Ramadan Ruminations Lesson 2: The Good End is for the God-conscious

Bismillah ar-rahman rahim assalamu
alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatu
sallallahu anissina Muhammad annual sign
you sent him to see me in the last short
reflection I talked about taqwa and the
and the idea of tapa being one of the
fundamental principles that the Quran is
constantly reminding of us so what I'd
like to do is define top first and
foremost and then look at the idea that
Allah pivoted in Mattapan or will a
pivot to the taqwa the end of fair is
always for taqwa and or for the people
of taqwa so topoi itself
waha salute up or is denied when women
teeth that feel I had him about them to
be that to now is what you've been I
showed one of the great Moroccan
scholars oral Delano's said in his
summation that taqwa is empty Thad it's
to obey the commandments of God and HT
NAB it's to avoid the prohibitions so
there's a lamb and Noah he in the Quran
and in the hadith there are things that
the prophets Allah I am was commanded to
tell us were prohibited or disliked or
discouraged and then there's things that
he was command tell us were either
obligatory or recommended so the idea of
taqwa is essentially the people of taqwa
are the people that do what they were
commanded and avoid what they were
prohibited and and they do this through
a disciplining of the soul so there's
there's actually a discipline of the
soul that occurs through your life
through practices and so one of the
things about practice is practice is
what enables you to incrementally get
better at something so for instance
people who learn a new skill initially
it's very difficult for them but over
time as they continue to practice it
gets easier and easier this is the the
process of habituation kullu shay'in
Dada
Wenonah ibadah everything
is habits even devotion so in fact the
great Greek philosopher Aristotle said
that virtue was basically the
habituation of the soul to a virtuous
practice in other words you actually
habituate over time through constant
practice and discipline of the soul
yourself to a virtuous practice until it
becomes second nature and so basically
what taqwa is is it is practicing these
things and because all fall short of the
glory of God because people will always
fall short in their practices that it
becomes very difficult at times to to be
consistent in this we have what's called
Toba which is in Greek they called
Metanoia which is very nice term which
means to change your mind
towba is literally Toba taba means to
turn or repent so it's going back to God
and so the people of taqwa when they
fall short of the expectations upon them
they repent they turn if you if you're
driving down the road going the wrong
way you have to make a u-turn so you
might see a sign that says something and
you realize I'm going the wrong way you
have to do a u-turn well in the road of
life you're going to sometimes make the
wrong turns and then you're going to get
signs that tell you that you're on the
wrong path now unfortunately what a lot
of people do they just ignore the signs
in the end those are basically roads to
hell
they'll be hell in this life because the
nature of sin is that it just creates a
lot of misery so when the Quran tells us
well our people - the taqwa it's telling
us that in the end victory is for taqwa
victory is for piety it's for
conscientiousness it's for all of these
things and so an example of that there's
a great poet
Lowell who said truth forever on the
scaffold wrong forever on the throne
yet the scaffold sways the future and
beyond the dim unknown standeth God
among the shadows keeping watch above
his own what he meant by that truth
forever on the scaffold the scaffold is
an edifice that you build to hang people
so it's as if truth is always being
strung up so for instance if you look at
the Quran many of the prophets are
actually not successful they actually
they're they're completely attacked by
their own people there but their
successes in their conveying the message
despite the fact that they're killed
despite the fact that they're turned
upon Ibrahim I am with Nimrod and his
people he was not successful in turning
them back to God he was successful in
conveying the message and this is the
meaning of truth forever on the scaffold
wrong forever on the throne so Pharaoh
is chases Moses out of Egypt Moses has
to flee for his life but the point is
that the scaffold sways the future that
the Ark of the the moral arc of the
universe is long but it bends towards
justice this is what we have to be
constantly reminded of that an apipa to
limit our pain will our people to be
taco we have to remind ourselves
constantly that no matter how dark it
looks no matter how dark it gets we
believe that the end is for taqwa the
end is for piety the end is for the
people of conscientiousness this is
extremely important to keep in mind and
it shall I'll explore this some more in
our next session Jews are gonna laugh at
him so don't money come what happened to
light what Akata