Be Careful of These Manipulative People

0:00is audio is brought to you by Muslim central. Allah now describes something happening deep inside ourselves, inside each person, inside me, inside you. Fatiha, tattabia, ul-Hawwa, and tahr-diru. Don't end up following feelings, empty feelings, that keep you from being fair. And this idea is, your feelings get into me and say, this person deserves less because I don't like them. This person said, this, this, this, this, and therefore they should not have as much as this person or the other person. Or implicitly, you know, for example, there's a father who loves one of his sons and is kind of annoyed with the other son. And time comes for inheritance and he kind of, you know, favors one son over the other. The feeling got in the way. The feeling, this one used to massage my feet even when he was a teenager. This one was talking back to me. He should not get a piece of, this one gets the BMW, this one gets the 1987 Hyundai, right? That's because they both got a car. So, you know, no, no, no. Your feelings cannot get in the way of being fair.

1:02Your feelings cannot allow you to be biased one way or the other. Slowly... If you白 Note, until I said I was counting up from Muslim people or a spec politicking here,

2:06there would be circumstances like Halloween and the daybreak matter to God. Before, as certainly as imagined by Allah or噢 little Saеп. by then, you should follow this instruction during the season. by degree? H taking care that, Allah, problèmes for that they will be disappeared. In my last Qudb, I spoke about the opening phrase of Ia 135 of Sultans Bisaap. I'll summarize that for you. Those of you who claim to believe, become or be those that keep standing up for justice, or keep standing up with justice by their side. Witnesses, being witnesses only for Allah. Some easy takeaways that you can remember from the Sayyidah will be, or this part of the

3:08Ia will be, that Allah wants us to not just be fair, but become people, completely transform ourselves, that every opportunity we rise up and stand for what is right over and over again. And it's not just in things that have to do with the outside world, it has to do with things inside our families, inside our homes, because this Ia 135 in Sultans Bisaap is coming after a long series of Ia that deal with political issues in Medina, but they also deal with family issues. And then Allah mentions justice. So there's justice in politics, and there's also justice in the family. And He combines both of them in this Ia now. And He tells believers you have to keep standing up for justice. Every time there is an injustice happening between husband and wife, parents and children, inheritance matter, money dispute, whatever the dispute is, you have to stand by justice for Allah's sake. Now why even mention be witnesses for Allah's sake, Shahada al-Alihla? Why not just say be fair for Allah's sake? The Shahada, the mention of the word witnesses is to tell us something very key about justice.

4:12Justice does not work without testimony. One of the most fundamental aspects of justice is testimony, is witness. And when someone gives witness, they can be influenced. They can be influenced by their anger. So or they can be influenced by their emotions. One of my teachers is a great inspiration to me. She doesn't like me to mention her name, but she's a study under her in Istanbul at a university. And she was mentioning that one time there was at the university, there was a dispute among teachers. And she happened, somebody, some teacher got angry at another teacher and they said something. And she was the director of the program, so she wanted to know what happened. So she called all the staff that witnessed it. Right? And so tell me what happened. And they start telling her what happened, but some people came in and said, oh, it was terrible. I just felt so terrified. And it was so unusual. And she says, no, no, I didn't ask you how you felt. I asked you what happened. Right? So now they're testifying, but they're mixing the testimony with a lot of their emotions,

5:12their experiences, how they felt. I can't believe this person said that. I can't, I can't believe they raised their voice as much. Those things are your opinions. And you may be entitled to your opinion, but testimony has nothing to do with your opinion. Testimonies, who said what? What did they say? And what did you, what did you recall? When you start mixing that with your emotions, the emotions that we have, they go up and down. When you're stressed out, you feel a certain way. When you're angry, you feel a certain way. You could say something and you don't remember that you said it. Other people even testified. She asked them, what happened? I don't know. It was so crazy. I can't remember anything. Okay. Then you're not a credible witness, right? So the idea of witness is really important in testimony and in justice. You can't have justice without accurate testimony and testimony can be corrupted easily. It can be corrupted like I said by anger. It can be corrected by fear. Somebody could intimidate a witness. You better not say anything or you better testify falsely.

6:15Somebody could be thinking, if I testify, I'll lose my job. If I testify, my father will disown me. If I testify, I'll be humiliated. If I tell the truth of what happened, they're not going to be my friend anymore. Everybody's going to block me. I'm going to lose my position. I'm going to be humiliated in this society. I'm never going to get invited over to their house again, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If you're going to stand up for justice, you're going to lose somebody. So Allah says, you had that and it does. Be witnesses for Allah and that for Allah means against someone else because for Allah means that if I was going to testify for my father's sake, so make sure that my father doesn't get upset, then it's not for Allah anymore. But if I testify for Allah's sake, it's very possible my dad might get very angry. It's very possible my employer might get very angry. It's very possible all my friends that decided to give the same false testimony and I decided not to go with them and I was there too. I don't go with them. I lose that circle. They're no longer my friend.

7:15It's very possible that they next time they testify against me. So I'm bringing a world of trouble on myself when I testify for justice. Shuhadah Al-Lillah. Now Allah adds, this is the opening. This is what I talked about in some detail last time. Al-Ala and Fusikom. Now Allah says, and you better get up every time and speak what the truth is in whatever situation, personal, family, business, friends, political, whatever situation, well, al-Ala and Fusikom. Even if that testimony goes against yourselves, this means a few things. What does it mean it goes against yourself? It might mean that you did something wrong and you're testifying, hey, I messed up. I said that. I shouldn't have said that. Meaning you're admitting your fault. It's one of the meanings. It's obvious. Another meaning is, even if it's not against your own mistake, but you testifying is going to bring harm to you. You will testify and it will go against you in some way.

8:16You testify and now you made a new enemy that you didn't want. That enemy's dangerous. He's already hurt a lot of other people. She's already hurt a lot of other people. And you by correctly testifying have turned her or his rageful eyes towards you. So you brought harm upon yourself. Allah says, even if it brings harm upon yourself, testify. Then he says, awil wali dain. Even if your testimony harms or goes against both parents. So one meaning of that is maybe the parents, by the way, all human beings are flawed. All human beings, nobody's perfect. You know what that also means? Chakr? No parents are perfect. You know, in the end, we have in Islam the highest respect for our parents, wabil wali dain ni'ahsana, but that does not give them the rank of angels. They're also human beings. They can also have greed. They can also have jealousy. They can also have injustice. Somebody's father is also a thief. Somebody's mother is also testifying falsely. Somebody's father and mother are also doing heba. These evil things are happening by somebody's father and somebody's mother also.

9:20And now if you have to testify against the evil that's happening, sometimes you might even have to testify against both parents. Or against the will of the parents. Parents come and say, Hey, I know you saw what happened. I know you want to speak up, but I'm telling you as your father and I'm telling you as your mother, don't get involved. That's not your problem. Don't this shut up. Listen to your parents. Don't say anything. We don't talk about that. That's if you speak about that, it's going to make us look bad in the family, etc. etc. Awil wali dain. Even if the parents are putting pressure on you not to speak up. Even if it goes and eventually even harms the parents in some way, if it's the right testimony for the sake of Allah, nobody gets in the way. La ta'atali mahluqan fi masyatin khaleq. There's no possibility of obeying any of Allah's creation when it comes, if you have to disobey the Creator to do it. And what's the obedience of Allah here? Testifying truthfully. Speaking up the truth when you know the truth.

10:20So shuhada al-Illah wa l-A'laanfusikum. Awil wali dain. Wa l-Aqqarabin. And then the closest relatives. And some of you might say that's easy. I don't like my close relatives anyway. I'll easily testify against them. Right. The problem here is the Arabs for them, the close relatives were the tribe. And the tribe was your identity. It was your security. It was your lifeline. Somebody might take your head off and then they realize you're from that tribe. It might spare you. That was your security net. That was the thing that buffered you. That was your passport. That was your citizenship. So al-Aqqarabin is broader than just your family. It has deeper meaning. Today it might be that your buffer, your security buffer, might be something that you lose your job security. You might lose your place in the family business or something. Awil al-Aqqarabin. Then Allah says in yakunraniyyan al-Faqiran. Stop. Don't get in the way of the correct testimony thinking about whether the person you're testifying against or the thing you're going to say, is it going to harm someone rich

11:24or is it going to harm someone poor? That doesn't factor into the testimony. If it harms someone rich, you might get scared and say, well, they got money and if it harms them, they're going to take revenge from me. So I better not mess with this rich guy or these rich people. I'm not going to testify against them. If it's against someone poor and you testify, you say, oh, this is already poor guy. He's already got a tough life. Me testifying against him is going to make things even harder. Let it slide. Right? So either you get afraid to testify because you're intimidated by someone's wealth or maybe you might even want to win their favor by not testifying. They might do you a favor. They might give you a promotion. Might give your son a job, something, right? So might come with some benefits and not testifying against someone poor. You might pity them and might let them go. Allah says when it comes to justice for me, these feelings of yours, you have to put them aside. Just testify. Shuhada al-Illah. Wala wa ala anfussiqum. Awil wa li-day. Wala qaragin. Inya kun qaniyya. O fakirah. And after making all of this list, what started with myself, of course, the one person I'm

12:29looking out for more than anyone else is myself. And Allah started with that when it comes to true testimony, you need to be willing to sacrifice yourself. That's where he started. When he says, Falaahu ala biHima, Allah comes before all of them. Allah comes before both of them, you know? Meaning that Allah is priority over the rich one, Allah is priority over the poor one. There's no, these are not priorities for you. Allah is priority. When Allah gives us word, that's it. That's the end of it. Now this part of the ayah is telling us the people that have influence on us, including ourselves, that get in the way of speaking the truth or standing up for what is fair, what is right. Yeah? The next part of the ayah is still on all one ayah. Allah now describes something happening deep inside ourselves, inside each person, inside me, inside you. Falaahu ala wa li-day. Don't end up following feelings, empty feelings that keep you from being fair.

13:37Now the word for fairness here is the second word. The first word used in the saya was al-kist. Allah in the beginning said, Now he's not using the word kist. He's using the word al-Ada, a different word, an ta'adilu. The word Adal in Arabic has to do with equal, has to do with fair share. Adala everybody got an equal share, everybody got a fair share. Right? And this idea is your feelings get in the way and say this person deserves less because I don't like them. This person said this, this, this and therefore they should not have as much as this person or the other person. Or implicitly, you know, for example, there's a father who loves one of his sons and is kind of annoyed with the other son and time comes for inheritance and he kind of, you know, favors one son over the other, the feeling got in the way. The feeling, this one used to massage my feet even when he was a teenager.

14:40This one was talking back to me. He should not get a piece of this one gets the BMW, this one gets the 1987 Hyundai, right? That's because they both got a car. So, you know, no, no, no, no, your feelings cannot get in the way of being fair. Your feelings cannot allow you to be biased one way or the other. This is extremely important because there are people that we want to do more for more than they deserve because we love them. There are people that we want to deprive because we hate them. There are people that we want to cause harm to because we don't like them because they were hurt by something they did or something they said. We just want to see them suffer. The feeling, the need for revenge, the feeling of being humiliated, the feeling of being one up to somebody. Now you want to satisfy that feeling and when justice comes in front of you say no, no, no, no, justice. Excuse me. Go to the side. I need to follow my feelings right now. And then someone reminds you, hey, fear a lot, what you're doing is unfair, what you're saying isn't true, what you're saying is a lie.

15:43You know that it's a lie. Don't do it. You don't know what this person did. You don't know how they made me feel. As if justice can be put on the side because of how you feel. This is exactly what Allah is saying. Do not follow your feelings to let them get in the way of justice. Fala tattabi ala wa ala antadilu. Antadilu. Then this whole concept of justice takes another step. People say, don't know, fine, I'm not being unfair. Fine, fine, fine, I'll be fair. But there are plenty of ways to play games with justice. As plenty of ways. And Allah mentioned two ways. You can be unjust. You can violate what Allah is teaching you. You can violate it and be slick about it and nobody will catch you. Except Allah. But everybody will think you're right. First tactic you can use if you want to be really unfair while wearing the disguise of fairness. While you can be the valim, you can be the oppressor while wearing the disguise of the oppressed.

16:48You can be the perpetrator while wearing the disguise of the victim. It's very easy. In taloo, if you just twist, the word Allah uses is twist. Let's focus on this word for a minute. I'm supposed to end at three. I'm going to take five minutes. I promise you five minutes. And I don't mean Muslim five minutes. I mean five minutes. Okay. If you let's just talk, I won't even talk about the second tactic. I'll just talk about this one tactic. If you twist, the word lower in Arabic is used for a tree that wraps up the way of wraps or the kind of plant that wraps itself around other trees and then squeezes them. Yeah. That's what it's used for. It's also used for the tale of a scorpion that's always bent. Yeah. From this comes the idea that there are people who wrap them, they find someone to talk to. Like, for example, you stole money. I'm not saying you hypothetical you stole money. And you're about to get caught. So before you get caught, you go to someone and say, you know, I was working so hard and these people didn't pay me for several months and my boss is so oppressive and is

17:50such a bad. And you know, this person is a soft-hearted person. You start crying in front of them, telling them an entire mythology that you created about how oppressed you were. And you just wanted your paycheck. You don't mention anything about the couple of million you conveniently withdrew for yourself. I did so much for him. I did this and I did this. And now they're accusing me of stuff that I'm like, I can't even tell you what they're accusing me of. The cops are after you, bro. They know how to spin a story and they can get someone to cry for them. They can get somebody to feel bad for them. They know what disguise to put on in front of what person. Oh, this person has a soft corner for children. Let me talk to them about my kids and how bad they feel. This person cares a lot about, you know, Islam. Let me quote some ayat and hadith when I tell my story to this person. They know how to put on the disguise that they need to to manipulate the opinions of others because if they can twist enough people's minds and a bunch of people start saying, yeah, this person is the victim. You no longer need justice because the popular opinion is this is the right, this is the

18:51victim. You can play that game. You can be very good at playing that game. You can also twist words by not saying what happened. You know, politicians are very good at this. Did you or did you not sign this document? Send it hearing. The guy says, yeah, when I was five, I went to kindergarten and nobody asked you. You're going everywhere in the universe except a yes or a no. Right. You can't do it because this is in Telugu. You twist. You play word games. You're not straightforward. This is the opposite of Kuluk, Koula and Sanita speaks straightforward. Some people, men and women, master this technique. They master twisting words, manipulating communications, talking to this person in this way, that person in that way, that person in that way, in their mind, people are just pawns. You're supposed to just turn them like chess pieces. I want to turn this person's focus this way, this person's focus that way. I want to turn this one against them. That one against them. That one against them. Then I can slip through when Telugu.

19:53Now, I'm telling you all of this because people that do this, right, they might be in your family. Some of you are sitting here listening to this. I can think of someone in my own laws that are very good at this. Don't try not to. But as you're thinking about that, just know something. They get away with it. They don't get caught. There's no way to catch their manipulations. They're very good at doing this without a clean record. That's not what I said. I didn't, I don't remember saying that. What are you talking about? I would never say that. No, no, no. This person's lying. This person's doing this. What I actually meant was this. They know how to rewrite the history. They know how to retell the story. But every time, and you're like, how do I, how do I deal with this person? They're like, you know, like a snake that keeps twisting. You can't catch them in the straight line. What does Allah say at the end of that ayah? If you are going to play this game, Allah didn't say in this ayah that you will be exposed. That's not what Allah said. Allah said, then Allah has had full news of everything you've been up to.

20:57Every twist and every turn and every manipulation that nobody caught. You never went to court for it. What he held you accountable for it? You got away with it clean. The wolf successfully pretended to be the sheep. Yeah. The snake successfully coming off as the rabbit. Every time. And Allah says, congratulations. I've kept record of every one of your twists and turns. In Allah, I cannot be methamadun al-Hadirah. And you're like, okay, okay, yeah, Allah knows. I got it. At least I won the lawsuit. Allah got it, but at least I didn't have to pay the money back. I got away with it. Yeah, yeah, I got, but at least I got my revenge. You know, in the next ayah, Allah, this ayah was about justice. The next ayah is, yeah, you had the thing, I mean, you know, they're here. Those of you who believe actually believe, meaning this is not just a matter of justice. This is a matter of faith itself. If standing in front of Allah doesn't scare you, do you even believe that Allah is not even faith?

22:01I mean, if that level of injustice doesn't bother you, and Allah threatening you directly, that I know I'm going to deal with you, that's not enough for you to stop you in your tracks, and to rethink your behavior, and you continue to twist and plot, then the only one to deal with is Allah. And that's why in this set of ayat, you'll also find, those who claim to believe that they disbelieve, then they believe that they disbelieve. We know in Medina, nobody accepted Islam and rejected Islam and accepted Islam and rejected that never happened. Not on the outside. This is talking about what's happening on the inside. They got their act together, then they twisted and turned again, then they got their act together, then they played more manipulations. This is the story of the Muna'afiqoon. That's why in the next ayah after Allah, Allah, the three of them, then they are not going to be able to do so, the next ayah is the Muna'afiqoon. Be an Allah, Muhammad, and congratulate the hypocrites.

23:02That was about hypocrites. Allah, Isohu wa Jalla, protect all of us from falling into that hypocrisy, and Allah, Isohu wa Jalla, protect us from those who twist their tongues and manipulate the truth for their ends, and may Allah, Isohu, and not make us of those who fall into these traps and those that are committed to Allah's justice, because that is a testimony to our own iman. Wa reka Allah, wa rekaun, wa rekaun, wa rekaun, wa rekaun, Almost 300,000 souls have already been gifted a bayyana TV sponsorship and the impact has been immense, but over 50,000 eager students who can't afford it are still waiting to begin their journey. You can help. Visit bayyana.com for its last gift, to share the gift of the Qur'an, so that another soul can explore the depths of Allah's words. Their access lasts a year, but its impact may last a lifetime. I want you to help me, help them, and give the gift of bayyana TV today.