Why is dua not accepted – 1

Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, and peace and blessings be upon the honor of the prophets and messengers. Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his companions, peace and blessings be upon him. My brothers and sisters, Alhamdulillah, we live in times where more and more it is essential for us to live and be in a state where our duas are accepted. Because we are faced with situations, either directly or we find other people are faced with situations. So we are indirectly affected. We seem to be completely out of control of human beings. But at least out of control of those human beings who are affected. Because after all they are created by human beings, so they are not out of control. But at least the people being oppressed, the people on the receiving end of the problem, they don't seem to have anything to do with the problem. They do not seem to have any control on the problem. So, and we are therefore, we have to turn to Allah because there is only He, Jalla Jalaluhu, who has complete and total control over everything. That is His Shaan. And therefore we turn to Allah. Now, when we do that, we know Allah told us to turn to Him. He said, Allah said, I will give you and I will accept your dua. I will listen to you. Yet we find that we ask Allah over and over again for many things. And these are good things. These are things which are critical and essential for us. But we find that this dua is not acceptable. It is not. We know Allah listens. There is no doubt about that. But we also know that we are, we don't get what we ask for. So big question is, uh, why does that happen? Why is it that we are in the situation where we are asking Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala, Allah told us to ask and we are asking it, yet we are not given and it doesn't happen for us. To answer the question, let me tell you, uh, give you the reasons from the, in the voice and in the words of, uh, one of the greatest of the scholars of, uh, Islam, Ibrahim bin Adham, Rahim bin Ali, who was the son of one of the nobles of the kingdom of Balkh, which is in modern day Afghanistan. Um, his most famous student was Shaqeeq al-Balki, Rahim bin Ali, whose student was Hatim al-Assam, Rahim bin Ali. I did a series of, um, lectures and classes on the wisdom of Hatim al-Assam, Rahim bin Ali, uh, which, inshallah, maybe we will, repeat because people's memories are short. And, uh, also because it is important to remind ourselves again and again about these very important matters, even if our memory is good. Um, in those stories also is the very beautiful story of the daughter, little daughter of Hatim al-Assam, Rahim bin Ali, which at some point I will also tell you. Now, Ibrahim bin Adham, Rahim bin Ali was known for his asceticism, um, and, um, he is the one about whose story I have mentioned to you of how he went, uh, to the first Sheikh that he found when he left his kingdom. And, uh, this Sheikh made him stay in the stable of his horse for 12 years. Uh, he went to, he met the Sheikh and he asked him, he told him, I want to be a student. And the Sheikh said, well, uh, there is one condition. The condition is that you must obey me. I mean, I'm not going to obey you completely and totally. I mean, uh, Ibrahim Adham said, of course, I mean, you know, that's why I'm here. You're my Sheikh. Of course I will obey you. So he said, then he pointed to a building, an outbuilding, uh, away from his house. And he said, go and stay in that building. Now Hatim al-Assam went there and he found that it was a stable of a horse. It's very surprising. Why would the Sheikh send him to stay in the horse stable anyway? So in that stable, he, uh, cleaned it out and he, uh, put his, uh, bedding to, on one side. And, uh, he, um, in the evening, when the groom of the horse, the man who took care of the horse, when he brought the horse to the stable, the, the Sheikh. um, had left the stakeholder who was responsible for it in Hart black 솔직히 Cham Thatsoo, efficiency, kickoff, name, style of work, how did he gjorde icune Kield segen sev haises India which which we know de news milan I wonder he got no help form like, U diligence langshak They were all, every accountability was done at the same time drop the fleet. South of India, five days Right Yeah, I met, uh, a couple friends at the hotel, While he is sweeping the stable, he flicks a bit of dirt and dust on Ibrahim Adem. Ibrahim Adem is a prince. He is a nobleman. And in his own experience, he probably never even saw a groom because his horse would be brought to him by his ADC or somebody. And here is a groom who is so careless that he cannot sweep the stable properly without throwing some dust and dirt on a man who is sitting there in Musalla. Obviously, he gets irritated. Not that he does anything. He doesn't sort of curse him or anything. But he just... He just... sort of... shows his annoyance in his facial expression. The groom bows back and reports to the sheikh. Now, whenever I tell this story, I always add and I say that Ibrahim Adem, Rahatullah Ali, did not stay in the stable for the love of the horse. He stayed in the stable for the love of Allah SWT because he realized that he was not going to be able to do anything. He realized the problem with him was arrogance, which is the problem that the biggest fatal disease that affects the ulama and the umara, the religious scholars and rulers and nobles and people in authority. This is a disease. It's a spiritual disease. And if it's not cured, it's a fatal spiritual disease. And unlike physical diseases, it does not end in a hospital. It ends in Jahannam. Therefore, Ibrahim Adem, Rahatullah Ali, was very conscious of this. And he knew that this is something which is... which is so important. And he stayed there until his disease was cured. So this... Ibrahim Adem, Rahatullah Ali, was traveling once. He eventually died in Syria. Or what is now Syria, in Sham. Now, once he was traveling in Basra, which is in Iraq. And the people knew him. So they complained to him and about... And they said the same thing which I said just now, which is they said that we are in a state where we... we have... we have... we have... we have... we have... we have... we have... we have... we have... we find that our Dua is not accepted. So, you know, what's the reason? Could you tell us why is our Dua not accepted? And Ibrahim Adem, Rahatullah Ali, he said, Subhanallah, he gave them this list of reasons why Dua is not accepted. And it just... it just... it just... we will do a whole series of reminders on this. Let me just tell you the list first. He says, there are 10 reasons why dua is not accepted. And my submission to you, and I will do it for myself, is let us look at our own lives and say, which of these 10 reasons, one or more or all of them, apply to our lives? Can we find these in our lives? Because if we find these reasons in our lives, then we know why our dua is not accepted. So the first, he says, you have known Allah, but you have not fulfilled His rights. You have known Allah, but you have not fulfilled His rights. Second, you recite the book of Allah, but you do not act upon it. You recite the book. You recite the book of Allah, but you do not act upon it. Third, you claim to love Rasulullah, you claim to love Rasulullah, but you abandon his sunnah. Fourth, he says, you claim to be enemies of shaitan, but you align with him. You claim to be enemies of shaitan, but you align with him. Fifth, you say you desire Jannah, but you do not work for it. You say you desire Jannah, but you do not work for it. Sixth, he says, you say you fear Jahannam, but you do not flee from it. You say you fear Jahannam, but you do not flee from it. Seven, you affirm that death is real. You affirm that death is real, but... you do not prepare for it. You affirm that death is real, but you do not prepare for it. Eight, you busy yourselves with the faults of your brothers while ignoring your own faults. See how beautiful and how true these are. You busy yourselves with the faults of your brothers while ignoring your own faults. Ninth, you enjoy the blessings of your Rana, your Lord, but you do not show gratitude, but you are not grateful for them. You enjoy the blessings of your Lord, but you are not grateful for them. And tenth, he says you bury your dead, but you take no lesson from them. You bury your dead, but you take no lesson from them. May Allah Ta'ala help us not to live like this, of... ghaflat, a life of complete, as if we are living in some kind of coma. So we ask Allah to help us not to live like this. We ask and let us make this as a checklist for ourselves and correct ourselves. Wa sallallahu ala nabil kareem, wa ala alihi wa sahbihi al-mahim, bi rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.