Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

ʿazza wa-jall
) gave us priorities. He gave us
priorities, you can’t make up your own; you and I have to stick to Allah’s
priorities. If we did that, we’d be a lot better off. Dealing with each other would
become a lot easier. How we treat each other would become a lot better if we
focused on the major sins and staying away from them.
Just a little comment about 
ijtināb
, the word 
ijtināb
that’s used in the 
āyah
—
in tajtanibū
—comes from the word 
janb
, and 
janb
actually means ‘side’. In the
Qur’an when Allah talks about speaking nicely to people, He says 
wa-l-ṣāḥib bi-
l-janb
. Even when you are travelling, and somebody is sitting next to you—like
there is an 
āyah
in the Qur’an about the guy sitting next to you in the train, or the
plane, or the bus, or at the terminal at the airport, the guy sitting next to you. Be
nice to them too. Don’t pretend they don’t exist. Be courteous to them. Even
that’s mentioned. The word 
ijtināb
, to avoid, is actually mentioned as opposed to
al-ibtiʿād ʿan shay’
—to stay away, far away from something. It’s mentioned
because don’t ever think that major sins are so far away from me—I am so
protected with my code of righteousness that they’ll never touch me. Actually
they are right next to you and you have to go out of your way to side-step them.

---

Literally 
ijtināb
is to side-step something that is right there next to you. It’s
right in your face. So the potential for us to do some pretty big mistakes in life is
always there. It’s a prevalent, living, immediate danger that we have to look out
for. None of us can be self-righteous and say, ‘I would never do such a thing!
I’m not even in the danger of ever doing such a thing!’ No, no, no, actually we
are, we’re just not sensitive enough. And maybe we’re sensitive about the wrong
things. We are overly sensitive about the wrong things.
So, let me put everything in balance before I conclude my reminder, 
in shā’
Allāh taʿālā
. As I said, how we earn our money, how we spend our money, how
we deal in business with each other that’s a priority in our religion. Dealing with
each other with courtesy and respect are priorities in our religion. But that does
not mean that everything else about the Shariah is irrelevant. It does not mean
that halal meat is irrelevant. It doesn’t mean that the 
Sunnah
prayers is
irrelevant. It doesn’t mean that all this other stuff that you have learned about
your religion is irrelevant. But you know what those things are? First of all the
Sharʿī
things—the halal and the haram—are a major priority in your personal
life. That’s not for you to judge others; that’s for you, yourself. Everything
beyond that is there so that I can improve myself as a Muslim. Not so that I can
label others and say, ‘Look at this guy, look at where his pants are going’. ‘Look
at this one, look at how he prayed.’ ‘Look at that guy, he doesn’t even have a
beard.’ ‘Look at that girl her hijab is all messed up’; etc, etc. No, no, no. The
aḥkām
of the 
dīn
first and foremost are for you, yourself.
They are not for you to label other people as to where they stand. That’s
something that their family has to do. That’s something that their community has
to do, and if you can’t say something good, then don’t say anything. You don’t
know what people are going through; I don’t know what people are going
through; you can’t pass judgement on people. And I tell you, the kind of person
that makes it very easy for themselves to pass judgement on others has a certain
psychology. It’s the kind of person that is probably involved in some pretty
major stuff themselves, and they turn a blind eye to it. And when you become
blind to yourself, you develop an extra sharp focus on others.
You already graduated from the school of righteousness, right? Since you
don’t need to turn back and check on yourself anymore, now your attention can
be turned to everybody else. That’s the problem. This is: