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Dear brothers and sisters, last week I spoke about this idea of figuring out what to do when there is so much to do and how to actually choose a path forward and keep our priorities as the priorities that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has intended for us.

When he was frustrated that a group of people that would have taken part in the murder of a Hussein or the Allah Ta'ala, spilling the blood of the grandson of the prophets like Subdham would have the audacity to speak about whether or not the blood of a mosquito coming on the garment of one would nullify their prayer.

Speaking about the idea of priority, priority, priority, where are your priorities and then once you see so much that's happening and you can exert yourself towards causes of good in so many different directions, how do you choose which cause without becoming completely exhausted and eventually rendered idle.

Last week we spoke about prioritizing action, this week I want to speak about another element of dealing with Fithna which is chaos, turmoil, tribulation and that is when inaction is actually necessary, when inaction being intentionally inactive is actually a good thing and where we hold ourselves back especially when we don't know what to do.

Now this is actually a very important dimension here that many of the narrations of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam about the end times are acted upon prematurely throughout Islamic history so people who thought that the end of times would have been 800 years ago or 900 years ago that's there and so they kind of abandoned all things and didn't do anything.

So prematurely acted upon some of these Ahadith in their most absolute sense and there are others that deal with these Ahadith in a very inappropriate way where they use these Ahadith to introduce things that are not actually concepts in the religion and so let's be very clear when there is a known good to busy yourself with then it is good to busy yourself with that known good.

And when there is a known wrong to combat and to work against then it is always good to busy yourself in working against that which is wrong but then when there is a lot of confusion in between and great areas and disinformation and chaos and people don't know where to go or what to do that's where holding yourself back becomes very important in this regard.

And so let's talk about this for a moment insha'Allah ta'ala before I get to this beautiful Ahadith of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam where he gives three fundamental tips that a person can act upon to really keep themselves safe when things become confusing and distracting.

This Ahadith is one in which Abu Umama asks Abu Tha'ala wa Rada'Allah ta'ala and he says this verse in the Qur'an, like worry about yourself, worry about yourself which is one of those statements that can be good or can be grossly misinterpreted to mean abandon all others, worry about yourself.

He said does that mean that like we really should not care about society or worry about what's happening outside of ourselves and outside of our homes, how do we deal with this?

And he said you know I asked the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that question.

And he said to me, rather you should enjoy good and you should forbid evil, you should not abandon the act of enjoying good doing good things and working against that which is not good, working against that which is not wrong, you should enjoy good, you should forbid evil.

But he said after that Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, he said until you see people reach this level and this particular level by the way is an absolute level.

But there are always going to be elements of these things. So he said until you see people reach a point where shuhan-moutan means people succumb to their greed, shuh has a very particular type of greed.

It's to hold back what is due to God or due to the people around you. So holding back zaka or not fulfilling the rights of your family, not fulfilling the rights of your society upon you, holding back your wealth, holding back what you owe to others.

Because people succumb to greed which is a potential fault or flaw in all of us, they succumb to greed.

Shuhan-moutan, or he went on to say, wahawan-moutaban and people follow their lusts. Now you'll always find greedy people and you'll always find people following their lusts.

But the idea that this becomes the dominant order of the world around you, that people are shameless in their stinginess and people are openly in obedience or in worship of their lusts and of their desires.

And then he said, wa dunya, wa tara, and you find that people prefer the life of this world to the life of the hereafter, very clearly and very openly.

And the next one he said, wa arjab, wa kulli, di rantyan, bi rantyehi. And every person has an opinion on everything. Everyone has an opinion on everything. And they're impressed by their own opinion. It's actually a very profound way of putting it.

Everyone that could possibly have an opinion has an opinion on everything. So you have an opinion on everything from religion to science, to medicine, to biology, to sociology.

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