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Khutbahs
Is New-age Spirituality Harming Us? | Lecture by Dr. Omar Suleiman
What you do in private is not hidden forever. On the Day of Judgment, your worship will
Is the world really against you—or is it your ego? Too often, we reject truth and reassign divine power to “the universe,” losing sight of where real control and guidance come from. This lecture delivered by Dr. Omar Suleiman challenges the delusion of self-centeredness and false self-love, calling us back to accountability, humility, and purpose.
Listen to the full lecture from the Light Upon Light Conference to learn how true growth begins with holding yourself accountable before Allah.
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
I'm going to admit something to you all. I'm actually nervous about this talk, which is
very rare. Not because of the size of the crowd, but because of the content of the subject
and how I fear it may or may not land. I want to start this talk with two incidents, and
I want you to picture yourself as the companion in question. How many of you have heard of
Khalid ibn al-Walid (رضي الله عنه)? MashaAllah, about 30% of Birmingham has heard of Khalid (رضي الله عنه). How many of you have not heard of Khalid ibn al-Walid? Okay,
maybe two or three of you. Khalid ibn al-Walid (رضي الله عنه), imagine being Khalid
with me for a moment. You are not just the pride of Quraysh, you're the pride of your father. You're
the one man who, and I'm going to put this in quotations, dealt a defeat to the Muslims. Never
lost in battle. You're a horseman. You're strong. You're smart. Everybody wants you. Everybody wants
to be like you. And when your father looks at you, your father looks at you, says, that's my son. He
is going to inherit everything that I taught him. He will inherit the glory of al-Walid ibn al-Mughirah.
He'll take it forward. He's destined for greatness and leadership. And then that same father of yours
dies in battle against the Prophet (ﷺ) and the Muslims. At that point, truth and falsehood don't
matter. What matters is my father died at their hands. And then you become Muslim. And as you
become Muslim, you suddenly have to humble yourself to the Prophet (ﷺ). And on top of that, there are
verses in the Qur'an that you know are about your father. And they're not flattering. Khalid loved his
father dearly. And this was a society of tribalism. And his father, aside from his creed, was a good
father to him. You know, Umar ibn al-Khattab (رضي الله عنه), who was very similar to Khalid in some ways. His father was a terrible man to him. Khalid, his father was a good man to him. Horrible to the
Prophet (ﷺ). But you know that there are verses in the Qur'an about your father. And these are the words of
Allah. And you have to recite them. And you have to affirm them. And you have to believe them. And the
Qur'an, which is a book of shifa, a book of healing, mentions your father in a way that is not
praiseworthy. And he comes to Salim, Mawla Abu Hudhayfah (رضي الله عنهما), Salim, who the
Prophet (ﷺ) mentioned as one of the four from whom you take the Qur'an. Has anyone left out?
Of the Qur'an, read to me those verses about my father. ذَرْنِي وَمَنْ خَلَقْتُ وَحِيدًا
When Allah (عز وجل) says, leave me and this one, I will take care of him until he gets to the verse of سَأُصْلِيهِ سَقَرَ
I will enter him into a terrible punishment. Khalid (رضي الله عنه) is sitting there. And imagine you
being Khalid. Khalid says, read it again. And Salim reads it again. And he cries. He says, read it again. And he
reads it again. And he cries. He says, read it again. And he reads it again. And he cries. But he wants him to
keep reading it until Khalid's heart can accept it. Because he knows that as difficult as the verses are,
these are the words of Allah. And my heart will not be aligned properly until I align it to the book of Allah. Read it until I can accept it.
It's one example. Another incident. Uthman ibn Affan (رضي الله عنه), the noble Uthman, the noble Uthman,
the one who the Prophet (ﷺ) would be shy from. Can you imagine Aisha (رضي الله عنها) mentions the Prophet (ﷺ)
reclining in a room, part of his leg exposed. Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه) comes in and the Prophet (ﷺ) remains in his position. And he leaves. And Umar (رضي الله عنه) comes in and the Prophet (ﷺ) remains in his position and he leaves.
Uthman (رضي الله عنه) comes in and the Prophet (ﷺ) sits up and he fixes himself. Covers that part of his leg.
Aisha is shocked. What is it? The Prophet (ﷺ) says, should I not be shy from a man from whom the angels are shy?
The angels are shy of Uthman. What a noble, beautiful man. And Uthman (رضي الله عنه), in his 80s, he pinches the ear of a young servant
in a way that hurt him. And he saw that it bothered him. It disturbed him. And Uthman (رضي الله عنه), when he sees that in his 80s,
I mean the angels were shy of Uthman. And Uthman (رضي الله عنه) says, put your hand on my ear. Pinch.
And he doesn't want to. He says, pinch. And as he puts his hands on his ear, like, khalas, ammu, it's enough. I don't want to do this to you. It's enough. Pinch. Pinch harder. Why?
Retaliation in this life is so much easier than retaliation in the afterlife. I give you these two incidents that I want you to perceive as the basis for the talk
that I will deliver tonight in these few minutes. And I ask Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) to allow it to land in your heart in a way that's beneficial. Allahumma ameen. There's a criticism that I've heard, and I accept this criticism.
The criticism is that we talk too much about hope and we don't talk enough about fear.
I accept that criticism. And I accept that there has to be a rectification at times because, yes, the Prophet (ﷺ) said,
bashshiru wa la tunaffiru. Give glad tidings. Don't deflate people. Yassiru wa la tu'assiru. Make things easy. Don't make things difficult.
But balance needs to exist. And the premise that I wish to begin with is stop defending yourself.
Stop defending yourself. Yourself being your nafs. That on the one hand,
I can say to you that when you are criticizing someone else, to be non-judgmental, to be careful,
not to run them away from Allah (سبحانه وتعالى). Because you see, what comes from the shaitan has an equivalent behavior from human beings. Shaitan wishes to
create either despair or delusion. Despair or delusion. Despair is through inna minkum munaffireen. There are those amongst you that deflate other people. They're doing something
bad and you bury them in that bad. Because you use language that is not meant to rectify them, but meant to bury them in their sins so that they don't feel a path to return. You turn it into ego.
You bruise their ego instead of speaking to their heart. That's creating despair. So let's give this a practical element. I'm going to give you a real situation.
You post something on social media that's haram. Either it's you doing something that's haram, or you saying something that's haram. Or do whatever it is. Comments section. So we can
interpret the world through the comments section. You filthy this, this, this, this. Don't you fear Allah? I can't believe that anyone takes you seriously. You're disgusting. How do you think
that's going to rectify the person that's burying them in despair? That's one shaitan. That's one shaitan. But then the equivalent to delusion is the shaitan that comes in your
comment section with a smiley face and a heart. And says you keep being you. I love you no matter what.
Sounds affirming. But that person is also your enemy on the day of judgment. They're not doing you any favors. Shaitan creates despair and he creates delusion.
The equivalent human extension of that is there are those amongst you who run people away from Allah (سبحانه وتعالى). Who cause people
to flee from Allah (سبحانه وتعالى). And those that celebrate and congratulate sin.
And say I am with you no matter what. You do you. I'm proud of you no matter what.
Both of them are not doing that person any favors. So I come to a statement from Imam Hasan al-Basri (رحمه الله). It's one of my favorite statements from Imam Hasan al-Basri (رحمه الله). He said,
A servant of Allah will remain in a good state so long as he has an internal accountant. Wa'idhun min nafsihi. As long as you have an internal accountant you will be in a good state.
When you hold yourself to a higher standard than anybody else holds you. When you can use words
to someone else that are rectifying. But you can use words to yourself that are a bit tougher.
I'm going to make another statement. That guidance is impossible in the presence of self-defense.
But I'm talking about nafs defense here. Guidance is impossible. You cannot actually be guided unless you make yourself vulnerable to guidance. And we live in a world that makes that virtually
digitally almost impossible. I was just sharing with Shaykh Ali a book recommendation.
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl Trueman. He talks about the sexual revolution and how feelings become truth and how individualism trumps society and the birth of all of these
revolutions. In the name of catering to self rather than truth. In the name of sanctifying
and deifying feelings over facts. And what chaos that has wreaked on society. I want you to think about your own social media.
We talk about echo chambers but echo chambers are not just echo chambers they're also ego chambers. What are your Instagram reels telling you? What's showing up on your screen constantly?
It's all about you. It's all about how the world isn't good enough to you. It's all about how you don't deserve this, this and that. It's all about how you are not going to
rise up until you protect yourself. That until you insist on yourself you will never be happy
and that you have to cross this barrier which requires you to cut people loose.
It frames the world as your inherent enemy rather than your duty when Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) put you and I as khulafa on this earth. We're inheritors of an amanah of a trust but it
doesn't talk about the world as a trust. It's constantly catering towards your ego, your ego, your ego, your ego and I want you to think about what the impact of that is and how it makes you
feel. What it makes you feel like is that in the name of self-help, in the name of protecting
yourself, in the name of healing your inner child, you have to dismantle the entire world around you and protect yourself from anything that feels uncomfortable.
This talk is way too short for me to offer a lengthy critique of what's known as New Age Spirituality. New Age Spirituality colors much of the messaging that you receive today.
It replaces dhikr, the remembrance of Allah, with affirmations. It replaces asking Allah
with attracting energy to yourself. It replaces tawakkul, reliance in God, with manifestations.
These words seem very innocent but there's something behind them. I gave a khutbah about a month ago called Karma versus Qadr. I have to admit that 75% of the message was
completely lost. But the point is, is that these innocent, seemingly innocent messages
that get passed through are actually not innocent at all. And what's being fed to you is
an algorithm is self-deification, is self-worship in the name of self-healing. That's not to say that all modern psychology is bad. That's not to say that all Instagram reels are bad, especially
not the ones from Yaqeen Institute. It's not to say that all messaging that tells you that you can conquer what seems to be an insurmountable obstacle is bad. That's to tell you that it's
important for you to not reject truth in the name of your truth. To not reject accountability
as being abusive because it makes you uncomfortable. To not reassign divine power
to randomness and to the universe and to energy. To not treat people as pawns and obstacles and pins that you move around all meant to be there to cater to your happiness.
To replace protecting yourself with purifying yourself. To replace affirmation with purification.
To actually learn to hold yourself accountable in a way that you are willing to grow and you
are willing to blame yourself when necessary in order to protect yourself in the hereafter.
From what Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) has promised for those who insist on being astray. I want you to stop soliciting people that will praise you until you're blind.
That make you comfortable with your sins. And I want you to actually take a step back and put yourself in the place of Khalid ibn al-Walid (رضي الله عنه) and put yourself
in the place of Uthman (رضي الله عنه) and let truth be uncomfortable. Sit with that discomfort because you can't grow when you're comfortable.
And as the world is becoming less and less willing to foster those types of sincere exchanges between people. Where there isn't that
shaitan of despair or that shaitan of delusion but good healthy critique friendship of accountability, people that love you enough to tell you when you're wrong.
That you have to strengthen and polish that internal wa'idh, that internal accountant, that much more and reckon with yourself. Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) says hawa
Have you seen the one who turned his desires into god? And you know what's interesting? Can anyone tell me what surah this is in? Can anyone tell me what surah it's in?
Any huffadh here? Surah al- What is it? I can't hear you. Al-Jathiyah
Al-Jathiyah is an image of the people that are brought to their knees on the Day of Judgment as Hellfire is brought out. You see every ummah, every one of the ummah, every one of the nations jathiya on their knees.
I want you to imagine that scene. And if you place it within that surah, it actually becomes even that much more powerful because people on the Day of Judgment are betrayed by false promises.
They're betrayed by the gods that they set up for themselves. They're betrayed by the things that they deified. They're betrayed by those that told them they had their back. They're betrayed by those that affirmed them in wrong. They're betrayed by their feelings.
They're betrayed by all of these things. بَلِ الْإِنسَانُ عَلَىٰ نَفْسِهِ بَصِيرَةٌ وَلَوْ أَلْقَىٰ مَعَاذِيرَهُ They're betrayed by the excuses that they can no longer justify. They can't give because Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) sees right through your excuses.
And some people deify their desires, turn their desires into god. Some people turn their ego into god. Some people turn their feelings into god. And you see every single person on their knees on the Day of Judgment.
And they've been let down. New Age Spirituality and in this day and age. There is this idea of protecting the self and letting the self lead
and what does Allah (عز وجل) say about the self? إِنَّ النَّفْسَ لَأَمَّارَةٌ بِالسُّوءِ That verily the self commands evil. Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) instead says
وَلَا أُقْسِمُ بِالنَّفْسِ اللَّوَّامَةِ I swear by the soul, the self that is self-reproaching. That blames itself. Now someone might say but I don't want to hate myself.
The truth is uncomfortable. I want my truth. Subhanallah, if you think that the epistemology of my truth is compatible with Islam, you're not paying attention to the very word Islam itself, its submission.
There is no my truth or your truth. There is an objective truth. There is a healing that comes from Allah (سبحانه وتعالى). The self does not lead. The self is meant to be led. The self does not project truth.
The self is meant to be trained upon the truth. You have to be willing to hold yourself accountable and share with yourself things that other people are too shy to share with you.
رَحِمَ اللَّهُ امْرَأً أَهْدَىٰ إِلَيَّ عُيُوبِي Umar ibn al-Khattab (رضي الله عنه) said may Allah have mercy on a man who gifts me with my faults. Not by going on social media and tearing me to pieces.
Taking me to the side and saying brother, sister, friend, son, daughter, husband, wife. I love you. But this will destroy you on the Day of Judgment.
This isn't good for you. This isn't an attack on you. This is a means of relieving you on the Day of Judgment. This is a means of helping you. Very few people are willing to do that.
But you've got to be willing to do it to yourself. Now someone might say but I don't like feeling like I'm under attack. I don't want to fall in self-hatred and I'm going to share something. This is why I said I'm a little nervous about how this is going to land.
So bear with me and forgive me because there's balance to everything. I would rather risk. Self-hatred. If that means saving myself in the hereafter.
Than drown in the delusion of self-love. If that means losing myself for eternity. I'd rather inch closer to that territory but put the guard rails because Allah doesn't want us to hate ourselves. Allah doesn't want us to despair.
Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) wants us to have hope but Allah (عز وجل) wants that hope to inspire us. To be the most worthy of that hopeful destination and that hopeful outcome.
Not to become complacent or deluded. Someone says but man, I'm burning out. It's so much more comfortable to excuse your ill treatment of others, to excuse your neglect of others by saying they
don't deserve anything from me. I'm burning out. Let me tell you something. Every single caretaker, every single activist, every single da'i, every single person that serves with their existence
risks burnout. It's emotionally taxing to care about people. It's emotionally burdensome to be an empath. But I'd rather risk burning out for the sake of Allah than risk
being burned on the Day of Judgment for burning others to the ground. I want to be an empath. I don't want to be a monster. I don't want to be someone that says I'm not going to look at Gaza anymore because I need to protect my heart.
I don't want that. I don't like that. The solution to empathy that is crippling is not to embrace is not to embrace apathy in response to it.
The solution is to put the guardrails that Islam puts on that empathy so that I can grow my capacity so that I don't find myself in absolute hopelessness because yes the Prophet (ﷺ) said that Allah (عز وجل) has a
right upon you, ... Your family has a right upon you. ... And yourself has a right upon you. I don't want to burn out. But I'd much rather be a good person risking burnout than be
a bad person that burns others or lets them burn without me trying to save them from that fire.
It's painful to take on the task of accounting yourself and trying to be there for others. And here's what I'm going to say for the last few minutes.
And I need you to be introspective. Please hear me.
This type of messaging that you're getting online. This type of messaging that your favorite Instagram influencer is putting to you.
There's a common denominator that I keep on seeing which is destroying the family unit. Because you know what happens when husband and wife are both consuming content.
That's telling them that it's all about you. And you know, this is what your wife is supposed to do for you and this is what your husband is supposed to do for you and you are
this and you are that and you're a king and you're a queen and you deserve this and you deserve that and it's not challenging you. You end up with two narcissists that are expecting the other side to completely cater to their whims and desires.
And there is no way that a family can survive that way. You know what happens when a son and a daughter start hearing that about their parents. When you start getting those Instagram reels and you start
getting that messaging about how it's time for you to grow and it's time for you to do this and it's time for you to do that. You start seeing your parents as a burden on you. They're getting in the way of my shine.
You see if the world is not to cater to your wellness then anything in the world that places a demand on you instead of offers you wellness is a threat to your wellness.
And so you are being encouraged to cut it off. It's wreaking havoc in the family. It's destroying marriages. Well, I sometimes like it like it's as if you can see the shaitan in each person's algorithm.
It's like man, you're feeding me the exact message to make me hate my spouse more. You're feeding me the exact message to make me mistreat people in my family more because all you're telling me constantly is you deserve this, you deserve that, you deserve
this, you deserve that, not you are supposed to be doing this. You're supposed to be doing that. This is your responsibility. That's your responsibility. How in the world are we supposed to grow a cohesive family unit?
When the only thing that we're nurturing are the individual egos in the bodies that are living in that house. It's not going to work. Marriage is not going to work. Marriage requires compromise.
Family requires compromise. Shaykh Ali gave a talk yesterday on fathers. I didn't hear it. I didn't hear it. But I heard that it was amazing and I plan to go and listen to it.
My father's foot is here. Whatever you want. I will kiss your hands. Not because my dad can still pick me up and take me out to play. But because I understand that my existence is not possible without that man.
I love that man. When I don't feel like doing anything for myself, I can push myself to do something for my mother. May Allah have mercy on her because the sleepless nights
that she had making du'a for me to be good, for things to be good for me, for things to work out for me in my favor. Now that she's gone and there are nights that I will feel sleepless because I can't move for myself.
I'll move for her because there were times that she couldn't move because of me. This religion is a religion of ithar. It's a religion of selflessness.
How in the world can you consume the modern garbage which inflates self when Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) says
They prefer others to themselves, even if it becomes hard for them. And yes, there are guardrails. Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) warns people from giving so much that they hurt themselves.
But how many more times does Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) warn about stinginess in the Qur'an because the human condition is more likely to align with stinginess and greed than it is with selflessness. That's gone too far.
Yes, there are ayat to caution from that because you're not supposed to harm yourself. You're not supposed to hurt yourself. You're not supposed to accept abuse. But who defines abuse? What constitutes abuse?
What constitutes going too far? I would argue that our religion commits us to a level of sacrifice that is not found in the modern vocabulary.
I would argue that the Qur'an says that protect yourselves and your families from fire.
That as dedicated as you are to trying to get where you need to be. You need to try to bring the people that are closest to you to that point as well. And not cut the cords.
And the last thing I want to share with you dear brothers and sisters. Because it's still about Gaza. One of the most touching things that I heard.
From one of the journalists in Gaza. He was marked for death. And I'm going to put you in this situation. The Zionists dropped leaflets.
Hussam is marked for death. Anas is marked for death. Hamza is marked for death. And it was to try to create psychological torment amongst the Gazan population. Not just to terrorize those journalists
before they were bombed. It was to try to tell the people of Gaza to treat these people like lepers. If there was any group of people that could make excuses for themselves and say
we have enough on our plates. Can barely eat, can barely drink. I already have 20 shuhada in my family. Please stay away. Hussam, please don't come to this house. Hamza, please don't come here.
Salih, please keep a distance. It would have been them. But those men who were martyred were not treated like lepers. They were treated like the legends that they are.
Come here, come to my house, sit in my home, sit in my presence. If they bomb you, they bomb me. If they take you out, they take me out. You're amongst your people.
Can you imagine if the people of Gaza consumed this garbage online? And each one became Allahumma nafsi nafsi person. Oh Allah, me me Wouldn't work.
They embrace discomfort. Because they believe in the Lord who provides ultimate comfort. Dear brothers and sisters, I said in the beginning,
I'm nervous about this talk. But I want you to go home with this, bi-idhnillahi ta'ala tonight. No one can love you to Jannah more than yourself.
And no one can hate Hellfire for you more than yourself. And no one can care about your success more than yourself. And no one can fear for your failure more than yourself.
Take that self to task and train it. Discipline it. Put it in order. And let Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) be the one who comforts it.
And ask Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) to take you to Jannah more than yourself. Subhanahu wa ta'ala for success and ask Allah that if the truth is uncomfortable to make you able to abide by it.
And ask Allah that if guidance is not entering the heart easily to turn your heart towards guidance and ask Allah that if your ego is getting in the way to remove your ego, not remove the people that are challenging your ego. Grow.
That's how you heal. Purify. That's how you protect. Elevate. That's how you rise. May Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) allow us to truly be the best versions of ourselves.
And may Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) make us selfless people. People who train themselves in accordance with what is pleasing to Him.
May Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) protect us from the shayateen of our friends and our enemies. From the shayateen of our egos and our whispers and our desires.
And may Allah (سبحانه وتعالى) grant us the best abode with the most perfect human being of all time. Rasulullah (ﷺ). Allahumma ameen. Jazakumullahu khayran. Wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu.


































































































































































































































































































