Himmah: Determination

Thursday Halaqa Notes

5-23-13
MCA Santa Clara, CA

Sr. Fatinah Tailakh

Himmah: Determination

Himmah = Niyyah (pure intention for sake of Allah) + Irada (strong desire)

Goal + Himmah (determination) + 3ilm (knowledge) + Taqa (energy) = A true good action

• Noun taken from verb Hamma - something you want to do.
• When you wake up in the morning and you have the intention to clean your house it won’t get done unless you have an Irada (strong desire) to do this.  
• Himmah is like a triangle. Niyyah and Irada are the bottom two corners of the triangle, then you will get Himmah at the top of the triangle.  A person who has the characteristic of determination is a person who always wants to do something and actually does it. Now you can say this person has Himmah. The scholars say himmah is when you finish the work.

Himmah in Salat

• If someone wants to pray Fajr, they put their alarm and make an intention. When the alarm goes off - they force themselves to get up, and they are determined to pray on time, so they get up and pray. Now you can say this person has himmah in praying Fajr. 
• If you have trouble getting up for Fajr, you have the desire, but the problem is you need to have more determination. If you have determination, you will put an alarm, or two or three, or take any step you have to in order to get up for Fajr.

Niyyah

• Niyyah is for free, you get ajr for it. Every night before you sleep make the intention - and you will get the ajr (reward) even if you couldn’t do it.
• We all eat. We can get ajr for eating by making the intention that I am eating to have energy to do my obligations today. 
• When I am doing the dishes, I can make my intention that I am doing this for my house to be clean so I can feel peaceful to focus on my children when they come home. If I focus on my children, then I am raising a generation, then this child will affect his friends, and his own children. 
• OR - When I am doing the dishes, I could think about how when I was sick and this person didn’t call me, or think about how I bought a house and this person didn’t visit me. This is the shaytan! 
• Another great thing to do while doing the dishes is to make Salawat on the Prophet. Or say thikr, or istighfaar. At first you can just be saying it. Then with time, try to think about a sin before you say astaghfirAllah. This will give you irada, that if you are talking on the phone and someone said something about someone else, that will help you put down the phone. This action can also help motivate you to do the housework instead of procrastinating: say ok let me do these dishes now before I sleep, and make tasbih at the same time, then I will wake up in the morning with a clean kitchen.

The Race to do good deeds

• Allah says in Surat Al Waqi3ah: “And the forerunners of the race (in Faith) will be the forerunners (in the Hereafter). They are the ones brought near to Allah”  (56:10,11) “Walsaabiquna alsaabiqoon. Ulaaika almuqarraboon.” We need to race together to do good.
• Leave something mubah (permissable) and come to something mustahab (recommended). For example, leave drinking coffee with your neighbor to go to a halaqa where you are gaining knowledge.
• We all have abilities, but in different things. 
• The more you compete to do good, the more you get closer to Allah. You start a small deed, Allah comes to you with a large amount.

How to develop Himmah

• The way to get to himmah - is to get to know Allah by learning about his names and attributes (Asmaa wa sifaat) and knowing the actions that get you close to Allah (Fard, Sunnah etc). And also to know 3uyoob al nafs - the diseases of the heart and bad habits.
• 3uyoob al nafs - for example kibr: pride & arrogance. Kibr can get in the way of your achieving something. A person with kibr - won’t say sorry, won’t accept help from others, and acts like they know everything.
• If I want a high himmah, I will protect my heart. Why did shaytan run away from Umar (radia Allahu 3anhu)? Because shaytan cannot affect him in any way. Because his heart is tied closely to Allah. If I don’t pray on time and I don’t make thikr.. then shaytan will be directing me.

Irada & 3ilm

• You also need Quwat al Irada - a strong desire. Shaytan had knowledge, but he didn’t have desire. Some people have high desire but don’t have knowledge. 
• Some people have knowledge but the actions are wrong, so he doesn’t get a good result. 
• To get close to Allah you need true knowledge and true action - together. Irada (the want & the energy) is the door. To open the door you need the key, and the key is true knowledge.
• Himmah is what raises a person. The knowledge guides him to the right way to go.
• Everyone has energy. “Rabbana wa la tuhammilna ma la taqata lana bih.” We all have taqa - energy. Notice even that the letter Tta is the strongest letter in the alphabet. If you got a phone call that someone is coming over in half an hour - then you will use all your strength to fix the house quickly. If you didn’t get that call, that same amount of work would take you 5 hours to finish.

Setting Goals

• For example, there are people who are good in organizing camps. Take this person and pair him with someone who has knowledge to take the first person’s energy and put it to good use. A camp, even if it was just to roast marshmallows, it will help people go out and get a change of scenery. Then they will go home refreshed with energy.
• If you have a lot of good ideas, you can’t do it by yourself. You need to find someone who can help you. This will motivate you. For example I want to start praying qiyam at night, I can ask a friend to help me. If I know that someone else is going to wake up too, it will motivate me. 
• We all should keep a notebook to write our ideas and goals: 1 year goals and 5 year goals. Then you go to one of them and take the first step in starting it. It really feels good to cross off one of them. 
• Goals help you spend your time wisely. If you are tested with a friend or other person who only thinks about the dunya (money, eating, shopping, inviting, dunya goals only) - the scholars say give them your back. And even when you are sitting with them your heart and mind should be somewhere else. Because you have a himmah and you have goals that are tied with Allah. 
• Put high goals. Ask Allah for Jannaat al Firdous.  
• If these goals will take time from your kids, then you have to think about your priorities. Your kids are your priority. Fajr is priority over qiyam. Don’t buy the furniture for a house before you have the house. Step by step. Your actions can be in yourself too, doesn’t have to be outside the house. Work on yourself- but in a way that it won’t affect your obligations to Allah or your family.

Helping our Children to have Himmah in Salat & Pray Sunnah

• When you are teaching your child to pray, start with the fard prayers, one by one. 
• Then teach wudu. 
• After one year of praying all 5 prayers, then encourage them to pray sunnah. Tell them, we did our obligation, but now we want to do more. You can say ‘My daughter, imagine if I just put you a bed and pillow in your room. Those are the basics. Now how would you feel if I put you a dresser, a mirror, painted it nicely, put curtains, and put up decorations? 
• We don’t want just one foot in jannah... So if you are praying your fard, then you just need more himmah (determination) to help you pray sunnah. 
• Remind yourself about the rewards of praying sunnah, getting the intercession of the Prophet (shafa3at Al Nabi), learn more about the sunnah prayers. Even if you are tired or hot - but you think about a higher thing, then you will be able to pray sunnah.

Ramadan Planning 

• Ramadan will have long days this year. So put your intention to have Suhoor, pray Fajr, then spend a half hour making du’a and reading Qur’an. Then sleep until Duhr. When you sleep, make the intention: ‘I want to rest a little so that I will have the energy the rest of the day to pray Duhr, read Quran, sit with my children, then cook and clean.’ 
• You will feel happiness and peace when you achieve your goal. 
• So put goals for Ramadan, and put goals for the year.
• What do you want to do in ramadan? Put a list. And write what the steps are that you need to get there. And put a high goal. If you put the goal for 90, you will get 80. So put a high goal. If you put a goal to memorize the whole Qur’an in one year, then at least you would have memorized several juz!
• In the end of the month look back at the list and see what you achieved and what still needs to be done.

Himmah and Confidence

• When I have a high himmah, it makes me do an action and gives me a confidence that a good result will come out. But it’s not necessary that we see the result. Our grandparents planted, and we ate from it. 
• Maryam Alaiha salaam, Allah told her to shake the palm tree. Even though she is a woman who just gave birth. If several men came they would not be able to shake it. But she had a himmah to try and she had confidence that the fruit will come down. Allah just asked her to try.  
• But don’t be over-confident. When I leave my house, I lock the door. I don’t say oh this area is safe, I will trust in Allah and leave my door unlocked.  
• When we have a trial, we say alhamdulillah that it wasn’t in my religion, and say alhamdulillah that something worse didn’t happen. Allah gave you another chance to change your life. Trials can push us to change. 

Himmah Advice

• Use the technology. Send yourself emails to help you stay focused. After salat, sometimes the shaytan whispers to you to check your email. Then he tells you say tasbih while you are checking email... of course once you open your email you forget the tasbih. Then you end up not doing the tasbih.
• If I am weak, I try to find a friend to help me do a good deed. 
• The owner of high himmah is smarter than the shaytan. Tell yourself, today the shaytan tricked me, tomorrow i’m not going to let him. Write it. Say it to yourself. I am determined in this deed. 
• And remember that other people could have a higher status with Allah than you, much higher.
• It is not from your strength that you prayed, that you did tasbih, or that you went to a halaqa... It is from Allah. Allah gave you the irada and himmah to do this. Others are sleeping still or in the mall or visiting friends. 
• One day you are praying and understanding what you say - you are happy with everything you do. Your heart is like the angels. The next day you are doing everything without purpose, not understanding what you say in Salat, not feeling happy. This is human. We can’t be so high everyday. But with a himmah, you will keep trying. Allah likes when you keep trying to go back to Him. 

• Rabi’a bin Ka’b (ra), a companion of the Prophet ﷺ said: “I was with Allah’s Messenger ﷺ one night and I brought him water and what he required. He said to me: ‘Ask (anything you like).’ I said: ‘I ask your company in Paradise.’ He said: ‘Anything else besides it?’ I said: ‘That is all (that I require).’ He said: ‘Then help me to achieve this for you by devoting yourself often to sujood (prostration).” (Muslim)
• The Messenger of Allah SAW was sitting with a group of the Sahabah (ra) in the mosque and he said “A man will now enter [who is] from the people of Paradise.” and a sahabi (companion) walked in. Later it happened again, and then a third time. ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Amr ibn al-’aas (ra) wanted to find out what was so special about this man, so he asked the man if he could stay over his house for 3 days. The man allowed him to stay. ‘Abdullah noticed that the man didn’t do anything out of the ordinary: He didn’t fast all the time, he slept some of the night and prayed some of the night, and so on. So after the 3 days, ‘Abdullah told him the real reason why he requested to stay with him, and he asked him what it was that could be the reason why he was from the people of Jannah. The man (ra) couldn’t think of anything, but after a bit he said “Every night, before I go to sleep, I forgive whoever has wronged me. I remove any bad feelings towards anyone from my heart.” (Kitab al-Zuhd by Ibn al-Mubarak – Number 694)
• Even a smile could help someone, could give someone that push :)