Making it as a Minority

Without my, my land is vast, so worship be alone, and nobody else. The idea being that if a person has difficulty worshiping, in a place that they're currently, then

not to worry about as best you can find other places to live.

And worship allows proper peace and freedom. So that is the essence of, of what it means when it comes to be being in any place. It has to be a place

where we can worship a lot, and not have that freedom, compromise. And if that situation doesn't allow it, then the random as best we can find other places. So that was the basis. That's what the Quran gives us as the guideline, right.

And,

as an example, was a prophet of Allah who did many migrations, he says, For example,

I am going to my Lord, He will guide me right when he was leaving one place of the world to left

Babylon. That's right, he was based in two other parts. He went to Jerusalem, he went all over the place.

So when he is going on these journeys, he's going to this migration, he's going to worship Allah,

Allah in the valley,

to my Lord.

So that is the baseline. Now those who have a loved one, were having a tough time in early modern Islam, right, the early modern era, they were having a tough time worshiping Allah. They were banned from praying in the huddle, right. They could not pray at the heart of as a congregation as a jamara. Even individually, if they were to be found. There were consequences like the prophets also, who was says this noble person coming from a noble faculty, many people protecting him even he was sometimes abused physically, while he was praying, like he was praying once in the huddle. And his friends decided to dump the insides of a candle on his back. Right. So even he's awesome. Despite

his stature, and his family, he still even he couldn't do it without having without looking over his shoulder. Right. So how much more worthy,

the poorer and less privileged Sahaba? How much more difficult was it for them? So they were having a tough time they couldn't worship in the huddle. Right. And you don't think the people of Makkah had a very interesting policy, you know, what the policy was, the policy was BYOD, or bring your own items.

Right BYOD BYOD, bring your own items to the garba, drop it and worship it, no problem. So they were very open to people worshipping any item they wanted. But when it comes to worshiping no idols and like not,

and they were very tough on the Muslims, so it was becoming very tough for the prophets applause on them. And the Sahaba, some of them some of the poorer Sahaba started to suffer physically, like banana Lila warrantable. And I'm the one who is from a year as I said, they were all suffering physically. So the prophet SAW that he was, you can see that this is not getting any better. And he's going to get a little worse before it gets better. So he decided Plaza love, that is his opportunity, where we take a group of select Sahaba and send them to a safe place in

a place where they could worship freely with two objectives. One is to save them from persecution. Right? If some of us are getting persecuted, all of us don't need to be right some of us can be in a situation of peace and security. Right. And number two, if the worst thing happens, which is all the people in Makkah, that are Muslims get wiped out,

at least you have some Muslims surviving in the world, and they can spread the religion. So the profit and loss I thought I had planned ahead and executed this plan and sent some of the most elite Sahaba to the senior right. He sent them out on the other one, her and her husband, they went there in the first migration commandment and then it came back and

and then Java,

the cousin of the Prophet, the brother, all

right, and the other one is more famous.

So he also went there. Jacqueline, literally alone with our dad who was actually very interesting. Sahabi he was the same age as a prophet. So you can imagine them kind of growing up to

Other than being brothers, because they grew up in the same house. And Jonathan was narrated to be the most similar to the prophet SAW that in appearance and, and care and manners, right, like he was. There were two Sahaba were raised under the Prophet system, it looks as Jaffa number two, do you know what number two is?

A worker, they're not related, that someone was related to the Prophet

is a grandson of the Prophet

Hassan. Right, exactly. So those two look very similar to the prophets, Allah hasn't so much so that the Sahaba would come after the death of the Prophet just to look at it. Right to remind themselves of the prophets of Allah, that's how much

profits. So Jeremiah was very similar and very close to the prophets, it was very tough for the prophet to see him leave, and go.

And when he finally made it back to Medina, all the way later in the year when Piper was conquered, the province said very famously, today, we have two things. One is the conquest of fiber. And now the second one is the return of Jaffa. Right? Like that's how happy he was, that his, his cousin, for all these years is fine to return. So the profitsystem really loved your phone was very close to the race similar in the way they were. So it was a big deal for Jaffa to leave the site of the Prophet echo all the way. And Abyssinia, right, and,

and

he

was the leader of the people of Amazonia While they were there. Now as they are they're the people that are going to rest easy. I have my notes on my phone,

going to read from checking the scores.

So the people of police, we're not going to leave them alone, they were going to make their lives difficult. So they said a couple of a couple of their representatives, one of them being on one of them,

eventually accepted stuff, became one of the leaders of the Muslims, he went and he was a very eloquent person, he was very, very skilled at negotiating. And he could convince you, right, and he was very charming. So he was very, like it was a very good choice. He's a man that's very appropriate to send for this kind of attacks. So they send

a lot on who and others hobby to another person to convince the king of Amazonia to send these guys back. Now the Prophet specifically chose the king of Amazonia, whose name was joshy, because he was the Adjust ruler, and he was a person of justice, that tells us how important it is to live. Wherever we choose to live. It's a place of justice that you can get your rights. If you want to worship a love, you're afforded that right. If somebody wants to

persecute you, you have your day in court, that you have a trial. fair trial, right, as you'll see. So these rights are in sometimes supersede other things. Right as a senior was a foreigner. Right? They didn't belong to the senior people in Makkah didn't really go anywhere. Right, other Arabs around all Arabia, people mocha uses to live in Makkah, they would just go for trade. And that's all they would do. Right? They would go for caravan business trips, but they wouldn't leave. They will leave the areas that they were born in the house that they were born in that that was not their tradition. So this was a difficult thing. But because you want to worship a lot of the if you don't

pick a place that is just for the ruler, there is just

so the adversity of the land and ever since they've established themselves in other cities, they're getting settled in Amazonia and

shows up and shows up as the representative parish he comes and he starts to you know, convince the king. So what does he do? He gives the king some gifts, right? presents him with this nice gifts that they have

some good things that he would like and then he would say he says to the king, the you America German we need an amplifier, hula hula

butina.

So he says, Look, these people have brought this religion that's it's a new religion. We don't know it. Right and you don't know it either. Okay, so they're not part of us. And then I'll follow you look at how strange right so he's already painting the Muslims in a really bad light. Okay, and he says that the best of

For the noble people of our people, right, the Quraysh have sent us so that we can get these people back. Right, so we can try them in our city. And these noble men are in our in our Mommy, Marcia.

These are their fathers and uncles and their families, right? Like this is their own people. So they know what's best for them. Right? So, you know, send them back please. Right? Well

pick nothing, right? They know the best of what has happening, right? They have caused all this trouble, they've created all this chaos. These their fathers and uncles and family members know them best, right? They're not on your religion, they're not on our religion. So let them let us handle them. Right. What are you thinking? So I'm going to last very, very skillfully

puts the Muslims in a very tough position. Now, what happens is Naja she said that I will listen to what they have to say, right?

I will not let them I will not just allow you to take them, I will not kick them out until I have heard what they have to say. And this is the justice of the dashi that he is going to give the Muslims their day in court, they have a chance to speak. So here is jr follow the law. He is representing the Muslims, everybody is almost nervous because this is a pivotal moment in their, in their, in their existence in that city in that place. And if for example, he was wrong, that could be the end of them, right. And it's not going to be an easy, it's not going to be a pleasant journey back to Makkah, or even a return to Makkah because people are waiting, right and they're angry. So a

lot is on the line. Just follow the

steps up to the occasion. And he says you will Malik Coleman, J jania.

He says we were a people who were

people of ignorance, okay, we had no morals we had to ethics we had, we would just do whatever we want. We would worship idols. Right, we would worship these rocks and stones, we would eat roadkill, or make them you know what my days, Mater is an animal that just died, right? I there's another animal kill them or the animal died or, you know, fell off a cliff and died, right? So that kind of animal we're not supposed to eat is not allowed to eat that. Right. And even whatever is the cases that make that is not allowed to be consumed. Even if the animal itself was hailed as like a chicken or a goat or something right? It has to be slaughtered for him to do it. So he say, we will just eat

whatever they would eat roadkill disgusting things. We would not if he would do shameless things, he would last, you know, follow our loss and do shameless acts. So he is now

presenting the rebuttal well enough.

When you see when you see one show up as you are, we would cut off and the times we would treat our neighbors really poorly. Oh, yeah.

And the powerful would dominate the powerless, the privilege would dominate the underprivileged, literally, the human alive means like to eat, eat the powerless eating the weak, not physically, that will be disgusting. But that's like, you know, metaphorically, right, eating up the resources, eating up their opportunities, dominating them, letting them you know subjugating them to to a lot of problems.

So look how beautifully Joshua is responding. Right? He understands his audience. He knows he's up against it, he knows that US has painted them in the worst possible light.

And now it's his responsibility to

undo that. Right. So there is the first lesson for us as living as a minority, which is we have to understand what we're up against. We have to understand who is you know, speaking against us? Who is it that comes on TV? And what is it that they say about us? Now, you may not have, you may not work on TV ever. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. But people that listen to that talk here and watch that stuff will also be around you, right? There will be your neighbors, they'll be your colleagues. So we know what they have heard. We know what kind of preconceptions they're coming from. So as they make as a minority, we have to be very well aware of what the people around us are listening to and

what they are thinking and this is important otherwise, a person is this like little bubble they have no idea what's going on and next thing you know, you're shocked when something bad happens and our religion does not make us

does not tell us to just turn off our brain, right? We have to be aware of what's going on a part of our all around us. So that's a very important thing. So he understands where these people are coming from, he understands what kind of propaganda they have. So he addresses the king appropriately.

Then he says,

you know, we will remain like this Hector Barasa, barra de la Elena suelen Mina, una Silva, who was in kawamata, who, so then after that, we remain like this until Allah sent us a messenger from us, we knew him. We knew his family, we knew his truthfulness, we knew that he was trustworthy, we knew his character was impeccable. He had integrity. And we knew as alpha we knew that his intentions were, were good. He wasn't after power or women. He wasn't after money, we knew that he was salsa, somebody of the most

top like his character was,

was was was 100%. It was full of integrity, there's nothing to doubt about it. So when he called us to worship

God, in worship, he called us to worship Allah to worship Him alone.

He told us to leave all these rocks and idols.

He told us to tell the truth, Amanda and being trustworthy people of character and integrity, you know, when it's coming from somebody of character integrity, it makes a lot of sense, right? The Prophet is officer has always told the truth. So when he says to me, oh, tell the truth. They will accept that for him, right? He has always had integrity even exists, let people have integrity, they will understand that. So he says he, he told us about telling the truth commanded us to tell the truth commanded us to.

To have integrity, to not cheat, commanded us to be good to family. And we go to our neighbors, and told us to stay away from things that are Haram. And to shed blood, and told us to not run after shameless things and lust after shamelessness.

And not to go to school, or ugly man in the team, not to use manipulative words, to win, you know, like to win favors or misleading testimonies. And not to prey on the money of the orphan. And because the orphan back in the day was a very vulnerable child has no father, right? So there's no way to protect that child. And there's no law that protects the child back in like old Arab society. So here's a child who has a lot of money because the father is dead, but no way to protect that child. So it's easy money for somebody who wants to take it from a particularly if that's a relative, right? relatives, like, Oh, I'm here watching the best interest of this child, that's the

you know, these often all the money. So he told us not to, to protect the money of the orphans. But you know, what the orphan represents is the really underprivileged, to really power this person in the society. So he's telling us to protect those who are underprivileged and the protection of

the law.

He says this, that he told us not accused chase woman of afford vacation, not to question the character, he commanded us to worship a lot and not associated anybody with this is little little speech from Jaffa. So what do we learn from it? Number one, we learned that we have to know what our audience who our audiences, right, and what kind of nonsense, what kind of propaganda they have been fed, so that we can review them to see if they have heard bad things about us. And particularly what elements of Islam that they've heard that are bad, we have to do, how to counter them. It's very important.

In the course that I'll be teaching you on Sunday, one of the things I talked about is one of the tough questions that were asked, not exclusively, perhaps, but implicitly, in academia, what might be asked of you, if you are someone who is

troubled by Islam, if they make up or they have some questions, or they want to maybe troll you or something, right, what is it that they'll ask you, and how do we understand that and how do we answer that? These are important things. You know, like there's a foreign teacher who hate the Jews, you know, teach us to be violent.

You know, teach us to just follow the religion blindly. These are all questions. Some of them explicitly ask some of them not, but

We have to understand where these people are coming from, and how to answer them. Very important. So we learned that from Jacqueline, that's how he implemented the guidance by explaining the vices that the community was suffering that the Islam is coming to eradicate. Number two, Java has an elevator pitch, you know what an elevator pitches

or lift,

lift,

lift pitch, you know what that is. So in like, I have friends who are

startups, and they are always trying to get funding for their startups. So you know, what they do? They have what's called

a pitch that they give to an investor, the time it takes for them to ride. Right? So imagine you end up in lifted like, you know,

you're like, Oh, my chance to tell him about my product. Right? So you have 30 seconds to explain, concisely and very clearly what your product is. And why is this? Right? That is the elevator pitch.

So, you see,

Josh,

has this beautiful, like, maybe one minute long explanation of why this matters. And he covers everything, it covers as much as needed for his audience. very concise, very much to the point, this is what the religion is, this is what it's eradicating, this is what it's bringing.

So as a minority, we have to know the religion really well. So well, that you will communicate it a minute to someone, someone's like, tell me what is that they're looking at you? Right, and you start getting into a conversation. And this is your opportunity, right? This is you are in the lift with the perfect. One minute we tell him about his stuff. So it's not only that we need to know what did very well, but know it concisely.

Secondly, this is a very beautiful lesson.

So he after he's done this, you know, the

the kingdom and the Jessie says, This is wonderful. Right? He's very impressed. He says, Is there something that your prophet

has received a revelation? Is there something of that you that you know, he's I guess, there, could you recite it? So Jericho, besides euro?

Right? And why is

there Christian, right? The audience, the king is Christian. The people in the court are all Christians. The scholars are, you know, they're the scholars of Christianity. So, Subramaniam has Zachary yahia. Earlier, he said their story. That's, you know, and they love them too. Right. So as Jaffa starts reading the story, or reading the sewer or other sort of money, you see that Santa Maria Mona was describing the whole incident, she says, back in the day, she

was actually cried until his his beard became wet with tears. And the the, the leaders of religious leaders around the court also cry because of the emotion of the beauty of the Quran, and the profoundness of the message. So they were very, very impressed by your photo. They're very impressed with the message. And then the judges is in the habit of deja vu malady. Jeremy irisa

says, what your messenger is, has brought, and what restyle Islam has brought is coming from the same source.

Right? And this is like even better than what they hope All right, this one is a stay at the senior areas. He's always a great except to stop in fact, in

other words, this is the truth.

So he tells us that go with these guys. They are here to stay for free. Um, the Banaras was the skilled man, right? He's not gonna give up so easy. So he's like, okay, on his way out, he's taunting the Muslims that you think you got to

trust me when I get you tomorrow. I'm gonna tell them what you say about

how you think you're all cute right now. reciting the surah tell them that you think this is not a lesson? Let's see what what he says to that. So supanova Muslims are now actually really skipped because now

They are before it was just like, Who are you right? Now? You're directly confronting their beliefs. Right now it's a matter of, you're questioning the beliefs of the king and the court. So now, like, Solomon says that,

you know, like, all of us that day, right? We were,

you know, a Samana Alhamdulillah. We were all like, really sad and worried what was going to happen? So, they this they deliberated, what should we say tomorrow, but Allah says this, what should we say, and Java 11, who says, we will say what allows us

what the Prophet taught us not hide the message will not change our religion, just because we have to present it to somebody who believes something else, people presented the way it was revealed. And that's the third really important lesson. As far as living as minorities, that our core does not change. The core of the religion remains the same. Those core values, the core beliefs, and we do not change them, because of societal pressures. There's parts of the religion that are very flexible, no doubt about it. Okay?

The way, you know,

many, many aspects of the way we deal with people that we do business, the way

the way, normal day to day life works, much flexibility. But the core of the religion is the way it is. So here is now the next day. There's something together and

assets, okay? Ask them what they think of visa.

Now,

like ask them, What did he say what they say about visa? So now?

The king has invited them again. Joshua is walking in, and immediately the kick ass for bandana, we'll call it recently he asked him, What do you guys say? So

he

says,

He says, in the UI manager, he

says we are we say about him for our messages.

He says, we say that enough to log in.

We say that he is the servant of Allah, and he is the Messenger of Allah. And he is the soul of meaning, so that Allah blew into him. And we believe that he is the word of Allah that He gave to Maria Elisa Lam, the chaste the virgin crip.

Meaning the word of Allah is what caused him to be created in Virgin Mary. And he is the soul of Allah because he was created by gibreel Alistar. Everybody else is created by the drop of sperm, right? That's how we're all conceived. But he was conceived by the blowing of the soul by

Islam in Miriam Ania. Sarah, so it is a very unique person.

So they, that's what he says. And he then struck the birds with his hand. And he says, He says, like, he drew a line. And he's like, what you have said, Isa, is doesn't deviate from this, like for me, like even by this much, right? Like, imagine he's trying to visually try and tell them that this is what you've said, this is precise. Meaning

he's exactly what you're saying. Right? So now, he says to us, like, think of gifts, that these people can stay as long as they want.

So this is really pivotal moment. You see the Muslims

managed to get through it. Okay. They

didn't water down their religion.

They did not change the core of the message and not change that. Oh, here's a kicker believes perhaps that he says the Son of God, let us also say the same thing. No, that's that's goes against exactly the foundation that goes against the Shahada, right?

A lot, a lot. Not.

A lot of one have a son. Right. So they said no, we will present the religion process, understanding the audience. Who is it? It's Christians, right. So

sharing the story of money on a syrup.

Understanding what kind of propaganda they will affect. So,

you know, presenting a rebuttal for that. Understanding also that the time is short, they don't have time to listen to a lot of things. So very concisely speaking, for Islam, all of these are very important things that if we want to live as Muslims and prosper, right, this is some of the things that we learn.

And, you know, unfortunately, as a minority, sometimes we all represent this stuff, like, we will be like, ambassadors of it, whether we like it or not, right? Whether we like it or not, we will be like, just like Islam will be judged by us. So sometimes I'm driving, and like, you know, some guys cut me off.

Or take him and like, you know, like, look at it really angry. Like, why would you do that? Look, every job in the car, people will judge us, right? And first, I'm like, to get them, I'm gonna get this guy. But then I'm like, you know what, you're right.

You're right, people will judge us. Our actions are not just our actions. We, unfortunately are carrying the burden of representing Islam, for better or for worse. And if we look at it in a positive way, it actually improves our character.

Now, how could misrepresenting Islam right? Sometimes I'm dragging.

Realize

you should put the coffee on and relax and not have to reach.

But the point is, we end up speaking first. Right? So we have to know what is it that we're speaking about the religion?

As far as I

know that there is no, nobody worthy of worship except

the idea of knowledge and understanding the religion really, really well. The core of it is very perfect. So those are some of the lessons we learned from Jackson

Hole. But we also should mention that he said,

and when he passed away, the founder said that, to this day the righteous person had died, and that he prayed the janazah in absentia for him, like he mentioned him in Medina,

for

the loved one when he was coming, in the sense that he accepted the staff at the time of the Prophet

without ever having seen him. So he was

he was not just the king

even accepted.

That was some of the lessons from the guidance. The example was exactly

that, if you have any questions or comments,

otherwise,

you can hang around, we can chill in chat, or you go home, it's up to you.