Praise be to Allah, The Lord (The One and Only) of the worlds. Blessings and peace be upon our master, Prophet Muhammad, the Truthful and the Faithful.
Lead us out from the depths of darkness and illusion unto the lights of erudition and knowledge, and from the muddy shallows of lusts unto the heavens of Your Vicinity.

The correlation between self-judgment and repentance:

 Dear brother, we are still tackling a very delicate issue that is much related to the series “Ways of access and signs of acceptance”, and it is about the correlation between self-judgment and repentance.
 The repentance bears self-judgment and vice versa, hence there is a correlation between the two, better yet, self-judgment is a consequence of repentance and the latter could be a consequence of self-judgment.
 Listen to the outstanding statement of our Master Umar, May Allah be pleased with him, he said:

((Call yourselves to account before you are called to do so and weigh your deeds before they are weighed, and you should know that the Angel of Death has been reaching sh3er and will reach us soon, so pay heed. The clever one is he who upbraids himself and works for what comes after death; and the weak one is he who follows his desires and lives on wishful thinking))

[Tirmizi, by Shaddad Bin Aws]

 I may have mentioned to you the story of a scholar from Damascus, who used to take his brother (in faith) throughout Eid days (to certain places), so on the first day, he used to take them to the cemetery in order to treasure the grace of being alive. As long as you are alive, you have the opportunity to repent, to give sh3er their rights, to apologize, to make right your remissness, to repair your shortcomings, to bring people together, and to move forward. As long as your heart is beating, everything is conceivable and possible; however, when the heart stops (beating), the door of deeds is closed.

((Hasten to do good deeds before you are overtaken by one of the seven afflictions))

 What do you expect from worldly life?

((Are you waiting for such poverty which will make you unmindful of devotion; or prosperity which will make you corrupt, or disease as will disable you, or such senility as will make you mentally unstable, or sudden death, or Ad-Dajjal))

 Like the one, who came to us under the claims of giving us liberty and Democracy (i.e. George W Bush):

((or Ad-Dajjal who is the worst expected absent, or the Hour, and the Hour will be most grievous and most bitter))

[Tirmizi and Nasa’ee, by Abu Hurairah]

 On the second day, this scholar used to take them to hospitals in order to treasure the grace of health . In hospitals you see sick people, have either cardiac infarction, cirrhosis, kidney failure, paralysis, or tumors. You should treasure being healthy as you are able to move, to walk, your systems are fine, your senses are intact, you don’t need any help from sh3er, and you are able to maintain your own needs.
 Verify, the grace of being healthy is priceless.
 On the third day, he used to take them to prisons in order to treasure the grace of being free. You are blessed when you are free, there is no bench warrant for you, you move safely, you are able to travel, or to settle down. Hence, the graces of being alive, healthy and free are priceless, and they are only acknowledged by those who lack them.

Accountability is the path of salvation from the torment:

 Dear brother, this is an old story of a brother of ours who owned a factory. Once he told me : “There is always an amount lacking either in goods or in money”, so he put all the efforts possible to find the thief, but he couldn’t, so he said to me: “after a while, this theft stopped”. Ten years later, a handsome young man came to him, and it seemed, at the time, that this young man called himself to account, he said to him: “I used to work for you, and I used to take money and goods from you, and now I am asking you to forgive me and to give you what I owe you”. The owner said to me: “I was deeply touched, so I said to the young man: I forgive you from the bottom of my heart for all that you owe me in return for your repentance, visit, and your willing to pay, and if you are jobless, I offer you a job in a high position”.
 Another story of a Bedouin who owns a land north of Jeddah, and when Jeddah expanded and it reached his land, its price increased immensely , so he put it up for sale, and he used a broker who happened to be very deceitful, so the latter bought it paying this Bedouin one forth of its real price, and he built, with another two partners of his, a huge twelve story building on it.
 The first partner fell from the top of the building and died, the second partner was hit by a car and died, so the third one got the warning wake up call , and he searched for the owner of this land for six months till he found him, and he gave him three times his share in the building. Accordingly, the Bedouin said to him: “you have just saved your life”.
Hence, as long as your heart is beating, you are able to correct any previous mistakes.
 Dear brother, get yourself used to apologize, to ask for forgiveness, to give a gift in order to fix matters, to do good to those whom you wronged, and to ask yourself before you go to bed: What did I do? Namely, strictly call yourself to account as it is your path of salvation from the torment of Allah the Almighty.
 Again, whoever calls himself strictly to account in this worldly life, will be easily judged on the Day of resurrection.
 I have mentioned yesterday that the person who is the most in dire need for calling himself to account, is the one who is in a senior position , he is the one who is not asked (by sh3er), whether he was a father, a general manager, or a minister, for those are not asked about what they do, and they need this lesson ten times more than the usual person.
 When does not an employee steal? It is when the general manager is very strong, his monitors are all over the workplace, and he is rigid, so accordingly, this employee does not steal out of fear, whereas on the other hand, there is another employee who does not steal out of fearing Allah. In any work place with a strict calling to account, the responsibility of the one who is brought to account is less than the one whom no one brings to account (those in charge).

The powerful and the rich are in dire need for calling themselves to account:

 Come to think of it, who does need forbearance and self-judgment? Is it the poor? Is it the weak? No!!! The one who is in dire need for forbearance and self-judgment is the strong and rich. The poor has limited options, for his income is limited, so is his house and job, and he spends his day going back and forth from his house to his job, hence, possibilities of committing mistakes are very weak. On the other hand, the rich and strong person has access to eating and drinking from any source even if it were from ill-gotten money, and when he travels, he has access to nightclubs and cabarets. Therefore, who is in dire need for self-judgment, for awakening, and for forbearance? It is the strong and rich person, for his options are wide open in front of him, and whenever one has variable options, he should tend to forbearance and self-judgment.
 By the way, you should consider the following hadith:

((Faith leashes killing, and he who believes would never kill))

[Abu Dawood, by Abu Hurairah]

 Faith is a preventive means to the believer, namely, the believer is unable to do what sh3er do.
 When Europeans conquered Al Quds, they slaughtered seventy thousand persons in two days, whereas when Salah Al Deen Al Ayoobi entered Al Quds, did he shed a drop of blood? He couldn’t.

((Faith leashes killing, and he who believes would never kill))

Repentance is all about acknowledgement, behavior and deed:

 Dear brother, please pay attention to this subtle concept, when I told you that repentance is a reason behind self-judgment, or self-judgment is a reason behind repentance, we have to ask the following question: What is repentance? Repentance is nothing but acknowledgment, behavior and deeds.
 Suppose by way of example that a person suffers from high blood pressure, so when does this person have to seek a cure? That will be when he knows about his high blood pressure, and since this disease has no symptoms and is described as “the silent killer”, then you can’t treat it unless you know that you have it.
 Hence, you should know.
 Whenever you seek knowledge, and whenever you attend a religious session, you will be able to know where you stand . Therefore, there will be no repentance before knowing (about your sins), and the only path to evaluate your self is through seeking knowledge.
 Upon seeking religious knowledge, you will be able to know when your income is Haram, when this relation is forbidden, when this meeting is impermissible, and when your wife is acting immorally by dressing in a certain way (exposing her body), therefore, you should seek knowledge in order to evaluate yourself. Hence, knowledge is a cornerstone for repentance.
 By the way, man, by nature, acts in response whenever he knows something (new). Consider the example of a person who tells another one that he has a scorpion on his shoulder; do you think that the other person will stand calmly after this tip? Will he keep smiling, keep being calm, or stable then turn to see the scorpion, and upon seeing it, he would say to him: “may Allah reward you because you told me about it”? Do you think that he fully understood what he was told by that person if he acted that way? If he understood, he would have jumped, he would have taken off his coat, and he would have shouted as loud as he could.
 Unless you know, you will not act in response, but when you know, you will act in response.
 Hence, comprehension is a requirement for responding, which in turn is a requirement for one’s behavior, and this is a law unto itself:
 Comprehension  response  behavior.
 Like when one sees a snake and reacts by running away from it or killing it because of a right comprehension of its dangerous nature, so this is a very subtle law under which you should call yourself to account. Listen to what Allah says:

﴾ If you two (wives of the Prophet, namely 'Aishah and Hafsah) turn in repentance to Allah, (it will be better for you), your hearts are indeed so inclined (to oppose what the Prophet likes) ﴿

[At-Tahrim, 4]

 Your behavior will be a sign of your response to your listening to the truth.

﴾ If you two (wives of the Prophet, namely 'Aishah and Hafsah) turn in repentance to Allah, (it will be better for you), your hearts are indeed so inclined (to oppose what the Prophet likes) ﴿

 The response will be in:

﴾ your hearts ﴿

 Dear brother, repentance is all about knowledge, behavior and deeds, and the behavior is manifested in remorse. The prophet PBUH said:

((The remorse is repentance))

[Ahmad, Ibn Majah, by Abdullah Ibn Mas’ood]

 Knowledge is achieved by knowing what is Halal (permissible)and what is Haram (illegal or prohibited).
 If a man told you: “I don’t want to trouble myself with calculations, so if anyone invested one million Liras (Syrian pounds) with me, I will give him constant interests every month, and this is easier for me”.
 This man does not know that he is earning usury money, because unless he gives the real profit that are a result of very accurate calculations, he will be earning usury money.
Muslims are committing huge mistakes out of ignorance, and unless one hunts for the truth, he will get himself into huge mistakes.
 To that concept, our master Umar said: “whoever enters the market without any religious knowledge, he will end up accepting usury money whether he likes it or not”.
Take another example of someone who might say to another person: “I am in dire need for a million Liras”, and given his house is worth two millions, he says to him: “give me one million Liras as a loan and I will pay you half the cost of my house as rent money. Well, if he guarantees that the price of half of the house is one million sharp, then the rental money will be usury. What if two years later, this house became cheaper or more expensive and you said to him: I want to give you what I owe you, and you put your house on sale, how much is it worth? You will pay half the actual price of the house, and in this case you might pay one million and a half (if it gets more expensive in the market), or half million only (if it gets cheaper in the market). Hence, whenever you don’t guarantee the amount of money, the rental money will be Halal.
Lot of mistakes are committed, and it is only a word that is between being in Halal range or Haram range.

Whosoever pursues Halal will be granted ways to find it:

 Dear brother, this is one of the rare incidents which took place and it is about a poor wretched peasant, who spent his entire life in poverty, toil, and exertion, but because of a new law that was legislated to give out lands to peasants (after taking them from their owners), he was given twenty acres of land which made him in the seventh Heaven , for he was now the owner of twenty acres of land after spending his entire life working for little money that was barely able to make ends meet.
 This peasant is a follower of a scholar in Damascus, so upon receiving this land, he went to his scholar in order to announce to him the good news, but the scholar said to him: O, son, this is Haram for this land is unlawfully gained and you are forbidden to take it. The scholar’s words were like water that put out fire, so the peasant turned quiet and all his gladness, rejoicing, and liveliness were perished right on spot. Upon saying his words and after seeing him in sadness and despair, the scholar said to the peasant: Go to the landlord and ask him to sell it to you and pay him in installments, and give him your wife’s gold bracelets. Again I emphasise that this is a real story .The peasant went to the land lord -and - said to him: O, mister, they gave me twenty acres of your land, but my scholar said that I am not entitled to it, so will you sell it to me in installments? The land lord thought for a while and he said: O, son, They took away four hundred acres from me today, and no one of those who were given my land came to me except for you, so I will give you this land as a gift for you to be the owner, so plant it, and make use of it.
 So the peasant self-judged himself, and he asked his scholar, and thus he was granted a way out.
 By Allah dear brother, a lot of complicated matters are solved easily when you pursue Halal.
 Dear brother, the following Ayah is strongly related to our topic for today:

﴾ O you who believe! Fear Allah and keep your duty to Him. And let every person look to what he has sent forth for the morrow, and fear Allah. Verily, Allah is All-Aware of what you do . ﴿

[Al-Hashr, 18]

 Someone who owns so many lands may give five acres as a donation for building a mosque after being tipped by another person who whispered in his ears: “If you donate five acres for building a mosque, zoning your land will be done by the district and thus your land’s price will inrease exponentially”. So accordingly, this man donated part of his land though he never offered any Salah in his life, and his intention in the first place was to increase the price of his land, but people who don’t know about his intentions will describe him as: “the great charitable person who donated a land of his own properties”
Hence:

﴾ O you who believe! Fear Allah and keep your duty to Him. And let every person look to what he has sent forth for the morrow, and fear Allah. Verily, Allah is All-Aware of what you do . ﴿

Calling oneself to account leads to Allah the Almighty:

 One of the fads nowadays is that the person who is running an election campaign will give charity to win, and this is exactly what turns deeds to fruitless acts after they could have been fruitful.
 By Allah, I know a man in his eighties who opened a night club :

﴾ O you who believe! Fear Allah and keep your duty to Him. And let every person look to what he has sent forth for the morrow ﴿

 Some people gamble when they are in their seventies , but till when?

Don’t you feel shameful, don’t you have had enough
Don’t you fear our blame on the day we meet?
Is not it about time to repent from your sins
And check what we have promised you
* * *
Till when you will be distracted by desires
Considering your accountability for your deeds
* * *
You disobey Allah claiming you love Him
This is really something Awful to be said
If you truly love Him then you should obey Him
As lovers obey that whom they love
* * *

 Namely, self-judgment is one of the reasons behind reaching Allah, so call your self to account before you are called to do so.

Allah’s rights are based on forgiveness whereas people’s rights are based on just:

 Dear brother, some people may misunderstand the following Hadith that is said by the master of mankind (Mohammad PBUH):

((Whoever performs Hajj and does not commit any Rafath (obscenity) or Fusooq (transgression), he returns (free from sin) as the day his mother gave birth to him))

[Bukhari and Muslim, by Abu Hurairah]

 So one might assume that people’s rights on him are forgiven…well absolutely not.
 What is forgiven in Hajj or fasting are only sins that are between you and Allah, but wronging people and their rights on you will not be forgiven unless you give their rights back or you seek forgiveness from them, Allah the Almighty says:

﴾ He (Allah) will forgive you of your sins ﴿

[Nuh, 4]

 “Of your sins” indicates that some of your sins will be forgiven, i.e. what was between you and Allah. Sins are of three types: one sin that is unforgivable which is polytheism, and a sin that is unforgotten which is that between you and people, and a forgivable sin which is between you and Allah.
 Suppose by way of example that a person took the train that is going to Aleppo in order to collect a big amount of money from someone who owes him, so he bought a ticket in the first class cabin but he took his seat in third class which makes his first mistake, but the train is still heading to Aleppo, so it is an acceptable mistake. He also was next to annoying people who upset him which makes his second mistake, but the train is still heading to Aleppo, so it is an acceptable mistake. He was starving and he didn’t know that there is a restaurant in the train which makes his third mistake, but the train is still heading to Aleppo, so it is an acceptable mistake. He sat in a rear-facing seat causing himself dizziness which makes his fourth mistake, but the train is still heading to Aleppo, so it is an acceptable mistake and he will collect his money, but the mistake that is not forgiven is to take the train that is going to Dar’aa instead of Aleppo, and by making that mistake he will not be able to collect his five million Liras.
 Along the same line, whenever you aim at other than Allah, you will find nothing, and it will be the unforgivable mistake, but when you aim at Allah, your sins will be forgivable and your shortcomings will be covered.
 Polytheism is the one sin that is unforgivable, and there is the unforgotten sin which is between you and other people, because Allah’s rights are based on forgiveness whereas people’s rights are based on justice.
 Hence, the phrase “he returns as the day his mother gave birth to him” indicates only the sins that are between him and Allah, therefore, pay attention to the following Hadith:

((Every sin of a martyr shall be forgiven except debt.))

[Muslim, by Abdullah, Ibn Amro Ibn Al A’as]

 It shall not be forgiven (debt).

Triumph lies in calling oneself to account strictly:

 Dear brother, pay attention to this delicate point: man might be careless concerning his Lord:

﴾ O man! What has made you careless concerning your Lord, the Most Generous? ﴿

[Al-Infitaar, 6]

 One might say: “Allah will forgive me”, well this is nothing but arrogance.
 Triumph lies in calling yourself to account strictly, and never feel careless concerning your Lord assuming that He will forgive you without any consequences when you wrong people, for this perception is naïve and you shouldn’t let worldly life deceive you, and you shouldn’t give it more importance that it deserves.
 A friend of mine, who passed away may Allah have mercy on his soul, used to work in Al Hamidyah bazaar, and he used to put garbage in a box, then wrap it with expensive gift paper and a red tape with a ribbon, then he would put it on the sidewalk. A passerby, who might think that there is diamond necklace in it, would hasten to take it and run away, so my friend used to follow him, after two hundred meters, this passerby would untie the tape, and my friend keeps following him, then after another two hundred meters the passerby would unwrap the gift paper in order to see the diamond necklace, but instead he would find garbage. This is the example of the person who is taken by the vanity of worldly life.

﴾ So let not this present life deceive you ﴿

[Fatir, 5]

 Worldly life deceives, causes damage and passes by.

The means through which we call ourselves to account:

1- Seeking knowledge:

 Dear brother, one more thing: one of the requirements for self-judging is to know where exactly you are standing. Some people don’t know that, hence, the first means for self-judging is to know, thus, seeking knowledge is a must for calling oneself to account, for knowing where you are standing, for acknowledging your shortcomings, and for checking your income, relations, and travels. You should seek knowledge as the first means for self-judgment.

2- Doubting ourselves:

 The second means for self-judgment: doubting oneself.
 Most people give themselves the benefit of doubt by saying: “Allah loves me”, but do they have any proof for that? Some also might say: “My faith is in my heart and I don’t hurt people”, while he is committing sins that only Allah knows about.
 Hence, giving ourselves the benefit of doubt is simple-mindedness and foolishness. I recommend that one of us should over-doubt himself, and give the benefit of doubt to sh3er, whereas you see people are doing the opposite, as they justify all their shortcomings, and when sh3er wrong them even slightly, they raise hell .

3- Distinguishing between graces and afflictions:

 The third means for self-judgment: to distinguish between graces and afflictions. If Allah continues giving you graces while you are sinning, then you would better be careful, as these are not graces at all, rather they are affliction, Allah says:

﴾ And comforts of life wherein they used to take delight ﴿

[Ad-Dukhan, 27]

 Real graces come with submissiveness (to Allah), whereas graces that come with sinning are nothing but affliction, so verify, it is not a good thing to be in prosperity, to have huge income, and to have healthy body while you are sinning, as these are nothing but affliction and they are not graces at all.
 Again: Seek knowledge, doubt yourself, give the benefit of doubt to sh3er, and distinguish punctually between graces and afflictions.