When Giving Sadaqa.( What not to do)

Assalam Alikum wa rahmatu Allah wa barakatouh
Many of us have the habit of asking the poor to pray for us after giving them our sadaqa. Do you know that our mother Aisha may Allah be pleased with her used to hate that!! Why?
Allah says in surat Al Insaan what can be translated as: And they give food in spite of love for it to the needy, the orphan, and the captive,76:8

Meaning even the captive who comes to kill you and you hold them captive, you must feed them.
Then Allah continues in the following ayah saying what can be translated as: "We feed you only for the countenance of Allah . We wish not from you reward or gratitude.76:9
Meaning we do not wish from you any reward (like Dua’a) or gratitude (A thank you). So when you give sadaqa do not ask the poor person to pray for you, this is a very important matter my dear sister and brother and if you have been doing it, you must stop.
Our mother Aisha may Allah be pleased with her used to send the messengers with sadaqaat (money as charity) to different locations and when the messengers come back, she used to ask them, what did they pray for me? The messengers would say, they prayed for you such and such, she will say I will pray for them the same so the reward remains with Allah!! Why is that?
Because when the poor person prays for you, they have already rewarded you for your kindness and good deed!.
So for example If I gave a poor person $20 and told them: “ pray for me to be cured, and pray for my children and my husband” this means if this person prays for me then they have already rewarded me. The question, is this the reward I was looking for?
That is why Allah said in the above ayah: "We feed you only for the countenance of Allah . We wish not from you reward or gratitude.76:9
So when you give that sadaqa, you give it for the sake of Allah and Allah will reward you for it and you and I know that no human can reward us better than the Most Generous Subhanahu wa Ta’alah
If the poor person prayed for you without you asking that is fine but you do not give a $50 and say please pray for me to get married, get a job, have children…etc.
Give the sadaqa. What do you want? Nothing, “We wish not from you reward or gratitude.76:9”
Sadly, many of us do not realize this. We give and say do not forget to pray for me.

Give the sadaqa and the reward is from Allah, if the poor person prayed for you, that’s fine and if they didn’t then the reward remains with Allah.

Al Man'n

Assalam Aleikum wa rahmatu Allah wa barakatuhu

I want to cover today a very fatal mistake most of us fall into. We commit it because we do not know the gravity of it and what will it cost us!!!
I know that you and I always try to strive to help others and do good so that we can get the reward for those deeds but some of us lose all the reward by doing a very simple action.. Sometimes we do this action without thinking……what is it?
It is what we call in Arabic Al Man’n
Al Man’n means, giving something to the person then saying: I gave you, or telling someone I did this and that for you and look at how you are paying me?!! Phrases like this which many of us use especially when someone hurts you after you being good to them.
Allah says:
يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لا تُبْطِلُوا صَدَقَاتِكُمْ بِالْمَنِّ وَالْأَذَى كَالَّذِي يُنْفِقُ مَالَهُ رِئَاءَ النَّاسِ وَلا يُؤْمِنُ بِاللَّهِ وَالْيَوْمِ الْآخِرِ فَمَثَلُهُ كَمَثَلِ صَفْوَانٍ عَلَيْهِ تُرَابٌ فَأَصَابَهُ وَابِلٌ فَتَرَكَهُ صَلْداً لا يَقْدِرُونَ عَلَى شَيْءٍ مِمَّا كَسَبُوا وَاللَّهُ لا يَهْدِي الْقَوْمَ الْكَافِرِينَ) (البقرة:264)
Translation:
O you who have believed, do not invalidate your charities with reminders or injury as does one who spends his wealth [only] to be seen by the people and does not believe in Allah and the Last Day. His example is like that of a [large] smooth stone upon which is dust and is hit by a downpour that leaves it bare. They are unable [to keep] anything of what they have earned. And Allah does not guide the disbelieving people. 2:264
The minute you utter that word my dear sister and brother, you have lost all the deeds you did for that person no matter how big or many they are. This is very common with us, especially with our families and friends. When we do good to someone, we say: I did this and that and I gave them and look at how they are treating me ??!!
Why my dear sister and brother? Why waste all your efforts and your deeds? Look back into your life and see how many deeds you have wasted by committing Man’n?
Let me ask you; Who are you giving?
You need to understand that when you give, you are giving Allah from the provisions of Allah!!!
When you give something, you are not giving it to the person, but your sadaqa or your charity falls on the hands of Allah first before it falls on the hands of the needy so have manners with Allah and look at how you are giving!! When you did what you did, did you do it for the sake of Allah or because you expected a pay back in return?
The Prophet peace be upon him said:
وعن أبي ذر رضي الله عنه عن النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم قال: " ثلاثة لا يكلمهم الله يوم القيامة ولا ينظر إليهم، ولا يزكيهم ولهم عذاب أليم" قال: فقرأها رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم ثلاث مرار. قال أبو ذر: خابوا وخسروا من هم يا رسول الله؟ قال: المسبل، والمنان، والمنفق سلعته بالحلف الكاذب" ((رواه مسلم)).
Translation:
Abi Thar may Allah pleased with him said, the Prophet peace be upon him said: There are three types of people to whom Allah (swt ) will not speak and neither will he bless them and for them is a severe torment” Abu thar said : The Prophet peace be upon him repeated it three times. I said: They are the losers Oh Messenger of Allah, who are they? The Prophet peace be upon him said: The Musbil (the man who lets his garment too long on the floor, The mannan (the one who gives and reminds those he gave) and the one who swears lying to sell his product. (Narrated Muslim)
Man’n is even worse when it is done to a relative or a family member, like a brother or a cousin or an uncle…etc.
You say: I did this and that for them and look at what they did to me or you say I covered for them and they exposed me and other phrases similar to this, disclosing the good you did.
The minute you open your mouth and say what you did, you should know that everything you did is down the drain and you simply got nothing from it. You might even suffer from it on the Day of Judgment as per the above hadith. So be careful my dear sister and brother, this is a big deal. Control your tongue and watch out what you say. One word could cost you a great amount of good deed and might make Allah angry with you.
Do good for the sake of Allah and hide it as much as you can because you only expect the reward from Allah and not from any human being.
The Prophet peace be upon him exaggerated in the hadith when he said your left hand should not know what your right hand has given!! This was to emphasis on the importance of hiding your good deeds and your charity.
May Allah grant us tawfeeq (success) to do good for others and avoid Man’n

RIZQ (PROVISION)

Asalaam Aleikum Warahmatullahi Wabatakatuhu.

Suffering from lack of Rizq (provision)!

This is for you my sister and brother who have less rizq (provision) or money or you are struggling to survive in this world. May be you are asking yourself, why me?
May be you are thinking in your mind, what have I done wrong?
May be you look at those who have wealth and wonder, why not me?
And may be you think I am worshiping Allah more than them but why Allah is not granting me like them?

I have the answers to all your questions but before I start I want you to first read these following ahadith which are all authentic.

ʿĀʾisha (ra) said: “Verily, we, the family of Muḥammad ﷺ, would go an entire month without lighting a fire. It was only dates and water.”
Anas (ra) said: “One time the Prophet ﷺ was brought dates and I saw him eating them while leaning on something because of the severity of his hunger.”3

Ibn ʿAbbās (ra) said: “The Prophet ﷺ and his family would go to sleep while hungry for several nights because they could not find anything to eat for dinner. And most of their bread was from barley.”
Sahl ibn Sʿad (ra) was asked: “Did the Prophet ﷺ eat white flour?” Sahl said, “The Prophet ﷺ did not see white flour until he met God.”
Who is this we are talking about?

He is the best of the creation of Allah peace be upon him, he is the beloved messenger of Allah, the one whom Allah chose among all human beings to represent Him and spread His words and the one whom the door of Jannah will not open to anyone before him!!
This should answer all your questions and worries, there is no need for me to say anything more.

My dear brother and sister if your rizq is less then rest assured that Allah has chosen you like He has chosen your beloved Prophet peace be upon him. If there was khair (good) in having more rizq, Allah would have given it to Mohammad peace be upon him.
Allah has chosen you and restricted your provision not because He is angry with you or because He wants to punish you and He confirmed that clearly in surat Al Mulk….

Allah says what can be translated as: And as for man, when his Lord tries him and [thus] is generous to him and favors him, he says, "My Lord has honored me."89:15
But when He tries him and restricts his provision, he says, "My Lord has humiliated me." 89:16
Allah responds after these two ayat and says what can be translated as: No! 89:17

So your calculation is wrong and your thoughts are wrong!!

Allah knows each and every one of us and He knows that some of us need to be restricted to be closer to Him and be a better believer. Be happy and content my dear sister and brother and know if it was khair (good) for you to have more provision, Allah would have given it to you.
Some of us when having more rizq, we sin more and we forget Allah, we forget where we are going, we forget to thank Him, we say it by mouth but no actions. WAllahi it is a harder test if you have more but you just do not realize. The shaytaan blinds you and makes you live only the moment and worry about only what you need.

Go back to Allah and strengthen your iman and be proud that you are chosen just like your beloved Prophet peace be upon him. Use it to your benefit like he did, use it to gain Jannah be ethniLLAH and remember this is not the eternal life, this is just a test and you are passing a way.

May Allah grant us success to pass our tests and attain Jannah Ameen.

HOW TO DEFEAT THE SHAYTAAN DURING PRAYERS

Assalam Alikum wa rahmatu Allah wa barakatouh
How many times did you start praying and the shaytaan started whispering to you all sorts of things?
How many rewards did the shaytaan snatch from you during prayer then walked away laughing?
Yes the shaytaan looks at your prayer with so much desire and jealousy. He wants to spoil it for you as much as he possible!!  The problem is that we follow him, he tells you think of this and you start thinking then he tells you switch to this and you follow him, suddenly you hear the imam saying Salam and you don’t even know what you were saying or how many units you prayed.
Let’s admit that we lost many battles against the shaytaan but we don’t want to continue losing and instead we want to put a limit to this evil thieve.Today I will do my best in shaa Allah to help you stop the shaitaan from stealing your rewards while you are not looking.
What happens in Salah (Prayer?)
When you stand to pray the shaytaan feels so jealous because you are standing in the best position and you get to speak to Allah and please him which he failed to do.  He will put all his hard work and effort to spoil it for you.  This is something you must understand before you start praying. You are entering a battle between you and him, either you win or he wins.
What is ironic is that he gives you the best solutions for your problems during prayer.  You could be thinking of a solution all day and nothing comes up but you stand up to pray and there it is. Why? Because he has been saving those solutions for the battle of prayer, the minute you stand to pray he starts showing you all these solutions to your problems sometimes to even older problems so he can win the battle against you.You need to understand that the shaytaan has a goal and that is to steal your prayer. Our mother Aisha may Allah be pleased with her narrated: I asked Allah's Apostle about looking hither and thither in prayer. He replied, "It is a way of stealing by which Satan takes away (a portion) from the prayer of a person." Sahih Al Bukhari
The enemy of Allaah, vowed to mislead and tempt the sons of Adam and said:
Then I will come to them from before them and behind them, from their right and from their left [al-Araaf 7:17, interpretation of the meaning],What we need to realize that the reward recorded for Salah is in proportion to the degree of khushoo, as the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: A slave may pray and have nothing recorded for it except a tenth of it, or a ninth, or an eighth, or a seventh, or a sixth, or a fifth, or a quarter, or a third, or a half. (Reported by Imaam Ahmad; Saheeh al-Jaami, 1626).
So if you concentrate in one raka (Unit) you will get the reward for that one Rakah and if you didn’t concentrate on any of the rakas then you get nothing. The Khalifah Omar Ibn Al Khattab said: a man may become old while he is in Islam and may he did not complete a single prayer LeLLAH….how? Because he has been praying all his life without concentration and lost all his prayers. Only the parts of his prayer where he focused and concentrated properly will be of any avail to him. It was reported that Ibn Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: You will only have from your prayer that which you focused on.
This is so scary..Can you imagine how much effort you are spending which could all go to waste??? So what to do?
Let me start by giving you a simple example that will make the picture easier to understand. If I come to you and tell you, please hold on to these gold coins and make sure you take good care of them and watch them for a period of time so no one steals them…….you then hold on to those coins and watch them carefully…….but after a short while you start feeling sleepy and you doze off………A thieve comes and steals as much as they can while you are not looking. You then wake up and start paying attention again for a short while and you fall asleep again and the thieve keeps coming back and snatching from you every time you fall asleep ….this is exactly what happens in prayer.
Some of us will come out of their prayer with one rakah or may be two and others may come out with nothing and loses the value of prayer which the Prophet peace be upon him told us about when he used to call Bilal and say: (Arihna beha ya Bilal) “O Bilal; call for (the start of) Prayer; relieve us by it (the Prayer).”[13]
Ibnul Qayyem said about those who leave the prayer with nothing: they leave the salah with all their load, sadness and worries exactly as they first entered the salah. The Salah did not relieve them. Salah relieves those who pray with complete concentration and when they are done they leave while they feel so light, energetic and happy Subhana Allah.It was narrated that: When the slave stands up to pray Allah faces him and when he starts with concentration Allah tells the angels to lift the (Hujoub, plural of Hijaab ) covers, but if his heart turns away and starts thinking of something else, Allah says to the angels (Arkhou-haa) bring down the covers. Ibnul Qayyem said: once the covers are brought down, the Shaytaan enters and starts showing you the matters of this dunia (life) as if you are looking at a mirror. But if the person goes to Allah with his heart and complete concentration, the shaytaan cannot break into that hijaab or barrier between him and Allah. Ibnul Qayyem says: the Shaytaan enters when the hijab or cover falls off. But when the person tries again to concentrate the shaytaan runs away and the hijab is brought back up and so forth…..That is how he fights you during salah, the minute you dose off, he tries to get from you as much as he can.
Allah says what can be translated as: And when they deviated, Allah caused their hearts to deviate (61:05)
I know you will ask me, how I can concentrate with my heart!!? What do I need to do to keep him away.
Before I answer you let me ask you a question: if every time you pass a certain road you find a huge dog who is ready to attack you, what will you do?
Some may say: I will hit him with a rock, others may say I will try to fight him with anything I am carrying but that would not be wise.  The best thing to do is to ask the owner of the dog to keep his dog away from you so you can pass the road safely.It is exactly the same thing Subhana Allah with the Shaytaan. Allah says what can be translated as: And if an evil suggestion comes to you from Satan, then seek refuge in Allah . Indeed, He is Hearing and Knowing (7:200)
And in Salah we have a special way to seek refuge in Allah from the Shaytaan which the Prophet peace be upon him taught us.
The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) taught us the following methods of combatting the wiles of Shaytaan and getting rid of his waswaas: Abul-Aas (may Allaah be pleased with him) reported that he said, O Messenger of Allaah, the Shaytaan interrupts me when I pray, and I get confused in my recitation.The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said, That is a shaytaan whose name is Khanzab. If you sense his presence, seek refuge with Allaah from him, and spit [dry spitting] towards your left three times. [Abul-Aas] said:I did that and Allaah took him away from me.(Reported by Muslim, no. 2203)Another important way which can help you is to take a minute before you start your prayer and think of the reward and what you want to achieve. Think that you are going to stand before Allah and that you will beat the Shaytaan and you will not let him take one single reward from you.
The Shaytaan tried to fight us and steal our rewards many times before but from today no more. We will by the grace of Allah be stronger and fight him back.
Inspired by my favorite Sheikh, Mushari Al Kharraz