At that moment, the prophet (pbuh) said to them,
Should I not tell you about something even more scarier in my opinion,
than this person Ad-Dajjal.
and one worse I see today
a danger that is corrupting our hearts
and affecting our sincerity is social media.
A person who believed in Allah but yet his heart was so corrupt.
And Allah will say, astaghfirullah, you're a liar.
You did that. So people would follow you.
So people would comment on your post.
So people praise you. And that is what happened.
Abu Bakr Siddiq (Ra),
when he heard about this concept of hidden Polytheism.
He panicked.
He came to the Prophet (pbuh) and he said,
Ya Rasulullah, I always thought that Polytheism
is when you set up rivals with God and worship others Besides Allah.
But now you talk about this hidden form of shirk.
How can I deal with this? The Prophet (pbuh) said.....
Once the companions of the Prophet (pbuh)
were sitting down and they were discussing ad-Dajjal / the Antichrist.
And as they reflected over the state of the world
when he will arrive and the chaos that will erupt in walked,
the the Prophet (pbuh) and he noticed that they had become frightened at that moment,
The prophet (pbuh) said to them, Should I not tell you about something
even more scarier in my opinion, than this person, ad-Dajjal.
Now just pause and consider
how much effect of ad-Dajjal will pose to people when he arrives.
There will be people who are sincere believers, some of them, even scholars,
will sit with ad-dajjal and become deceived and duped and may turn in their religion.
He represents one of the greatest fitna / chaos in us that we will ever see.
May Allah protect us all and our children.
And yet here the Prophet (pbuh) is saying, no, there's something even worse than that.
And so they say, yes, Ya Rasulullah tell us;
He said, it is a 'Shirk al-Khafiyy' (the hidden polytheism) ;
And then he described what that meant. Through an example;
He said, It is a man stands for prayer and he notices the presence of somebody else,
And so he beautifies that salah,
Basically, he starts showing off during the act of worship
when he knows that somebody else is watching.
Perhaps he straightens his back.
Perhaps he lengthens his prostration
Or perhaps he starts to recite out aloud,
trying to pretend that he knows long surahs and likes to recite them in Salah
just so that somebody else can witness that.
The Prophet (pbuh) said, this is actually worse than the danger of ad-dajjal
And the reason being is because in that moment that person has started
to offer an act of worship to serve their own interest.
That when somebody sees them doing this good deed,
that they will think better of them, that their level of respect
and reputation will prove an increase in the eyes of other people
And in a way he has worshiped his own ego.
May Allah protect and purify our hearts.
And this, the Prophet (pbuh) said,
is Shirk al-Khafiyy means, what polytheism to set up rivals with Allah.
It is the worst sin imaginable.
The prophet (pbuh) was saying there is a hidden type of it.
and all of us should now be thinking, actually, have I ever done that?
Do I ever do that end up showing off my good deeds to people?
And sometimes I don't even realize that.
Did you know that the Prophet (pbuh) in a hadith of sahih Muslim
said that the first person to be interrogated on day of judgment
is who a man who apparently died as a martyr,
he will be brought on the day of judgment
and he will be shown all of his blessings.
And Allah will ask this man, what did you do with those blessings?
And that man will say, Completely deluded,
Allah, I used all those blessings to fight for Your sake until I died for Your sake.
And Allah will say, you are a liar.
You did that, So people would say,
what a brave and courageous warrior this man is.
And that is what was said to you.
And then he will be dragged on his face and thrown into the Hellfire.
May Allah protect us.
A person who believed in Allah,
but yet his heart was so corrupt was so hung up on what other people think of him.
That even a great deed,
like dying for the sake of Allah fighting for the sake of Allah.
He couldn't did for Allah's sake.
He had to do it for other people.
And on the day of judgment, Allah will throw him into the Hellfire
before even the Kufr and the munafiqeen and munafiqeen,
Subhanallah.
And then the second person, a man who used to study sacred knowledge
and teach it to others and would recite the Quran.
He will be brought same thing shown his blessings
and Allah saying, what do you do with those blessings?
And he would say, Allah, I used it for Your sake.
And I used to recite Quran for Your sake and Allah will say, you're a liar.
You did that. So people would say he is an Alim / he is a knowledgeable person.
And you recite the Quran,
Some people say he's a Qari / a reciter.
He has a wonderful voice and so he will be dragged on his face
and thrown into the hell fire.
I mean, it's amazing, isn't it?
What do we learn from this?
What we learned, my brothers and sisters,
is that we need to be sincere with Allah (swt).
What does it mean to be sincere with Allah, to have Ikhlas / sincerity?
What it means is that when you do a good deed
or when you abstain from doing something wrong, you do it for Allah,
not for yourself, not for your reputation and not for the sake of other people.
Example of this is somebody who gives in charity and they give in charity
because they want Allah to be happy and pleased with them.
They don't give that money in charity so that
other people will notice them giving and think well of this person,
or even so that the person you gave money to would thank you in return.
In surah insan, Allah tells us about the people who are true pious.
Allah says they give....
They feed people despite the love they have for their own wealth.
And then when people praise them, they say
we don't want any money for what we have done, nor do we even want your thanks.
SubhanAllah.
Think about the last time you did something nice for someone
and they didn't even say thank you to you.
How offended were you?
How upset were you, that man I helped this person...
he didn't even say thank you to me.
What does that indicate?
It indicates possibly that you didn't do it for the sake of Allah.
Why? Because whether person thanked you
or didn't thank you, Allah recorded that and would reward you.
So why does it matter then if he didn't say thank you,
it's bad on their part, they didn't thank you.
But on your part, maybe that's an indication that you know what?
I wasn't really sincere with Allah (swt) when I should have been.
May Allah give us understanding
and one worse I see today;
a danger that is corrupting our hearts
and affecting our sincerity is social media.
And the reason being is because if you really think about it most of the time
that people tweet or upload pictures,
it's what is to brag is to talk well about themselves,
to paint a picture about how wonderful their life is.
And sometimes as Muslims,
what we do is that we brag about good deeds,
just like that man who,
the prophet Muhammed (pbuh) said was engaged in Salah,
he noticed somebody else and so he beautified salah..
How is that really that different to somebody who posts a picture of themselves
doing a good deed, doing humanitarian work or doing something
that they know that people will praise them for.
Isn't that a similar thing? Yes, it is.
And yet people don't realize that,
people have fallen into this trap of what, social media is all about
trying to boost me, myself and my ego.
And on the day of judgment, you may come to Allah and say, Allah...
Yeah.. but I worked on this project and I helped this person
and I used to do these good deeds and Allah will say what,
may Allah forgive us,
You are a liar. You did that so people would follow you.
So people would comment on your post.
So people praise you.
And that is what happened.
Just like the first three people who will be judged.
May Allah protect us.
This is a real danger.
The prophet (pbuh) said, this is Shirk al-Khafiyy.
It is a hidden form.
That doesn't mean that you can't share some of the good work you are doing.
But what it does mean is that in your heart of hearts, you have to be clear.
Why am I doing this?
It's for Allah's sake.
And I hope to inspire other people to follow to do something to please Allah.
If you can be clear in your heart that that is your intention.
No problem, Share. But if you haven't even considered this,
then perhaps you are deluded and you are showing off your good deeds.
And this is something that offends Allah (swt).
May Allah grant us understanding.
How do we purify our hearts?
How do we make ourselves more sincere towards Allah?
How do we remove these ulterior motives that
we know will have no value on the day of judgment?
The first thing my brothers and sisters
is to work on doing secret good deeds.
What does that mean? It means that you do a good deed
and you go out of your way to make sure no one knows about that.
Why?
Because in that moment, you know, most probably this is for the sake of Allah
because nobody else is watching right now.
Nobody else knows right now.
So I would challenge you all and myself that from this Friday to the next Friday
do five good deeds that are completely secret.
It could be, for example,
you live here and you park your car in some quiet location.
You take out the Quran, you read surah Al-Kahf,
May Allah reward you.
you do that in a place and a time.
Nobody else knows about it.
One secret good deed,
or you find an opportunity to give charity in a way that nobody else knows.
Not too long ago, somebody asked me an amazing question.
They said, you know, when you give Sadaqa,
it's better to give by cash than to give the bank.
I said, Why is that?
They said, because when you give it by bank,
even the bank knows that you give it.
And for a moment I thought, no, this is being very petty.
But to be honest, this is a very high level of sincerity.
He doesn't even want the bank to know that he gave charity.
He just wants it to be between him and Allah (swt).
So this is the first thing; work on your secret deeds.
Ibrahim ibn Adham (rah),
One of the great pious people from the second century,
people said about him that when we would walk past his house before Fajr Salah,
we know that this is a time where people are paying the Tahajjud.
But he sensed that somebody is walking close to the walls of his house.
He would have some cutlery,
some pots and pans and would rustle them, make some noise so that people would think
this person is just awake and doing mundane things.
Not that they would know that he's standing in Qiyamullail / stand during the night',
SubhanAllah.
So challenge yourself, how I keep my deeds a secret between me and Allah (swt).
The second thing is, when you're on social media, check it off...
Are you bragging about your good deeds?
Are you just trying to boost your own reputation in the eyes of other people?
If it's to do with work or if it's to do for a specific cause?
Okay, no problem. But generally speaking,
monitor how you talk and how you are posting about yourself.
Ask yourself, Is this a good deed?
If it is, am I doing it to show off or am I doing it to inspire other people?
And if you're unsure, what should you do,
don't post it until you rectify your deeds, until you rectify your intentions.
And the third thing is to make dua...
And this is why I will end on...
Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (Ra),
when he heard about this concept of hidden polytheism, he panicked.
He came to the prophet (pubh) and he said,
Ya Rasulullah, I always thought that Shirk is
when you set up rivals with God and worship others Besides Allah.
But now you talk about this hidden form of shirk.
How can I deal with this? The Prophet (pbuh) said,
Should I not teach you a dua that will remove
even the smallest traces of polytheism from your heart, he said, yes.
Of course, he said. Say the following.
Translation
O Allah I seek refugee from associating partners with you
whilst I know and I seek forgiveness from that which I do unknowingly.
May Allah protect us.
May Allah purify our hearts,
May Allah (swt) replace insincerity with insincerity.
May Allah (swt) allow us to be of those who do good deeds for His sake,
and abstain from that which is wrong for His sake as well.