out they were still sitting together, but they stopped talking and stopped looking at one another. And with the computer, when it came out, they stopped sitting together. And with the phones and the means that exist now, the matter is even more severe.

The Repentance of Society

So we said: there is the repentance of an individual and the repentance of a society. Where did we get this repentance of society from? ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا قُوا أَنفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِيكُمْ نَارًا وَقُودُهَا النَّاسُ وَالْحِجَارَةُ﴾ (O you who believe, protect yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is people and stones). And in the same context He says: ﴿تُوبُوا إِلَى اللَّهِ تَوْبَةً نَّصُوحًا﴾ (repent to Allah with sincere repentance),^[18] "repent" in the plural form. Imagine the repentance of society: I will address the family with it first before I address the larger society with it.

The Scale Between the Hands

So we agreed; so we have number one: repentance. Number two, as we said: looking at the consequences. And number three I will conclude with, and I do not know how many minutes I have left: every action in your life, please, hold this scale; hold it with me, put down the phones in your hands, and hold the scale with me, and compare every action in your life, reckon it or measure it against these givens.

Number one: do you begin the action with "bismillāh"? As our Sheikh graciously said: the etiquette of entering the internet. Bismillāh, for example: do you begin entering this site, or the chat with this lady, or the call with this boy, do you say: bismillāh, we rely on Allah, and there is no power and no strength except with Allah, the Most High, the Almighty? Do we begin with bismillāh or do we begin with something else? I mean, our brother who lights a cigarette, does he light it with bismillāh? Does he do this or not? This is number one. And "al-ḥamdu lillāh" when he finishes; does he say al-ḥamdu lillāh when he finishes?

Number two: while I am engaged in actions, whatever they are, I must remember: is there an angel with me or a devil with me? The one who attends me at this place, is it an angel or a devil? Is the one who is writing down my deeds now the angel of good deeds or the angel of evil deeds? While you chat or look or watch or comment or post a comment or provoke people, or search for something…

Number three, or four, I don't know which, what matters is that someone is counting behind me. Send blessings upon the Prophet. So we said: will this action be written in the scale of your good deeds or the scale of your evil deeds, after you finish and end your night and close the device? Will this action be written in the scale of good deeds or in the scale of evil deeds? And as you do anything in your life: is our Lord pleased that you do it, or angry with you for doing this thing?

So reckon: is an angel with you or a devil? Is it fitting for you to begin with bismillāh? Will your action be in the scale of your good deeds or the scale of your evil deeds? Does that action make Allah the Exalted happy or anger the Lord of the worlds?

I ask Allah, Blessed and Exalted, to bless you and to bless you with good; may Allah the Exalted reward you well, and peace be upon you.

--- ^[1]: Narrated by al-Bukhārī and Muslim from the ḥadīth of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him). Editor's documentation: The lecturer cited it in full. ^[2]: Editor's documentation: Al-Nawawī included it in his "Forty Ḥadīths" (ḥadīth 41) and said it is a sound-good (ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ) ḥadīth that we narrated in the book "al-Ḥujjah" with a sound chain; a number of scholars have declared it weak because of a weakness in its chain; so the ruling on its authenticity should be referred to specialists. ^[3]: Editor's documentation: The lecturer did not specify a particular location; it occurs in several places, among them [al-Nisāʾ: 59]. ^[4]: Editor's documentation: The lecturer refers to it by meaning, and perhaps he intends the words of Allah the Exalted ﴿قُلْ إِن كُنتُمْ تُحِبُّونَ اللَّهَ فَاتَّبِعُونِي يُحْبِبْكُمُ اللَّهُ﴾ (Say: if you love Allah, then follow me, and Allah will love you) [Āl ʿImrān: 31], but he did not recite the verse in the lecture. ^[5]: Editor's documentation: The wording in the transcript is "Say: shall I inform you of something better than that," which is garbled, and perhaps it refers to the words of Allah the Exalted ﴿قُلْ أَؤُنَبِّئُكُم بِخَيْرٍ مِّن ذَٰلِكُمْ﴾ (Say: shall I inform you of something better than that?) [Āl ʿImrān: 15]; the wording has been recorded to the extent the lecturer pronounced it, with a note of the possibility. ^[6]: Editor's documentation: This passage of the "ṭablīyah" story is garbled in the transcript; so it has been limited to what is established, namely that a conversation took place between the spouses about the boy and the girl. ^[7]: Editor's documentation: [al-Dhāriyāt: 56]; the lecturer did not mention the sūrah. ^[8]: Editor's documentation: The locations, as the verses appear: ﴿اسْجُدُوا لِآدَمَ﴾ [al-Baqarah: 34], and ﴿لَا يَعْصُونَ اللَّهَ مَا أَمَرَهُمْ وَيَفْعَلُونَ مَا يُؤْمَرُونَ﴾ [al-Taḥrīm: 6], and ﴿أَأَسْجُدُ لِمَنْ خَلَقْتَ طِينًا﴾ [al-Isrāʾ: 61], and ﴿اخْرُجْ مِنْهَا مَذْءُومًا مَّدْحُورًا﴾ [al-Aʿrāf: 18]; the lecturer did not mention the sūrahs. ^[9]: Editor's documentation: [al-Baqarah: 256]; the wording of the verse came out garbled in the transcript ("qad tabayyana al-rusul min al-ghayb"), so its written form has been recorded. ^[10]: Editor's documentation: The lecturer's statement is absolute regarding "all the prophets and messengers"; yet among the prophets are some who grew up in a household of prophethood, such as Isḥāq and Yaʿqūb, peace be upon them, so the lecturer should be consulted about his intention. ^[11]: Editor's documentation: The reference is to the words of Allah the Exalted ﴿إِذ ذَّهَبَ مُغَاضِبًا﴾ (when he went off in anger) [al-Anbiyāʾ: 87]; the lecturer did not recite the verse, but only said "he went off in anger." ^[12]: Editor's documentation: [al-Ṣāffāt: 148]; the lecturer did not mention the sūrah. ^[13]: Editor's documentation: The two verses are in [Ṭāhā: 47] and [Hūd: 88]; the lecturer did not mention the sūrahs. ^[14]: Editor's documentation: [al-Baqarah: 195]; the lecturer did not mention the sūrah. ^[15]: Editor's documentation: [al-Zukhruf: 13]; the lecturer did not mention the sūrah. ^[16]: Editor's documentation: The two verses are in [al-Furqān: 70–71]; the lecturer did not mention the location except for saying "part of the verse above it." ^[17]: Editor's documentation: The phrase occurs thus in the transcript, and perhaps what is meant is the move from kufr to faith, so the lecturer should be consulted about it. ^[18]: Editor's documentation: The two verses are in [al-Taḥrīm: 6, 8]; the lecturer did not mention the sūrah.