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The Zaytuna Institute recently released a new free download on their website, a talk by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf title “Love Has Conditions”. The following are some notes I took from the talk:

-Dawah - is actually an invitation into some part of your life -When you call onto Allah to help you, you are actually inviting him to be brought into your life.

- Humans tend to prepare something before they invite people, so the invitation is appealing - Likewise when we invoke Allah to remember us, and invite him into our lives, we should prepare for that.

- Allah says in the Quran “If you call on me I will answer you”, yet some merchants came to a (sorry i forgot his name), and claimed that “we call on Allah but He doesnt answer us”. This is actually prohibited, because Allah may even defer answering their prayers to some people who complain too much, or call on Allah without any sincerity.

- There was a man who kept praying to Allah for years and years, and was very devoted in doing so, yet one time a man who regularly saw him in prayer saw him distressed and asked him if Allah had answered his prayers yet. He said no and was disheartened. However, later that night that man had a dream and in that dream he was told that the fact that he remained so consistent in prayer, and was at the doorstep of Allah was the answer to his duas for that was the place to be!

- In order to call on Allah , you have to be alive and with a pure heart. Allah doesnt answer the duas of people with dead hearts.

-A prominent condition that deaden the heart is only saying that there is no god but God, and not meaning it; you dont fulfill that you actually know Allah . For the more you know about Allah , the more you should love him.

- The lover is obedient to the beloved. If you have someone who claims that they love you and they dont do what you ask- they dont really love you. How can those who disobey Allah , claim to love Him? If your love was real, you would always obey Him.

- The state of the lover: “If you thought wou would die of thirst, and your beloved asked you to not to drink, you would refrain from doing so.”

- Many people claim to love. Love is not something that changes conditionally. This is analagous to having fatith, for people who claim to lose faith, never actually had it in the first place.

- Everyone is a believer when things are going well, but real faith shines only when you are tested and dealt a difficutly in tribulation.

- We have our many routines, and spend time doing soo many things (reading newspapers, magazines, movies, etc.) yet how much time do we spend devoted and committed to reading Quran, or in prayer?

- People will go to extreme lengths to pursue something that may or not happen in this dunya, but when it comes to the akhira, how much time do we spend preparing? how fearful are we? how much do we actually love Allah and try to impress him?

Download entire lecture here